Above: Teamsters striking in NYC in December 2024
In his 1947 book American Trade Unionism, William Foster identified two major factors that could hinder the U.S. workers struggle. One was the presence of economic conditions which “are neither very bad nor very good”; Foster concluded that whereas dire circumstances spur the workers towards action, and prosperous times often encourage workers as well, the middle periods are when stagnation sets in. An example is the decades in between the 1970s economic crisis and 2008, when the neoliberal assault on workers was intensifying but people didn’t yet feel enough pressure to revolt. When post-war America was experiencing prosperity, communism was still on the ascendancy, which made the ruling class react with McCarthyism; this suppression remained effective for over a generation, but then the conditions changed, and now organized labor is regaining its vitality.
The other damaging factor Foster discussed is internal to the labor movement: opportunistic practices among the union leadership, namely the dual unionist strategy. As Foster explained, dual unionism—where organizers set up additional unions alongside the established ones—consistently acts to disempower the workers, diverting their efforts away from the areas where they’re effective. In the modern era, when the workers are increasingly being spurred into action, it’s sabotage tactics like these ones that represent the biggest potential hindrance.
Dual unionism’s hold over the movement throughout the early 20th century was what gave the capitalist-aligned labor leadership as much power as they had, letting them be a decisive force within the national debate over imperialism. Like Europe’s opportunistic “socialists,” they endorsed their government’s world war effort, thereby vastly empowering the bourgeoisie. They also contributed to the Red Scare by promoting an anti-Soviet stance, further enabling the state to repress organized labor. Today, when our ruling class is working towards starting a conflict with China, the task of defeating the labor movement’s opportunists is extremely urgent. Because though dual unionism declined into irrelevance during the mid-20th century, there are still strong forces that seek to split the workers struggle, and to isolate it from the broad masses.
During these last few years, as worsening conditions have been compelling ever-more workers to strike, the opportunist forces have used a sabotage tactic that’s comparable to dual unionism. They’ve used the legal system to try to undermine the most successful of the union fights, promoting a view in which it’s acceptable to split an entire labor struggle for the sake of dubious grievances. I’m referring to the effort to sue Amazon union leader Christian Smalls, which was undertaken two years ago by a group called the ALU Democratic Reform Caucus. S.M. Cifone, member of the Amalgamated Transit Union, reported in Labor Today that this entity wasn’t speaking for the bulk of the Amazon union members. Its accusations against Smalls were a ruse, designed as much to create media drama as they were to legally attack the union:
Recently, a faction within the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) emerged declaring themselves the “ALU Democratic Reform Caucus” and sued the union trying to force an early leadership election. This comes months after members of the caucus ran to the capitalist controlled media to complain about internal union business and targeted attacks against ALU leadership—most notably ALU President Christian Smalls and former Vice President Derrick Palmer—on the union’s Facebook page highjacked by the group which can only be called one thing—wreckers. Members of the group have been active on social media and doing interviews with the standard ultra-leftist media outlets. While they have been out trying to turn their supposed “union democracy” campaign into a personal attack against ALU President Smalls, we at Labor Today have been reaching out to rank-and-file members to get their takes, and to no surprise, the “Reform” Caucus’ claims don’t add up.
These union members described how the wreckers had fed them massive amounts of false information, and they said that they weren’t aware of the supposed elections within the union that the wreckers claimed Smalls had blocked. The wreckers were ultimately able to take over the union, with the “Reform Caucus” having won the union’s low-turnout elections last year; but because they couldn’t attack the integrity of Smalls on an honest basis, he’s maintained a reputation that’s now letting him build more power for the proletariat. After Smalls gained major victories for Amazon workers as the union president, he’s launched an organization called the U.S. Labor Party. And those past wins are helping give the party momentum.
When Smalls runs for president in 2028 under the Labor Party, he’ll have allies within the principled parts of the U.S. communist movement, which stood by him while many other “communists” were joining with the union wreckers. As Midwestern Marx observed in 2022: “The class struggle is intensifying and producing real working class leaders. Chris Smalls isn’t a journalist, streamer, pundit, Tik Tok creator, academic, etc. He’s a worker who got screwed by Amazon and organized his workplace. An organic working class leader.” The many who align with MWM’s goals will be there to back the Labor Party’s campaign, and all related efforts at combating labor opportunism.
According to Kobit Cujie and Danny Shaw, who reported on the American Communist Party’s efforts to support last month’s Teamsters strikers, one of today’s biggest manifestations of labor opportunism is complacency; complacency that’s nurtured by the bourgeois media, which seeks to convince us that the present labor activities are sufficient. They observe that because of how high the turnover rate is for companies like Amazon and Starbucks, the billionaires are able to keep the number of strike participants relatively small, as the bulk of the workers lack a long-term incentive for fighting:
This is a minority strike against a capitalist behemoth that is hidden behind layers of legal subterfuges and subcontracting tricks. Bezos even claims the delivery drivers are not “his workers,” but are rather employees of Cornucopia and other subcontractors. The billionaires can now hide behind subsidiaries to distance themselves from the exploitation of the hundreds of thousands of workers who enrich them.
The key problem with this strike and the organization of transient workers like Amazon and Starbucks workers, is that the lead organizers, the paid staff of the union, have yet to listen to the wisdom of the masses. They attempt to inject a fighting spirit into the working class and substitute themselves for labor. Temporary workers don’t want to work for Amazon for the rest of their lives, stuck in this boring, repetitive, backbreaking work. As even Forbes, a chief mouthpiece of the billionaires admits, a high percentage of all workplace injuries in the U.S. occur at Amazon. The turnover rate is an astonishing 150 percent per year. These are some of the reasons there is little loyalty to the profession.
When the U.S. working class has been made post-industrial, there exists a large layer of these workers who the capitalists can separate from the militant struggle. The solution, say Cujie and Shaw, is not to dismiss these masses but to bring them into the fight. “We must also consider why it is that the vast majority did not strike,” they conclude, “without simply writing them off as ‘scabs and traitors.’ We must continue to reach out to them and hear their voices.” This is a crucial part of fighting opportunism. The labor movement’s opportunists, no longer able to use their old trick of dual unionism, are trying to spread resentful sentiments that encourage alienation from the masses.
From these anti-popular sentiments come the ultra-left practices that have helped hold back the workers movement for so long, and that wreckers like the “Reform Caucus” leaders have adopted. The ultra-left approach to the workers struggle consists of funneling labor organizers (or potential labor organizers) into niche radical liberal projects, set up to gatekeep everyone who doesn’t subscribe to the dogmas of these cliques.
There’s the anarchist niche that seeks to exclude “tankies”; there are the “decolonial” radlibs who exclude anyone that embraces U.S. patriotism; there’s a niche for every leftist sect or identity group. But we can stop these sectarian forces from dragging down the class struggle, and expand the workers movement into the people. This can be done the same way that Foster and his camp made progress: by centering the masses within our propaganda efforts. Wrote Foster about the practice of the anti-opportunist Trade Union Education League:
Dual unionism, with its program of labor organization along the lines of fine-spun theory, not only devitalized the trade unions by robbing them of their best blood, but it also degenerated the revolutionary and progressive movement into a series of detached sects, out of touch with the masses and the real struggle and running off to all sorts of wild theories and impractical programs. But the militants in the Trade Union Education League rigidly eschew this sectarian policy. Their program is the very reverse, to keep the militants in the organized masses at all costs. Instead of setting up educational and organizational barriers and then coaxing the worker to break through them, they carry their propaganda right into the very heart of the workers’ organizations and struggles.
As Smalls has said, “I don’t put labels on people, because that just puts us in categories right there, right off the bat. We’re already ‘this one’s on the left, this one’s on the right. We can’t talk about this, we can’t talk about that.’ You can’t do that when you’re organizing, you know, 8,000 people at a warehouse and the only red borough in New York City, Staten Island, it’s the only red borough…it’s Trump Island, conservatives everywhere. The racism, the policing, it’s there…so when I’m talking to a worker, I don’t care about their beliefs. In politics, the enemy is your job, your employer, your boss.” This mentality is how we’ll win over the proto-revolutionary elements within the MAGA base, and all other parts of the masses which are compatible with the proletarian cause. We will apply this practice, and unite with the people in bringing our struggle to its next stage.
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