US Labor Unions - UPS, ILWU: Vote No On Sellout Contracts - Strike To Win! 19 Aug 2023

UPS, ILWU: Vote No! (Workers Vanguard) Audio Mp3 (9:16 min) https://xenagoguevicene.files.wordpress.com/2023/08/19aug2023workersv.mp3 Everyone can see that there’s a crisis and that conditions in the U.S. are only worsening, from housing to health care. Pensions are basically nonexistent and working people have astronomical debt. The working class is discontented but strikes to try to improve their immiserated conditions have not managed to fundamentally change anything for the working class. The country is heavily divided over which capitalist ruler should screw them, Biden or Trump. Both choices are repugnant to many workers. The Democrats’ main selling point is that Biden is not Trump. Biden is desperate to keep everything from falling apart before the elections. The last thing that “the most pro-union president” wants is a major union battle with the ILWU or Teamsters, which would cause a crisis. Crushing it would not bode well for Biden’s poll numbers. On the other side Trump is no better. Some workers sympathetic to striking think the way to stick it to Biden and the Establishment is to vote for Trump. But with all his anti-Establishment rhetoric and appeals to the working class, Trump’s loyalty lies with the bosses in charge of this country.

So what is needed? Clearly the politicians don’t have the answers and are only gearing up to make things worse. The real battle is not “democracy” vs. “autocracy” or Biden vs. Trump, but workers vs. the Establishment! The way to change things is for labor to be an independent force that fights for itself. This could not only provide pay raises but it could change the total trajectory of this country. The purpose of the deals being dangled in the face of the workers is to prevent this. UPS, ILWU workers, vote “no”!

With economic crisis and a presidential election on the horizon, the bosses are trying to corral the workers movement (especially supply chain workers) into submission, either with a carrot in the case of these contracts, or with the stick, as with the crushing of the rail workers last year. These strategic workforces could cause the most trouble for the government. This is what lies behind the bribe of substantial pay raises being offered to the Teamsters and ILWU. The bureaucrats argue that the deals are a victory, but in actuality accepting these deals means that the labor movement surrenders! These offers are not a show of the strength of the union, they are a sign of the weakness of the enemy. Biden is very unpopular and is desperately trying to buy peace in the lead-up to the elections. Instead of taking advantage of this opportunity, getting the most concessions, and changing the balance of forces for the class as a whole, the bureaucrats insist that these deals are the best that can be done. At bottom the bureaucracy is pushing these contracts because of their strategy to not challenge Biden or the capitalist order.

On the one hand the bureaucrats face pressure from their ranks to fight for improvements. On the other, their strategy dictates sacrifice in support of the Democrats and the capitalists. They obscure the fact that the situation at hand is a fundamental clash of class interests in an increasingly unstable period and that ultimately the only solution to workers’ immiseration is the defeat of the bosses and their government. The bureaucracy disarms workers with illusions of amicable settlements and deludes them with the idea that backing the bosses’ representatives in the Democratic Party is the way forward.... (cont. https://archive.ph/vsuOz )