[Peace-discuss] Labor's Neoliberal Caucus

Sun Sep 4 13:06:17 UTC 2016

<https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/09/labor-unions-clinton-stern-bernie-seiu-d
emocrats/> Labors Neoliberal Caucus 

At this years DNC, four major unions solidified some of the most
concessionary tendencies within the labor movement.

by
<https://www.jacobinmag.com/author/warren-heyman-and-andrew-tillett-saks/>
Warren Heyman & Andrew Tillett-Saks

Description: Hillary Clinton with SEIU members in 2007. SEIU / Flickr

Hillary Clinton with SEIU members in 2007. SEIU / Flickr

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During the 2016
<https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/07/dnc-rnc-police-repression-protests-conve
ntions-philadelphia-cleveland/> Democratic National Convention, four major
labor unions broke from the AFL-CIO Labor Caucus and caucused separately.
Few people noticed the breakaway, and those who did likely thought it
insignificant or at most slightly peculiar.

Yet the move is very significant. Its part of a broader shift in American
labor  a drift away from class-conscious unionism, unionism that believes
fighting corporate power and the 1 percent is an unavoidable necessity.

The caucus break represents the culmination of a long, steady trend in
American trade unionism toward neoliberal unionism  a unionism that
espouses collaboration with corporations instead of conflict and upholds
free-market capitalism as reconcilable with labors interests.

If we are to prevent the breakaway from becoming the coup de grace, we must
call it for what it is, denounce the split, and reverse the absurd,
self-destructive trend of neoliberalism within labor. Otherwise, we will
soon be left with a labor movement so feeble its only strategy is flattering
and begging its enemies.

Labor typically caucuses as a whole at the DNC, providing unions a chance to
collectively assess their interests and strategy vis-à-vis the rest of the
Democratic Party.

This year however, according to sources within the breakaway unions
themselves, the  <http://www.seiu.org/> Service Employees International
Union (SEIU), both major teachers unions  the  <http://www.nea.org/>
National Education Association (NEA) and the  <http://www.aft.org/> American
Federation of Teachers (AFT)  and the  <http://www.afscme.org/> American
Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) decided to
caucus separately.

Why? The answer is multi-layered, but ultimately the secessionist caucus
represents labors burgeoning neoliberal caucus.

On the tip of the iceberg is the markedly different approach to Hillary
Clinton and the 2016 Democratic primary taken by the four breakaway unions.
The AFL-CIO and most unions took a reserved approach to the primary, mindful
of Sanderss far superior labor record but also of Clintons superior
chances to win. They either withheld their endorsement until after the
primary or endorsed Sanders.

But the four breakaway unions endorsed Clinton early and enthusiastically.
They invested huge sums and resources, and celebrated Clinton as a champion
of workers, going all in to propel her past Sanders despite her dubious
record towards the working class and unions.

On the surface then, divergent strategies towards Hillary Clinton and the
Democratic primary inspired the breakaway unions to caucus on their own.

But the issue goes deeper than decisions about endorsing Hillary Clinton.
Just beneath the surface lingers the more general question of organized
labors relationship with neoliberal politicians.

Democrats have historically been the grudging partners of the labor
movement, the more willing of the two major political parties to make
concessions when pressured. Labor has thus often taken a more thoughtful and
calculating approach to neoliberal Democrats, recognizing their distinct
interests but maneuvering strategically at arms length to partner when
possible. The AFL-CIOs
<https://www.thenation.com/article/sanders-backers-get-a-boost-with-afl-cio-
decision-to-remain-neutral-in-presidential-primaries/> decision to wait to
endorse Clinton until she defeated Bernie Sanders is an example of this more
clear-eyed calculation.

By contrast, the breakaway caucus unions represent a new way of dealing with
these types of politicians, shifting from strategic alliances to sycophantic
servitude. In pledging allegiance to Clinton so immediately and so
fervently, the four breakaway unions appear to have lost the ability to
identify labors own interests and enemies.

The caucus split is not surprising, given the recent political behavior of
the breakaway unions. SEIU, for example,
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB124243785248026055> poured $85 million into
electing Obama in 2008, then unflinchingly
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204707104578091030386721670>
handed over another $70 million in 2012 after Obama abandoned his principal
campaign promise to pass the
<https://www.congress.gov/bill/110th-congress/house-bill/800/text> Employee
Free Choice Act and repudiated SEIUs supposed top priority of single-payer
health care (all while SEIUs president hobnobbed as one of the nations
most frequent visitors to the White House).

The NEA and AFT, for their part, have also continued to donate profusely to
Democrats (over $30 million in the 2012 election cycle alone) while much of
the party leads the charge of anti-union and anti-public-education reform.

In the new SEIU-AFSCME-NEA-AFT model a contingent handshake from an
independent labor movement becomes a full-fledged embrace of neoliberal
politicians. If the strategic alliance with the Democrats is questionable,
the full-fledged embrace is absurd.

Worse, the breakaway unions new direction is not simply a crescendo of
labor embracing neoliberal politicians, but of labor embracing neoliberal
capitalism itself. The neoliberal caucus represents the growing rejection
of class-conscious unionism based on the principle that workers and owners
have inevitably conflicting interests  the very principle the labor
movement was built upon.

Never mind that these unions (all with large public-sector memberships)
appear content to forsake their private-sector counterparts, or that they
broke ranks when labors political solidarity against anti-worker policies
like the
<https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/05/trans-pacific-partnership-obama-fast-tra
ck-nafta/> Trans Pacific Partnership is vital, but they are also at the
forefront of a larger ideological project to sap organized labor of any
anticapitalist tendencies. Certainly the scourge of neoliberalism in the
labor movement isnt confined to the four unions in the caucus, but the
caucus break crystallizes a worrisome trend.

The historical roots of this turn are long  from company unions in the
1930s to anticommunist purges in the 1940s and 50s  but the modern wave is
rooted in SEIU and its former president
<https://www.thenation.com/article/seiu-andy-stern-leaves-behind/> Andy
Sterns push for neoliberal unionism in the 2000s.

Stern explicitly and aggressively pushed the labor movement to adopt a
collaborationist approach towards capital; according to the Stern
ideology, workers and unions dont have to fight corporations, just build
relationships with them and cajole them into a mutually beneficial
partnership.

In this spirit, Stern and SEIU amassed a lengthy record of striking deals
with corporations that sold out workers ability to fight in exchange for
promises of union recognition (e.g., Sterns infamous dealing with health
care giant Kaiser Permanente, which agreed to stunt existing members
contract standards and oppose patients rights legislation in exchange for
organizing rights). SEIU expanded, but what expanded was a neutered shell of
a labor movement, full of members with preposterous contracts and little
ability to fight for better.

Stern is gone but his ideological legacy remains, as evidenced by the
separate caucus at the DNC. From embracing free-market capitalism to
embracing employers to embracing their political representatives, the
political and intellectual lineage is clear.

The proliferation of this model of unionism would spell disaster for the
American labor movement. Our movements success depends on how widely and
how militantly we can organize workers to fight corporate power and the 1
percent, not embrace them.

We must constantly encourage workers to recognize their common bonds and
their common enemy in greedy owners, not discourage their class analysis. A
labor movement without a class analysis is one doomed to confusion and
failure as a result. The neoliberal caucus at the Democratic National
Convention is another step in that direction.

Unfortunately, while the cancer may be most developed in the four breakaway
unions, it isnt confined there. It infects all too much of the
institutional labor movement. But militant struggle against neoliberalism
within the movement can stem the tide, such as
<https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/11/postal-workers-endorsement-labor-for-ber
nie-sanders-clinton-nomination/> Labor For Bernies success in keeping the
AFL-CIO at least neutral in the primary. In the past year over one hundred
local unions, several internationals, and countless rank-and-file activists
endorsed Sanders and coalesced as Labor For Bernie in an upstart rejection
of status-quo conservative unionism.

To alter the old adage, the friend of our enemy is our enemy  labor
activists must broaden the struggle to fight against not only corporations,
but also corporate-minded politicians and unionists. Union members and
leaders must do everything in their power to halt the march of neoliberal
unionism, before they march the labor movement straight into its grave.

Our new issue,  <https://www.jacobinmag.com/issue-22-preview/> Rank and
File, is out now. To celebrate its release,
<https://www.jacobinmag.com/subscribe/?code=RANKANDFILE> new subscriptions
are discounted.

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