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AOC's attack on Teamsters leadership shows just how much unions are going to matter in the election
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this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
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My premise is that, with respect to supporting a party that will support unions, it’d be ludicrous to expect that support from the GOP, because they’ve been consistently anti-union for over 40 years.
Yeah, and I’m asserting that it’s stupid to even consider endorsing the republican ticket, given how much worse republicans are for unions. Not endorsing the democrats could be likened to going on strike from some company; threatening to endorse the GOP would be like choosing to go work for an even more exploitative company in retaliation.
Yeah, they could offer better support for unions…they could also offer to lower prescription drug prices and make school lunches free for grade schoolers. They’re not gonna do any of those things, b/c they don’t wanna do any of those things and they haven’t wanted to do any of those things in at least 40 years. I’ll accept cited evidence to the contrary, otherwise we can agree to disagree.
What specific issue do you take with the Democratic party’s support for unions? Do you refute my earlier link calling a Biden a good pro-union president, and if so can you provide sourced info to explain why?
Yeah
This feels like such a “no u” lol. What reasons does a group with specific labor interests have to endorse a party that’s been overly pro-company since Reagan?
Again, what policies specifically?
Look. I don't know very much about Sean O’Brien. I’m not gonna accuse him of secretly being anti-union or any crazy bs like that. But if going to the RNC and not endorsing Harris are moves that benefits Republicans (it does), and if Republicans are worse on unions (they are), then whether he means to or not, he’s hurting union workers. From that lens, AOC questioning his leadership isn’t punching left - she’s either punching a guy who’s actually to her right (for reasons outside workers’ rights) or punching a guy who might as well be.
And one more thing: at the end of the day, she’s critical of the guy, not the mission. She’s not saying “workers shouldn’t have more protections”, she’s saying “I question the leadership of this guy whose job it is to get workers more protections”. And quite frankly I agree with that.
Edit: y’know how I said I don’t know much about Sean O’Brien? Well thanks to another lemmyer, now I do!
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/31/teamsters-racial-discrimination-lawsuit
So yeah, if there’s an ounce of truth to this, it speaks to the nagging feeling I have that he’s the kind of guy who’s a probably secretly a conservative for…other reasons.
I came really close to getting sucked in to a D vs R labor relations debate, but this bit woke me up and stopped me:
I think this is where liberal understandings of union and labor relations as R or D policy agendas really gets in the way of a broader historical understanding of labor movements, and it's the reason I'm not particularly interested in having this debate with you. There have been many labor groups and unions in the US's history that have been on the wrong side of racial and civil rights issues. W.E.B. Du Bois described the relationship between American racism, slavery, and labor relations during and after slavery almost 100 years ago now. Hell, even as recently as the civil rights movement unions were split on the support of racial segregation in the south. Here's one article from Herbert Hill written in '59 that discusses this issue pretty clearly.
Teamsters is a union of truck drivers. In American political terms, truckers are one of the most vocally conservative labor demographics in the US; it shouldn't be surprising that there would be discrimination within it. But that's exactly the problem with american political discourse. We cleave our working class apart with racial and social animosity at the expense of solidarity.
Without a broader understanding of material relations as fundamental to political movements, I don't think we'll see eye-to-eye on this. It isn't as simple as 'democrats are more labor friendly' - both parties are dominated by capitalist interests, even if one makes greater attempts to balance it with labor concessions. If labor is to gain any ground in the US, it needs to be party agnostic and be aggressive about negotiating with both parties.
I have a lot I’d like to, but won’t, say about your comment, because it’s very dismissive of my entire reply, in favor of you choosing to dissect my motivations for adding a loosely-related footnote. I will say that most of your comment feels like I could boil it down to “you almost tricked me into taking your questions at face value, but then you said that O’Brien being racist might be sorta relevant, so clearly I have a broader understanding of…something…then you, so you’ll never see that I’m right”. You could clarify if you want, but I don’t really care.
That said, I’ll try to focus on your last couple sentences:
If this is the entire point you’ve been driving at this whole time, then I still disagree with you, but I can respect your opinion. You might be right that we won’t see eye-to-eye, but not because of me probably not having a deeper understanding of “material relations being fundamental to political movements”, or you probably not having a deeper appreciation of “actual meat-and-bones policy being fundamental to the satisfaction of union members, both short-term and long-term”. I think you and I might just have different priorities, and I’m fine leaving it at that.
All that said, I wanna circle back one more time on the actual debate that started this thing, because it wasn’t “what is the direct course of action unions are justified in taking to optimize worker satisfaction”. It was literally something as nebulous as “Did AOC ‘punch left’ by criticizing O’Brien”. OP already admitted he probably just chose the wrong words, which I respect. Can we at the very least agree, whether your personal answer to that question is yes or no, that suggesting AOC is “punching left” is a poorly-worded and/or insufficiently brief critique?
Yes, that was my point. I think a lot of liberals get caught up in the electoralism of general elections, and get (maybe even understandably) offended when a group they thought should clearly be on 'their side' decides to make a statement against them, or even simply withhold an endorsement.
Sure, meat-and-bones policy is important for advancing working class interests (i'm not sure why you chose 'worker satisfaction', maybe this is further evidence of our ideological differences or maybe this is just me being pedantic, but 'satisfaction' sounds more like corporate HR jargon than the revolutionary language of class consciousness), but endorsements aren't like straw-polls. Unions come from a bloody and cutthroat history of class struggle that have to negotiate with multi-billion dollar industries - an endorsement or even a signal of approval toward competition is just another way to gain leverage. As much as we would all really like to be able to just pick a party/ticket like picking a flavor of ice cream, that's just not what class struggle is, least of all to a labor union.
Yes, I still think it is punching left, and I think @[email protected] was mistaken in walking it back. It would be one thing if she was making a point to advocate for democratic policy choices, but the comment from AOC in question was:
I think that's a petty and entitled thing to say to a union advocating for its members. This was in response to them simply declining to endorse either candidate because they "couldn't get commitments on our issues". Teamsters is perfectly within their right to withhold their endorsement in service of pushing for labor commitments from democrats even if you think they're wrong, and the worst way to respond to that feedback is to throw a tantrum and complain that they're being ungrateful.
Democrats really need support from union households in the swing states where Teamsters is reporting a trump advantage in their membership. They can't afford to be throwing punches at them (even if you think it's not punching left). What drives me crazy is that democrats have been willing to bend to a bunch of conservative issues in order to gain moderate republican support - this one issue that is objectively a leftist issue and involves a crucial block of voters in swing states is, what....? too radical?
I honestly don't know anymore. dDmocratic politics have just lost all coherence as a left-wing political party. Maybe this is just a temporary change in messaging, but it really feels like they're abandoning all pretense as a progressive party.
Okay, I’ll take “maybe even understandably”.
Dude. SUPER pedantic.
I guess I’ll more or less repeat myself from earlier: Not endorsing the democrats could be likened to going on strike from some company, but threatening to endorse the GOP would be like choosing to go work for an even more exploitative company in retaliation.
Okay, fine, you disagree. But the immediate question I asked was “can we agree it was a poorly worded and/or insufficiently brief critique” aka the kind of statement that it’s easy to get lost in pointless pendantry over? Y’know, the kind of pedantry I feel like we’ve been arguing over this whole time?
Depends on how you define “advocating for its members”. Signaling support for the political party most of your constituents align with, most definitely for reasons outside workers’ rights, is one definition. Signalling support for the for the party that’ll actually help your constituents? That’s another.
What committments?? This is exactly what I was asking you 2 replies ago, and even before that. And you’ve so far dodged the question. I still don’t understand the actual substantive things you want the Democratic party to do.
You make it sound like she’s punching at all Teamsters, when she’s not. She’s just criticizing their leader.
You’re saying they bend to the right on a lot of things but you also want them to bend to the right…on…what exactly? On workers’ rights??
Idk man, I feel like there’s some aspect of your personal political ideology that’s so different from mine (and I’ll assert, from most people) that there’s some core assumption you and I might be obliviously disagreeing on, like “the left is more politically aligned with supporting workers’ rights” or something.
How? Maybe it's more like making a public statement about private negotiations that damages the reputation of the partner company, but 'going to work for another company' doesn't track. They're threatening to harm the democratic campaign by publicly shaming them, not self-immolating.
I already answered this - no, i do not agree, and I especially don't think it's 'pointless pendantry'. AOC is a dem soc, she should know that it's the job of the union to negotiate via collective bargaining and that democrats are not owed an endorsement.
Because i'm not privy to what the teamsters are asking for, but I'm personally frustrated that democrats keep burying their labor offerings in capital funding and investments. Democrats assume that they can make up for any loss of industry growth in one segment of the economy by promoting growth in another, but that's not comforting to unions or unaffiliated industry workers in the rust belt, where there's usually only one or two major job producers in their towns. Even if those jobs were being created in exactly the same place, loosing a job and having to change industry is incredibly destabilizing. Most Americans don't have more than a couple thousand in savings, let alone a few months of expenses. Bragging about jobs created with the CHIPS act or other legislation isn't comforting to people who live in towns that aren't a recipient of that investment.
I think democrats need to expand social programs and remove pointless means-testing that excludes a lot of working families from benefits (and pits them against working class families in urban centers). The more socialized benefits available to small town workers, the less pressure there will be to remain employed in a dying industry. That includes childcare, healthcare, housing, food; basically everything they're afraid to campaign on because republicans will accuse them of being radical socialists. And they really need to stop responding to fears about job losses in small town industries by bragging about job creation in other industries.
The alternative's are all less appealing to a socialist - a lot of unions are pushing tarrifs on foreign goods, cutting environmental regulation, ect. You can't win those voters by creating jobs elsewhere - you really need to convince those voters that they aren't going to be left behind if/when their town's industry goes belly-up, and saying 'tough luck, move and change industries' is only going to radicalize them further. Especially when unemployment benefits are covered in all kinds red tape and are exceedingly difficult to apply for and stay on.
As far as legislation specific to labor protections: they need to campaign on the legislation they've already put forward. The PRO act is an excellent bill, but i've not heard Harris or any top democratic leadership actually campaign on it or push it in public.
He represents their interests, it's his literal fucking job. Be grateful he didn't follow the popular opinion of his members and endorse trump. I would also mention that their support of trump is pretty heavily represented in PA, WI, and MI - all states that democrats really need to win. They shouldn't be burning bridges with Teamsters.
Labor protections are a definitionally-left issue. I want democrats to bend left
There absolutely is a difference in political ideology, but our disagreement isn't over whether 'the left is more aligned with worker's rights' or not. We disagree about whether or not direct action ought to be targeted at the democrats at all, and that's something I don't think we'll see eye-to-eye on.
I reject your analogue. There have been no “public statements about private negotiations” with the GOP. We don’t know the GOP to’ve made ANY negotiations.
Don’t like my original analogue? Fine, replace “choosing to” with “threatening to”. The part you’re dancing around is the “more exploitative” part -the part where the side O’Brien is threatening to support isn’t a not-Dem-but-pro-union party, it’s a not-Dem-but-anti-union party. And I suspect he’s playing ball with them IN SPITE OF not having any appreciable consolidations made by republicans in favor of his union. Don’t bother suggesting “we don’t know there weren’t consolidations”, neither of us know. Though there’s plenty of indirect evidence that the modern GOP just doesn’t care - case in point, every party-line PRO Act vote in the past 5 years.
You make it sound like AOC is only frustrated with O’Brien for not endorsing Harris. From my very first comment in this thread: that’s not \all he’s done*.
Your next 4 paragraphs…I’ll get back to those.
Then he should act like it and not help the leopards that’ll eat his face.
I wasn’t saying that was the disagreement, I was saying there’s some core disagreement we probably have, that’s probably flying under both our radars. And no, you haven’t magically identified what that is. I never said “unions shouldn’t target democrats at all with direct action”, I’m saying actions that directly aid another party, where that other party is the modern GOP, are fucking stupid.
Back to those 4 paragraphs…finally, a little actual substance.
And you know what I have to say about it? I have to say that I actually feel even MORE strongly that O’Brien is a bad leader.
You went on about issues that rust belt union members are having. But the Democrats don’t control the rust belt…the GOP does. And they are fucking over their own union constituents. Trump’s last term saw him hire an anti-union Reagan-era lawyer to the NLRB, stacked the courts with anti-union judges, took various other anti-union actions, and neither him nor any Republicans proposed a single page of legislation. They didn’t even support the PRO Act, legislation that helps unions everywhere, rust belt included, and was introduced even before Dems took back the WH (meaning Democrats didn’t stand to look good if it got passed). And the GOP still voted heavily against it, and have done so ever since.
Biden might not be perfect in your eyes, but he immediately fired Trump’s NLRB appointee and the similarly minded deputy replacing them them with a pro-union labor lawyer who took on captive audience meetings, non-compete clauses, and consequential damages. And like I already said, it was DEMOCRATS who’ve been pushing for the PRO Act this whole time…and yes, Harris has campaigned on signing the PRO Act, fyi.
Why aren’t the teamsters…openly mad at the GOP? The party of people who, in your own words, would “accuse [democrats] of being radical socialists” for proposing action that helps working class people? Denying Trump an endorsement doesn’t go far enough - O’Brien either shouldn’t’ve gone to the RNC, or should’ve flipped the bird at everybody there. Don’t just leave an endorsement out of your speech - actually say “I wanna endorse you, but you fuckers are letting us down”. I could see that acknowledging their incompetence to their faces MAYBE moving the needle on the GOP, or at least, it’d be a respectable attempt.
I get you feel like unions need bipartisan support to make a permanent, lasting difference. And y’know what? I think I agree with you on that. But that doesn’t mean I agree that it’s worth giving the modern GOP anything, so much as an RNC speech, now. They should work for it. BY ACTUALLY VOTING ON PRO-UNION POLICIES AND ACTIONS. Then, it makes sense to play both sides. Until then, let them know that they’re not getting an ounce of support.