By Richard Mellor in California
So much is happening and rapidly. And we are witnessing exactly that, at this moment, as the huge protests in LA are spreading to other cities in the US: Chicago, Boston, New York City and other areas.
Over the past months, with the run up to and election of the degenerate sexual predator, Trump, to the highest post in the land, I consistently countered those who argued that we would have fascism on day one, and that Trump and the racists, religious fanatics, white nationalists that inhabit the US Congress would proceed with their agenda with ease.
I was accused at times of being overly optimistic as I stressed that the opposite would be the case. The US working class would not passively accept being driven to pre-1930s conditions without a fight. With regards to the assault on immigrants – and let’s not lose sight of the fact that Obama was nicknamed Deporter in Chief – I never though for one minute that ICE thugs could waltz in to a city like Los Angeles and round up people without a massive response.
The arrest, and subsequent release of a union official has forced other trade union leaders to speak out, which is undoubtedly a positive thing, but they will have to do a lot more than that, in order to counter the capitalist offensive against the working class, that has been a consistent offensive for decades, and increasingly brutal.
Increased militarisation of the police
The events of September 11, 2001 were the pretext not only for the misnamed War on Terror abroad, but also in preparing for the war on terror against US workers and our communities, with the increased militarisation of the police and the creation of ICE. Did we think this increased security state would not be used against US workers?
We will hear phrases from the labour hierarchy, like “we stand with…” and “we will fight these attacks…” and so on, but what they mean by “fight” in the past is an appeal to their friends in the Democratic Party. But this strategy is what has led to the increased strength of the right wing in the US. California Governor Gavin Newsom’s response to the sending of troops in to a US city to attack workers is a lawsuit against Trump. That’ll scare him.
The working class in LA and cities throughout the nation have by-passed the courts.
As I mentioned in a video I posted to Tiktok a couple of days ago, the US rogue regime is not simply after what its representatives refer to as “illegal” immigrants. The war against these undocumented workers who are so vital to the US economy is an attempt to obscure the real issue, that US capitalism has to drive its working class to pre-WW2 conditions.
US capitalism is in a crisis as the so-called American Century (America is a continent, by the way, and Mexico is in North America too) comes to an end. Like all imperial powers they can’t last forever. But a dying imperial power is a dangerous animal indeed, as it tries to maintain its position at the top of the pecking order.
The resistance to the ICE raids is just the beginning, and the state will no doubt respond with violence as the consequences of defeat are so dire. There is so much anger beneath the surface in US society that the whole apparatus is shaken.
The US ruling class and its two parties understand the dangers involved here, they are aware of the potential power of the US working class and where this could lead. The trade union officialdom has the same fears and want to contain this anger and return to the status quo. But the status quo is what has brought us to this point.
The wider working class could easily be dragged into this issue. Major centres like LA, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia New York and others are heavily unionised and the unionised sector is also in Trump’s sights. LA and the surrounding area is a major port. Along with Oakland and Seattle, Pacific Rim trade can be brought to a halt.
California labour has three million organised
The California Labor Federation has 3 million workers affiliated to it, Los Angeles Labor Federation alone has 800,000 workers affiliated in vital industries, many of these workers are Latinos.
This is true also of New York City. The docks throughout the US are organised, so are most of the major industries. We saw strikes at Boeing, in auto, at the West, East Coast and Gulf (of Mexico) coast ports.
The trade union officials are aware of this potential power within organised labour and are terrified of it. They are determined to honour their pact with US capitalism (through the Democratic Party) that guarantees labour peace. When events threaten this arrangement we witnessed what happensu when Biden and Pelosi, supported by the entire US Congress, passed legislation overnight denying rail workers the right to strike.
Behind the scenes, we can be certain that heads of the AFL-CIO and certain leaders of the Democratic party are trying to figure out how they can contain this resistance to the ICE raids (and the creation of ICE itself) and prevent it from spreading from the unnorganised working class to those of us in unions.
There is a real danger of that, if this anger in US society is not contained. I see this morning that DHL workers that operate school buses have walked off the job in Brampton, Ontario (Canada), and blocked what the mass media calls “replacement staff” and “contractors” from doing their job. Their job being to break the strike.
Some US unions have members in Canada as well. The Canadian auto workers were at one time in the same union as their US colleagues and cross-border collaboration cannot be ruled out. US workers will also be influenced by increased militancy north of the border.
It is rare for union leaders to get arrested
I should add that it is rare for union leaders to get arrested, except for planned photo ops organised in cooperation with the police. In the case of the SEIU leader in LA, the pressure from below is so great as there is a huge Latino population in LA and in SEIU. His last name is Huerta, which leads me to think he might be related to Dolores Huerta, who was one of the activists that led to the creation of the United Farm Workers Union, along with Cesar Chavez. Chavez is a revered figure in US labour history ,and among Latinos especially, and rightly, so.
Regardless of how this develops, there are a lot of forces against the movement, the most dangerous being those that claim to be ‘friends’, as is so often the case.
It is important for rank and file activists within organised labour, especially those leaders in locals that are not overly bureaucratised and especially those leaders that claim to be anti-capitalist, socialist or believe in transforming our unions from mere employment agencies to class struggle organisations, to link up with the immigrant population, undocumented or not. We should not limit our demands to one issue, but to build the movement around those issues that all Americans: face, jobs, health care, education, climate security, housing etc. I don’t need to write a list here we all know what we need.
What we all know is that immigrants are not the problem. The mass media lies. The politicians of both capitalist parties cannot be relied on to fight for us even if they are well meaning as individuals. Workers can only rely on our own strength in what is a class battle, in the workplace and in the political arena.
From the US socialist website, Facts for Working People. The original can be found here.
