Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: Folks, this is Dick Flax and Raka Larimore hall here on another episode of Talking Strategy, Making History.
And we're honored today and excited to welcome Nelson Lichtenstein back to our party.
And hi, Nelson, how are you doing?
[00:00:34] Speaker C: Hello there.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: Hi.
That doesn't sound that fine. Be more enthusiastic about hello.
[00:00:38] Speaker C: I'm glad to be here.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: That's great. Yeah, that's kind of better.
So the reason we're calling on Nelson is because there's a fight going on. I don't know how big it is within the United Auto Workers, one of the most important, if not the most important union in America for a long time. And Nelson's one of the people who's been following the entire history of that union from its beginning. He's a real authority on that question. And you've been trying to follow and connect with the conflict right now, Nelson. And you have numbers of people that you're able to engage in understandings with about all of this. So what is going on in the United Auto Workers of America?
[00:01:25] Speaker C: Well, let me preface this by saying something that just struck me as. It seems obvious, but it's there that right now there is a campaign for president of the UAW and other officers are going on right now.
And it's so many people have thrown in their hat in the ring. There are, I don't know, half a dozen people running for president and other offices. If you go onto the web, you'll see all sorts of campaigning. Stephen Greenhouse, the former New York Times reporter, moderated a debate which went on for hours for all the major offices. You know, it's a election campaign that's going on. And in the process of this campaign, people are putting forward various strategies for the union.
And, you know, and I think. I think it's sort of a. I mean, it's not always the most elevated debate, but it's taking place now. The thing that's super obvious about this is that this is not happening among the workforces of the overwhelming majority of companies in the United states.
Union density is 6% in the private sector.
And among that 6% that are in unions, even a smaller proportion have relatively Democratic or campaigns for office.
I'm just struck that if we had a larger union movement and there were other kinds of contests for office, it would have a huge impact on American political culture and the just general consciousness of workers. Because right now in this campaign and people are getting engaged, there are strategy to put forward about the biggest issues. How do we fight, you know, the big corporations, you know, what's the best strategy? I mean, this is all, I think, a healthy thing.
But we should keep in mind that this is an absolutely small minority of American workers have the privilege of being participating in this kind of a debate. And that just struck me how different that would be. And you can go historically, go back to the great days of the CIO when there were all sorts of contests for office among the unions that had organized the greatest corporations. And you could see that, okay, American political culture was healthier then and the working class was engaged anyway. So that's the first thing I wanted to say that I think that there is something progressive about generally having this contest for office.
And that's no accident because here's the origins of all this. Several years ago, down a decade ago, there was a huge corruption scandal in the uaw.
Two presidents went to jail and several officers did. It was a, it was an old fashioned corruption of scandal, people taking money literally. And for a variety, it arose a variety of reasons that the, the, the culture of the, or the sort of mechanisms of UAW leadership had been kind of ossified. And it was sort of a one party regime. Anyway, it was a scandal. And as a result of that, the, the, the courts came in in Michigan and a consent degree was eventually created between the UAW and the, and the government which said, basically we will reform the way that elections and take place in the UAW and we'll install a monitor to kind of oversee the end of corruption in the UAW. This is all around 2020, 2021. And one of the important things that did happen was that a group called United All Workers for Democracy, which had, had had roots going way back in the UAW kind of reform group, pushed for and succeeded in getting a referendum to say, from now on we're going to elect the major officers of the UAW by one person, one vote. We won't do it through the, through a delegated convention. We'll do it one person, one vote. And that, I mean, I don't think there's, how should I put it? I think you could make an argument that at various times and places, delegated conventions where you have debate and you know, factions and caucuses, is as democratic as anything else. But in the context of the, of our contemporary moment, one person, one vote, I think was a more democratic way of electing the major officers of the union. And that passed as a referendum. And then there was an election in 2022 and 2023 and Sean Fain narrowly won the presidency in 2023. And he had a slate with him, a kind of thrown together slate which, which, which did very well. And he basically came to, you know, a new leadership did come to the UAW. And immediately thereafter, within six months of him being elected in the spring of 2023, a major strike took place against the big three, the old big three auto companies, GM, Ford and Stellantis, which was by almost, by all reckonings, it was a very successful strike. And, and, and a, and a nationally known strike that had an impact. People were following it all over the country.
And remarkably, President Biden showed up on a UAW picket line, Local 174, which was Walter Reuthers old picket, old union, and you know, endorsed the strike. I, Let me, let me stop here. I just. You have other questions. We'll get into the, into what's going on. But, I mean, but that, that is what happened. And the UAW is now. Okay, that was an election four years ago or three years ago, and now another election is taking place again on a one person, one vote basis.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: Okay, so, so by the way, I should have said, Daraka, that you have a history yourself with the United Auto Workers. You actually worked for the union when you were organizing the graduate student TAs back in the day.
And so you, this is all part of you. And by the way, that that growth of the UAW as an academic, not just auto, the A standing for academic in California has been quite phenomenal. And you, you're a part of that history.
So, and just, just to, just to reinforce the story you were telling Nelson, for the first time in history, every member of the union had a chance to vote for who was going to be the national office officers of it. Sean Fain is the, the guy who won that and now his term.
He needs to be real. He needs to, he's running for reelection.
But that's been a point of conflict. There's another part of it which has to do with that monitor that you mentioned. So we want to bring that into the story as well. Dirak, do you want to jump in with anything right now?
[00:08:22] Speaker D: Well, I just wanted to maybe give listeners a little bit more sort of context and stakes before we jump into those very interesting questions, which is that like, so, you know, the UAW is a union that is right now has leadership that is, you know, making the case for more militancy, more organizing workers who aren't in unions, you know, aggressively demanding major gains for wages and rights on the job and benefits for the workers they already represent and going on strike to win those things if necessary. And so I think there's a lot of people watching what's happening in the UAW who are interested more generally in a revitalized labor movement, a more. Yeah. More militant, confrontational and progressive sort of, you know, a labor movement that is, you know, also taking on broader social issues, are listening to coalition partners in the environmental movement or racial justice movements, et cetera.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: So.
[00:09:27] Speaker D: And these are all sort of things that the FEIGN leadership, you know. Yeah. Purports to be interested in and fighting for and so forth. So we're all kind of watching and seeing both, you know, how are they doing? And also, you know, what are members thinking? Where are they going to vote? Are they going to give that approach another mandate?
So, yeah, with that, I mean, something that I'm very interested in hearing you opine on, Nelson, is, you know, what are the bases of support, power, influence and so forth for different factions in the union right now.
And, you know, how much of it, in your sense, in this election is going to play out actually as a referendum on a set of issues or something a little more mechanical or even, you know, transactional and so forth, which often happens in these things.
[00:10:23] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:10:24] Speaker D: And then maybe at the end, we could talk a little bit about union democracy, the question of union democracy sort of more broadly, which both of you, I think, have a lot of great things to say.
[00:10:33] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm happy to do that. Let me. I have to preface this with. With just a little. A little mini condensed history of this monitor and how this got controversial, because it plays into just what you said about the. One of the. One of the. One of the. The basis of various campaigns for office. So the monitor.
And there have been other monitors, one of the Teamsters and I think one of the laborers, is a mechanism that the courts sometimes use to eliminate corruption or problems. And also. And mainly in corporations as well. And in fact, they're usually. They're often in corporations that have been caught in various illegalities. Anyway, so they set this monitor up, and at first, basically the basic job of the monitor was to supervise the election. And that went very well the first time around, and things were doing quite well with the monitor and the uaw, certain cooperation was taking place. But then, right. Right after the. During. During the big strike and just after it, the union thane and the people he brought on board. And he brought on board Chris Brooks, who'd once been a labor notes kind of radical reporter, Jonathan Furman, another person from, you know, who'd been A.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: Not.
[00:11:49] Speaker C: Not a. Not a UAW figure, but these were sort of staffers who were kind of agreed with Fain and, you know, that they were. They were not. They were not out of the ranks. And this is an issue which we can get into. To what extent should unions bring onto their staff and important jobs people who are. Who came up from the ranks, you know, or, you know, just find, you know, kind of good strategic lefties who have ideas, you know, and bring them on anyway. Fame brought on some people who hadn't been out of the union. And partly that was because there was a kind of.
Kind of a. Well, just to be a little provocative, a little kind of deadwood kind of bureaucracy, which had been part of the problem of the uaw Anyway, so they. These people became controversial eventually. And in the lee of the strike in 2023, the union wanted to, you know, Fain said, this is our moment. We've got momentum. We've gotta. We've gotta strike while the iron is hot. Let's spend some money on organizing. Let's. Let's not, you know, let's.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: Let's.
[00:12:48] Speaker C: Let's get going here. But the secretary treasurer, whose name was Mock, who'd been put on the slate in a kind of haphazard way, she was basically, you know, a wet blanket on all of this. No, we, you know, we can't spend. I mean, in one sense, she's right, you know, because there had been a corruption scandal involving money. So let's watch, Eric, you know, every penny that's being spent here. But the feigned forces thought she was sort of being a wet blanket on this historic moment when we could organize. And, of course, that was the moment when they did organize Volkswagen, the first southern plant to be organized in decades and decades. Anyway, as a result of this, Mach was stripped of some of her responsibilities. And then she appealed to the Monitor, who, you know, saying this was all done illegally and in terms of retaliation. And then the Monitor really got into it, you know, basically looking to see whether Fain was kind of operating according to what the monitors saw and to some degree to what the UAW constitution provided for in terms of, you know, regularization of what kind of jobs people should have and whether there was retaliation or favoritism or things of that sort. And then that was exacerbated by the fact that. And here. Here we. The. The issue of. Of the UAW has been recruiting graduate students on the east and west coast, public defenders in New York, adjuncts at nyu. Well, these people were, you know, on the left and on, on issues especially like Gaza. And this, this all happened just after the. October 7th. And so the UAW came out with a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. And the Monitor. And we can get. This gets complicated, but the Monitor basically intervened. The Monitor was Neil Barofsky. He had actually been. He was kind of a liberal Democrat, Jewish also. In fact, he'd been involved with the government looking for sort of Nazi, Nazi links of Swiss banks. And, you know, he was investigating all that. So he came in and said, wait a minute. You know, he kind of. He said, I had a phone call to Sean Fain, said, you know, you shouldn't do this resolution. You shouldn't have a press conference. And anyway, I won't go into all the details, but this became another point of controversy. So as a result of this, the Monitor has been doing a series of reports basically critical of Sean Fain on the basis that he's been retaliating and that he's been kind of. One of the, One of the famous. One of the phrases of the moniker is that the culture of the UAW is, you know, is dysfunctional and perverse and feign is making it worse. And I mean, I have to say, I think that the Monitor, he wrote a whole book about corporate culture, you know, and about, I don't know, I guess about CEOs being nice to their staff and things of that sort of. But the UAW is not a corporation, which is. Corporations are authoritarian institutions by themselves. Unions are democratic, you know, and whether you treat the staff, you know, nicely or not, the, the ultimate power comes in the rank and file. And have elections. You don't have elections. Well, you have one chair. One, One vote. But that's different from one person, one vote. And anyway, so can I actually, can
[00:16:13] Speaker D: I add a little bit there, Nelson, that I think, you know, you'll appreciate.
[00:16:17] Speaker C: Right.
[00:16:17] Speaker D: Which is the other thing is that a, A, A union is both a democratic and representative organization, has to be accountable to the people who are members and pay dues and so forth. But it's also a kind of partisan organization. And by that I mean, it's like. Has a side. Yeah, it has a side against capital or, you know, vis a vis management, but also like politically and in society and so forth. And so, you know, this. There's just some structural issues here when you start talking about organizational culture or like hiring and firing people and so forth, because it's an organization that can and should hold its staff, you know, to a set of strategies, principles, ideas, positions on things and so forth. And so like finding a mechanism by which you, you would say, for example, protect union staff from arbitrarily being fired because of their gender or their ability or whatever is, is important. But like you have to be able to fire people in a union for just not going along with the program, otherwise the democracy part doesn't work and the mandate doesn't work and so forth. So these are. It occurs to me from what you're saying and what I've read that part of this is like the monitor just doesn't really understand.
[00:17:36] Speaker C: No, no, the monitor comes out of corporate America. You know, it works for a big law firm. And actually he's been monitored. He has a whole monitorship practice has to do with corporations. You're right.
And the monitors actually sees this as constituency, the staff, not the rag and file anyway. And yeah, I think actually more important than the Gaza kerfuckle, which I think was this other problem, which is the monitor's conception of the state now of the, of the, of the UU UAW mechanism for ruling itself. Now I know, I think it's probably true that Fain, you know what, crack some eggs or whatever the metaphor is, he's probably, you know, a little bit rough and tough and all of this. And I should say that the other issue which we could debate, you could discuss. I know that you and Dick would have a point of view about this. To what extent should a union bring in new people who, you know, who haven't been part of the, you know, and because they're new ideas and a generation Fain did that.
And a lot of people in the old UAW staff, a lot of old militants actually said they didn't like that at all.
They thought that was a major bad issue. So that was another question. But let me just jump.
[00:18:52] Speaker D: It's very foreign to the tradition in the uaw.
I'll just say the UAW again for better or worse and it's debatable and you know, whatever, and clearly also degenerated into corruption. But the model in UAW for organizing is very rank and file oriented. It's very like the people with power and full time jobs in the union come out of the, from the shop floor or the classroom or wherever the workplace.
And the most powerful figures in the local unions are presidents that are elected out of the membership and so forth. People like our opposition, our left wing opposition and critics in my own, in my UAW local like framed that as a kind of corruption itself.
[00:19:46] Speaker C: Right.
[00:19:47] Speaker D: Like instead of being workers like you Guys become union bureaucrats or whatever, which was bullshit. But anyway, what I'm saying is this thing, I can totally imagine in Detroit what happened when, like a bunch of the young lefty operatives suddenly were wielding power in the organization. Yeah. Regardless of what they, the politics of what they were doing, that would not.
[00:20:12] Speaker C: Yeah, you're right. That was a big flashpoint. And again, it's an issue that I think that, you know, has two sides. You can argue both sides of it. And let me just say that, I mean, just to give you another example, there was a way in which the, the. I mean, if the whole point of a union is to get, you know, and your career in the union is to finally get yourself out of the shop and into a staff job, that, that's the, that's the success. You know, then, then the, then that's, that's going to have a problem with union dynamism. And so, for example, with Volkswagen, where there had been a. UAW efforts to organize for a decade in the. What they did that put it over the top was they brought in like a half a dozen or a dozen people from California, grad students from California were sent to Chattanooga, Tennessee, to, you know, to be organized, you know, because they had a certain spark and dynamism and were willing to work 20 hours a day. And, you know, so there is a kind of. There's an issue there. There's an issue there. But let me, let me just say that the. What's going on now in this, in this contemporary.
Okay, so what happened was the, there's an election going on right now.
The, the mo. I mean, from Fain's point of view, and I think actually from an outside. The Monitor really has been putting his thumb on the, on the scale here. So almost immediately after the various candidates for. For president were announced, the Monitor issues a long report denouncing Sean Fain for retaliating against a guy named Rich Boyer, who's running for president against Sean Fain. And Boyer was head of the Stellanis. That's the old Chrysler Company, part of the union.
And, you know, and the Monitor just sort of came down on the side of Rich Boyer, who's running for president and has some support in Stellanis. Anyway, the.
Okay, just very recently, here's something very interesting that happened just last week.
Three former UAW presidents, Ron. Let's see, Ron Ray Curry, Roy Gamble and Ron Gettlefinger. They were not part of the. They were, they were part of the old regime, but they weren't, they weren't corruptionists. They weren't particularly gay or anything. They came out in favor. They came out, issued a statement in favor, not of this guy, Rich Boyer, who's the most prominent opponent of Fain, but in favor of a woman who I'd never heard of named Tricia Geiger. She's been a UAW staffer as far as I can tell. She's a fine person, but she, she heretofore has had no, you know, major political kind of support in the union. They came out in favor of her and in, in opposition to, to, to Fein. And what was interesting. And here you here to get at Dick and, and your, your what, what are the issues at stake? What was interesting here was that these former presidents, that most of their argument was basically that Fain had been a kind of rough, too rough and tumble. A, a union leader that he had in fact appointed outside people into his staff, not out of the uaw. And then something which I think is quite conservative is that Fain and his team had not lowered dues. Not lowered dues.
A dozen years ago there was a dues increase which said the dues increase will be rescinded once we get to $850 million in our strike fund. Well, it got to $850 million, but fain and his people said we need more money. We're going to have big strikes and organizing, so let's not rescind the dues increase.
So they didn't at the convention that was held in June. Well, I mean, I think that issue is of, you know, here's how we're going to make this union stronger and bigger and organize new people.
It's really quite conservative and parochial. And another index of this is that, let's see, United All Workers for Democracy. The uawd, which was the original reform group that had put Fain forward two years ago, they had a, they had a big internal fight. And basically it kind of the, the UAWD was sort of taken over by, by kind of ex grad students from Harvard and New York. And I mean, I don't want to be too crazy critical of them. They, they, you know, lefties and, and, and they're, they're actually critical of fame. And some of it turns out, you know, in New York and New England and then in California, these are the centers of sort of the academic and, and cultural worker membership. Anyway, it's interesting that this group, UAWD now under the control, under leadership of, of these former grad students, is not, is while, while they're, they don't endorse Fame, they, they haven't put up their candidates in opposition and they're quite critical of the Monitor and of those opponents of fame like Rich Boyer and Margaret Mock and et cetera, who are really quite conservative. So I think that says something.
They're critical of Fame, but they aren't going along with this conservative opposition.
So anyway, the election, I'll just say what I think is going to happen.
I think Fame will win and his team will win because they just, you know, they're just more people know, know them better and they, and the other side is fragmented and really doesn't have much of a program. But that's not the, that's not the end of the game because as we speak, the, the Trump Department of Justice has a, I think a grand jury impaneled, which is looking into whether Fein should be indicted.
And frankly, it's pretty minor stuff, you know, you know, did he, did he retaliate against some other officer in the union because that officer wouldn't give Thane's fiance a wage increase or I mean, pretty minor stuff. But anyway, the Trump doj. And even if Fain wins and the election will be the ballots go out this month, the, that we counted in I think October or maybe early November. But, but that's not the again, Fame could be indicted and that's just a mess. That'll be a mess.
And you know, so that's, I'll stop for now.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: Well, that, let me just say that for people who may not remember or know this, Fain is not just the militant president, relatively speaking, of the UAW with an agenda of militancy. He's talking about what is it, the mayday general strike concept in 2028, I think it is where they've trying to make all their contracts come together at that point. And there might be a general strike in the auto industry, but that they're hoping to make this a broader labor action, which would be we could talk about that if we want.
But he's all, you know, he was even people were saying he should be a candidate for president of the United States. I don't know whether that would have been a great idea. But he's, he's become, he's one of the few labor leaders right now who do have more of a national political audience as well as within the union.
[00:27:30] Speaker D: So which used to be far more common.
[00:27:33] Speaker B: I mean, yes, it was very much more common. I mean, Walter Reuther, who Nelson wrote the authoritative biography of, he was, he was a national leader of the United States, not Just of the UAW by the time in civil rights era and so forth. And he wasn't by any means the only union leader with that, with that degree of influence and importance.
So that's why this election kind of matters.
[00:28:01] Speaker C: Let me say one thing with my dick. I think you're right. You're right. And I think here, you know, UAW members, well, they're most, many of them are still in Michigan and the Midwest and, and retirees by the way, can also vote. Most retirees can vote and then there's about a quarter of the union are on the west coast.
But here's the thing. If, and this has to do with politics in general, if American workers are feeling pessimistic and defeatist and oh gosh, we better take care of our own, well then you get a big vote against fame, maybe even he could be defeated. If on the other hand they're feeling yes, you know, we can, we can, we can fight, we can do things, we can, you know, mobilize, then I think Fain would get a bigger vote. So that's why, you know, the election is a kind of, you know, test case of how the mentality and consciousness of really lots of blue collar workers, you know, as well, you know, some
[00:28:58] Speaker B: of the UAW membership must have quite a few might have, must have voted for Trump originally.
[00:29:05] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, yeah, probably a, you know. Yes, yes, unquestionably. And I think Fain, you know, Fain is very skillful at, he said, you know how he asserts the, I mean on the one hand he did endorse Camila Harris. He endorsed the, the guy running for Senate in Democrat in Michigan. But, but he made, but he makes the point, you know, you know, we're for the, you know, the working class against, you know, the politicians and he's pretty good at that. He hasn't been attacked by the way in the UAW by his opponents for like, and this actually Reuther was attacked for this often, oh, you're too political. You know, you shouldn't be involved in politics. You know, he hasn't been attacked for that nor has he been attacked by the way for the Gaza resolution, that's for sure. No one has mentioned that. No one's attacking for that.
[00:29:56] Speaker D: He is sort of attacked for, for being too political in a way by the left group that you were just.
[00:30:04] Speaker C: Well, yeah, but yes, they would, they would say, yeah, he shouldn't be so close to the Democrats. Yeah, that's right, they would. But as I say, they are not running a candidate against him, they, they've chosen not to do that. So I think that reflects a certain amount. None of that is surprising sophisticated shit on their, on their part. Yeah, yeah.
[00:30:21] Speaker D: So this question of internal democracy in the unions, right, is one that is fascinating, you know, has animated a lot of really great sociology and political thinking over the years because really gets to the heart of like, what is the. What the labor movement is? And sort of, as I talked about a little bit, on the one hand, a kind of one to one representation of what employees and workers think and want to see happen in their workplace to management or owners, et cetera. But also there's this broader idea of labor as a force for transforming society. Right. Like the contest between labor and capital and who has more power. That has so many implications for other things, for the what kind of welfare state we have and what, what the middle class is made up of or what kinds of people are in it and all of these things. You know, there's all that great work that's been done about what it means for the United States as a society and a democracy to have such a small labor movement at this point and like what unions used to do and don't do anymore and so forth, all of that is, Is really crucial. But in order to fulfill those roles, if every decision was in a union, was made by referendum or like by one member, one vote, et cetera, one could easily predict that the labor movement would be quite a fucking mess and not always on the right side of things and et cetera. Right. I mean, things would get. Could get very, very complicated. For example, one of the things in your Reuther biography that you document so well, right. Is that in the south, the UAW's very aggressive, very prominent role, pro, you know, civil rights role in American politics and their alliance with the civil rights movement, you know, was completely rejected by union leaders and members in the south and who wanted to use the union as a mechanism for segregation. And those unions were like, you know, taken over by the national organ or those locals were taken over by the national organization and racist leaders kicked out. All undemocratically. Completely undemocratically. Right. And. But the UAW as a national organization very much figured it could not do what its mission if it allowed itself to be used as a weapon of white supremacy on the job in the, in the factories in the South. So I'm wondering if you have thought you and Dick both have sort of thoughts about, you know, whether democratizing the union, the labor movement right now, like having more of These kinds of elections, et cetera, like is a good thing over like across the board and so forth.
Like what, what, what would happen if, if that's how the Teamsters union was run, for example. I mean they do elect their president I, you know, directly, which is also has been a process that's been corrupted in the past. Right. Quite famously so. But it's very in, in all ways a very top down and centralized union. What would happen if it became more of a plebisite led movement when so many of their members are just like full MAGA thoughts about that from either of you guys?
[00:33:44] Speaker C: Union democracy go first, Dick.
[00:33:47] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean, I think union democracy means more than just voting on every issue. I think the contract should be something since the members are going to live with. It affects their very lives.
That has to be. And I don't know to what extent the contracts negotiated by union leaders are subjected to member votes. I think in most cases they are, but I actually don't know how all that operates.
But democracy to me also means union internal education. It means opportunities for collective discussion, not just website voting. And with, absent that, you're right, I mean then it becomes, you know, a kind of danger to the, to the members themselves to have that kind of, to have a lack of that kind of internal community and cohesion being worked for. We're talking about issues that are ever since the beginning of organized labor in the 19th century, these sorts of conflicts that somewhat foreshadow what we're experiencing now. Everything about race.
Race is a fundamental part of the whole history.
Unions were in large part craft unions, weren't they? In large part ethnic enclaves to defend against other ethnic groups and more control over particular sectors of labor. And the exclusion of non white workers was part of the agenda of a lot of those craft unions. Well that. So it's a. I always think labor history is really fundamental to understanding America and it's rarely taught at all in that way.
That's just my comment about it. I will maybe shift slightly. The question getting it back to Nelson's Court as well is outside of the uaw. So in California, where we do have a relatively strong labor movement, which is multicolored and multiethnic and which does have a larger, I think, proportion of the labor force than elsewhere in America. But the lack of cohesion within the labor movement as a whole is very disturbing. So right now a segment of the SEIU put forward and managed to put on the ballot a wealth tax which has national implications and a large part of that union has refused to endorse it.
The union itself is not united around this, let alone the entire federation. Meanwhile, the Federation of California, unable to endorse anyone for governor, decided to endorse three people for governor, which was less than helpful.
And by the way, on the wealth tax, apparently the teachers union now statewide opposes the wealth tax because its proceeds would not go primarily, you know, enough to education.
[00:36:56] Speaker D: One of the teachers, the biggest one of the teachers.
[00:36:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So these divisions, again, they're not nothing new in the labor movement. But what is that the fate of it all the time is that there's going to be this fragmentation or is there anything, Nelson, that you see in the labor movement and leadership or rank and file that might portend another stage of labor organizing which is more politically coherent than it has been in recent years?
[00:37:29] Speaker C: For example, let me return to the UAW and I'll make a comment on the wealth tax maybe at some point. But the, you know. Right you were. Democracy is more than just occasional voting. Now the, the old system was a kind of autocracy, a kind of one party regime really resembled the Soviet Union more than anything else because the executive board and the president of the, of the union, and this is true other, some other unions as well controlled the, the, basically the, the whole convention and it was, when it was delegated, it, it, you know, and being a delegate, being a, being a union officer, being a staff rep was a, was a real plum.
And the top leadership could hand out or withdraw those plums as they wished and that really gave them tremendous control. So the sainted Walter Reuther would win reelection by 99%.
And that was not a product of his sheer popularity. That was a product of his control and the rest of the executive board. So we do have a more democratic opening here. And Fain is not going to win reelection by 99% at all.
Now the other thing is it's not just a question of its participation. In the last election, which was open 2022, 23, only 11% of the whole UAW membership voted. And that'll go up this time because there's more mobilization. But that was not a good sign.
No, I didn't realize it was what I think the Fein leadership has done and some other unions are doing this too.
It's, you know, you don't just take a vote and then call a strike. You, you prepare for the, for, you know, for either an organizing drive or a strike. So for example, before the 2023 strike, there were these things called practice picket lines. Now that might sound a little Mickey Mouse to some people, but that's actually really important because lots of American workers have never been on a picket line ever.
You know, and so they had these practice picket lines. They did that in the Teamsters as well. And, and, and the, you did, you know, and then, and then of course, various kinds of other kinds of mobilizations. And so, you know, that's, that's, that's something. Now, now it is true. It's still true. It's still true. This is one reason I think Fain will win is that when you, you know, the leader, you know, you're on tv, you're giving speeches around, you know, it does give a certain, there is a kind of bias toward the people who hold office. And, and, and, and, and, and Fain is taking advantage of that. That's one reason some of his opponents, you know, call him the leader of the quote, Administration Caucus 2.0. The, the, the, the old regime was the administration caucus. That was the phrase. And, and, and you know, and Thane does have a, you know, he, he is using the, the mechanisms of the union, I think not in a heavy handed way, but, but just, you know, he's there. So anyway, but a union democracy is again, is more than just voting for officers. It's sort of mobilization and, and you know, and that means, you know, all sorts of things in terms of, you know, how the local unions are run. One of the arguments against Fain, which I think has a certain weight to it is that in assembling his new slate, running for office, he's gotten some of the old local leaders and so, and some, and there was a kind of, you know, way in which local leaders would again hand out, you know, jobs if you know, in terms of plums and, and, and then, you know, and, and, and getting a local le, getting local kind of machines.
And Fain has picked up on some of that and you know, it made that part of his caucus. So you know, it, it, there, there's always that tension. That's always that tension. I would say this and Ruther Reuther sometimes understood this and sometimes didn't understand this. The, the real key to a, to a, to a democratic union is it do you have a role for an opposition to play which has a real possibility of winning leadership. And I think today that's more true than it was in the previous 50 years of the UAW and probably more true than in most unions.
And I think this is one person, one vote is a good thing. And there is more of as some of the leaders of the reform movement have said, commenting on the recent convention that was held in, in Detroit in June, that it had a more open kind of, you know, quality to it, which people got up and spoke and, you know, and pushed.
[00:42:03] Speaker D: Oh, they used, yeah, they used to be completely scripted.
[00:42:05] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:42:05] Speaker D: Ones I went to were like, yeah, totally scripted.
[00:42:08] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, anyway, so I think, I think, you know, whether that'll last, you know, and I think, you know, we'll see. But, but I think it is, it is more, it's a healthier situation today. I Let me just before I another, I don't want to get into this in a big way, but the Teamsters is a union where the, the leader, the o', Brien, the president has been playing footsie with Trump.
But on the other hand, and that's true, and probably in the teachers, there are more Trump voters than in the uaw, which, by the way, the uaw, you mentioned race. The race does not factor directly into this election as it has many in the past.
In fact, Fain's been criticized for bringing onto his slate African Americans who, you know, are kind of, you know, seen as sort of front people. I mean, anyway, I, it hasn't developed, but with o', Brien, one thing that o' Brien has, has, has opened the door to is a plethora of strikes which local people are conducting. And there have been more strikes in the, in the, in the Teamsters in the last three years, four years than, than, than, than in any other period. And so some of the reformers in the, in the, in the in the Teamsters have said, well, he could do what he wants on with, with Trump, but he certainly is allowing us to mobilize our people and conduct strikes. And so, you know, that's the sort of deal we're willing to take. I don't know whether that's the, the right thing or not, but I just make that point.
We'll talk about the wealth tax maybe the next next round of questions. I'll stop now.
[00:43:46] Speaker B: Well, go ahead. So any comment you have on the wealth tax situation?
[00:43:51] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I think that, I think that Reagan of the SEIU should have had longer discussions with other members of the union movement and they should have gotten their, their, all their ducks in a row. And what I've heard is that other people in SEIU and other unions said, let's wait till 2028 to do this. And maybe they were right. I don't know. I think that clearly, you know, I think Reagan Thought, well, we had this enormous sentiment in favor of the wealth act, let's do it now. But until he did. Which has the effect of dividing the labor movement.
[00:44:28] Speaker D: Well, yeah, but the other piece of it is that, you know, we have the. One of the things that is broken about California is how much we rely on ballot box budgeting.
[00:44:40] Speaker C: Right.
[00:44:40] Speaker D: And making budget decisions by referendum.
And so, you know, because the original sort of sin of Prop 13 of, you know, devastating the ability to raise funds through property taxes at the local level meant that the education sector, led by the labor movement, you know, led by teachers and classified workers, used the referendum system to pass another ballot measure that mandates a percentage of state revenues to go to K12 education. Maybe it's K13, as they say. Like, no, no, I don't think it does include the community colleges. But anyway, the point is they, they will defend that is now the, you know, go the, the, the holy grail or whatever for the education unions and they will defend it from any other ballot measures or budget approaches that disrupt that mechanism. And so here's a bunch of new revenue that wouldn't be subject to that, that in fact would be targeted towards healthcare, towards offsetting the President's cuts.
So there's a point at which I'm like not 100% sympathetic to the teachers union's opposition to this because at a certain point we can't just be about fiefdoms and there's kind of like no way ever to bring them into a coalition for raising new revenue. I mean, I've just seen so many good proposals get killed because of it. And I say this as a member of an ed union and all, and I appreciate that and so forth, but yeah, talk about there is a clash of parochialisms going on.
[00:46:20] Speaker B: Yeah, well, the danger of that is that this measure will go down, will lose. Even though right now, according to the latest poll that I saw in the LA Times, there's a slight edge, not so slight, you know, seven, six or seven point edge in favorability for this wealth tax. I mean, it's not a well designed measure, but the defeat will, will be interpreted as, oh, the public's not going to vote in favor of wealth tax, when in fact this putting it on the agenda had the positive result of actually bringing to the fore the possibility. I don't think we can have an America in the future without a wealth tax type of regime. We've got to tax the rich. It is fundamental to what can be done in the future.
And so we need to keep educating and talking about that. And so that's really my concern is whether there's possibility that union leaderships around a state like California will understand they've got to get together around some kind of realistic agenda of basic reform as part and ally with other progressive forces. We've been we always say that we progressives, but maybe there's some opportunity as well as seemingly right now, such frustration about it. I'm saying all this because I think we we don't want to overstay our welcome to our listeners and very grateful, Nelson, for your insight and your connections to what is continuing to go on in the union movement. It's not always easy for people sitting in the ivory tower of academia to maintain that, but you are very, of course, good at doing that, and you have those connections.
So we rely on you for the inside dope, which we all need in these things, because there's no reporting right, in the media about any of the stuff that we've been talking about today. Very, very little.
[00:48:23] Speaker C: Not in California. The Detroit News covers it, buddy.
[00:48:26] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:48:28] Speaker C: Thank you, Yang.
[00:48:29] Speaker B: YANG all right. Well, any final word, Nelson?
[00:48:31] Speaker C: Well, I think that it'll be interesting. Both of these elections, the national election, midterm elections and the election of in the UAW are concluding at about the same time. And I think that will both together we'll see that will have an impact, I think, on how we think about politics and what the labor movement can do. I mean, the fact is that, you know, the idea of trade unionism has never been more popular, and so we need to take advantage of that in some way. And, you know, elections may be one way, one step in that direction.
Yeah.
[00:49:05] Speaker B: And I think there are a lot of young people coming off the college campuses who would love to be able to have opportunity to help build the next stage of organization, and maybe there will be those opportunities.
And you guys are contributing much to making that happen on the campus, aren't you? Daraka Teaching labor courses and working with the labor center at ucsb.
And Nelson, although retired, continues to be a force of nature in a lot of these matters. And so I'm very honored to be part of this trio today. And we'll be back again soon on talking strategy, making history.
Thanks for being a listener and spread the word if you think it's worthwhile spreading it. So take care, guys.
[00:49:54] Speaker A: Thanks.
Blessed are the poor Blessed those who love their neighbor Blessed are the children Blessed are the meek Blessed are all those who labor Lift up your eyes Lift up your voice Come to the great reunion Give us, give us your hand.
Join in our band.
You are the union.
Scattered and tossed, battered and lost all of these years divided each one is precious, each plays a part when we are all united Lift up your eyes, lift up your voice Come to the great reunion.
Give us your hand.
Join in our band.
You are the union.
Promise this earth, let us unite and share it Seeking for justice here in this world we shall one day inherit Lift up your eyes, lift up your voice Come to the great reunion Give us your hand.
