Trump & the Working Class

(Source)

Left Voice authors Professor James Dennis Hoff and Jason Koslowski, write an article entitled Is the U.S. Labor Movement Ready for Trump 2.0?. It's a very long article and I'm not going to go through it line by line. But it is truly weird that intelligent, supposedly well-informed people--professors even--should get it all so spectacularly wrong.

They fail in three ways:

1. They don't understand class struggle.
2. They don't understand the role of the unions.
3. They don't know what "solidarity" means.

After an introductory paragraph describing the way Trump--at the behest of the "ruling class"--will "attack" unions, our two academics write

Building a labor movement that can fight these attacks and grow stronger in the process will require not only a radical break with the business unionism of the past, but the active organization and mobilization of the entire working class. It’s up to rank-and-file workers to protect ourselves, not just against the hammer blows on unions that are coming our way, but against the devastating attacks on the working class meant to divide our power, like mass deportations and bigoted anti-trans legislation. 

Their model of society is that the "working class" is in an all-or-nothing, fight-to-the-death struggle against the bourgeoisie--aka the "ruling class." Of course this is wrong--for otherwise why have the workers put up with "business unionism" for all these decades (if not centuries)? The only answer our academic friends offer is that the workers are too stupid to behave otherwise. What they require is leadership from somebody who knows better and who can lead them to the promised land.

Obviously, if all you need for your liberation is a bunch of know-it-alls who've got everything figured out for you, then who better to ask than a couple of college professors? Even better--these college professors imagine themselves as part of the Vanguard Party. There you go--problem solved. Just follow whatever they say and all will turn out just fine.

For proof, just ask the folks in Cuba, Venezuela or North Korea to describe the benefits of following a Vanguard Party.

The problem with our professor-friends' account of reality is that it's wrong. Workers and their bosses do have disagreements, and there is something to fight about. But mostly they're on the same side, that is, both benefit when the firm--both workers and bosses--increases total revenue. They can argue about how the revenue is divided between them, but without the revenue, then there's nothing to fight over.

Have you ever wondered why Starbucks baristas work so hard to get your drink precisely right? It's not just that the boss will get mad if they don't--but even worse, their fellow employees will be just as mad. That's because--deep down, in their heart of hearts--everybody in the store knows that if the customer isn't happy, then the baristas are not long for employment.

The mantra of capitalism is shop till you drop. The mark of a successful capitalist society is a high level of consumption. Because without customers there will be no revenue, and without revenue, nobody--neither worker nor boss--is gonna make any money. The customer is always right! 

The leadership that our academics deride as "business unionism" understands this. A "business union" works to maximize revenue--and then also maximize the fraction of which is paid to the workers. That's why, for example, the UAW was very selective about its strike targets. They understood that a general strike would cut revenue to zero and hurt the workers more than the bosses. So even when on strike, unions try very hard to maintain or even increase revenue.

Our academic friends will never defeat business unionism, because that's the strategy that makes the most sense for workers. Workers, after all, are smarter than academics for one important reason, ie, academics don't have any customers. They get paid by the government no matter how bad they are at their jobs. That's especially true for Professor Hoff, who is a tenured professor--which means regardless of incompetence he can't be fired. His work life is completely different from that of a Starbucks barista.

So the professors misunderstand the working class and the role of unions. But even the unions don't understand the role of unions! That's because--like every other large organization--they evolve into a self-interested bureaucracy. The union is often more interested in maximizing its own revenue rather than the wages of its members. In extreme cases the union is taken over by the Mafia and simply becomes an extortion racket. Las Vegas casinos are mostly unionized--thanks to the diligent efforts of the Chicago Outfit to skim as much revenue off the top as they could. The workers didn't benefit at all.

Even honest unions have to worry about their income--will they earn enough money in dues to make up for the cost of organizing? For retail businesses the answer seems to be mostly No. Neither Starbucks nor Amazon have profit margins big enough to make it worthwhile for a union to organize them. That's why the Teamsters' Union will likely never succeed at getting a contract at Amazon's JFK8 warehouse. The fledgling Starbucks union will be equally unsuccessful, for the same reason. The profit margins (typically 3%) are too small to keep a union solvent.

Our professor friends never have to worry about that. Colleges and Universities don't have to make a profit. The teachers' unions are really good at ripping off taxpayers. That's why they don't understand the conflict between unions and their members.

Finally, we get to "solidarity." This is what the professors write (links omitted):

Without a radical shift in strategy, labor may wind up squandering the relative advantages it still has. 

These include record-high levels of popular support for unions, an increasingly pro-labor workforce made up of young workers ready to organize, and the likelihood of increased class struggle as Trump attempts to carry out the worst of his proposed agenda against workers, immigrants, women, and trans people. A plank of Trump’s platform is the mass deportation of immigrants — which is not just an attack on immigrants, but also a frontal assault on the working class itself, to divide and weaken it. None of our union leaders have spoken yet of this threat. But stopping it requires a labor movement willing to strike for more than its immediate needs at its own workplaces. Stopping Trump here calls for a willingness of workers to strike in solidarity with immigrants and against the state and ICE — technically against the law. Here, again, relying on the state to support unions will weaken us, not strengthen us.

The Militant (published by the Socialist Workers Party) has been touting the abundance of "solidarity" in Cuba for decades now--most recently here. Solidarity is all they've got there--no food, no water, no medicines, no electricity. The next time our gracious professors encounter a homeless bum, I'm sure he'll be grateful for their "solidarity."

Even the professors have to acknowledge that Trump won the votes of the majority of the working class. They attribute this to a combination of workers being stupid, and/or being racist. But our professors are wrong, of course. The working class is a lot smarter than the they are.

For example, Trotskyist academics will have you believe that allowing more immigrants is good for the working class because of "solidarity." Professor Hoff can believe this because he has tenure and therefore never has to look for a job. But most people realize that if you're looking for a job, you're competing with other similarly qualified people. And more, if there are a lot of similarly qualified people then the average wage for those folks will go down. That's Professor Koslowski's problem--he's an adjunct lecturer working for peanuts because there are so many other folks with useless PhDs wanting the same opportunity.

Then consider the bizarre list of folks that somehow deserve our solidarity. Weirdest is the affection for trans people--that 0.5% of society who somehow think they deserve more rights than the rest of us. The professors also insist that all workers show solidarity with the Hamas death cult, which demands the extermination of all Jews. That's not gonna make anybody any richer. It won't even make the Palestinians richer. 

So why did most workers support Trump? That's easy. Trump is for prosperity. Prosperity means more consumption, more revenue, lower taxes, fewer regulations, and smaller government.

Me--I'm also for more prosperity, which is why I voted for Trump. Unlike the folks on the Progressive & Trotskyist Left, whose goal is to destroy civilization and redistribute the carrion to the starving masses. Just like they do in Cuba.

Further Reading:

• The General Strike Fizzles
• The End of Cuban Civilization
• Amazon, Teamsters & Contract

Havana, Boston

The Militant (published by the Socialist Workers Party, SWP) published two, backward-looking articles in its issue dated January 20. The first, by Sara Lobman, is a hopelessly sentimental account of the Cuban "Revolution." The lede paragraph sets the tone.

“Under the leadership of Fidel Castro, the Cuban people carried out a successful socialist revolution by uniting working people on the basis of a program that championed their own independent class interests,” Socialist Workers Party National Committee member Róger Calero told some 60 people at a special meeting here Jan. 5. The gathering was a celebration of the 66th anniversary of the Jan. 1, 1959, Cuban Revolution and to demand an immediate end to Washington’s decadeslong economic war aimed at crushing the Cuban people and overturning their revolution.

It stretches credulity to count the so-called "socialist revolution" as a success. Today's Cuba--which is fearlessly leading us into a post-electric future--is not only short on electric power, but now can no longer feed or house its population. There's even a water shortage, since without electricity the water pumps don't work. Presumably neither do the sewage treatment plants.

There is almost no transport on the island. Above is a satellite view of central Havana taken from Google Maps. It shows the four-lane Malecon merging into the seven-lane Tunel de la Habana. Amidst all those lanes, there are only three (3) vehicles in view! Clearly, Cuba does not have a traffic congestion problem.

The source of the problem--according to both the SWP and the Cuban government--is America's "decadeslong economic war aimed at crushing the Cuban people and overturning their revolution." Well, the Cuban people certainly are crushed--of that there is no doubt. But for what? Is the "Revolution" worth anything more than the silly propaganda posters displayed everywhere on the island? What has Cuba gained by earning the undying enmity of the USA? Nothing, so far as I can see. Indeed, the only people who perceived any benefit to the "Revolution" were the 60 people in attendance at the meeting upon which Ms. Lobman reports.

None of the other Trotskyist grouplets on my Beat even bother to talk about Cuba--likely because it's too embarrassing. They don't talk about Venezuela, either. They're not willing to tout the ox-cart as the latest in socialist transportation solutions.

Basically, socialism sucks. Forget about Cuba Libre. I'll settle for a Cuba with abundant food, clean running water, livable housing, and a bustling marketplace in the city center. If that means cozying up to the USA, then so be it.

The second article, by Susan Lamont, is a peon to the good ol' days, entitled ‘Battle of Boston’ 50 years ago helped change US class struggle. I remember it well, for this was my swansong as I was well on my way out of the Movement by that then.

The event surrounded a rather bitter fight to desegregate Boston's public schools. The premise was that Black children would learn more if they sat next to white children. That was always implausible because the white children--or at least their parents--were adamantly against any Black kids in their schools. There were more or less violent protests as the occasionally racist, white parents objected to the destruction of what had hitherto been their neighborhood school.

The upshot relevant to me was an effort to form a national movement in favor of school bussing--called the National Student Coalition Against Racism, or NSCAR. The premise was ludicrous: 

1) Pretty much everybody is against racism, which made it unclear who are opponents were to be. Indeed, the only opposition we confronted were working class parents in a white neighborhood who wanted to preserve their neighborhood school.

2) The Black kids weren't keen on being bussed long distances to schools where they obviously weren't welcome.

3) The issue was mostly about Boston geography, and didn't catch on as a national crusade.

So NSCAR had exactly one meeting, and somehow I got shanghaied into driving my car with a load of comrades to attend the meeting. And I did do that--on the first day. It was extraordinarily, excruciatingly, unendingly boring. They'd rented an auditorium seating about 500 people, of which perhaps 150 seats were taken. Most attendees were comrades, but there were a few ultraleft sectarians mixed in (I think Workers' League). The only interesting moments were the rare instances when one of the sectarians got to speak--at least that wasn't completely predictable. I doubt there were more than 20 "independents" in the whole crowd.

Needless to say, it was the first, last, and only NSCAR meeting ever held--long forgotten until Ms. Lamont chose to resurrect it in this article.

Fortunately for me, I met a fellow comrade from another city who was as bored with the proceedings as I was. And since we were more interested in exploring Boston than sitting thru another day of BS, we arranged for digs as far from the conference site as we dared go, and then spent the next morning and into the afternoon exploring Boston. It's a glorious city and I'm so glad we did that!

So around 3pm we sheepishly showed up at the conference site, hoping to escape unnoticed. Didn't happen, because as soon as we walked in a prominent comrade--no longer in the Movement, but a man of some accomplishment--confronted us and asked what happened. We confessed, but didn't apologize. We got the side eye expression of disapproval--but then nothing. We didn't get reported to any higher-ups or subjected to any further discipline.

It was my first time as a comrade where I behaved "irresponsibly." I learned my lesson--and vowed never to be "responsible" again. I spent another year as a nominal, inactive member, and then dropped out completely. My fellow comrade behaved similarly.

Bussing has long since died. The effort was very disruptive and seriously damaged the public schools. It was also completely unnecessary. I asked ChatGPT:

How do the demographics of Boston Public Schools compare with the school age population of Boston as a whole?

It answered (excerpt only):

The racial composition of Boston Public Schools (BPS) differs notably from that of Boston's overall school-age population.

Boston Public Schools (BPS) Demographics (2023):

Hispanic/Latino: 44% 

Black or African American: 28%

Asian: 9%

White: 15%

Other/Multi-Racial: 4%

Boston's School-Age Population Demographics (2018-2019):

Black: 45%

White: 24%

Hispanic: 19%

Asian: 3%

Other: 9% 

I disagree with ChatGPT. Apart from a significant discrepancy among Hispanics, it doesn't seem like BPS demographics are way out of whack. Please tell me what problem here will be solved by bussing?

Further Reading:

• The End of Cuban Civilization
• Chicago: Ilona Gersh Runs for Mayor
• Louis Proyect Denies Being a White Supremacist

CUNY PSC Can't Help HEOs

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The Defense Department surely wins the contest for having the most acronyms, but a close second must be awarded to higher education. Even I--after 40 years in the business--am still encountering mysterious letter combinations. Today's set comes from a collection of essays entitled Voices From CUNY: Why We’re Voting No on the PSC’s Proposed Contract. The teaser paragraph reads

Workers from eight CUNY colleges speak out against their union’s proposed contract, which includes: inadequate raises for many job titles, workload increases and givebacks on job security for adjunct faculty, and no remote work protections for staff.

CUNY, as most of you likely know, stands for The City University of New York, a collection of 25 campuses from community colleges to graduate schools that purport to serve the citizens of that city. It is New York State's second largest system of public higher education, behind only SUNY (State University of New York), which includes 64 campuses outside the City, with similar scope. I worked for SUNY for most of my career.

Most readers are likely less familiar with PSC, denoting the Professional Staff Congress, which is the teachers' union representing professors and staff. These days that includes everybody from graduate assistants to full professors, along with many staff members. The union tries to capture dues from as many people as possible, even though their benefit in belonging to a union is negligible.

Among those staff members is an acronym I'd never encountered before: HEO. I asked Google AI for assistance.

At CUNY, an "HEO" stands for "Higher Education Officer," referring to a series of non-teaching administrative staff positions within the university, encompassing various administrative roles across different CUNY campuses; essentially, it signifies a professional working in a mid-level administrative role at the university.

I'm still not clear what this means--perhaps it's analogous to the classified services employees at SUNY, eg, secretaries and lower-level administrators. At SUNY those folks have a separate union.

None of the contributors to Voices from CUNY are HEOs, so it's left to Professor James Dennis Hoff to make their case.

The proposed contract also does nothing to secure remote work options for our HEO colleagues. This was the biggest demand for HEOs this contract round, and no progress was made on this question at all. This means that CUNY can end or limit remote work for HEOs anytime it feels like it.

Which is weird. The reason for a physical campus is ostensibly to provide students with one-on-one, in-person instruction. So allowing the HEOs to work from home seems counterproductive. I do know that the secretaries at SUNY are often the front face of the department, welcoming students and answering questions. Or perhaps Professor Hoff thinks that CUNY should move entirely on-line and dispense with in-person classes altogether? In which case everybody could work from home.

Meanwhile, the adjunct faculty are whining to high heaven. A contributor named Kamran writes,

I’m an adjunct at Lehman, and I’m poor, and I hate it. And if this contract goes through, in 2027, I will still be poor, and I will still hate it. $7K was the minimum I think we deserved — 10 years ago. In 2027, it won’t be enough. I will be enthusiastically voting no.

The $7K is payment for a three-credit-hour class, and admittedly it's slim pickings. 
Though at SUNY most adjuncts teach two classes per semester for two semesters per year (and maybe also in the summer)--which then comes to $28,000 per year. Still not much. As Tatiana Cozzarelli, an "adjunct lecturer," writes

Over the summer, I had a dream that we had gotten a contract at CUNY. ... But when I woke up, the reality was so different: I had 30 dollars in my bank account and was borrowing money from friends in order to make ends meet. I needed emergency dental surgery and I had to make a gofundme to pay for it. I’m not the only one. I know adjuncts who are on food stamps, especially over the summer. While CUNY President Felix Matos Rodriguez makes nearly $800,000 a year, adjunct professors just cannot make ends meet.

I have no idea if Mr. Rodriguez is over- or under-paid. But if you take his salary and share it among CUNY's 40,000 full- and part-time employees, the annual raise per employee is about $20. Not enough to get anybody off food stamps. Mr. Rodriguez's salary is--in budget terms--irrelevant.

Ms. Cozzarelli, who identifies as "...a former middle school teacher and current Urban Education PhD student at CUNY," needs to go find another job. Her salary reflects the value of her PhD, which is probably closer to zero. Almost anything she could do, eg, drive an Uber, would pay more and be a greater contribution to society than what she is doing now.

Professor Hoff, who is a member of the union's Delegate Assembly (an elected leadership body), contributes this:

[T]his memorandum of agreement is a pay cut, plain and simple. The proposed across the board wage increases for the life of the contract will equal only 2.82 percent per year. This comes after historic levels of inflation close to twenty percent since 2021. The proposed retroactive wages will do little to make up for that loss and probably will not even keep pace with inflation going forward. Even in the best-case scenario, this contract will actually bake in a nine percent pay cut across the board for all PSC-CUNY members. This comes on top of the lost value that our salaries have suffered since the New Caucus took power in 1999.

In other words, the union got peanuts--despite collecting union dues from Ms. Cozzarelli and her ilk. She's wasting what little money she has. But one has to wonder at the perfidy of the "New Caucus," which agreed to this contract. Why did they do that when it's obviously so bad?

I can think of a number of reasons:

1. Declining enrollments
2. Declining revenues from state and city governments
3. The necessity to keep all the adjuncts and HEOs employed, despite fewer students
4. An inability to continue deferring maintenance.

Etc. In other words, the New Caucus has to face reality. There is no plausible universe in which CUNY has enough money to make everybody happy. 

I think the contributors to Voices from CUNY are all members of what I call the Shutdown Caucus, of which Dr. Hoff is a leading spokesman. These people--who have never seen a strike they didn't like--think every workplace in America should be shut down until the bourgeoisie cough up their horde of gold coins. In particular, they think CUNY should be shut down with all 40,000 employees going unpaid while on strike. The analogy they present are the strikes at Starbucks, Amazon, the auto workers and at Boeing.

What they don't mention is that workers at Starbucks and Amazon, etc., actually do something useful--and for their labor they get paid by their customers. CUNY employees--ie, the professors, HEOs and adjuncts like Ms. Cozzarelli--don't do anything useful. They're effectively on the public dole--and if they went on strike nobody would even care.

They have no customers. Nobody voluntarily pays money to CUNY. Their entire budget is extorted through taxes on pain of imprisonment.

So please--go on strike. Save us all a dime.

Further Reading:

• Trump Won! Professor Hoff Says So
• Whiners & Complainers
• Amazon, Teamsters & Contract

 

What's Happening at Socialist Action?

It is my habit to send an announcement of every new post on this blog to my Trotskyist friends. Where I have an email address I use that, and otherwise I use X (the only thing I ever use X for). Socialist Action has an email address that they post here. Click the "email" button to discover the address, which is socialistaction@lmi.net. This has been routine for the past several months.

My email, sent on Dec. 31, elicited a return email like this: 

Friends,

I review Left Voice's coverage of the Amazon and Starbucks strikes here:

https://trotskyschildren.blogspot.com/2024/12/the-general-strike-fizzles.html

Peace,

Dan Jelski

to me

Your message to <jmackler@lmi.net> was automatically rejected:
Quota exceeded (mailbox for user is full)


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dan Jelski <trotskyschildren@gmail.com>
To: socialistaction@lmi.net, (other addresses deleted)
Cc: 
Bcc: 
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2024 17:09:19 -0500
Subject: The General Strike Fizzles                        

Two things to notice. First, I addressed the letter to socialistaction@lmi.net, yet the message came back as jmackler@lmi.net. This suggests that Mr. Mackler simply forwards email to Socialist Action to his own personal account. Or, put another way, Mr. Mackler is the only person in the "National Office."

The second notable fact is that the message was rejected because "(mailbox for user is full)." In other words, Mr. Mackler has not checked his email for some time. My first response was that I'd been blocked, but that's apparently not been the case. Mr. Mackler has, at worst, been diligently deleting my emails unread. But he's fallen down on the job.

So I conclude that the man is ill. Which is a shame, but given that he's 84 or 85 years old is perhaps not too surprising.

More disturbing is that Socialist Action has not planned for this eventuality. There's nobody around to even check the email account! So I think Socialist Action is defunct.

The website offers more clues. The last edition of their print/pdf newspaper dates from June, 2022. The last post to the website, written by Mr. Mackler, is dated Dec. 4th, ie, almost four weeks prior to my email. It is an article about Syria--I have not read it. It is in any case seriously out of date (Assad was still in power). Mr. Mackler also authored an article dated Nov. 29th. So whatever has happened has occurred fairly recently.

I've dubbed Mr. Mackler "Vanguard Man," suggesting that he, alone, possesses the precisely correct program capable of leading the proletariat to the coming revolution. If Vanguard Man is truly incapacitated, then the prognosis for world revolution is seriously diminished. Perish the thought!

I hold no personal animus against Mr. Mackler. I do hope for a speedy recovery and for a continuation of the Socialist Action website.

Further Reading:

• Oberlin? Mackler? Time Takes its Toll
• Socialist Action's Political Report
• Socialist Action's Convention, 2014