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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:
- They don't understand class struggle.
- They don't understand the role of the unions.
- They don't know what "solidarity" means.
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.
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