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

(Source)

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

The General Strike Fizzles

(Source)

 ‘Twas the Strike before Christmas, when all through the land,
   the workers were stirring, on strike to take a stand…

Madeleine Freeman

The optimism was palpable. Just days before Christmas workers at both Amazon and Starbucks went on strike, along with activist rumblings from students at CUNY. The working class was stirred. The game was afoot. Jeff Bezos would get his comeuppance after all. Left Voice author Madeleine Freeman expressed her high hopes in an article entitled Generation U Raises Its Head with a Roar. Her lede paragraphs (links omitted):

The working class is making history. 

In the middle of the holiday rush and massive profits for big business, Starbucks workers have just joined Amazon workers and gone on strike against one of the largest corporations in the country. Hundreds of workers are rising up against these union-busting companies who refuse to negotiate contracts that would guarantee real wage increases, job protections, and other much-need improvements to working conditions. Amazon and Starbucks workers, who have been at the forefront of a new wave of labor organizing amongst precarious sectors of workers in recent years, have had enough. 

The enthusiasm was echoed by three authors (Pola Posen, Jimena Vergara and James Dennis Hoff) in an article entitled Essential Workers at Amazon Are Rising Up for the Whole Working Class. Professor Hoff, in particular, is a leading spokesman for what I call the Shutdown Caucus--which believes that all workplaces should be shut down immediately, and stay shut down until the bourgeoisie coughs up it's (hypothetical and largely imaginary) trillions in gold coins.

He and his co-authors write:

On Thursday, December 19, Amazon drivers and warehouse workers at several distribution centers across the country began walking off the job in the middle of the holiday rush to protest low wages, awful working conditions, and the corporate giant’s ongoing refusal to recognize or to negotiate with the more than 10,000 workers who have formed local Amazon unions since 2022. ...

This strike is by far the most important labor action by the ALU since the workers at JFK8 formed their independent union in 2021. That first victory against Amazon was a shot heard ‘round the world, and these strikes show that the fighting spirit of that struggle lives on. These workers — many of whom are some of the most exploited and oppressed in the country, including people of color and immigrants often living on the edge of poverty — are facing off against one of the most powerful and ruthless corporations on the planet. 

The inaccuracies abound. First, Amazon claims a US workforce of about 1.1 million, so even at face value the number of strikers is trivial--less than 1%. And worse, Amazon doesn't count the drivers as employees, but rather as employees of contractors. The contractors collectively employ about 400,000 drivers, of which only 10,000 are Teamsters. Since the drivers do not work for Amazon (claims the company), the company disputes any necessity to negotiate with their union.

So the strike did not primarily involve the ALU (newly formed Amazon Labor Union). According to Alex Findijs, participation by the ALU in the walkout was minimus. He writes 

The Teamsters claims 5,500 members at JFK8 but did not report on how many workers had joined the picket lines. A reporting team from the WSWS last Saturday found the warehouse operating normally, with a small picket outside dominated by union officials.

(WSWS refers to the World Socialist Web Site, published by yet another Trotskyist grouplet whose history I have not followed. But the article by Mr. Findijs seems reasonably factual.) 

Speaking from my own personal experience, the packages I ordered from Amazon all arrived as scheduled. The strike was a dud.

Professor Hoff, et al, claim that "...founder, Jeff Bezos, made $48 billion off of Amazon workers in the first three months of the pandemic..." I have been unable to reproduce this figure. The closest I can come is this article from CNBC,  where author Annie Palmer, writing in 2021, reports that

The company forecast operating income of $3 billion to $6.5 billion in the fiscal first quarter, assuming the roughly $2 billion of costs related to Covid-19.

Amazon said sales in the first quarter will be between $100 billion and $106 billion, a slowdown from the fourth quarter of 2020, but an increase of between 33% and 40% from a year earlier. Analysts were expecting revenue of $95.8 billion.

"Operating income" is a proxy for profit, while net sales is the quarter's total revenue. In other words, Amazon's profit margin (before taxes) is about 5%. That means, of total revenue, 95% went to employees of Amazon, its drivers and its suppliers--in other words, to the workers. And that's the problem my friends in the Shutdown Caucus have--if the workers go on strike, they hurt themselves much more than management. They collectively lose 20x more money than the share holders.

That's why strikes usually don't work. Most often it's just the workers shooting themselves in the foot.

But let's not forget Starbucks--where approximately 500 stores were closed by strikers, out of the 10,000 company-owned stores in the US. The employees sacrificed 100% of their paychecks for the lost cause of getting a union contract from Starbucks. Starbucks, like Amazon, operates on thin margins and can't afford to pay a premium to the union. That's why the strikers will never, ever get a contract that is more generous than what Starbucks pays its non-union employees. They'll just close the stores before they do that.

Ms. Freeman puts it this way:

Starbucks has now stated publicly that it will offer a serious contract proposal before the end of the year, but workers say the company is not making good on any of their demands. Further, the company is trying to go around the union by offering concessions on its own terms to head off future organizing efforts at its other stores. One of workers’ central demands is for wage increases, but the company refuses to include immediate raises in the contract — in a slap to the face, the company offered a measly 1.5 percent wage increase for future years.

In any case it all fell apart. The "history making" working class just caved. As Mr. Findijs reports,

Thousands of Amazon and Starbucks workers returned to work this week after launching nationwide strikes. Thousands of Amazon drivers ended their week-long strike on Thursday, while an estimated 5,000 Starbucks workers ended a five-day strike on Christmas Day.

But let's not forget the silliness over at CUNY, as described by this article.

CUNY is the university of the working class of New York and that gives us organic and natural connections to workers including those at Amazon. Our solidarity with these workers is instrumental in furthering class struggle at this moment. Amazon is the largest employer in the United States, only behind Walmart which has no physical presence in New York City. This makes it all the more necessary for us CUNY students to stand in solidarity with Amazon workers as they create history in our very own city.

If the "working class" is conveniently defined as adults without a college degree, then I'll venture that none of our Left Voice authors are members of the working class. They're all at least as petty bourgeois as I am (me being a retired college professor). Their supposed solidarity with Amazon and Starbucks workers is just empty virtue-signaling.

More, I doubt any students are attending CUNY so that they can work in an Amazon warehouse. If they end up being Starbucks baristas, that won't be by choice. Instead they all aspire to professional/managerial jobs. Like their professors, they, too, want to join the petty bourgeoisie. I can't say as I blame them.

Workers don't need more "solidarity." What they need is more money, and that means more revenue from growing, thriving and successful businesses. Going on strike is hopelessly counterproductive.

Further Reading:

• Left Voice & the Election, 2024
• A Woman's Place is ...
• Labor Notes 2022: Starbucks

Trump Won! Professor Hoff Says So

Trump divides the working class: four on his left, three on his right.
(Photo source: Doug Mills-Pool)

It seems like every Left Voice author wants to weigh in on Trump's electoral victory. See, eg, here, here and here. But by far the best of the genre is this piece by Professor James Dennis Hoff (associate professor, CUNY English Department) entitled Trump Wants to Divide the Working Class — We Must Fight to Unite It. It's good because--professorial status notwithstanding--Dr. Hoff is a good writer and a clear thinker.

Indeed, the professor's piece is as clear a summary of the returns as you will find anywhere, and if only for that reason I suggest you read it. He writes (links omitted)

In contrast to Kamala Harris, who looks set to receive about six million fewer votes than Joe Biden in 2020, Trump is actually on target to win close to four million more votes than last time — when he and Joe Biden each received the largest number of votes ever in a presidential election. In fact, Trump may win almost as many additional votes this election as there were additional eligible voters. In 2020, there were more than 240 million eligible voters, compared to 244 million in 2024, which is shaping up to be the second largest turnout of eligible voters in history. At the same time, exit polls show that 71 percent of voters said they were voting “for their candidate” rather than against their opponent in 2024, compared to 62 percent in 2020.

And then follows a detailed description of the results, which I condense into bullet points (links omitted):

• "...Harris likely won a smaller percentage (about two points) of votes from women than Biden did in 2022."
• "Meanwhile, Latino voters, particularly Latino men, turned out in record-breaking numbers for Trump. 46 percent of Latino voters chose Trump this election, ..."
• "Trump won 16 percent of the Black vote this election compared to 8 percent in 2020 and just 6 percent in 2016. Harris, on the other hand, lost about ten percent of the Black vote compared to Biden. Most astounding perhaps is that this increase in Black votes for Trump seems to have happened across the entire country: in blue states as well as red states, and in cities as well as suburbs."
• "Even in New York City, where he took more than 30 percent of the vote, Trump performed well in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods."

In other words, Kamala lost by a landslide--she lost ground compared to Biden and other Democrats in almost every demographic constituency you can think of.

Which, of course, begs the question: 

Why has this happened, and how should the Left respond?

His argument begins this way:

While many working people no doubt voted for Trump because they are deeply worried about their own and their family’s economic well-being, many unfortunately also did so with the full understanding that he plans to increase attacks on the rights of women and trans people, that he will likely further weaken already weak labor laws, and that he plans to deport a million so-called illegal immigrants. 

It's not clear to me how Professor Hoff thinks Trump will attack the rights of women. If he's referring to abortion, that's pretty much a non-issue as far as Trump is concerned. It is now a matter for state legislatures (which is where the issue legitimately belongs).

Regarding the rights of trans people, I think our professor friend is on pretty thin ice here as well. Nobody denies the rights of trans people guaranteed under the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Those are rights that we all have--you, me, Professor Hoff, and every last trans person. What Professor Hoff claims is that trans people should have rights beyond those that the rest of us have, eg, the right to use women's restrooms. Neither Dr. Hoff nor I have the right to use women's restrooms--and there's nothing in the Constitution that would guarantee that right to trans people.

Standards of public decency are established at state and municipal levels. There is no reason why trans people should be exempt from those standards. Indeed, the existing rules for bathroom use are very sensible and are designed to protect women and girls from male (ie, anybody with a penis) predators.

Trump's most effective ad campaign (arguably the most effective ad campaign of all time) ended with the tag line Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you. It's an effective pun: they/them can refer to the minuscule portion of the population that is legitimately trans, or it can refer to any special interest (eg, pharmaceutical firms) that tries to take advantage of voters--trans people being among the loudest special interests.

The prohibition of trans people on women's sports teams is equally rooted in biology and common sense. There is no Constitutional right to play on a girl's soccer team. Sorry.

Regards immigration, Professor Hoff writes,

On the question of immigration, in particular, the Right has relentlessly and successfully argued that what they call “illegal immigrants” are not only draining the national coffers, but negatively contributing to everything from unemployment, to low wages and higher rents, and many people — many of them immigrants themselves — are increasingly open to those explanations.

Along with the Professor, I will also take issue with the idea that immigrants are draining the national coffers. Indeed, to the extent they pay sales, property and payroll taxes they are contributing to the national coffers--not least helping to pay for my considerable medical bills covered by Medicare. I'm very grateful for that.

But on the other issues Professor Hoff is just wrong. Immigrants (illegal or otherwise) do compete for jobs and housing. That competition has the market effect of lowering wages and raising rents. Native born and immigrant citizens are right to raise that concern. As the professor points out, "Many Latino voters in those counties [along the Rio Grande] said they voted for Trump because they think stricter regulations on immigration will protect their jobs and livelihoods." Plus the large and sudden influx of immigrants is socially destructive and ruins communities.

Working people are responding to obvious threats to their way of life. They are not irrational victims of Trumpian misinformation and Democratic Party perfidy. Professor Hoff does not give the American working class credit for having an intelligent opinion (which, given that he's a professor, isn't surprising).

Then, in the professor's opinion, Trump is not a friend of the working man. He will, for example, sponsor a bunch of anti-union regulations that will make it much harder for organized labor. He does ding the unions for not being very good at their jobs, writing

Indeed, as Sou Mi explains, while organized labor has made gains for higher paid manufacturing workers, it has largely failed to address the problems of some of its most precarious workers, particularly those in the logistics sector, including Amazon and UPS, who are predominantly Black and Latino ..."

The economics of Amazon and UPS (along with Walmart, Starbucks, and many other companies) preclude a successful union movement--the profit margins are too small. I described that in detail here in an article explaining why Amazon has not yet signed a contract with the new union.

The fact is that today's modern union movement is oriented to the professor types, like Dr. Hoff. Unlike workers in the real world, Dr. Hoff gets his salary from the government--he's on the public dole. Since the government never needs to earn a profit it can be very generous with the largesse. The teachers' unions are especially effective at extorting taxpayers--including new immigrant taxpayers.

I think most workers in the private sector see through the scam and are becoming less interested in unionization--especially since the efforts at Amazon and Starbucks have not led to an improvement in their working conditions.

Professor Hoff tells us

Most working people, after all, know that Trump is also no solution, even many who voted for him. In this sense there are plenty of reasons why the working class shift toward Trump’s ideas this election may be short lived, especially if he actually follows through with his plans for the economy and immigration reform.

My main beef with this paragraph is there are no solutions--there are only trade-offs. Professor Hoff foolishly thinks his silly Marxism is going to solve all problems--he's just wrong. And most people know he's wrong, which is why Left Voice only has about 50 members.

I don't know how durable Trumpism will be, but I think he'll do a better job representing the working class than that cloud of academic pinheads that are at the core of the Democrat Party--including Professor Hoff. 

Further Reading:

• Sam Karlin Makes a Mess of the Middle East
• A Woman's Place is ...
• Unions and Work From Home

Election 2024, Trotskyists' Unanimous Opinion

(Source)

They're unanimous--all the Trotskyist grouplets which I follow believe that a mass, independent working class party is the solution to all America's problems. 

Jimena Vergara, writing in Left Voice states it clearly in her closing sentence.

For this, we need not only a united front against the Right, but also a political party of the working class and oppressed with a socialist program that unites our struggles and gives us the foundation with which to fight for a better world. 

In an article posted in Socialist Action, guest authors Malik Miah and Barry Sheppard proclaim that

Fundamental change only occurs through class struggle. Mass action is the only road toward rebuilding the union movement, independent organizations of Blacks, women and all the oppressed, the revolutionary socialist movement and a mass workers party championing all the oppressed and exploited, and ultimately a socialist revolution.

Meanwhile, The Militant (published by the Socialist Workers Party--SWP) in an article by Terry Evans, opines that

The SWP candidates are unionists, joining strike picket lines and building solidarity wherever they go. They’ve explained why workers need to break from the bosses’ political parties and build a party of our own, a party of labor, that can fight to take political power.

A working class party has never existed in the United States. It has existed in other countries (UK, Germany, Canada, etc.), but in every case it has evolved into a "reformist" party that resembles the American Democrats. Many of those parties, like the German Social Democrats led by the formidable Karl Kautsky, are direct heirs of Marx and Engels. It is both ironic and instructive that Marxist parties should end up as bourgeois, reformist institutions.

Our Trotskyist friends never ask why there has never been a successful workers' party anywhere in the western world. (They'll claim the Russian Revolution was a success--though it certainly didn't turn out that way.) The reason for that perennial failure is because Marxism is just wrong.

The basic tenet of Marxism is that the driver of history is the intractable, insoluble, existential conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Only one class can win, and that class must be the proletariat, according to our Trotskyist friends. But this is wrong--workers and capitalists are on the same side in most things: both of them need to maximize sales revenue in order to succeed. For the workers (who often claim more than 90% of revenue) it means more jobs and higher wages. For the capitalist it's the source of profit. Without revenue, both of them will starve.

Consumers are on the other side of the equation. They want better quality at lower prices and with improved service. They usually get what they want--which is why our standard of living has steadily improved since the dawn of the industrial revolution. The customer is always right.

That fundamental misunderstanding of basic economics is why Trotskyists never make any progress with their pipedream. All real workers need to cooperate with their capitalist bosses. Workers definitely do not want to overthrow the whole damn system.

This explains why Donald Trump is a tribune of the working class. He realizes that corporate taxes don't just take money away from the bosses--they take even more money away from the workers. He understands that over-the-top environmental regulations won't just put Exxon-Mobil out of business, but also put all the people who work in fossil-fuel related industries out of a job. Trump realizes that exaggerated Wokery adds a cost to doing business that will reduce revenue and hurt both the capitalists and the workers.

Our Trotskyist friends delude themselves in thinking they own the Truth: that because of their leadership as the Vanguard Party, the scales of false-consciousness shall fall from proletarian eyes, and they shall see the light and flock to the revolutionary banner. In fact, the people most afflicted with false consciousness are the Trotskyist grouplets, which is why they remain grouplets.

The villain of the piece--the organization most responsible for false consciousness--is the Democratic Party. All our Trotskyist friends claim to hate the Democrats. But here the movement divides into two factions: one, led by the SWP, better understands why Trump is popular among real workers, and thus support many of the things Trump does. In other words, they think Trump is the chief agent of false consciousness.

Accordingly, the SWP defend Trump when his positions are defensible. They strongly protested the relentless lawfare as an attack on the civil liberties of all Americans. They object to the expensive, petty bourgeois climate agenda championed by other Trotskyists and their Democrat friends. They oppose the Woke silliness espoused by Democrats and other Trotskyists.

At the same time, they oppose Trump. Terry Evans writes,

Trump seeks to refurbish the image of the Republican Party as a party for workers. But he’s a real-estate-dealing capitalist in search of the highest profits. And his campaign seeks to demonize a section of the working class — immigrant workers with and without papers — in an effort to convince workers this is the cause of their worsening situation, not capitalism. This divides and weakens the working class and labor movement.

They accuse Trump of the same crime for which our other friends condemn the Democrats--namely trafficking in false consciousness. But they realize that the majority of the working class does, indeed, support Trump, and often for good reasons.

The other faction--represented by all other grouplets, but most prominently by Left Voice, subscribe to the Democratic Party's position (at least that of its Progressive faction) 100% of the time. They accuse the Democrats of not really believing what they say they want, but rather of cynically promoting false consciousness.

A classic response from that second faction comes from Left Voice author Tatiana Cozzarelli.  Apparently completely detached from proletarian sensibilities, she writes,

I teach on Wednesday mornings and on November 6, I was met with students who were in a shocked silence. They were in the 6th grade when Trump won the last election and again, this racist, misogynist authoritarian would take the White House. Some of them cried, thinking of friends and family who might get deported.  

For many, it was grief, fear and disbelief. When they hear “mass deportations,” it means their uncle, their mother, themselves. 

What to say to these 19 year olds? I wish I could just tell them it would be okay. That they won’t get deported. That they are safe. 

I can’t promise they will be safe. 

I can’t say to them that in two years voting Democrat will fix it– that would be a lie.

So she teaches at a CUNY school in New York City, where she is also a PhD student in "Urban Education" (whatever the hell that is). She obviously doesn't get around much, and obviously isn't a member of the working class. Trump won a majority of "working class" votes, defined as voters without a college degree. That certainly doesn't apply to Ms. Cozzarelli, who is wasting her time and our money getting a useless PhD.  

Trump won the election--in today's context by a landslide. Trotskyists have no clue why. Trump tells the truth when he claims to be a tribune of the working class. Our Trotskyist friends don't understand reality.

Further Reading:

• Kamala vs. Trump: The Decline of America?
• Whiners & Complainers
• SWP Announces 2024 Presidential Campaign