Last month, two unions refused to endorse either presidential candidate. On September 13, the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) released a statement making no endorsement and calling for the creation of a labor party. The UE is a small union with a history of left-wing politics since its founding in 1936. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, America’s fourth largest union with 1.3 million members, also refused to endorse either the Democratic or Republican candidate. On October 3, the executive board of the 350,000 member International Association of Firefighters also voted to not endorse Trump or Harris.
“Workers desperately need an independent political organization”
The UE and Teamsters came to the same decision for very different reasons. The UE’s statement makes several excellent appraisals of the political situation. It criticizes both parties for being controlled by corporations and for being out of touch with the working class. The UE is right to say:
Working people desperately need an independent political organization, based on a political program that can unite us, which can fight for that platform in the electoral arena—in short, a labor party … an organization that can fight for bold pro-worker policies, mobilize people in the streets—and win elections.
Establishing a working-class party would be an enormous step forward. Workers would finally have a vehicle to fight for our own class interests. But the only way such a party could really implement “bold pro-worker policies” and improve our living conditions is by ending the rule of the capitalist class once and for all.
The UE also correctly concludes that using the Democratic Party ballot line, as the Working Families Party and Bernie Sanders have done, is a dead end. But further down, the statement falls into the same, tired lesser evilism which has long plagued the labor movement. The union doesn’t make an “official” endorsement, but it still calls upon its members to “strategically vote against Trump by voting for the only viable candidate running against him—which is now Kamala Harris.” This is similar to 2016, when the union “recommended as a tactical approach that our [UE] members go to the polls and vote for Clinton,” and 2020, when they called on their members to “elect Joe Biden.”
The UE’s statement criticizes both parties for being controlled by corporations and for being out of touch with the working class. / Image: United Electrical Workers (UE), Facebook
Bosses are preparing an offensive
Throughout the statement, the UE repeatedly makes bold, accurate criticisms of lesser evilism, identity politics, and capitalism—before giving ground to them later on. Workers are under massive pressure from capitalist ideology. The unions, especially those claiming to be our most stalwart organs of struggle, must make a clean break not only from the bosses’ parties, but also from the reactionary ideas used to prop them up. The crisis of capitalism and its two parties is only deepening. In order to maintain profits, the bosses are preparing an offensive against workers. It is, therefore, an immediate and urgent task for unions to begin organizing a labor party.
While there’s a long history of American workers fighting to organize a party of our own, the UE is the only union calling for a labor party this election year. The question is whether or not these are just words. Action is required. The UE leaders should put forward a concrete proposal to begin building a labor party. It’s too late to field candidates for 2024, but the UE should run 10 workers as independent labor candidates for Congress in 2026. If they can’t put forward 10, they should run as many as possible. The UE could then call on other unions and union workers—along with unorganized workers who want to join unions—to participate in the campaign. The RCA will be first in line to help! Whether or not these candidates win, independent labor campaigns will get the message out: neither Democrats or Republicans represent the working-class majority!
Teamsters President Sean O’Brien spoke highly of Trump from the rostrum of July’s RNC. / Image: fair use
Anger building in a leadership vacuum
The Teamsters’ decision to not endorse Harris produced enormous backlash—both in the union and across the national labor leadership.
This is a reflection of enormous anger building up in the working class. Without a real explanation of why living conditions continue to decline or how the working class can fight back, this class rage expresses itself in distorted forms. The majority of the ruling class blames Trump for all the country’s problems, while a smaller wing blames the Democrats. No major labor leader is explaining that the problem is the capitalist system itself, and we must break with both wings of the ruling class!
Sean O’Brien was elected president of the Teamsters in 2022. He won by allying himself with the Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) reform caucus, despite formerly belonging to the establishment Hoffa administration. O’Brien is a contradictory character. In 2023, he refused to launch an all-out struggle for the best possible UPS contract, but he’s also shown himself somewhat more independent-minded than his labor leader peers.
O’Brien spoke highly of Trump from the rostrum of July’s RNC. This was a cardinal sin for Democrats and liberals, who subsequently denied him a speaking slot at the DNC. Both Harris and Trump have a degree of support within the Teamsters’ rank and file. The leadership polled members three times between April and September, and Trump came out ahead twice. In contrast, bureaucrats and officials in the Teamsters, as in most unions, strongly favor Harris and the Democrats.
By conducting these polls, O’Brien put the union in an awkward position. Endorsing the Democrats would go against the clear wishes of the majority of members, while a Trump endorsement would have been unacceptable to thousands of Teamsters officials across the nation. The TDU and its leader Fred Zuckerman, who voted for no endorsement, have, significantly, not made any statement of their own. Many areas’ joint councils, the Teamsters National Black Caucus, and other Teamster groups have since come out in favor of Harris—a move that cannot have endeared them to a significant segment of their memberships.
Neither Democrats or Republicans represent the working-class majority. / Image: RCA
The way forward
This whole farcical episode shows there is enormous pressure from below to break from the Democrats. Unfortunately, this cannot yet find a genuine working-class expression. The Teamsters’ national leadership has certainly proved unable to lead in this regard. We must be clear—neither Harris nor Trump can solve any problems workers face, as they both steadfastly support the system that exploits and oppresses us. On top of this, the capitalist system is in serious decline.
The labor lieutenants of capital are lambasting O’Brien in the labor press for speaking at the RNC and not endorsing Harris. O’Brien is a political opportunist and probably a Trump voter. Despite this, the attacks on him are hypocritical. In no other major union are the members involved in deciding whether or not to endorse the Democrats, let alone given the choice to endorse no one or instead form a labor party. In fact, during the 2016 and 2020 Bernie Sanders campaigns, union leaders came out aggressively in favor of Clinton and Biden against most members’ wishes.
O’Brien has earned the ire of the same bureaucrats who proclaimed Joe Biden “the most pro-labor president in history.” Their Democratic champion subsequently failed to pass the milquetoast PRO Act and illegalized the 2022 rail strike. These commentators desperately cling to Biden’s “pro-labor” NLRB appointments—ignoring the fact that the agency itself is the class enemy’s tool for binding and restraining the labor movement, enforcing whatever reactionary laws and decisions come down from Congress and the Supreme Court.
Cracks are starting to show in the long and disastrous alliance between organized labor and the Democratic Party. If elected, Trump will show no way forward and many of his working-class supporters will become disillusioned with him. Right now, workers need answers to their most pressing questions: How can we fight and win higher wages and benefits? How can we get better working conditions? How can we fight against layoffs? The RCA has answers to these questions. We must build the leadership that the working class deserves.