Labor Under Trump

Trump’s second presidency has sent shockwaves throughout the world as he smashes up the liberal status quo in order to reassert U.S. imperialism’s global dominance. Internationally, the Trump administration has attacked Iran, propped up Israel and continues to squeeze Latin America, especially its colony, Puerto Rico. At home, we’ve seen escalating police repression, ICE raids of hospitals, schools, farms and workplaces while a financial recession hangs over our heads.

Trump isn’t just some accidental tyrant of Western democracy, carelessly stomping on the world. Right now, he is U.S. imperialism’s best guy to protect their core interests as they get ready for bigger conflicts with other countries. In the last 30 years of the liberal status quo, U.S. economic dominance has slipped. That’s because major industry was shipped off to the Global South as the U.S. military intervened in one country after the next, overextending itself in “forever wars.” In the meantime, other countries have developed economically, and China has become a major economic power, stepping on the toes of the American imperialists. The imperialists can’t have it anymore. To force reindustrialization of the U.S., the ruling class needs Trump to use openly reactionary methods to keep us workers and other countries down. The attacks won’t stop anytime soon.

Collective defense actions are needed to give us workers the best possible chance of surviving this period in one piece and being able to fight back further. But we haven’t seen any serious working-class resistance. That’s because the current trade-union leaderships—regardless of whether they back Trump or the Democrats—have made the unions weak and passive, begging for scraps off the masters’ table. They refuse to mobilize the unions to beat back the bosses’ attacks, forget about Trump’s broader attacks, because doing so would piss off the ruling class whose empire they support.

Because of these misleaders, workers in one industry after another are atomized and pitted against each other by race, tier and craft, to name a few ways. All these divisions are obstacles to uniting the class even for small-scale defensive actions. But it didn’t and doesn’t have to be this way. Coming out of the pandemic, the working class was ready to fight for what it had lost, and major class battles erupted, from auto to aerospace. These strikes could have won and changed the game for the working class, but the union misleaders held them back in order to avoid causing too much trouble for the liberal Democrats.

This cost the working class a lot and led to worsening working and living conditions for many of us. Because of this, a large section of the working class shifted to the right and voted for Trump after four years of economic ruin, massive homelessness and deepened racial divisions under Biden. The Trump voters included many black and Hispanic workers. They hate the hypocrisy of Democratic Party liberals, who told them to feel bad for other oppressed groups while food was taken out of their mouths and money out of their pockets. It’s no wonder that many chose Trump hoping for some sort of economic relief. While some of our working-class brothers and sisters are experiencing “buyer’s remorse,” many more still back Trump. This isn’t because they’re deplorable people, but because the Republicans have succeeded in convincing them that immigrants and other oppressed people are the source of their misery, not the bosses.

We Have to Pick Our Shots

The bureaucracies’ betrayals, weakened unions and lack of a real fightback against Trump’s attacks have many workers feeling hopeless and keeping their heads down with the aim of just clocking in and out. Of course, this has worked out perfectly for the bosses, who continue to bleed us dry and push divisions in the working class. And these divisions will only get worse as our economic position continues to deteriorate.

The main point of this conference is to help those fighting in the unions and the workplace to understand why the working class is in the state it is in and how to deal with the day-to-day issues on the job, knowing that we will not win over the working masses in their current state. That does not mean giving up the fight. No, we still have a job to do. It’s just that the fight looks different. It’s fighting from a position of defense when a majority of the class does not want to stick its neck out. Protecting the small gains that we have now is necessary to lessen the damage from any attacks by the bosses and the Trump administration.

Many of our coworkers are scared and refuse to engage in political discussion. What I hear at work is: “It’s always been like this and will always be like this.” And what I see is more and more of the individualistic mentality of “let me take care of me and my own.” We working-class fighters tend to react to this by pushing for some collective action at work. We see the divisions playing out every day and try to unite our coworkers to fight the bosses.

But recently, many of us have been met with a wall of apathy. And then we try to push harder against that wall, only to make no dent and burn ourselves out. The working class is in a horrible situation, unable to go on the offensive and facing great obstacles to even maintaining what it has now. We must understand this because the last thing we need is for militant workers to fight so hard without results that they become further isolated and frustrated and walk away from the class struggle.

I’d like to give an example of pushing for action that at this point would not be effective. Just recently, I wanted to call for immigrant defense committees at my unionized workplace that would mobilize to get ICE to back down in the event of a raid. Obviously, such action is needed and would be far different from the bureaucrats’ usual do-nothing “know your rights” campaigns. But that alone does not mean it was advisable to charge forward.

To give some background, my union is majority black and Hispanic. Many of these workers are either immigrants or come from an immigrant background, just like me. Almost every day, my coworkers talk about the ICE raids, and the dominant feelings are disbelief and fear. But I also have a couple of coworkers whose reaction is “we got to get these agents.” These workers are looking to a drastic alternative because of the lack of much-needed working-class intervention. If anything, workers who are in fear and workers who want “to get these agents” are two sides of the same coin of despair.

The aim of forming this committee was to bring courage to those who are afraid and channel the anger of the others so that they wouldn’t do something stupid. At the same time, it was supposed to put the union leadership—which claims to be fighters for the oppressed—on the spot. That seems like a pretty just and righteous action, right? But the question isn’t if something is just and righteous. The question is: Where are my coworkers’ heads at right now? As I said, they did not want to draw unnecessary attention. In this case, calling for committees that required a confrontation with not only ICE but also the bosses and the union bureaucracy would’ve pushed the fearful elements away from me, further frustrating the angry coworkers.

That doesn’t mean we don’t look to set up immigrant defense committees at all; we just need to be clear as to when it’s the right time to call for them. And there will be openings, especially when there’s a raid in my workplace or a similar one in my part of the country. But this hasn’t yet happened, unlike on the West Coast. Once that changes, there’s more of a chance that workers will want to do something, especially when they feel that something like an ICE raid directly impacts their lives or the lives of people they know. The point is, we want to be around and not burned out when there are opportunities to push forward collective working-class defense.

Patience Is a Must

We have to be straight up about what’s going on. The working class has been beaten down with the help of the trade-union leaders and is paralyzed in the face of growing right-wing reaction. Because of this, we cannot and will not change the current situation with the few fighters we have in the unions. In my case, I cannot and will not be able to protect all my coworkers. Thinking that one person can take on such a task will lead to demoralization. It’s a hard pill to swallow, believe me, because as working-class fighters we want not only to fight for workers, but to protect them too. But the quicker we accept what we have to work with, the quicker we can work with it. What we must do as class-conscious workers is brace for the oncoming attacks by taking a step back and preparing ourselves and our closest coworkers for what’s to come. And it’s not some kind of betrayal to do this. In fact, it is absolutely necessary to take a step back and preserve ourselves in order to be alive and politically relevant when the situation changes in the working class’s favor.

But what does “preparing ourselves and our closest coworkers” mean? The exact answers will be different across different industries. One way to start preparing is by pushing back against the individualistic attitude that is dominant in the class right now. You can do this by explaining how it’s only through the working class coming together as a collective force that we have a better chance of surviving the next round of brutal attacks. It may seem like a small task, but at this point it’s a profound thing to argue. And it can push consciousness forward.

The next point I want to make is to guard against looking inward when we don’t get the results we were hoping for. At work, I have been trying to expose how the union leadership holds us back by tying us to the bosses and the Democrats. This is all in an effort to break up the cliques that the bureaucrats have consolidated over the years and win my coworkers to the perspective that we have the power to change the situation in our industry. While I have a base of support that knows I am fighting to strengthen the union, nobody else will stick out their neck. Other coworkers steer clear of me because they are in cliques with the union reps or do not want to engage in politics at all.

Those of us fighting in the workplace have been disappointed and have sometimes despaired at not getting or losing the hearing of our coworkers. The result has been workers blaming themselves and thinking they either didn’t fight hard enough or didn’t make the right arguments. I find myself doing this all the time, thinking that “I’m not doing what I’m supposed to be doing.” This inward-looking approach will only lead to exhaustion and demoralization. It needs to be understood that the current setup has been around for decades. You will not disrupt this setup overnight, especially when the class has moved to the right. We are limited in what we can do. It takes patience to build up a profile among our coworkers as serious and level-headed fighters who look for opportunities to push forward collective working-class defense while being conscious of the obstacles the class faces.

Examples of Defensive Struggle

I’ll give a couple of examples where our friends were able to establish a name for themselves. In West Coast longshore, our supporter was able to put the Committee to End Tier Segregation in the ILWU on the map by taking up a successful fight against the ILWU Local 10 bureaucracy’s repeated attempts to impose new job dispatch rules. The new rules would have amounted to a new tier in the already tier-divided workforce. Dozens of coworkers, including many who would have been impacted by the new tier, signed up for the committee—but still do not agree fully with its purpose: to put an end to segregation by tiers in the union. The tier setup heavily mirrors racial segregation in society. Our work is long-term, even in victory. Patience is key.

Another small but important fight is being waged by a friend who is a white worker in a union, which like others, is racially segregated. Many black workers across the country are skeptical of the possibility of white workers ever fighting on their behalf. This is a consequence of the bosses keeping black workers on the bottom and of the refusal of the union leadership to do anything meaningful about it. So, our friend showed by example that white workers can and do fight for black and all other coworkers, and in the process he gave them a sense of the value of the union. He filed a grievance against the bosses’ violation of the contract and pursued it in a way that could benefit workers of both races.

He did so despite the initial opposition of the union bureaucracy, and his persistence forced the bureaucrats to defend the membership in this case. This doesn’t mean that our friend has sealed up the racial divisions that plague the union, but it’s a small start. The only way to bridge the gulf between what is and what is necessary, is to look for any opportunity to try to bridge racial divisions and convince other white workers that a struggle for racial equality will improve everyone’s conditions.

Another crucial way to prepare for what’s to come is to read. That may seem simple enough, but reading about past struggles of the workers movement, nationally and internationally, is important to political development. Reading arms workers and improves their ability to deal with their immediate situation at work, including by learning from the mistakes of the movement and hopefully how to not repeat them. Reading James P. Cannon and Leon Trotsky on the trade unions can only help root us in our historic task and solidify us as working-class fighters.

The period that we’re in is both reactionary and unstable. And as far as we can see, it will get worse before it gets better. Although this may sound pessimistic, there’s no reason to be hopeless or to despair. It’s a time of careful retreat, preparing and arming ourselves and our coworkers, so that we can brace for the coming attacks and fight when it’s time. This is our task right now and the main way to organize the most conscious elements at this point. We need to be honest about which fights we can wage, keeping in mind that we will not win every battle. This isn’t because there’s a lack of will to fight back among working-class militants, but because the political position of the entire working class has been degraded so much that workers are apathetic even about issues tied directly to their immediate conditions.

I can offer some optimism right now. Constant reaction will be met with struggle, and there is tremendous power in the American working class. The question is: Will there be people there who will guide the working class when they finally say: “Enough is enough”? Elements of that leadership are here today in this room, and we should be looking to form a nucleus—a small core of workers—to provide leadership when the working class does move.