The Virginia Worker

The Virginia Worker Editorial Board has published the following statement on the labor misleaders who push the working class into submission to the two capitalist parties and their politicians as they work against the necessary formation of an independent working class party and politics.

With the recent endorsement by the United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain of Joe Biden in the 2024 US presidential election and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien’s liaison with Donald Trump it should come as no surprise to workers where these union leaders support lies. After much posturing by both union presidents of their militancy, such as the UAW’s call for a ceasefire in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict or O’Brien’s verbal sparring with Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin, the reality is these union leaders and those who support them have always been in the pockets of capitalist politicians and their two parties. 

It was O’Brien who backed Biden’s strikebreaking of the railroad workers in 2022. And that Fain caved so quickly after initially refusing to endorse Joe Biden, especially after UAW signed the statement demanding Biden call for a ceasefire, shows how hollow their support for workers is. As these events have unfolded the US Bureau of Labor recently announced the latest figures of US union membership. Despite the so-called revival of unions, membership has continued to drop. The US right now is at its lowest point in history of union membership with only single-digit representation in the private sector. This is an absolutely dismal time for the US working class. We are in crisis with much of the blame falling onto the labor misleaders who run US unions. They are traitors to the working class, they are pawns of the rich and their political parties as they leech off the dues of workers while delivering nothing substantial but the guarantee that the degradation of the working class will continue.

We need labor leaders who recognize and fight from a position which understands the working class and the boss class having nothing in common. That no union should be wasting workers’ dues on funding capitalist parties and politicians. That unions must only support a political party of the working class, which is the only political organization capable of representing the interests of workers. That no such party exists today is no excuse to displace the issue for some time later as we face yet another “most important election of our lives”. That a con artist like Donald Trump has a serious chance of recapturing the White House only proves how worthless Joe Biden and the Democrats are, and how little faith the majority of US workers have in these capitalist parties and their government. We will never defeat reactionary forces by tailing one wing of capitalists over another. In fact this is a guaranteed way to ensure the victory of reaction over the working class domestically and internationally. 

We will see no improvements, no greatness for workers until we have a radical change in strategy and political orientation. It is incumbent that all union and non-union workers unite to form our own class party with a political program that illuminates the path towards working class power. Union members must call for a banning of their union funds to all capitalist parties. Union members must call for their unions’ endorsement to create and fund a working class party accountable to workers.