Long Live Internationalism!
As we have warned, union organizing is the beginning, not the end, of class consciousness. This week, the United Auto Workers proved that it is a corrupt organization, its very bones riddled with the infection of political opportunism. Shawn Fain, mastermind of the UAW strike, hailed by the naive and undiscerning as a new labor hero, gave a full-throated endorsement of Butcher Biden and encouraged all UAW workers to vote for him. On the same day, protestors at one of Genocide Joe’s events were drowned out by UAW workers who support the murderous president of the current White House regime.
You heard that right! Butcher Biden, who spent a huge amount of his presidency breaking the backs of unions, endorsing anti-union legislation, and chastising workers for asking for too much, is the new darling and political ally of the supposed firebrand Shawn Fain. This man, who proclaimed his intention to organize toward a general strike and a shutdown of the U.S. imperial economy in favor of the workers, has come out in a full-throated endorsement of the genocidaire that his own rank and file denounced mere weeks prior.
Unionism, when untethered from the international struggle for the rights of the working people, is merely political opportunism. In 2018, the UAW president made $207,000 from his UAW salary alone — hardly the wage of a struggling proletarian — even after a voice vote from the union delegates voted down that 2018 salary increase. Fain has followed in the footsteps of the past presidents of the big business unions and accepted the crumbs of imperialist superprofits for his members while bowing to the unholy union of labor and capital that is represented by the Democratic Party.
Fain has abandoned the surging internationalism pressing him from below. Rank and file UAW members, ever staunch internationalists, have called for a ceasefire resolution from Butcher Biden. They’ve gone so far as to interrupt Biden speeches. “A president who supports genocide and is actively funding weapons to israel to kill children, families, that’s not something that I feel has earned my endorsement,” said member Johannah King-Slutzky. At least 500 UAW workers signed the ceasefire petition circulated internally in the UAW. Indeed, the union has its own committee called UAW Labor for Palestine. As recently as last week, Fain said “We don’t stop our fight for justice because it’s not the right time. When and where there’s a war, whether it’s in Vietnam or Gaza, we call for peace.”
But Fain can’t put his money where his mouth is. He’s constitutionally prevented from it! Only a resurgent internationalist movement from within the rank and file of the UAW can overthrow the stagnant slime of opportunism; if it is not swift and powerful, upsetting the entire order of the union and throwing off the old, Democrat-loyal chains for independent action, it won’t be long before the UAW lobbying arm is pouring union money — rank and file members’ money — into Genocide Joe’s campaign chest.
Merwan Beydoun, a 29-year member of the UAW in Dearborn, Michigan, withdrew his support of the UAW’s political arm ahead of the endorsement. “It is disheartening to note that some politicians associated with the UAW PAC have not actively called for a ceasefire…. I believe that endorsing and supporting candidates who prioritize the cessation of hostilities is essential for the promotion of peace and justice.”
Yet, there is Fain, on stage, parroting the lie that Biden has been a “pro-labor” president, all while the Butcher still stinks with the blood of the SMART Transportation and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, who he condemned through state action to continue to work without sick time. As trains crash and explode with increasing frequency on the U.S. rail lines, both parties celebrate the chaining of union expectations to the decaying political consensus of Washington. Why do we call for death to the UAW? Because its leadership is dead already. All rank and file members must recognize their necessary commitment not just to increasing the contract payments and benefits of their members, but to the international working class. Death to the labor bureaucrats and their lackeys! The UAW membership must kill the beast, and forge a new future!
