Since the firing of several members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) by President Donald Trump, the Board has been unable to hold quorum to decide on any labor issues facing workers in the United States. It is a convenient problem for people like Elon Musk, who sued the board last year deeming it “unconstitutional”, because it did not allow the President to fire board members, and who is now in a position to cut many crucial government programs. Trump has also stated his intent to cut federal spending and has given federal employees the ability to “resign” with severance pay (whether that will actually happen remains to be seen) along with also stating he will not recognize union contracts for federal workers made within 30 days of his inauguration. Meanwhile, many unions including the AFL-CIO are caught off guard and are left scrambling to figure out what their next plans are.
The state of American unions is not something that is just now being attacked, but has been for decades, much by its own leadership. Business union leadership have relied on the NLRB and the Democratic Party to rule on their behalf on labor issues for so long that much of the militancy that built the labor movement is nowhere to be seen, much less encouraged. Ever since the McCarthy period where Communists and militants were expelled from unions, business unionism has settled for mediocre contracts, sinking wages, shrinking benefits, and losing union density. Many workers have become tired of excuses given by leadership defending the bosses and not putting up a fight for their members.
Now, with the one mechanism unions relied on to settle on their behalf unable to function, workers will be searching for answers. The trend towards independent unionism will almost certainly increase as business union leaders will be unable to satiate the rank-and-file membership. In the coming years, a split may form as workers start to become more militant and class-oriented.
In winning workers over to the class-oriented trade union movement, the rise in spontaneity and dual unionism will unfortunately also occur as some will take the path of the Anarchists and the International Workers of the World (IWW). We must work to push workers away from destructive tactics that objectively hurt the labor movement and instead work to build an anti-monopoly coalition of broad progressive sections of the population, led by the working class.
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