EDITORIAL: Class-Oriented Trade Unionism is Necessary to Permanently Defeat Monopolists as National “Right-to-Work” Bill is Reintroduced

In February, Senator Rand Paul reintroduced the National Right to Work Act to the United States Senate. Since he was first elected, Sen. Paul has attempted to push this bill, financed and backed by the largest monopolists in the U.S., down the throats of American workers. Couple this with President Trump’s attacks against organized labor thus far, and it becomes clear that the American working class is in an unprecedented fight.

In typical libertarian fashion, Sen. Paul feigns sympathy for the “freedom of choice” for the workers to carry out his work for the monopolies and cartels in the U.S. If Sen. Paul cared about the freedom of the American working class, he instead would back the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 aimed at restricting the power of organized labor.

Taft-Hartley was monopoly capital’s response to the wave of successful industrial organizing led by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (C.I.O.) and it decimated the U.S. labor movement. Taft-Hartley set forth the banning of most strikes, ending the closed shop and allowing states to introduce “right-to-work” laws. Most notably, aimed at “rooting out Communism” within the labor movement Taft-Hartley included a provision forcing labor leaders to sign anti-Communist affidavits which was used to root out all militant and class-oriented trade unionists from American unions. Although the anti-Communist provisions were ruled “unenforceable” in 1965, the damage had already been done as Taft-Hartley had allowed the reactionary business unionists to consolidate power.

Since Taft-Harley was passed, 26 states have passed “right-to-work” laws with at least one more pending. Union membership in the U.S. peaked in 1945 at 33.4% holding union cards; under the guidance of business unionist leadership union membership in the U.S. has decreased to an all-time low of 9.9%. This “right-to-work” has been a major factor in this decrease as the unionization rate in private industry has dropped to an even lower 5.6%. This should make it clear that the American labor movement needs a change of direction.

The time is now for all militant, class-oriented trade unionists to take the lead in organizing a rank-and-file movement to take back the American labor movement. Without a vastly organized rank-and-file, we will be at the mercy of monopoly capital. It is time to get out on the shop floor and work to build the class consciousness of your fellow workers. It is time for the heart of the labor movement to stand up and fight back. It is time to organize the anti-monopoly coalition led by a class-oriented trade union movement. This is the time to bring workers together to build a real rank-and-file and collectively led Labor Party in the U.S. Only then can we effectively push back the monopolists, as our class-oriented forebears in the C.I.O. did, and build an America of the people, by the people and for the people.