LUEL Supports the Jill Stein Presidential Campaign

Labor United Educational League believes that the Green Party platform is the most progressive on the ballot for the 2024 presidential election. No other candidate is calling for the repeal of Taft-Hartley, a Federal Jobs Guarantee, and the end of US military intervention around the world. Neither Trump nor Harris has even mentioned Taft-Harley. The promotion of a class-oriented platform is critical not only for this election but for future elections. In assessing which candidate on the ballot represents the best path forward in developing an anti-monopoly and class-oriented consciousness in this country, the Labor United Educational League sees the platform of Jill Stein as the best choice for American workers this election.

Discussion of the pro-worker and anti-war policies of the Green Party is essential for all members of LUEL and such policies should be brought to every worker possible.

The Green Party platform can be found at: jillstein2024.com/platform

In solidarity,
Labor United Educational League

https://labortoday.luel.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/LUEL-JillStein.pdf

The post LUEL Statement on the 2024 Presidential Elections first appeared on Labor Today.

Firstly, Hillbilly Elegy is a memoir of JD Vance’s life written in 2016. The book has won many awards and even was given a Netflix film directed by Ron Howard. After having read the book myself, it is understandable why conservatives have promoted the book for so long. In the book, JD Vance recounts his life starting when he was a little kid. He talks about growing up with his sister and drug addict/alcoholic mom and grandmother. His childhood was plagued with trauma and abuse.

At times he and his sister would have to go to their grandparents to avoid domestic violence. The book goes on and on about how poor people were in his hometown of Ohio and he mentions the same thing about where his parents come from in Kentucky. He visited extended family in Kentucky. And eventually, he made it out of Ohio and went to law school.

You would think that growing up in the region, people would be fond of him. He had 12 supporters at a rally in his home state so that is clearly not the case. In the book, he concludes that Appalachia is poor because they are all drug-addicted domestic abusers who do not work hard enough. This is the conclusion he has made based on his words. He talks about Appalachian values of loyalty and love of the country but then says they are poor because of their own actions.

His views on women are even worse. He has said multiple times that women who cannot have kids are worthless. He wants women to have more babies so they can grow up to be cogs in the machine of capital. He has fully aligned himself with the Republican Party and wants to take rights away from women. He supports the oppression of workers in Appalachia because they “don’t work hard enough”, he is the antithesis of our values. JD Vance is anti-union and he is against federal free lunch programs that feed many children in Appalachia. Many kids rely on that school breakfast and lunch in Appalachia. Even my school had free lunch and breakfast every day. He is a goon of the misogynistic elements of the ruling class. Many of our women here are single mothers who do great at raising their children, and JD Vance has a problem with single mothers getting assistance from the government as well. Many people in Appalachia rely on these subsidies to survive.

We Appalachians work hard, many work 2 jobs and still can barely pay the bills. It is too common. There is a reason this book is promoted by conservative news outlets such as the American Conservative and the National Review.

Our region is poor because most of the major industry high paying jobs have left the country to make more money in third-world countries by offering them cheap pay. I am from Appalachia, proudly. It is a beautiful region. Neighbors help each other. JD Vance never mentioned that. People wave when they go past you on a two-lane road. But the people of Appalachia are also tough and determined.

The people here have a revolutionary history, we fought for the rights that we have. At the battle of Blair Mountain during the West Virginia coal wars, and many other times, where the police and mercenaries from the coal companies shot at and killed many workers who were originally peaceful until the company’s lackeys fired on the workers. This eventually led to our region having strong unions that have gradually been chipped away by both Democrats and Republicans. People like JD Vance exploit the struggle of our people as entertainment.

In conclusion, Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance is nothing but nonsense. He is pretending to be something he is not. Pretending he is better than these wonderful hard-working people in Appalachia just because he made it out. Many of our people work ‘til the day they die because they don’t like the idea of not working.

The book was little more than a way for him to enrich himself and become known so he could be known on a national level and run for higher office. It is of no coincidence that JD Vance arrived on the scene at the same time faux Working Class grafter, Mike Rowe fell out of favor nationally. Like Rowe, Vance was pushed by dark money to present a fake working-class understanding solely for the benefit of the bosses.

The post BOOK REVIEW: JD Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy first appeared on Labor Today.

For decades, labor has been shackled to the Democrats as union leadership in the building trades rely on Public Labor Agreements (PLA) that require contractors to pay union wages on public projects. More often than not, Democrats support PLAs while Republicans seldom do, making it only natural for building trade unions to gravitate towards the Democrats. The issue arises when union members themselves do not feel represented in leadership choices and are given no voice on matters that affect them. The AFL-CIO endorsement of President Biden is toothless if there is no rank and file to rally. This brings a long standing contradiction to the surface that is now bearing its teeth: support Democrats or else.

The contradiction lies in the belief that Democrats are the party of labor, yet they are bought and sold by many of the same donors and companies that back Republicans. We’ve seen Biden pay lip service to unions in this country while simultaneously using draconian laws like the Railway Labor Act to crush workers striking back at a system that left them by the wayside years ago. AFL-CIO leadership further digging in their heels to support a party that is increasingly becoming unpopular with workers across the country only proves that their allegiance is to the status quo and not what will fundamentally improve American workers’ lives.

As LUEL National Secretary Timothy Dirte stated in April, “the destruction of organized labor has in some ways made its rebirth possible.” Workers becoming increasingly disillusioned by the two-party system opens the way for class-oriented trade unionists to build a truly powerful labor movement in this country, one that is not beholden to any party, but rather the rank and file itself. The time is ripe for workers to break with the Democratic Party and build the labor movement they need and deserve, and that so many have been seeking for decades.

The post EDITORIAL: AFL-CIO Endorsement of Harris Increasingly Puts Them at Odds with Rank-and-File Members first appeared on Labor Today.

In an interview with Fox News, Murray discussed how under Biden the cost of living has gone “through the roof” and how a week after inauguration over 10,000 of his union brothers and sisters were laid off from work after Biden’s executive order stopped the Keystone pipeline. This is marking a shift in organized labor from always backing the Democrats with many of the rank and file voicing their opinion for backing likely Republican candidate Donald J. Trump. After communicating with their leadership, Steamfitters Local 638 business manager Bobby Bartels listened and reached out to each potential presidential candidate but, according to Murray, he only got a response from Trump and Robert F Kennedy. “He has not received a single email or memo from Biden or his team,” says Murray.

“I will do whatever my members want me to do,” Bartels says in an interview with Fox News. He’s said that his members are concerned with illegal immigration, solar power, electric vehicles, and overall inflation resulting in higher gasoline and food prices. Especially after putting out a presidential poll with his union, he began to understand where his members stood concerning the election. While most building trade union leaders are satisfied with dictating to their members to vote for the Democrats, Bartels is sticking his neck out when communicating and sympathizing with the desires of his membership. To these unionized workers, having a secure country is more important than whatever good Joe Biden claims to have done for organized labor during his administration. In an interview with conservative commentator Tomi Lahren, Bartels iterated, “If I don’t have a country, a free country, I’m not gonna have a union.” This could mark the beginning of a shift away from organized labor’s uncritical support of the Democratic Party.

Major union leaders Shawn Fain of the United Auto Workers only endorsed Biden as recently as January of 2024 and Sean O’Brien of the Teamsters has said they will not be issuing an endorsement until after both party conventions. At the end of the day, both the Democrats and the Republicans represent big business interests as a part of the American two-party system. Neither party can fully represent the needs of working people and simultaneously serve the interests profiting off their labor. This presidential election may cause major splits in organized labor which could lay the ground for the development of a true anti-monopoly and pro-labor party here in the United States of America. With such a platform, the will of the American working class could be united and focused into the political system to perhaps enact pressure and progressive changes not seen since the campaign of Henry A. Wallace of the Progressive Party in 1948.

The post Labor Split Forming on Presidential Election first appeared on Labor Today.

Since Franklin D. Roosevelt, the trade union movement has put its support behind the Democratic Party to make America a better place to be a worker. “Voting blue no matter who” when you’re in a labor union just seems to come with the territory. This continued backing is recently coming into question as it seems the Democratic Party is mainly interested in supporting unions in word and not in deed.

The “Protect the Right to Organize” or PRO Act has been stalled in the Senate for three years despite a Democratic majority. The potential rail strike of December 2022 was crushed by railroad companies with the help of Democrats imposing a lack-luster contract on the workers. Perhaps this why the International President of the United Auto Workers delayed in giving Joe Biden the union’s official endorsement until the CAP Conference on January 24^th, which could be a deciding factor in the 2024 presidential election.

When the rubber hits the road, Democrats will go back on their word and react just as fiercely as any other politician. This is why working people need to put their support behind candidates who will really support them when the going gets rough. It seems those candidates cannot be found inside either major political party. The time is ripe to support third party candidates and show that labor is fed up with the rigged two-party system. Isn’t it about time we put a worker in the white house?

Signed,
A Disgruntled Operating Engineer

The post LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Isn’t it About Time We Put a Worker in the White House? first appeared on Labor Today.