Biden, Trump, Starmer, and strikes

The next US Presidential Election is thirteen months away, and the winner will be either Joe Biden or Donald Trump, unless unforeseen circumstances cause one or the other or even both to drop out. This “choice” is deeply unpopular, with approval ratings for both candidates currently stuck at the low 40% mark.

Far more popular than either Trump or Biden in America today are trade unions. They are said to enjoy 67% approval ratings among the public at large, and 90% among under-30s. There’s also high support for unions striking, whether it be film and television writers or United Auto Workers. It’s little wonder that the presidential rivals have sought to don the “friend of the workers” mantle.

Joe Biden made his pitch by joining a UAW picket line in Michigan, which was deemed a historic first for a US President. He spoke in support of their strike for higher wages and shorter hours and denounced corporate greed. Although Biden’s pro-labour stance has to be taken with a dose of salt considering his behaviour towards striking rail workers in 2022, he has been trying to advance legislation making it easier for unions to organise and bargain collectively, only to be stalled in Congress.

Whatever his shortcomings, Biden joining a picket line represents a marked contrast to leaders of the Labour Party in Britain who are supposed to represent the interests of organised labour. Keir Starmer has been notably absent from picket duty during the ongoing strike wave here and tried to stop other Labour MPs joining too. Neil Kinnock earned notoriety for failing to join pickets during the miners’ strike of 1984-5 until a brief token visit near the end.

Even more picket-line-averse is of course Trump, whose courting of the union vote has reached levels of fakery only he alone is capable of. He hasn’t gone to a picket. The management of a non-union car-parts factory hosted a wider-public meeting for him. Nathan Stemple, president of the non-union company, said: “Some of our colleagues... reached out to us and said that the [former] president was looking for a location to host this event. And we were more than willing to do so”.

“Hope your leaders at UAW will endorse Donald Trump”, was part of the message, as if it were a UAW meeting. But it wasn’t! Journalists found people among the 400 or so present holding “Union Workers for Trump” signs weren’t actually in a union. It’s a sure bet some got paid for their participation. Mostly Trump talked down the UAW action and ranted against electric vehicles.

Trump is something new with his demagogy, but the Republican Party has long been the more anti-labour of the two major capitalist parties in the USA. In 1981 Reagan sacked striking air traffic control workers en masse, decertified their union, and had their leaders led away in handcuffs.

Trump’s own term in office produced nothing but retrograde outcomes for the working class. Substantial health and safety requirements at work were rolled back and measures were invoked to make union organisation difficult if not impossible, particularly in the gig economy. His Supreme Court appointees made numerous anti union rulings. None of this was surprising given Trump’s history of illegal labour practices as a real estate developer.

The unpopularity of the present US party system combined with the majority support for unions and strikes begs an obvious question: why isn’t there a Labour Party in America? Establishing one might be a way out of the sclerotic political system that presently reigns. Clearly along with all the other democratic rights socialists must defend and advance is the right of workers to organise unfettered in their workplaces.