Socialists in the Labor Movement Pt. 1

In this episode Daphna Thier and Ryan Cowles ask a couple fellow labor organizers about the state of the labor movement, and why socialists care so much about labor.

Daphna Thier is a DSA member and longtime bartender based in Brooklyn. She recently stepped down as the chair of DSA National Political Education Committee (NPEC), and is now the Labor Education Coordinator at EWOC. You can also find her written work at Jacobin.com, and a chapter she contributed in the book Palestine: A Socialist Introduction. 

Ryan Cowles is a co-chair on DSA’s National Labor Commission. He helps workers build power in their workplace as a volunteer with the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee and as a member of Inland Empire DSA.

Emma G. is a rank and file Teamster UPS package delivery worker, and a member of DSA National Labor Committee’s Steering Committee.

Dawn Tefft transitioned from a union member to a union organizer, and she also volunteers as a Lead Organizer for the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC).  She is a member of DSA.

Nation Labor Committee 

https://labor.dsausa.org/

Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC)

https://workerorganizing.org/

Volunteer to be an organizer for EWOC 

https://workerorganizing.org/volunteer/ 

DSA chapters interested in hosting local EWOC trainings 

https://airtable.com/shruVX1K8MqrWh08q 

Become a member of Democratic Socialists of America.

Sign up to receive NPEC's newsletter, Red Letter. 

Transcript

Elton LK 0:00

This is Class, an official podcast of the Democratic Socialists of America National Political Education Committee. My name is Elton LK. This episode is on the state of the labor movement in 2022, and what we expect in 2023. Daphna Thier is back to host the podcast with Ryan Cowles. Daphna recently stepped down as the chair of the DSA National Political Education Committee, and is now the Labor Education Coordinator at Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, also known as EWOC. Ryan Cowles is a co-chair on DSA's National Labor Commission. He helps workers build power in their workplace as a volunteer with the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, and as a member of Inland Empire DSA. I'll hand it over to them to introduce our guests.

Daphna Thier 0:53

Welcome to this episode of DSA's National Political Education podcast Class. I'm Daphna Thier, and I'm hosting this episode along with Ryan Cowles, co-chair of DSA's National Labor Committee. We're actually talking about socialists and the class in this two-part series, or socialists in the labor movement. And with us here today, we have Emma G , who's a rank and file Teamster, UPS package delivery worker, and another member of DSA's National Labor Committee's Steering Committee; and Dawn Tefft, who came out of rank and file organizing higher education unions and is now a union staffer and a lead organizer for DSA's Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, which is a joint project with the United Electrical and Radio Machinist Union, UE. So in our first episode, we're gonna take a look at the labor movement last year, 2022, and the role socialists played in it. And then in our second episode, we'll take a , uh, talk more about why the labor movement is so important to socialists and the socialist movement. Ooh , okay. Ryan, it's been a year <laugh> , what happened this year? If , if we had to give everyone a snapshot. I mean, one thing I can say is that I , uh, recently learned that approval of unions in the United States went from a low, an all-time low in 2009 of 48% to 71% today, which is the highest it's been since 1965. Kind of blows your mind. So what does that, what does that mean? What does that look like?

Ryan Cowles 2:30

Thank you, Daphna, that's a good question. Um, I think if you look back at the past year, it's actually kind of mind blowing when you see everything that has been happening in labor where you look at a lot of new shop organizing through things like Starbucks Workers United, like, they just won their first election just over a year ago. Since then, several hundred stores have won. We've seen Amazon workers, you know, officially vote to form the first union, the Amazon, which is incredible, which is huge. We've seen the Minneapolis teachers strike, we've seen teachers in Brookline , Massachusetts, strike. We've seen the Massachusetts Nurses strike. So really, you know, across the board and more recently , uh, University of California, you know, they just won huge contract gains. Yeah. So it's, it's been a hell of a year when you look back at it. And it's hard to believe that it's only been a year. And I think what we're really seeing is that, you know, it's hard to pinpoint a single cause, but I think people are realizing that no one's coming to save us, so we gotta do it ourselves. And so people are coming together and figuring out how to build power in their workplace, whether it's union through reform caucuses, and that sort of, you know, organizing, whether it's new shop organizing, but , um, across the board people are, people are hungry and they're ready to fight. So I think that's what we're seeing.

Daphna Thier 3:43

You mentioned reform caucuses, and I think for me, that's a huge marker because , um, it, it's just clear that the old union leaderships are disappointing people. Have failed in their strategy, are getting booted because of that versus the Teamsters. And then Unite All Workers for Democracy in the UAW following in those footsteps, huge reform wins blowing they, and they, they ran , uh, their platform first. First they, they campaigned and they won at the convention, a one member one vote, and then they campaign on an anti two-tier platform, and they won outright five out of seven seats. And now they're, they're heading off to a , to a runoff election for the other two, including the presidency, which is looking pretty good as I understand it. Um, so that's kind of amazing, you know, this Reform Caucus with Shawn Fain running for the presidency against the Ray Curry caucus, like the Curry Caucus, which what, that's such a catchy name for a caucus <laugh>, but , um, it kind of tells you where things are at there. Yeah. And then you mentioned the strikes. We have a couple of guests here with us today, as I mentioned. Maybe we could find out what they're thinking about this year.

Ryan Cowles 5:06

Let's do it. So we have Emma, who is on the National Labor Committee Steering Committee with me, and Emma, do you wanna give a brief introduction and yeah, share away , share some takeaways and reflections on 2022?

Emma G 5:19

Sure. Thanks Ryan . Um, yeah, like Ryan said , um, I am a DSA labor steering committee member along with him as well as a rank and file Teamster , um, package car driver at UPS. I think , uh, reflecting on what Daphna and Ryan have said already , um, we've seen workers rising up. Uh, they are ready to fight for their jobs. They're a better future. Um, I think having seen what's happened in the last couple of years , um, a lot of it is a outgrowth of COVID, unfortunately. Um, but it was, it was very clarifying for a lot of people and organizing that began a couple of years ago under some of the worst conditions we've experienced in our lifetimes with, with covid and a devastating pandemic. We're seeing things happen now as well as fights that have been going on for a lot longer. Um , we've talked about reform caucuses and UAWD and TDU, and these are fights that have been going on for decades to reform these unions and to put in new leadership that is going to fight for the workers and be led by workers. So it's been really exciting to see all of these things happening, kind of at the same time. Definitely touched on the two-tier fight, which I've personally experienced as a, as a Teamster, we are fighting against two-tier contracts. It , the last contract, there was a , um, basically like two tiers put in place. Um, it really felt like workers were sold out, and it's been really exciting to see , um, even just anecdotally, like our leadership one on a platform to get rid of that. And also talking to coworkers. They are ready to fight for each other. Those people who are in the, the top tier, so to speak, who have more protections, more benefits, they see exactly what this is and why it's bad, and why , um, it's unfair that our coworkers doing the same jobs are getting paid less and have less protections, and they are ready to strike, ready to do whatever it takes to win what's right and have everyone have the same , um, protections. So unions are popular , uh, <laugh>. And there, there is a sense of solidarity even among like these older, like, like the Teamsters, like longer standing unions. There's, there's like energy to fight for something that, in a way that we haven't seen in a really long time.

Daphna Thier 7:43

This is us talking about 2022 so far. Emma, what are you thinking, looking to 2023, what should we be expecting? What's on the horizon, I guess for labor this year?

Emma G 7:54

A lot <laugh>. Um, it's, it's going to be an exciting year in contract expirations, which means workers organizing a in different industries, a lot of private industry contracts, like I was talking about my own contract. Um, the , the UPS Teamster contract is the largest private sector contract covering 340,000 package car drivers and warehouse workers. So that's gonna be a big fight happening in July. And then also back to UAW, they have their big three auto industry contracts coming up. We have other UAW contracts such as Caterpillar. We have UE contracts , um, the United Electrical Workers , um, in manufacturing , um, GE, the airline contracts, if people have heard recently, there was like a really exciting announcement. Um, the five unions at United Airlines, including the flight attendants, machinists, the Air Line Pilots Association, the Teamsters , um, and flight dispatchers, they have formed a coalition to really , um, amp up and strengthen airline negotiations. There's education contracts, there's first contract fights such as Starbucks, trader Joe's, REI, Amazon, all these things we've been hearing about. There's potential for this all to be happening , um, in the next year. So, and this, we, I mean, I'm coming as a, as a union member, but also as a DSA labor leader . And there is a lot of potential for DSA and the left in general to really be supportive in these fights. Our ties are stronger in certain sectors than others, but we've done a lot of good work over the last couple of years through different means, whether it's EWOC, whether it's DSA labor, whether it's our individual connections as workers to really strengthen that. And there's a lot of potential for us as leftists and workers to support these fights as they're coming up next year.

Daphna Thier 9:47

And we're gonna talk more about that hopefully , um, here shortly. I do wanna ask Dawn : Dawn, you've been doing the, the EWOC thing, the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee. So what are you expecting from the coming year from the perspective of someone who's so engaged in new organizing? And also if you could tell us a little bit about what that organizing looks like on the ground and kind of what the role socialists have played in it, that would be awesome and exciting, I think.

Dawn Tefft 10:18

Sure. Um, I expect that workers will continue to form new unions, which is hard but rewarding work counter to the narrative, you know, that corporate media spins that workers are lazy and don't wanna work anymore. And the reality is that workers are fed up with how they've been treated by employers not with working itself. And they're fed up with being underpaid and underappreciated, including being sacrificed in the name of profit as we saw happening during the pandemic, which is, you know, which is why EWOC formed in the first place. And that's where we really got that first, you know , uh, swell of workers. But we're continuing to see huge numbers of workers and now they're not just focused on those immediate needs due to the pandemic, but their long-term needs so unionizing and making sure that there's something in place for that over the long term . And I expect that those workers, you know, who are forming new unions as well as the ones who are in existing unions, will continue to take action on the job. And that includes striking because that's the only thing to which the employer responds in most situations. And employers, you know, they're engaged in trying to bust these new union drives and they're advised by lawyers specializing in union busting, you know, to, to like pull these, these tricks. One of which is to claim that the employer, the managers, and the workers are all family and that the union is a third party outside of them . But the reality is, is that's simply not true. The workers are the union , uh, so it isn't something outside of them and they wouldn't need to take action to compel the employers to pay a living wage and treat them with respect if there really was a family dynamic at work, you know? But the family narrative is a lie, and the workers have to stand together and speak and act with one voice and disrupt the status quo, you know, at work, if they're to get any kind of significant and lasting change, change that the employer can't just go back on because unions negotiate legally binding contracts and nothing motivates an employer like their flows of money coming to a halt when workers strike. And so I think we're gonna continue to see a lot of that. It, striking has been up significantly this year from last year. So I think we're gonna see that continue to just, you know, escalate. And, you know, this organizing looks like forming unions and taking action to win contracts. It looks like, you know, working with other workers, other types of workers, other unions, community groups, because everyone has common goals and workers live in working communities with which they have mutual relationships. It looks like bargaining for wages, healthcare and working conditions. And it also looks like bargaining for the common good, which means bargaining for things that affect the community and serve larger issues of social justice. And I'll just say that the , you know, at EOC sometimes we get people in nonprofits, there aren't large budgets there even, you know, to be oftentimes to be bargaining over. And so if they're not focused on wages so much, they're focused on working conditions and you know, the common good, what is good for the clients that they serve, what is good for the community that they're in . Um, so these are, these are gonna be things that we continue to see too. And, you know , uh, socialists are involved in a , in organizing in a variety of ways. Their organizing is rank and file organizers in their workplace. Uh, you know, where you have the most influence cuz it's your job. They organize sometimes assaults , you know, which means taking a job in order to act as a resource and assist workers who wanna organize there . Although in that case, you know, they're probably not there long term . So it's important that they try not to lead everything, but, you know, just be a resource who's aiding those, those longtime leaders there who do wanna organize. And then , uh, at EWOC, you know, they're volunteering to assist workers with organizing, which , um, you know, means pairing a volunteer organizer with a worker or group of workers who wanna unionize in their workplace or organize in any kind of way in their workplace. And it means talking with those workers and helping them understand, you know, the sort of science and art of organizing. And, you know, over the decades organizers have tried like various approaches and realize that some work better than others, which is where the science part comes in. And that's why our folks are such a great resource. It's, it's helping people understand these methods that have been developed, especially like in what to what I was saying earlier about like these union busting methods, right? People have realized that certain things work better to help people build up, you know, list building and then one-on-one conversations forming these committees that, that reach out and talk to everybody, get the whole potential bargaining unit on board, and then you go to the vote. But you've gotta prepare people, you've gotta inoculate them against those union busting tactics. And so it's like really helping people pass their fear by being prepared for it, by being prepared for what's coming so it doesn't like scare them off. And anyone can learn organizing. It's not hard. And that's what the volunteers do. They help workers learn those basics and implement them in ways that are effective. But the workers are always in control of their own campaigns and make their own decisions. That's the hallmark of good organizing. And that's, that's the , the , the great thing about organizing is what's ethical is actually what's effective too. So <laugh> , um, it's really beautiful that those two things are married in that way. The art part of organizing comes in, you know, in relation to the individual and their personality and their personal touch. So I always tell folks like, nobody's organized by an organizing robot. People are organized by other people, by relationships, by realizing they have common cause, by feeling connected to others. And then through that connection, they feel enough trust to be able to do these things that, that place them at , you know, at some kind of risk. And, you know, I , I like Elena Ferrante's Neopolitan novels, her descriptions of organizing and that like a good organizer as she describes it, you know, she's describing this character and she says , uh, I , I wrote this quote down for myself cuz I love it so much. So it says, "She showed herself available to those who were complaining, understanding to those who were angry, sympathetic toward those who cursed the abuses. Above all, in the following days she let their tiny group talk, transforming the lunch break into a time for a secret meeting. She steered the trouble of one toward the trouble of another joining all together with eloquent words." I I love that, that that quote. So a really good organizer understands that it's not about their personal power, it's about creating avenues for other people to help shape an agenda and then implement it. And it's about creating spaces or minds and bodies come together with this united purpose. You know, a space where everyone contributes and everyone is important.

Daphna Thier 16:39

I I wanted to ask one follow up because we talked , Emma mentioned contracts and then we talked about all this new organizing and some of this new organizing is now at a point where they have voted in the union, they've, they've got their unions. You look at Starbucks workers, it's 266 or whatever shops, you know, seven, 7,000 workers I've heard are now union, so great, but no contract insight . And I'm just like, what, what is it gonna take? Because it seems like it , that's not a small hurdle to get to that first contract. It seems like corporate America is really gonna fight about that to prevent it from spreading any further.

Ryan Cowles 17:22

That's , uh, a good question and I don't think one that there's an easy answer to , but regardless of whatever, you know, whatever Howard Schultz wants to try to pull , right? Like, it doesn't change the fact that over 260 stories came together, thousands of workers across the country came together and built that power and like they're gonna , Starbucks is gonna try to shut that down just like any corporate, you know, bullshit company is gonna try to do. I think what really stands out to me is the fact that once you build that power, like that's something that stays with you. And so these people who have come together and have fought the boss and have fought Howard Schultz , right? Like that's not going anywhere. So one question that has come up is that if socialists could play a bigger role in supporting labor militancy and what that might look like. And I think if we look at, you know, one example where a lot of DSA members have been focusing, where we do see , uh, union reform efforts, that sort of thing is in logistics and we see the impacts of the logistics industry. We see the impacts that it has and just how widespread it is, right? If we look at something like Amazon, you know, if we wanna fight back against Bezos , like that's not gonna be easy and that's gonna be one hell of a fight, which means we're gonna need to have a very strong movement to do that. And if we want to do that, we need to go beyond just a supportive role. We obviously need to follow worker leads, but also we can become worker leads or we can fight in shop floors and we can, you know, whether it's getting a job on a strategic industry , um, you know, all that sort of thing. Like just looking at the UPS contract fight that's coming up over the summer , um, you know, that's something where we as socialists can play that play a bit of a role since we have a lot of ranking file members within DSA who are also UPS Teamsters, folks who work at Amazon. You know, that's a way that we do have a lot of potential as socialists to play in supporting labor militancy. And I'm curious too , Emma, being a rank and file UPS worker, what do you see kind of coming up, like how can socialists play a bigger role in supporting labor militancy as DSA members and as DSA chapters, what can DSA chapters do to support and get involved in, you know, these fights?

Emma G 19:37

Yeah, so I, I, I agree with, I mean, everything you said, Ryan , um, as far as like on an individual level or ideological level, maybe before we answer like the chapter question, I think actually being in the labor movement, doing the organizing is, is the way to do it, you know , um, if people aren't familiar with like, the history of labor organizing within, I don't know, the past century, like most of the militant fights, Teamsters included, sorry to keep going back to it , have been led by leftists. Like, it's, it is that ideology that like gets us through these really hard fights and like gives us clarity of purpose and of, and that that drive to like really fight when it gets hard. So whether you're taking a job within a union to be your file member , um, to organize coworkers under an existing contract or whether you are organizing a new shop, that socialist framework, understanding the relationship of power between you and your boss, you and the company, and talking to people about it is huge. That is what creates like militancy really like helping people understand their own position and, and fight for it among each other. So I think that also requires like a lot of patience and listening. I love Dawn's quote earlier. Um, I think it's a beautiful way to put exactly what organizing looks like, and I think , uh, the, one of the best ways you can do that is by being a worker and talking to your coworkers about that. Going into a workplace or doing any organizing, like it's important to never our understanding is in our opinion, correct, right? We understand these relationships. We don't, we don't know everything about how our coworkers think. We don't know the answers to a lot of things. Um, so it's, it's all about listening and like not going in thinking you alone are gonna change everything you alone are, have all the answers. So we've seen and more recent history, I guess my Teamster examples from like a long time ago, the teacher strikes from a few years ago have mostly been led by socialists, TDU's origins were on the left. And like we love to see , uh, <laugh> that those that sort of militancy and the idea of like democracy within a union has become so popular that we , um, as part of a coalition are no longer on the fringes of the union, but really have been able to take some leadership positions within it. And those ideas are so popular that like people have voted it into leadership of the teamsters, which is huge. Like I cannot overstate, TDU was a very bad word for a long time within the union. So it's really exciting to see that that's not the case anymore. So as far as DSA and what we can do as DSA members, again, I'm gonna say it , if you can get a job or if you're thinking about it, like talk to other people in that union, if you know any , um, do some research, see if it's something that you can do, get a job, or, you know, organize where you're at. As long as you're working like there is, there is organizing to be done. That's an option. And then we also, like, we need solidarity work to support all these fights that are coming up. So some concrete things that we have been advising chapters do is figure out what the membership is like in your chapter, figure out who's in unions, what unions they're in. Do you have any relationships with members who are in a union with a contract campaign coming up ? Do phone banking, reach out to these people, build relationships. You could, there are things like showing up on a picket line or like, it , it , it can be a little delicate and like, I would definitely encourage people to get as much information as they can about the context that they're stepping into. But a lot of unions aren't used to like community support. They see themselves as like very like about the workers for the workers and are really just not used to other people caring that much. So I would say like, be a little bit delicate, but also like reach out to local leadership if you know any members who maybe are not DSA members, but have friendly relationships, try to build those relationships however you can. Again, don't do anything without talking to workers is like the number one thing we wanna encourage people to keep in mind. If you're able to build connections with local leadership, anything you could do to say like, look, we support this fight that you're in cuz we recognize it as part of a larger fight for the betterment of the whole working class.

Dawn Tefft 24:20

I thought Emma covered it perfectly. I don't really have much to add. Being willing to take action in being democratic, those are the two principles again and again and again, the socialists bring with them and that are necessary and critical to winning. If you don't have those, then you can't win long term . I mean, maybe you can win one fight, but you're not gonna keep fighting over and over and win in the ways that you really, really need to be able to do so. And, and that's what EWOC does, you know, it really helps people do democratic organizing where they're in control and then it helps them take action as necessary to win whatever it is that they're focused on winning. Um, and so that's how, that's how I would say socialists contribute to the labor movement. And what I would add, I'd like to underscore something that Emma said that I completely agree with, which is, you know, organize where you're at. Um, you know, because it's, I think in order to help people organize, you have to go through it yourself, you know, or maybe don't have to, but it helps, right? It's like , um, to really be able to understand how it works, you , it , you know, helps to have gone through it yourself. So I'd say organize where you're at, then come to EWOC and volunteer <laugh> and that would be like my ideal world.

Daphna Thier 25:35

That was amazing. I think we talked about, we covered a lot and yet not everything. We, we talked about some of the big moments for labor this year. We didn't talk about the rail workers, which we will hopefully get to talk about next episode. In this episode, we mostly looked at where things were at and what are the kinds of things that socialists can do for the labor movement. But I think in the next episode what we wanna look at is how that work makes for a more powerful socialist movement too . Like how do we move beyond the bread and butter, or how do the bread and butter fights impact the more political ambitions of our movement? So stay tuned. Join us for the next episode. Really, really appreciate you all. Thanks Ryan. Thanks Emma. Thanks Dawn . Looking forward to talking to you more about it.

Elton LK 26:23

This is Class, an official podcast of the Democratic Socialist of America National Political Education Committee. My name is Elton LK. I'd like to thank Daphna Thier for polling this episode together. Casey Sticker is a key member of our tiny team for sound engineering theme music and editing, and Palmer Conrad for additional help getting this podcast out. If you're a member of DSA, please share this podcast with your local chapter. Class is intended to be a resource for chapters and members to articulate, apply and share socialist theory with DSA and the wider working class. Also remember to rate and review us on iTunes or your favorite pod catcher . As you know from listening to other podcasts, this is an important way to get out the word about class.