By JOHN LESLIE

There has been resistance to union endorsements of President Biden, mainly centered on sharp criticism of Biden’s support for Israel’s genocidal attacks on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. There is an effort in the National Education Association (NEA) to rescind the union’s endorsement. United Auto Workers (UAW) rank and filers were aghast at their union’s endorsement and are calling for the union to reconsider because of Biden’s refusal to consider calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

UAW President Shawn Fain justified the union’s endorsement by saying, “We need to know who’s going to sit in the most powerful seat in the world and help us win as a united working class. So if our endorsement must be earned, Joe Biden has earned it.”

On Jan. 24, pro-Palestine UAW members disrupted Biden’s speech at the UAW Community Action Program (CAP) conference in Washington, D.C, which accepted the union’s endorsement. They shouted “Free Gaza” and unfurled a Palestinian flag. UAW Labor for Palestine posted a statement along with a video showing pro-Palestine members of the union being dragged out of the CAP conference. Some UAW members in the room attempted to drown out the protesters by chanting “UAW, UAW!” The day before, Palestine solidarity protesters disrupted a Biden speech at an abortion rights rally in Virginia.

The post on X (formerly Twitter) stated, “We do not consent to the @uaw International Executive Board (IEB)’s endorsement of genocide enabler @joebiden, now known to the world as Genocide Joe. We were informed of this endorsement after our democratically-elected UAW leaders voted in secret to endorse. We reject the UAW IEB’s endorsement for Genocide Joe in the strongest terms, and we will organize as UAW rank and file workers to rescind this endorsement. We will also continue to organize to fulfill the call from Palestinian trade unions (@WorkersinPales1) and to … actualize the UAW’s call for a permanent ceasefire—a UAW position informed by thousands of UAW rank and file members organizing across the country, unlike this endorsement for Genocide Joe.”

Merwan Beyoun, a 29-year member of the UAW Region 1A, Local 600 Steel Unit, stated, “I am withdrawing my contribution to the UAW PAC, effective immediately. … My primary concern is the ongoing humanitarian crisis and the lack of attention given to an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza. I firmly believe that it is crucial for individuals and organizations to take a stand against any form of genocide. Unfortunately, I have not witnessed sufficient action or advocacy from the UAW PAC in addressing this pressing issue.”

UAW Local 2710 activist and member of Student Workers of Columbia, Johannah King-Slutzky said, “Regardless of my union’s official endorsement, I will not vote for Joe Biden unless he earns our vote by honoring UAW’s long legacy of social justice by using his power to call for a ceasefire and defend the victims of genocide whose Palestinian and Arab brothers and sisters are at the heart of our UAW family.”

More than 600 UAW members have signed a petition calling on CAP members to only endorse candidates who support a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

On Feb. 1, Biden’s appearance at a UAW union hall in Warren, Mich., was met by a pro-Palestine protest outside. Protesters marched down a street toward the UAW location, chanting, “Genocide Joe has got to go,” and waving Palestinian flags and were confronted by dozens of riot police. Reportedly, members of Michigan’s sizable Arab American community are refusing to meet with Biden’s campaign in the state.

Educators for Palestine-NEA is urging the union to revoke its endorsement of Biden and circulating a petition among members. In a post on X, Educators for Palestine wrote, “NEA Educators: here’s an opportunity to let NEA know what your priorities are! No more massacres of children and bombing of schools with our tax dollars. No ceasefire, no endorsement!” Rahaf Othman, a 45-year-old Palestinian American social studies teacher, told The Nation, “Our union has been very focused on racial and social justice, and supporting him when he is not only funding but also sending weapons killing my people sends me the message that we don’t matter, and that we are collateral damage and that’s OK.”

Another of the country’s largest unions, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has endorsed Biden’s reelection bid despite the union’s own call for an immediate ceasefire.

Biden’s record

Biden likes to refer to himself as the “most pro-union president in American history” citing his own blue-collar working-class upbringing. His class origins notwithstanding, Biden’s career has been one of service to the capitalist class.

During last year’s UAW strike, Biden joined striking workers on the picket line. During his 2020 election bid, Biden promised unions his full support but returned the favor by knifing unions in the back by breaking railroad workers’ efforts to win a fair contract. In November 2022, the House passed HJR100 in a bipartisan vote, with 290 votes for and 137 votes against, to impose a new contract on rail workers. The Senate quickly followed suit, voting 80 to 15 for the House measure to impose the tentative agreement between freight rail carriers and rail unions. Even members of the so-called squad of “left” Democrats voted for this rotten legislation, with the exception of Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.).

Despite many promises to fight against climate change and his commitment to not approve new oil leases on federal land, the administration has approved more than 6400 new oil leases in service to big oil. This betrayal of climate includes the continuation of the Mountain Valley Pipeline and the Willow Project.

Recently, the Biden administration paused construction of new liquified natural gas (LNG) terminals after previously approving them as exports of LNG increased in the midst of the Russo-Ukrainian war. According to Time, “The pause will have no immediate effect on U.S. gas supplies to Europe or Asia … Seven LNG terminals are currently operating in the U.S., mostly in Louisiana and Texas, with up to five more expected to come online in the next few years. Biden’s action would not affect those projects but could delay a dozen or more LNG projects that are pending or in various stages of planning.”

As a Democratic senator, Biden was one of the architects of mass incarceration with the crime bill he sponsored in 1994. According to The Intercept, Biden “was among the principal and earliest movers of the policy agenda that would become the war on drugs and mass incarceration, and he did so in the face of initial reluctance from none other than President Ronald Reagan. Indeed, Reagan even vetoed a signature piece of Biden legislation, which he drafted with arch segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, to create a federal ‘drug czar.’”

Biden gave full support for U.S. imperialist misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a senator, he helped ramrod Bush’s Iraq invasion plans through Congress. His claim in December 2021 that “I’ve been against that war in Afghanistan from the very beginning” was a misrepresentation. Biden voted in favor of the invasion of Afghanistan in Congress. He also supported the invasion of Iraq in Congress. It was only later that he expressed criticisms of some aspects of these wars and occupations.

Biden has been a longtime supporter of the state of Israel and turned a blind eye toward Israel’s human rights abuses against Palestinians. Speaking to the Senate in 1986, Biden said that aid to Israel is “the best three-billion-dollar investment we make. Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region.” He has expressed the same sentiments amid the genocidal attack on Gaza while offering an unprecedented increase in aid to the Zionist apartheid entity despite growing opposition to Israel’s policies in the ranks of his own party. Biden has declined to call for a permanent ceasefire and only belatedly expressed concern about “indiscriminate bombing.” Biden’s United Nations envoy voted against a ceasefire resolution, to the dismay of many liberal supporters.

Break with the Democrats!

At recent Palestine solidarity protests, Palestinians and their supporters have chanted, “We’ll remember in November.” Some have expressed sentiments for a third party, but what sort of party do we need? In the first place, socialists reject the notion that fundamental change comes through elections. While we do run candidates to get our program out to working people, we see the independent mass action of the oppressed and exploited in the streets and workplaces as the real motor of change. We reject support for the twin (fraternal, not identical) parties of U.S. capitalism, the Democrats and Republicans. The Democrats offer the illusion that change can come through voting for “progressives,” but then reality sets in as so-called progressives vote to break strikes and to send aid to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Of course, reformists are going to tell us to ignore Biden’s crimes in Gaza in the interests of defeating Trump in 2024. Sam Webb, former chair of the tragically misnamed Communist Party USA posted on Facebook that young voters need to “come to the understanding” that Biden’s reelection is absolutely necessary if we hope to “break the spell” of Trump and the MAGA movement. To believe that sitting out the storm or voting for a third-party candidate is the best course of action is a pernicious and dangerous delusion.

“Let’s hope we are smarter,” Webb warned. “No Biden, no leverage. No progressive agenda. We will be fighting on our heels, to put it mildly, to prevent the slide toward a dark authoritarian time. And once we arrive at that place, the climb back is steep, likely long, and dangerous.”

Similarly, DSA member and U.S Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Biden’s reelection in July 2023, saying, “I think he’s done quite well, given the limitations that we have. I do think that there are ebbs and flows as there are in any president, in any presidency.”

More recently, she repeated her endorsement in spite of the situation in Gaza. Appearing on the “I’ve Had It” podcast, AOC restated her support for Biden despite the Gaza slaughter and leaving aside her votes in favor of arming the Zionist entity to the teeth. She stated, “There are plenty of things that the president does that I completely disagree with. I think, right now what is happening in Gaza, I can’t, I just, I can’t go on every single day seeing this. I don’t associate myself with what’s happening.” However, she rationalizes her support for Biden as an anti-fascist vote, saying, “But at the end of the day, we have to acknowledge that, we just can’t allow this fascist movement, to grow in this country.”

Long-time labor activist Bill Fletcher Jr. also stated his support for Biden during an episode of the “Bad Faith” podcast. When asked about the UAW endorsement despite the UAW’s ceasefire call, he said, “I applaud his [Fain’s] call for a ceasefire. I think that he probably is saying that there is no anti-imperialist candidate that’s running for president that has a chance of winning, and we’ve got to figure out how we defeat Trump.”

Socialists should be fighting for working-class political independence and arguing against the trap of lesser evilism. Every two to four years, reformists tell us that there is no alternative to voting for one capitalist candidate to defeat the other—and every time, the choices get worse. The lesser-evil trap ignores the real power of the working class and its allies both in the street and potentially at the ballot box. The truth is that the Democrats can’t win without organized labor’s get-out-the-vote operations. This presents the question, why don’t we use this machinery to run labor candidates and win?

Currently, there is great popular anger against Biden and the Democrats’ support for Israel’s genocidal policies and considerable sentiment for a third party—but what kind of party? Multi-class and liberal reformist parties like the Greens are certainly not the answer. What is needed is a party rooted in the working class and its mass organizations, the unions. This will require a struggle to rebuild the unions on a class-struggle basis.

Without class independence, we are forced to depend on the goodwill of politicians who answer to Wall Street. A workers’ party, or labor party, must emerge from mass struggles to defend the interests and living standards of the working class, protect the environment, and stand behind all oppressed people—Blacks, women, immigrants, LGBT people, etc.—who are fighting for their rights.

Such a party would not have to be a bureaucratic, pro-capitalist party like the social democratic parties of Europe. Nor would it be a party that merely puts forward candidates in the electoral arena. A labor party coming out of a renewed upsurge in the U.S. class struggle would remain first and foremost a mass-action party—organizing people who are fighting back in their workplaces and in the streets.

Photo: Biden speaks at UAW regional headquarters in Warren, Mich., while campaigning in September 2020.  (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)