By ERNIE GOTTA

What is the Democratic Party? Is it a political arena with an open competition for ideas? Can the working class influence and remake the Democratic Party in its own image? What about third parties? Do we need a labor party in the U.S.? These types of questions are posed by labor and political journalist Hamilton Nolan in a recent article titled, “Do we need a Labor Party, published on the author’s website, “How Things Work.”

While expressing a certain level of disgust for the “shitheads” in the Democratic Party, Nolan presents us with a number of arguments as to why he believes labor and socialist activists should dig even deeper into the political “arena” of the Democratic Party and wage a fight for control over the party. These arguments are further framed by the need to first fix the structure of a rigged electoral system if we are to even think about forming a third party.

Is the effort to fight for working-class independence in 2024 a waste of time and resources, as Nolan suggests? As we reach the last weeks of the election campaign season, the questions raised by Nolan can help us reflect on how we define political parties, the class nature of a party (which shapes its character), the electoral system, the role of elections in the working-class movement, and the consequences for a working-class leadership that attempts to entrench itself inside the Democratic Party.

We can also reflect on what could happen if the working class goes in an independent direction by creating a workers’ or labor party.

This article will attempt to unpack some of the misconceptions, contradictions, cynicism, and downright incorrect notions presented in Nolan’s article—which lead him to conclude that the place for organized labor and the working class is the Democratic Party. This article will conclude with a brief outline as to why building a labor party is an essential and indispensable step today toward the independence and liberation of the working class from the capitalist oppressors.

The nature of the Democratic Party

Hamilton Nolan writes, “Part of the impulse to flee that party comes from the tendency to see political parties like brands, like sports teams to support. The Democrats have done so much bad shit and contain so many bad people that their brand is polluted and therefore the only reasonable move is to start a new party that is unpolluted. I get the sentiment. But that is not an accurate or even useful way to think about what a political party is. It’s better to think of the Democratic Party as an arena, where politics takes place. All of the special interests and all of the members of the party, including the shitheads, are in the arena, pushing and pulling for control of the party. It is just a place where politics is done.”

Is the Democratic Party a political “brand”? Or is the party an arena with an open competition for ideas? Neither one! The Democratic Party is made by and for the capitalist class. The party, in a way, is an unequal coalition that includes billionaires and small business owners, as well as working-class organizations.

This fact was on full display as Harris accepted the presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday, Aug. 22. It was very apparent that the party leadership had pushed for a “rebranding” of the party. Overnight, the party went from the “Sleepy Joe” Biden aesthetic to a younger, more diverse, and more energetic vibe. The full support of the labor movement was on display as one union leader after another pledged their support for Harris.

However, while the Democratic Party was “rebranded,” the political program of the party remained and did not shift to include demands like “End all U.S. Aid to Israel” to address the thousands of Palestinian solidarity protesters outside the DNC. Similarly, the Democrats removed opposition to the death penalty from their platform. And Harris has no real plan to address climate change, mass incarceration, trans youth, etc.

That reflects the fact that the Democratic Party is not an arena where there’s a fair political competition. It is a machine that helps manage an imperialist government that passes laws to help aid billionaires and their corporations in the extraction of wealth from working and oppressed people at home and abroad. Due to the uneven nature of this political coalition, it is necessary for the labor movement to separate itself politically.

Nolan deeply misunderstands the drive behind building a third party when he writes, “Would it feel better to wear a t-shirt that says ‘Labor Party’ with a picture of Eugene Debs on it than to wear a t-shirt that says ‘Democratic Party’ with a picture of Bill Clinton on it? Yes. Would it be more fun to hang out in a party where the other people there where [sic] Shawn Fain and Sara Nelson and Dolores Huerta than to hang out in a party with a bunch of guys who left their Obama administration jobs and went straight to work for Uber and bought a $3 million house in an exclusive neighborhood and then stuck a ‘Black Lives Matter’ sign in the expansive lawn? Sure.”

The question for the working class regarding a labor party isn’t about the aesthetics of whose image is on our t-shirts or the people we have to “hang out” with in the party. The consequence for the working class of remaining in a capitalist party is far more serious. The reason we need a labor party that is independent of the capitalists is the same reason we don’t let our bosses participate in our union meetings. Think about how absurd it would be if your boss had the same voting and speaking rights in your union meeting as you do. In the Democratic Party, it is far more serious because the capitalists have the money and the power in a very uneven coalition.

When, on occasion, a law in support of working people is passed, one of two things generally happens: (1) The new law has been codified because the mass movements have made it politically impossible to ignore the rights won through struggle. (2) Or the law is rendered toothless because of loopholes and a staggered schedule of implementation.

A political party—whether Democrat, Republican, Green, or Labor—has a class character. The Democratic Party is an old formation that at one time was represented by presidential figures and slaveholders like Andrew Jackson. The Democrats masterfully shifted from being the leading defenders of chattel slavery to today acting as the leading proponents of wage slavery. They went from implementing Jim Crow laws to overseeing the New Jim Crow, mass incarceration, and the school-to-prison pipeline.

The relatively liberal political perspective embraced by the Democratic Party since the FDR presidency allowed the party to absorb the allegiance of the labor movement and many other movements for social change. Today, of course, leading Democratic figures from the Black community like former President Barack Obama and current Vice President Kamala Harris claim to be proponents of civil rights and enhanced social programs. Yet the primary goal of the Democratic Party remains the maintenance of U.S. capital’s hegemony in the world.

What happens when the labor movement and its leaders participate in the Democratic Party?

One of the most common outcomes historically has included union leaders or labor politicians who allow themselves to become co-opted into the service of the capitalist class. These leaders help suppress strikes, make sweetheart deals with the bosses, make “no strike” pledges during wartime, and encourage workers to go to war against workers in other countries. Why do they do this? The perks and kickbacks are incredible! Just look at the salary of the top union leaders, and then look at all the extra goodies they get as they maintain those positions.

A good historical example took place during World War II when then Teamster President Daniel Tobin enthusiastically supported a no-strike pledge by organized labor and helped to instigate a witch hunt against militants and socialists in his own union. He was subsequently appointed by FDR to the Labor War Board and assigned as a special labor liaison to England.

What would happen if a mass upsurge of rank-and-file workers pushing an anti-capitalist agenda formed within the Democratic Party? It wouldn’t even get off the ground. Even today, union leaders or labor-friendly politicians are routinely silenced, sidelined, or removed from the party. The Democratic Party can’t even tolerate the more left-leaning liberals of the party like Cori Bush or Jamaal Bowman. Rep. Rashida Tlaib was censured in the House—one step below expulsion—by 22 Democrats as well as Republicans for remarks that were critical of Israel.

The Democratic Socialists of American thinks that it is influencing the Democratic Party through the “Uncommitted Campaign” and its support to selected Democratic candidates. But in reality, the relationship is inverted. DSA is providing left and labor cover for Democrats, who are selling their imperialist agenda to the masses.

The Democratic Party is more than capable of manipulating demands like “ceasefire” to fit their own agenda. After shutting down Palestine solidarity activists at a recent campaign rally, Kamala Harris adeptly managed to address protesters’ concerns at her next stop in Phoenix, Ariz., by incorporating the ceasefire demand. “Let me say, I have been clear,” the vice president declared. “Now is the time to get a ceasefire deal and get the hostage deal done.”

What does Harris mean by ceasefire? What if the Palestinians break the ceasefire? Do Palestinians have a right to resist? None of these questions are ever addressed by the Democrats directly. Instead, we have their response in the form of the Biden/Harris policy—including a recent $20 billion weapons package to arm Israel’s genocide.

Unions and their relationship with the Democratic Party

Nolan writes, “Keep in mind also that by exiting the Democratic Party, you leave it, and its infrastructure and resources, to the shitheads that made you dislike it in the first place. They are now more powerful. They now have less opposition.”

Is this true? Would the Democratic Party become stronger if unions leave the coalition? No. The Democratic Party would become far weaker should the unions exit to form a Labor Party; it would lose the funding, advertising, and the legion of canvassers and lobbyists that the unions provide. Every year, the labor bureaucracy dutifully guides union members to go into the voting booth to elect the current roster of Democratic politicians.

The trade-union officials often play a supporting role in the exploitation of the working class by privileging their own interests over those of the membership. They are so entwined with the Democratic Party politicians that from a distance it can be hard to tell who is who. Trade-union leaders sit on Democratic Town Committees, run for office as party candidates, and send a wealth of resources such as union member dues and armies of volunteer organizers to help campaign for Democrats in so-called “battleground states.” In a 2021 article about the Georgia Senate race, I wrote, “UNITE HERE alone mobilized over 1700 workers and staffers to knock on 3 million doors and dialed 10 million phone numbers for Joe Biden. The union mobilized in key electoral battlegrounds like Pennsylvania, where it claimed to have knocked on 575,000 doors.”

For more than a decade, UNITE HERE has had a strategy of using their new organizing drives in hotels, cafeterias, and casinos to drive forward a political program aimed at turning Republican voting states into Democratic Party majority states. In Nevada, UNITE HERE casino and hotel workers were the foot soldiers that helped flip the entire state in favor of the Democratic Party. In 2020, they played a pivotal role in Biden’s election. UNITE HERE writes, “UNITE HERE hospitality workers union led the country’s largest union door-to-door canvassing operation. With 1,700+ hotel housekeepers, cooks and casino workers canvassing, we reached the doors of 3 million voters in the key battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada and Florida.”

Similarly, the UAW and Shawn Fain, who are seen as the vanguard of union reform, did not think twice when Biden dropped out of the presidential race. They immediately endorsed the nomination of Kamala Harris. Fain had this to say at a UAW Local 900 rally in Wayne, Mich., “On one side, we’ve got a billionaire who serves himself and his billionaire buddies. He lies, cheats, and steals his way to the top. He is the lapdog of the billionaire class. On the other side, we’ve got a badass woman who has stood on the picket line with working-class people. Kamala Harris is a champion of the working class.”

The union then released a commercial calling out Trump as a scab and representative of the billionaire class. Although that observation is not incorrect, the commercial conveniently leaves out the truth that Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party are also representatives of the billionaire class. The Obama administration oversaw the greatest transfer of wealth from working and poor people to the wealthy elite in history, and this ushered in an era of the greatest disparity in wealth since 1917.

While the union officials may pay lip service to the rank and file, in many cases they like to think that their union local, region, council, or even international is their own fiefdom or kingdom to lord over.

On one side of the coin, there are many privileges gained by union officials after taking office. These privileges in one form or another begin to separate the officials from the rank and file. Even if officials started with the best intentions of being a positive force for the membership, they may move to protect their position from criticism—and in doing so, fight to maintain their privileges against the interests of the workers they’re supposed to represent.

On the other side of the coin, union officers may find themselves under pressure from the capitalists, politicians, and top union officials. Even the best of the union officials today take a pragmatic approach to their labor “leadership.” For example, they may denounce the genocide in Gaza and then in the same breath explain to workers why it is crucial for them to vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, who have supported genocide in Gaza, for president and vice president.

We can have a coalition of unions including APWU, UAW, UE, AFA, and so on, representing 9 million workers who feel the pressure from the rank and file to speak out in favor of a ceasefire. But we can also watch how they work with the Democratic Party to further moderate the milquetoast ceasefire demand, which puts the onus on the colonized Palestinians to stop the genocide against their own people. The union officials are adept at maneuvering to corral movements and bring them back to the legislative and electoral arena, where workers have no power.

Why do we have no power? Because the working class has no independent vehicle to wage a political struggle against the capitalist class. The working class in the U.S. has never had a mass party of its own. The majority of workers have been trapped in a vicious cycle of supporting one capitalist party or another.

Does this mean that the trade unions are at a dead end? Do we separate ourselves and form more radical or independent unions? No, of course not. We need to build a class-struggle left wing inside the existing labor movement and meet the workers who are looking for answers to the difficult questions that confront our movement today.

What does building a class-struggle left wing mean? It means organizing and politicizing our unions around important demands for the working class. For example, trade-union militants need to lead the effort to get their unions to take the political offensive nationally on reproductive justice and the defense of abortion. The National Mobilization for Reproductive Justice (NMRJ) press conference in Washington on June 24 is one example of an action that drew together those in the labor and social justice movements who are ready to fight.

What about political divisions in the working class?

Nolan raises an interesting point about the political differences that exist within the working class and the labor movement. He writes, “Another helpful way to think about this for union people is to think about your own union. It is also full of people who disagree with you! It’s not like unions, which would make up the backbone of a new Labor Party, are totally ideologically unified. Maybe you are a Teamster and real labor radical and then you look up and the president of your union is speaking on stage at the Republican National Convention. Dang. Maybe you are in UFCW and you’re ready to organize a million new workers and then the international president is lazy and doesn’t feel like doing it. Dang. Unions are their own arenas of internal political actions.”

It is true that there are many political divisions. Those divisions have increased exponentially not because of some inherent flaw in the working class or a lack of capacity for today’s Trump supporter to become tomorrow’s rank-and-file left labor militant. The lack of political unity in the organized working class has more to do with, on the one hand, the lack of opportunities for democratic debate, discussion, and education in the unions and, on the other hand, the fact that union members have been told to vote for Democrats for years—only to be betrayed. From Truman signing the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act to Clinton signing NAFTA, to Biden forcing a concessionary contract on railroad workers, generations of workers have become fed up!

Unions are the basic units of defense for the rights of workers. Union members would really have full control over their unions if they were able to get together and decide to exercise that control. When workers participate in the Democratic Party, however, they are entering hostile terrain alongside the same bosses who are trying to break their strikes, lower their wages, and smash their unions!

We don’t imagine a labor party coming about in a top-down way from the hands of union leaders like Shawn Fain or Sara Nelson. The success of the labor party will be rooted in taking up the fight for self-determination of the Black community in their fight for liberation from the racist capitalist system. A labor party must also fight against the conditions that put a double burden on women while the Democrats turn a blind eye to the real need for 24/7 child and elder care and universal health care.

A labor party today cannot only be a vehicle that fights for a tiny portion of those organized into unions. The unions are one of the few arenas that working people have to anchor and begin the organizing of such an initiative. The potential of youth who are interested in joining unions, and the thousands of young workers across the country who are organizing unions at Starbucks or on college campuses, are a hopeful sign for the future.

There is a direct correlation between the class struggle and the development of working-class consciousness. Through workplace actions and strikes in a struggle against the bosses, workers begin to open up to new political ideas because the contradictions are right in front of their faces. What could be more demoralizing than forcing these workers with a newly developed consciousness away from their struggle and into the Democratic Party and the arms of their bosses?

A labor party is more likely to become a reality when there is a real resurgence of trade-union activity even greater than what the world saw starting in 1934 with the Toledo Auto-Lite strike, the San Francisco longshore strike, and the Minneapolis Teamster strike. The labor movement of that era was revitalized through a militant class struggle, which ushered in the rise of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and the model of industrial unionism, and stirred greater participation by rank-and-file workers.

Electoral reform?

Nolan’s article identifies the U.S. electoral system as a serious problem. He writes, “First—and this applies to all third parties in the US—it is impossible to escape the trap of third parties in our current system, which is that third parties tend to sap votes from the major party closest to their own politics and thereby benefit the major party that is farthest from their own politics. This is a familiar quandary resulting from our two party, winner take all system of elections. There is also a familiar and well understood solution to this quandary: Proportional representation.”

He continues, “Rather than storming out of the Democratic Party and forming a new party and then toiling on the margins of the power, it makes infinitely more sense to first reform our system so that a third party could actually have power, and then go make your new party. Instead of rushing off to form the Labor Party, make ‘passing the Fair Representation Act’ a pillar of organized labor’s political agenda. It would be a healthy step towards getting unions to focus their political capital not just on bread and butter issues for their own membership, but on improving our democracy.”

To these quotes we should ask a series of questions. For all the effort and money unions have put into electing Democrats, what has the labor movement been able to accomplish with its “political capital”? Has the PRO-Act been passed? Do workers have single-payer health care? Is abortion easily accessible and affordable across the U.S.? Do immigrant workers have full rights when they cross the border? Have police stopped terrorizing Black and Brown communities? Does the LGBTQIA+ community, especially trans individuals, have full rights? Has the genocide in Gaza been stopped?

There have been numerous times in the history of the U.S. when Democrats have controlled all three branches of government. What has changed now? Why would the Democrats do anything different? It is simply not true that unions only campaign around “bread and butter” issues. Every union has a political director and a political program. The main problem is that the entirety of their effort goes to fund Democratic politicians who make empty promises. The system works exactly as the Democratic and Republican parties intended; it functions in the interests of the wealthy elite.

The reality is that the Fair Representation Act would more likely come about if a labor party existed to organize millions in the street to demand it. It’s also true that elections are just one way of doing politics, and not even the most effective method of making change. The real power of the working class is demonstrated at the point of production and in the streets. That power can grow even stronger when it is linked together with the social movements on a national and international level. The working class is international, and a labor party could make as one of its tasks building solidarity with working-class movements across the globe. Imagine how easy it would be for the maquiladoras in Mexico to win better wages and working conditions if they had the full support of workers and a labor party in the U.S.! The Democratic Party could never make that a reality.

We need a labor party!

The working class and oppressed need a labor party. They need class independence from the “billionaire class” or capitalist class. This means complete and total independence from the Democratic and Republican parties.

Hamilton Nolan asks in his article, “Would it be best to withdraw the union money and membership from the Democratic Party and use our time to start a new party and do all of the logistical work to try to get ballot access and build offices and conduct enormous communication campaigns to get name recognition in order to get our new party off the ground?”

To this question we should answer “yes” emphatically, with both hands raised. A labor party is not just a vehicle to win votes in an election. It would be the political vehicle to mobilize the class on a daily basis to win not only economic demands like better wages and working conditions but also to lead the social struggles for abortion rights/reproductive justice, immigrant rights, Indigenous land back, single-payer health care, an end to the genocide in Gaza, and so on. The candidates of the labor party would be responsible to the workers they represent and subject to immediate recall if they step out of line. When the wealthy come with bags of money to try and buy their way into the party, we’d tell them to get lost.

A labor party worth anything will be crafted in the renewed democratic and fighting labor movement—a movement that connects with the social movements and brings every decision before the rank-and-file members for debate and discussion. It will be built on the basis of a union leadership that doesn’t conceal contract negotiations behind non-disclosure clauses. The labor party will be built on rank-and-file workers who lead their unions through militant strikes, in which all of the major decisions are made at mass meetings of the members. In this way, reform of the electoral system is a secondary question.

The perspective of building a labor party is one of building a mass movement in the streets. In fact, election reform is more likely with the building of a mass labor party.

Imagine what would have been possible if the Labor Party coming out of the 1996 convention under the leadership of Tony Mazzocchi had actually made a decisive break from the Democrats and didn’t waver on the questions of running in elections. The inability of the labor officials leading this endeavor to fully break with the Democratic Party hamstrung the effort and put the question off until a later day—when it was too late and the moment had passed.

A labor party could organize and coalesce the attempt outlined by Shawn Fain to align union contracts across the U.S. in 2028 in order to organize the possibility of a general strike. The Democratic Party has never done anything like this in its nearly 200-year history because the action would be antithetical to the reason for the party’s existence.

The Democrats, however, are adept at demobilizing the mass movement in the streets. The Iraq antiwar movement was demobilized under Obama, and the George Floyd/BLM protests were demobilized under Biden. Another important example includes the events of May 1, 2006, when millions of immigrant workers took to the streets for “a day without an immigrant” to oppose racist and anti-immigrant legislation. The general strike was a success in defeating a piece of legislation but fell short of providing a real amnesty for immigrant workers. Then the Democratic Party politicians, unions, and NGOs helped to carry the movement off the streets and into the voting booths by pushing for immigrant workers to wave American flags while advancing the slogan, “Today we march, tomorrow we vote.”

In contrast, the process of building a labor party today means explicitly fighting for the demands of oppressed communities by mobilizing millions in the streets for reparations for Black, Indigenous, and Puerto Rican people. It means exposing the plans cooked up by local politicians, landlords, and land developers to gentrify historically Black, Indigenous, Latino, and Asian communities. And it requires creating a real economic plan that would be paid for by putting the major corporations, railroads, factories, and banks under public ownership and democratic workers’ control, while at the same time dismantling the racist police and criminal justice system.

As the 2024 elections approach, there are going to be many different arguments made for why working people, oppressed communities, and students should support Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party instead of Trump and the Republican Party. There will be a lot of social pressure to keep quiet about a vast array of political issues, including the genocide of Palestinians, so that Harris can defeat Trump.

Those who see the possibility and necessity of the fight for working-class independence should stand firm in their convictions. Today, Teamsters, for example, have an opportunity to tell their leadership whom to endorse in the upcoming elections. This is a great opportunity to make the comment that you want a labor party, but it’s an even better opportunity to have a discussion with your coworkers on the shop floor about the coming fight for class independence and the labor party.

If you’re interested in joining the fight for working-class independence, join Workers’ Voice today!

 Illustration: “Fight Reaction, Build a Labor Party,” pamphlet by the Trotskyist-led Chevrolet Local 659 UAW-CIO, Flint, Mich., 1947.