When we are united we win, and when we allow ourselves to be divided, we lose

After more than a half century studying, teaching, writing about and participating in the California labor movement, I am completely clear about one simple lesson: when we are united, we win, and when we allow ourselves to be divided, we lose.

This is, of course, not an original idea. We might look to Abraham Lincoln’s “A house divided against itself cannot stand” on the eve of the Civil War as one similar observation among many others along the way. But the difficulty, over and over again, is that powerful forces are always working to divide us, and they succeed all too often. And they are doing it again right now.

“Neither of these taxes will harm in the slightest the well-off people who will pay …”

This year California’s unions have an unprecedented opportunity to tap the well-deserved anger its members are feeling toward the anti-union Trump administration and its ultra-rich supporters in our state. Two ‘tax the rich’ ballot measures, Prop 3 and Prop 40, will be voted on by the state’s electorate on November 3.

Prop 3 is a currently existing tax on the wealthiest two percent of income earners. Last year it brought over $14 billion into the state treasury to support public education, as well as other public services. But it is temporary. If allowed to expire it will cause devastating reductions in an already-strapped public education system. Prop 3 proposes to make it permanent.  

Prop 40 is a proposed temporary wealth tax on the state’s couple hundred billionaires. It would assess a one-time tax, to be paid over five years, on the billionaires’ collective hoard of two trillion dollars—a sum bloated by their federal tax cuts engineered by Trump and his congressional allies. The amount to be raised—one hundred billion dollars—will prevent cuts in Medi-Cal spending that otherwise will throw millions of the state’s poorest families off of their health care. 

Neither of these taxes will harm in the slightest the well-off people who will pay them and they will benefit all Californians who wish to be educated and healthy. A no-brainer for the labor movement, yes?

The state’s unions are in two camps supporting one or the other. There are only a handful of unions on board both measures. There are reasons for this, as there always are. Some of the reasons are better than others, but what they add up to is trouble for the state’s working families and the entire labor movement if either of the measures fail to pass. 

The obvious direct harm would be to students and patients, but it radiates outward from there to their families and communities. That’s easy to see. How does it harm the state’s unions? In general, unions, when they have their heads screwed on straight, understand the necessity for the rich to pay their fair share of taxes. Without that, the responsibility of supporting social services falls on the shoulders of the working class, union members and non-members alike, who generally are willing to take on their fair share, so long as their employers, large corporations and the rest of the capitalist class are doing so too.

The effort by a small cadre of ultra-conservative ultra-rich to divide and confuse the California working class over this issue has been underway since late last year. The sociopathic greed of a dozen or so megalomaniac tech bros have propelled them to spend an astonishing $125 million against the Billionaire Tax. Their arguments are simple and false, but when you have that kind of money to burn we enter the territory of Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels’ infamous advice that a big lie repeated enough times becomes true. Mailers, digital ads, right wing think tank “studies” and now an $87 million television buy are demonstrating two things: that the ideas of our contemporary right wing anti-tax propagandists owe much to fascist thinkers; and that the effectiveness of such a campaign is enhanced when it has largely gone unanswered by the proponents of Prop 40 and Prop 3.

Where’s the Support?

Prop 40 proponents haven’t answered in kind because they don’t have that kind of money at their disposal. But they also haven’t shown that they are building the kind of grassroots union campaign—big coalition, major mobilization of rank and file members in phone banks, canvassing and visible street demonstrations; in other words, the best tools at unions’ disposal—that it will take to defeat the billionaires.

Prop 3 proponents haven’t answered because the attacks—so far—have only been against the billionaire tax, and the Prop 3 coalition leaders do not seem to understand that there is a higher principle involved here than the violations of labor coalition-building protocols committed by SEIU-UHW. The higher principle is, quite simply, the general good of the entire California working class—not to mention understanding the damage that will be done to momentum around the country for tax the rich campaigns (most recently successful in places like Massachusetts and Washington state) should the Billionaire Tax be defeated. A defeat will also hurt the chances of future progressive tax campaigns here in California.

In 1912, during the massive “Bread and Roses” strike of textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Industrial Workers of the World leader Big Bill Haywood spread out his fingers during a speech and told the crowd, “This is how the AFL organizes”, and enumerated the different craft unions organizing separately from one another. He noted that individual fingers could be easily disabled. Combining his fingers into a fist, the miners’ union leader roared, “This is how the IWW organizes”. Acting upon that lesson led the Lawrence workers to victory. But memory within organized labor of that point has been, time after time, victim to a deadly historical amnesia.

Vote to endorse both measures is …

The California Federation of Labor Unions meets on August 4 to debate and vote on Prop 3 and Prop 40, among other issues. A vote to endorse both measures is in the interest of every union in the federation and every one of its more than two million members. The delegates to the meeting would do well to heed the words of Haywood and not succumb to narrow trade-conscious interests and the barrage of lies launched by their class enemies. Instead, it’s time for a unified labor movement to lead.

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