May Day shows NYC's unions have a long way to go

This week, President Trump is painting the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool swimming pool blue. That’s the penny-ante version of the American war on Iran – both forbidden without Congressional authorization.

Of course, Trump also thumbed his nose at the law when he stripped union protections from hundreds of thousands of workers at the Veterans Administration and other federal agencies – the largest act of union-busting in American history. And while last month the Supreme Court certainly gave Trump a helping hand on the rigging of November’s Congressional elections, the prospect that he will use ICE or other law enforcement agencies to interfere with the actual casting of ballots is a very real possibility.

All this to say we are in the midst of a democratic emergency.

That’s a direct threat to the labor movement, which should understand the dim prospects facing unions in an authoritarian state busy enriching the billionaire class.

This was the context for May Day – International Workers’ Day – in New York City: could its organized working class build alliances with working-class community and faith-based organizations? And could it demonstrate not just presence – but also its potential for disruptive power?

Would the big unions mobilize members? Would they organize actions that confronted anti-union employers or ICE? Would they see May Day as a chance to “up their game,” or be content to treat the day mostly as “business as usual” – simply making an appearance, or not even that?

The answer was mixed.

Some unions got good grades, but others got a D – or an F. And more generally, having to grade union by union reveals that in New York – in comparison with what we saw in Minneapolis this winter – there is no unified and potentially militant labor movement.

Let’s begin with the good news.

I started the day in midtown with members of the Amazon Labor Union, still seeking a first contract at their Staten Island fulfillment center, and Teamsters Local 804 (primarily UPS) which is organizing Amazon delivery workers and advocating for Council Member Tiffany Caban’s Delivery Protection Act, which would force Amazon to directly employ those workers.

Later in the day, those Teamsters helped lead perhaps 15,000 marchers behind banners declaring “No Billionaires,” “No ICE,” “No War,” and “New York For All” – the name of a bill prohibiting local law enforcement and state agencies from working with ICE.

At midday, I went to a teach-in on the history of May Day – it started here in the United States in 1886, as part of the fight for an eight-hour workday – at Guttman Community College, organized by my union, the Professional Staff Congress – CUNY. That was just the last of its “May Week” activities across CUNY campuses; earlier that morning PSC members did their regular weekly stint witnessing in the immigration courts.

Later in the day, PSC joined other higher education faculty and staff outside the New School to protest layoffs there and the abrupt refusal of St. John’s University to recognize or bargain with its long-standing faculty union. From there, we marched down to Washington Square Park, where PSC numbers swelled to perhaps 800, the largest contingent there.

I’m not just being a homeboy when I note that PSC treated organizing for the day with the seriousness it deserved, sending dozens to the May Day Strong Solidarity School in February, setting internal goals for turnout, and explaining to members that this work was part of a broader effort to build union power and fight Trump’s authoritarian attacks. That’s at least a start toward the kind of militancy the labor movement desperately needs.

But blue-collar unions were in evidence too.

I think it’s likely that Labor International Union of North America locals, which had been at the Solidarity School too, matched PSC’s numbers pound-for-pound, and their “Shut It Down” chants echoed through Broadway’s canyons. They were closely followed in the line of march by the Hotel & Gaming Trades Council, gearing up for the expiration of their main contract this summer during the World Cup, and Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ, fresh off their recent contract bargaining victory.

Two quasi-unions, the Taxi Workers Alliance and the Los Deliveristas Unidos, marched side-by-side with East and South Asian community organizations – one sign of the alliances the labor movement needs to build.

Another was that the official sponsors of the march were the New York City Central Labor Council and the New York Immigration Coalition, with the New York branch of the Democratic Socialists of America sitting in on some of the organizing efforts. So, labor, community and the left; some new relationships were built or strengthened.

Still, there were also shortcomings, in both presence and power. District Council 37’s contingent in the march was not comparable with the size of the union, but they were at least noticeable, unlike the United Federation of Teachers or SEIU Local 1199. Or any of the other building trades unions.

It’s an unfortunate signal that a CLC endorsement does not precipitate at least a token appearance by all its constituent members.

New York’s a long way from building the deep alignments, trust, and collaborative strategy across unions, community and faith organizations that made Minneapolis’s No Work-No School-No Shopping possible. Or sparked the upsurge in North Carolina (!!!), where teachers shut down much of the state’s school system.

In other words, to demonstrate power and prepare members for actions that may be necessary to preserve democracy in the coming months. Even the PSC backed off bringing May Day to classrooms – disruption in its workplace.

What’s behind our lower level of action? One labor activist suggested that competing priorities like the state budget and electoral races got in the way.

But I think two others nailed it: most NYC union leaders do not seem to feel any urgency.

“Many unions in this city live under false pretenses… that the world is fine,” said one.

“We squandered an opportunity to see if the labor movement is ready for November. We don’t know any more about that than we did a week ago,” lamented the other.

A year ago, labor organizer Stephen Lerner warned unions that “caution is fatal,” even as he anticipated that only a few labor leaders would be willing to take risks and act heroically against Trump and his billionaire buddies. Unfortunately, Lerner’s prediction has too often been borne out.

If your union is readying to take those risks, then you are lucky that you can join its activity. If not, you have the harder path of organizing your co-workers, pressuring lethargic leaders, and finding allies inside and outside your union. That’s necessary because the threat to unions and the labor movement is just going to keep intensifying. And because May Day is not just one day in a year, but a state of mind: that the working class needs to build its challenge to its employers and their state; to not just defend ourselves, but change the nation for the better.