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How to build unions into a transformative force is the critical question of our times; workers still have the power to shut down production but unions must have a class consciousness, including organizing the unemployed . Sam Gindin and Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news podcast.

Paul Jay

Hi, I'm Paul Jay.  Welcome to theAnalysis.News podcast.

I think if the current mass movement in the United States is going to have significant transformative power, the union movement must play an important, even leading roll.   Even though they represent less workers than in the past, unions are still the only organizations workers have that are national in key sectors of the economy. They have financial resources and organizational power. Problem is, most unions, although not all, are very tied to the Democratic Party corporate establishment. They're quite satisfied, more or less with the way things are, but not all the unions. As I said, ports along the West Coast of Canada and the United States were closed down on Friday as workers with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union stopped operations to support racial equality and social justice.

A statement from the unions says, "The eight hour actions honored Juneteenth. The celebrations of the liberation of slaves in the United States in 1865 and is commemorated on June 19th." Will the pandemic and economic crisis spark a new upsurge in the workers movement in Canada and the United States? What is the state of struggle inside the unions as progressive workers fight against an entrenched leadership that is wedded to the status quo? What role are the more progressive unions playing? 

And look out for Part two, which will discuss a fight taking place in Oshawa, Ontario, where workers are demanding an idle GM plant be nationalized and converted to the production of electric vehicles. 

Paul Jay

Now joining us is Sam Gindin. Sam was the research director of the Canadian Auto Workers, now known as Unifor. He's the co-author of The Socialist Challenge today with Leo Panitch and Steve Miha. And he's also the co-author of The Making of Global Capitalism with Leo Panitch, and he's currently active with Green Jobs Oshawa. Thanks for joining us. 

Sam Gindin

Great to be here.

Paul Jay

 So let's start with what happened on the West Coast was kind of an example of what I've always thought workers and unions could play in the course of a heightening struggle.

I was in Baltimore for eight years and I always imagined a day, someday in the future, where a progressive city council would pass some legislation. I don't know, using public domain and taking over whole sections of housing and turning it into public housing or something like that. That really pissed off the elites and major struggle would take place and thousands of people would come to the front of city hall and then the port workers, because Port Baltimore is a very important port, would close down the port in solidarity with the struggle taking place. Of course, we never saw it, at least not yet, but one can imagine that could be happening. But as I said in the introduction, many of the unions are led by a stratum of, what they used to call them, labor aristocracy, a trade union leaders that are very well-paid and very enmeshed in the status quo of the Democratic Party. And the political system and so on.

So how do you do you think the current crisis is going to change that dynamic? And are there in most, if not all of these unions, progressive workers sort of in battle to try to transform the ...