Machinists’ OK of Harris emphasizes importance of High Court

The extreme right wing anti-labor record of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has been singled out by the IAM as a major concern regarding the elections when the union says we will need an administration, a Harris administration, to help lead the fight against the anti-labor Supreme Court majority. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP

NEW YORK—As expected, the Machinists’ convention officially endorsed the Democratic ticket of Vice President Kamala Harris for president and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz for vice president. What was unexpected was the emphasis the union put on the president’s key role in selecting Supreme Court justices.

In its statement, IAM broke ground among all unions by emphasizing the next president—Harris or Republican nominee Donald Trump—will have a chance to change the political orientation of the court. The current Republican-named majority shows a constant tendency to intervene against workers’ rights and against constitutional rights.

The current court’s Republican-named majority sides with the corporate class and right-wing oppressors virtually every time, on everything from ending constitutional rights to abortion to letting every state and local government worker be a “free rider,” able to use union services and protections without paying one red cent for them.

But three of the nine justices, including the two oldest, GOP-named right-wingers Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, are over 70. Which gives the next president an opportunity to replace them.

Justice Alito is rabidly anti-worker, authoring the five-year-old Janus ruling that threw out decades of law about the free riders.

He also authored the Dobbs decision, abolishing the federal constitutional right to abortion. That’s galvanized voters for the last two years, to go to the polls to protect that right, and it keeps doing so.  And Justice Thomas has not only taken millions of dollars from Republican big giver Harlan Crow but also questioned other constitutional rights.

“The American people, especially working families, have a clear choice in the upcoming presidential election,” IAM said.” We need a capable, strong, and experienced leader to continue the Biden administration’s work addressing the widening gap between the rich and poor, growing retirement insecurity, and ongoing foreign and domestic threats.

“Future U.S. Supreme Court nominations will play a decisive role in maintaining the right to bargain collectively, defending workers and unions from relentless attacks, and upholding the principles of democracy,” the union added.

The “principles of democracy” refers to Trump’s ordering, aiding, and abetting the insurrection—Trump’s word—that trashed the U.S. Capitol three and a half years ago. The invaders sought to keep the former Republican president in power even after he lost the 2020 election to Biden.

“We reject the politics of fear, hate, division, and exclusion,” the union declared.

While the endorsement was expected, the formal nod opens the way for the union’s campaign finance committee, the Machinists Non-Partisan Political League, to allot voluntarily donated dollars to their Democrats’ campaign and for the union to deploy volunteers in the streets and on phone banks.

In an indication of that concentration, union Political and Legislative Director Hasan Solomon told the crowd: “If you are a Machinists union member in this country, you cannot afford not to be involved in politics…If we don’t get involved, our jobs get outsourced and our members get pink slips.”

Also compared Harris to Trump

The High Court’s future composition wasn’t the sole reason the union backed Harris and Walz. Comparing the Biden-Harris administration with the Trump regime was another.

“Vice President Harris has proven herself to be an instrumental leader in helping President Biden create the most union-friendly administration in American history. Her commitment to working families is evident in her support for historic legislation like the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the CHIPS and Science Act—legislation that saved hundreds of thousands of IAM jobs and is building the economy of the future with union members at its core,” IAM continued.

“Trump broke promise after promise to our members, resulting in the closure of…IAM-represented facilities and loss of tens of thousands of IAM jobs. His administration froze during the COVID-19 (coronavirus) crisis, failed to assist in saving thousands of U.S. jobs across various states, and did not address the impact of the 2019 government shutdown on federal workers.

“Vice President Harris and Gov. Walz consistently supported the IAM and the labor movement, including her opposition to former President Trump’s ‘NAFTA 2.0’ trade deal, her leadership in the White House Task Force On Worker Organizing And Empowerment, and her unwavering support for the Protect The Right To Organize Act,” labor’s top legislative priority.

“Harris stood with striking workers, saved the pensions of more than a million union members, and increased access to childcare for working families. Her dedication to advancing the rights and livelihoods of American workers is unmatched.

Walz, a member of Education Minnesota, the joint AFT-NEA union affiliate there, “passed the most pro-worker package of laws” in state history. He also has “a strong labor record and commitment to public service. He is an ideal running mate who will continue to champion the values the IAM and working families across the nation hold dear.”

The endorsement capped the convention, where the other big news was the adoption of a blueprint for rebranding the union to reflect more of its diversity and Biden-Harris U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai telling members trade pacts will now be used “to end our race to the bottom.”

Tai held up the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement—which the AFL-CIO and its congressional allies forced the former Republican Donald Trump regime to extensively rewrite—as a model for future trade pacts and policies.

Those new-model treaties will help U.S. workers and not “big corporations…that know their way around Washington,” Tai promised. Trade pacts “will become a tool for creating a race to the top.”

“We have to stop pitting Americans against Americans—workers against workers—with our trade policy, where we mostly benefit big corporations and those that know their way around Washington.

With the USMCA pact with Canada and Mexico, her office brings cases “against specific facilities in Mexico that we think are violating workers’ rights,” Tai explained.

Unlike the USMCA’s predecessor pact, the jobs-destroying corporate-written NAFTA, when the U.S. government wins a judgment in such cases, Mexico’s new labor structure must enforce it.

Fight for real unions in Mexico

That includes establishing independent unions, not government-allied or corporate-dominated ones, Tai noted. It also includes automatic reinstatement of workers illegally fired for union organizing.

“We are holding corporations that offshore American jobs accountable, and we are changing real people’s lives for the better,” said Tai. “Real change, affecting real people and their livelihoods, through a trade agreement.”

Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Julie Su agreed. “You have said ‘not on our watch,’” to outsourcing and exploitation “and I want you to know that we stand with you,” she said. “Our policies are lifting up American families who’ve been left out, left behind, and let down by the economic policies of the past.

“With this administration, you have our word, you have our support and you have our unwavering commitment to protect good union jobs right here at home.”

AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler told the crowd that unions “are growing in a way that we haven’t seen in a generation.” But she warned that progress, and more “is on the line” in the election.

“If you care about your dignity, if you care about your rights as a union worker, if you care about your freedom, it is all on the line Nov. 5. So we can be the ones who make history—or herstory. We have the momentum. Are you ready to get it done, IAM? Are you ready to do this? Because when we fight, we win,” Shuler declared.

Delegates also adopted the recommendations of the union’s Commission on the Future, which traveled the country for two years asking members what they would like to see from IAM.

The result was two-fold. One goal will be to “rebrand” the union to make it more inclusive, and more attractive to new workers and members, most of whom are not in IAM’s traditional sectors of shipbuilding, aerospace, and manufacturing.

The other was to pump more money into organizing, though union President Brian Bryant gave no figures. Recent IAM wins were not in its traditional sectors, but at IKEA furniture, the Ohio State University Medical Center, and Austin Pets Alive, a dog shelter in the Texas capital.

“We are investing in organizing and working together across our union to grow,” Bryant said. “We have changed the entire culture of the IAM! We have become an organizing union, not just a union that organizes.”

One caution came from one of the 30 listening sessions IAM’s commission held with members as they toured the country. Local 837 in St. Louis reminded them bosses are always the opposition.

“Employers will always want as much labor as possible at the lowest compensation to our members, we must be prepared to demand that our members deserve better than that,” the local said.

We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!

---

CONTRIBUTOR

Mark Gruenberg

Award-winning journalist Mark Gruenberg is head of the Washington, D.C., bureau of People's World. He is also the editor of the union news service Press Associates Inc. (PAI). Known for his reporting skills, sharp wit, and voluminous knowledge of history, Mark is a compassionate interviewer but tough when going after big corporations and their billionaire owners.