Source: Socialist Organizer

A statement issued earlier this week by United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) underscores the urgent need for the labor movement and its community allies to get out into the streets in huge numbers on Wednesday, November 4 and Saturday, November 7 to stop Trump’s planned coup.

“Trump has indicated several ways that he may attempt to steal the election,” the statement reads. “He may try to do that through legal mechanisms. He may try to do it through voter suppression or intimidation.  He may try to do it by simply stopping the count of mail ballots.”

The UTLA leadership goes on to note that the first couple of days following the November 3 election will be decisive, as “Trump and the right wing may be testing the water, so we have to act fast and mobilize big.”

The UTLA statement concludes with a review of a time, 20 years ago, when the labor movement dropped the ball and did not mobilize to stop a stolen election. The authors write:

“The 2000 election between George W. Bush and Al Gore came down to the Florida recount. The Democratic Party made a decision. They decided not to mobilize the millions of people who wanted to make sure that every vote was counted. They decided to rely solely on the courts.

“The Republican Party and right wing made a different decision. They decided to challenge the count in the courts AND in the streets. They mobilized, got thousands of folks into the streets in rallies, and they took control of the narrative. They created the frame: ‘Loser Gore is trying to steal the election.’ They created the conditions on the ground that allowed for the court to end the recount.”

[We should add that in 2000 the national AFL-CIO leadership refused to buck the Democratic Party’s directive to stay off the streets, thus contributing to the demobilization that ensured Bush’s “selection.” This sorry episode of labor’s subordination to the Democratic Party was recounted in great detail by then AFL-CIO staff member Jane McAlevy in her memoir; see The Organizer Weekly no. 12].

The UTLA statement concluded by reiterating its call to action beginning November 4, proclaiming, “We cannot let them steal an election again!”

Labor action to protect the integrity of the vote mushrooms

Hundreds of union locals, central labor councils, national unions, and other workplace organizations have heeded the lessons of the 2000 election debacle and are preparing the actions required to stop Trump and the Republicans from orchestrating a coup.

Many unions have adopted resolutions calling on the labor movement as a whole to “take whatever nonviolent actions may be necessary to stop Trump from stealing the election.” Some of the resolutions — such as the ones adopted by the central labor councils in Rochester (NY), Troy (NY), Seattle (WA), Madison (WI) or Western Massachusetts — have called for workplace actions, up to and including a general strike.

An ad-hoc network of more than 100 labor organizations and leaders —— the Labor Action to Defend Democracy (LADD) — has emerged with the aim of helping to promote the bottom-up mobilization of the millions of workers in the labor movement, in alliance with community forces, starting November 4. “Labor can make the difference,” stated a LADD organizer.

The Organizer newspaper concurs: The fight against voter suppression is our fight. The fight to defend the right to vote is our fight. Millions of workers and oppressed people in this country have fought tooth and nail to secure this right, many of them lost their lives.

It is up to the working class and its organizations to champion the fight in defense of the very bourgeois democratic rights that have been won through bitter struggle by working people — rights that have been eroded continuously.

More than 500 demonstrations are being organized nationwide the afternoon and evening of Wednesday, November 4 by the broad-based Protect the Results coalition. Unions in many cities will be joining these actions. On Saturday, November 7 the labor movement has taken the lead in organizing what could be huge demonstrations to protect the integrity of the vote.

The stakes are huge. As a labor organizer in San Francisco put it: “We cannot count on the legal system to defend us; we can only count on ourselves, on the collective power of our unions and community partners.”

All Out November 4 and November 7!

---