I attended the 2024 Labor Notes
Conference Friday, April 19-Sunday, April 21 at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare in the
village of Rosemont, Illinois, just outside Chicago near O’Hare Airport, and
was exhilarated. As was announced at the
first Main Session that Friday evening, over 4,600 labor militants
attended. I saw the crowds throughout
the Conference, and it was obvious those numbers were right. Moreover, most of the attendees appeared to
be 30 or under, though there was a good mixture of ages among all attendees—people
between 30 and 40, as well as middle-aged and even older people, activists in
their 40s, 50s, 60s and even older. (I’m
77, and while I might have been the oldest attendee, I wasn’t sure, as I wasn’t
the only hoary movement veteran there!)
Overwhelmingly, attendees wore T-shirts advertising their union or union
caucus affiliation, with several unions and caucuses quite prevalent: UAW and the rank-and-file caucus of that
union, United Auto Workers for Democracy (UAWD); Teamsters and Teamsters for a
Democratic Union (TDU); UFCW and Essential Workers for Democracy (EW4D);
Machinists; UE and ILWU; National Nurses United; AFSCME; CWA; unions of academics
and academic workers, professors, grad students, student employees; Starbucks
United; and others. There were also
workers and unionists from outside the US present as well—activists from Hong
Kong and Taiwan, Japan, Korea, New Zealand (I had a marvelous discussion at the
Conference with a New Zealand activist), Canada, and elsewhere. (A flight attendant from Thailand related at
one of the workshops the successful struggle her union had waged and won—in
Thai, ably translated by an interpreter.)
A real cross-section of the union membership. There were also workshops galore, on a myriad
of topics—something for everyone attending, and, from my experience, all the
workshops were masterfully led and presented. Certainly, all the workshops I attended were
helpful in giving me the ideas and skills I need for my own workplace
organizing. It certainly was exciting to
be there and see what could well be the future of the US labor movement—where
the left wing of labor is no longer fringe, but is an integral part of the
“mainstream”!
The Labor Notes staff did an
excellent job of organizing the Conference and providing support for the
Conference attendees, while the Hyatt Regency’s unionized staff’s service was
marvelous throughout. It’s quite a chore
handling and event of thousands wanting service, meals, and drinks, and the
staff more than rose to the occasion. The
staff was highly comprised of immigrants, mostly Hispanic, and I’m sure, a lot
of them originally from Mexico—Trump’s “rapists,” “murderers,” and “not their
best people”! But tell that to us,
who were so ably served!
While the Labor Notes staff
encouraged people to wear masks due to Covid, it was voluntary, and many
attendees were maskless, or only wore masks some of the time. Labor Notes also admonished attendees to be
civil toward each other, not to name call, etc., but that turned out to be superfluous,
as attendees were civil and polite to one another throughout. After all, more united than divided us, and disagreements
with one another were addressed amicably.
A few attendees work keffiyehs to express their support of Palestine,
and overwhelmingly, the attendees supported a Gazan ceasefire. (Parenthetically, I should add here that,
while I also support a ceasefire, I support only a ceasefire that is honored by
both sides—Hamas as well as Israel, and pointedly note that the last ceasefire
and hostage exchange was unilaterally broken by Hamas. In some discussions on this, I was always
addressed civilly and politely by those who disagreed with me, and always
expressed my disagreement in a civil and polite way. Yes, more indeed unites than divides us!)
Labor Notes was also present as a
vendor, along with several others. It
has a wide variety of merchandise available, of course, including many helpful
books for union organizers and activists.
Other vendors included many leading left-wing book publishers and
booksellers, and many leading left
magazines, along with the Illinois Labor History Society, and the Labor Studies
program at the University of
Massachusetts-Amherst. The usual
left groups and parties were tellingly absent, except for DSA, which had many
of its members attending, and Leninist-Trotskyist Solidarity, which was there
mostly to promote its magazine Against the Current. Australian longshoreman/artist Sam Wallman
had an exhibit of his labor art, and there was a wall display of left and labor
buttons. The left sectarians were
decidedly not in attendance, although hawkers of a magazine called Bolshevik
were, along with the Spartacist League, which is urging a vote in Chicago’s
Mayoral race for the Party for Socialism and Liberation candidate. Their presence was confined to the hotel
entrance outside, and they were overwhelmingly ignored by Conference attendees. However, a raucous Spartacist League-led
disruption occurred at Friday’s Main Session.
More on that below.
TDU held a reception that Friday
night, and I attended, getting the chance to hear Teamster President Shaun
O’Brien give a rousing speech. Flight
Attendant union leader and militant Sara Nelson was also in attendance,
although she did not speak. (She was
present for a workshop. O’Brien also
spoke at a workshop, as did the UAW’s Shawn Fain, all of them as relevant
“ordinary” contributors, not as union celebrities). Friday was a momentous day for the labor
movement, and the news was widely shared that night. The UAW won the Volkswagen plant in
Chattanooga, Tennessee by a 3-1 margin, Starbucks finally agreed to negotiate
with its union, and Trader Joes in certain locations agreed to recognize the
independent union organized by its employees.
(Tellingly, these workers had first approached my union, the UFCW, about
organizing Trader Joes, but the UFCW told them it wasn’t interested. A good reason why my union needs
EW4D!)
At Sunday’s Main Session I heard
another rousing speech from labor’s other Shawn, Shawn Fain of the UAW. Also at the Main Sessions, activists and
leaders from unions in Canada, Italy, and Mexico spoke, and all the Main
Sessions provided entertainment as part of the program. Integral to the presentation at the
Conference was the Great Labor Arts Exchange, which sponsored workshops on
using the arts and writing for building the movement, presented concerts,
films, arts contests, and open mics over the length of the Conference—showing
that the arts are also integral to the labor movement. Labor Notes magazine editor Alexandra (Al)
Bradbury was awarded the Joe Hill Award by the Great Labor Arts Exchange for
her role in encouraging the arts’ presence.
When Labor Notes resumed its every-two-year Conferences following Covid,
in 2022, the hotel in Washington D.C. it wanted wasn’t available, as it was
booked by the Exchange. So, Bradbury
contacted the Great Labor Arts Exchange and asked it to be part of the
Conference. 2024 marks the second time
the Great Labor Arts Exchange has had a presence at the Labor Notes Conference,
and it will be an enduring presence. At
the Exchanges’ Open Mic, and the next day, Saturday, at an Exchange workshop on
poetry, I had opportunities to read two of my pro-labor poems. I am a published poet and writer as well as
an Essential Worker grocery store worker, and so, it is indeed nice to be able
to be both a worker and an artist at the same time!
At the TDU reception it was
announced that TDU, founded in 1975, is now forty-nine years old. Labor Notes was founded in 1979, forty-five
years ago. It has taken a long time for
both to build momentum and to realize results, but those positive results are
what we are seeing now. Consider that
Shawn Fain, for example, is now the new face of the national labor leader, so
decidedly not the face of the old-style George Meany, Lane Kirkland
labor leader! The Conference was also
addressed by the Mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, who himself came out of the
Chicago Teachers Union and defeated “Mr. 1%,” Rahm Emmanuel, in the Democratic
primary to then become Mayor. Whatever
one might think of the Democratic Party (and there is much about it to still
look askance at), a Chicago Democratic Party with a Brandon Johnson at the helm
is a far cry form the older Democratic party of Rahm Emmanuel, Jane Byrne,
Richie Daley, and his infamous father, Richard Daley. As Bob Dylan sang, “The times, they are
a-changin’.”
The Conference was overwhelmingly
peaceful, except for, as noted above, a raucous “pro-Palestinian” demonstration
outside Friday’s Main Session when Mayor Johnson spoke. Security ably prevented the demonstrators from
entering, except for two of the Spartacist League organizers, who were allowed
in to display their signs. The
demonstration petered out after Mayor Johnson spoke. Earlier in the day four people had been
detained and arrested by the Rosemont police for allegedly blocking a fire
lane, in which there was a gathering of demonstrators; but they were all released
without charges later that evening, to the roaring cheers of the Main Session
crowd.
To end with a little philosophical
musing, perhaps all this shows that reality is more “Bukharinist” than
“Trotskyist,” i.e., meaningful change, much to the chagrin of our left
“revolutionary impatience,” proceeds more “at a snail’s pace” rather than as
“permanent revolution.” In any case, snail’s
pace or not, the 2024 Labor Notes Conference showed most well that positive change is definitely
happening.
The Conference ended appropriately
with the singing of “Solidarity Forever.”
Indeed.
No comments:
Post a Comment