MINNEAPOLIS, December 28 — Recently the AFL-CIO held its annual NEXT UP! Young Workers Conference. Despite the union hacks toeing the Obama/Democratic Party line, many young workers were not fooled and dozens eagerly took copies of CHALLENGE.
Many workshops provided opportunities to talk to young workers from throughout the U.S. about communism and PLP.
Those conducting the immigration workshop, while well-informed, refused to discuss the racist, fascist nature of deportations, E-verify or Secure Communities. They conveniently found no time for questions when a PLP’er fought to discuss this.
A session on starting a Labor Party led to heated debate over whether a new electoral party was needed or the Democrats were good enough. Several youth complained that any party operating within capitalist rules would be useless. Time to share another CHALLENGE!
A PLP’er took advantage of the “un-conference sessions,” where individuals could propose their own ideas before all 700 participants. He stressed the need for multiracial unity, making the anti-racist fight primary, and realizing that any capitalist “solution” would fail the workers. Obama, he said, had been a horrible option for workers, citing the legal lynching of Troy Davis in Georgia and the multiple bombing campaigns by U.S. imperialism abroad.
Initial groans were followed by feverish clapping at the bold comments. Twenty young workers joined this session that pushed for militant multiracial unity to fight capitalism. One student, frustrated with the unions and elections, said he saw no end in sight to the myriad of problems created by capitalism. He eagerly took CHALLENGE and listened carefully to PLP’s ideas.
The conference, which opened poorly with Obama’s Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, ended just as badly with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka giving the usual reformist speech supporting both Obama and Occupy Wall Street (but only to lead them into the Democratic Party). These misleaders do not walk the walk. They just front for the bosses. But despite their efforts, this conference was a great opportunity to distribute CHALLENGE and meet workers from all over the U.S., many of whom are tired of electoral politics and of the lies and misguidance of the union misleaders.
Next year, more PLP’ers should attend this conference, where young unionists come with open minds for our kind of solutions to capitalist, racist oppression. At such conferences, we must continue to identify the contradictions that separate reform from revolution.