With the announcement on January 8 that the Service Employees International Union would re-affiliate to the AFL-CIO before the beginning of the second Trump administration, the state unions in the US are more consolidated than ever. The supposed “new era of worker power” (SEIU President April Verrett) is to be built on the basis of the following platform:

• Fight for new rules to strengthen the right to organize and collectively bargain and expand those rights to cover workers who currently lack them, to build worker power within individual workplaces or across employers and entire industries, whether at the local, state, or federal levels.
• Hold elected leaders accountable for doing everything in their power to ensure that all workers can have good union jobs that pay us enough to live, with accessible, affordable, quality health care and the ability to retire with dignity.

• Demand every leader take action to write more inclusive and stronger labor laws, raise wages, and make sure that every public dollar spent goes toward creating good union jobs to build thriving communities for workers of all races and ethnicities.
• Support the efforts of workers across the nation to challenge union-busting corporations; drive multi-union, multi-sector organizing campaigns; coordinate strategy; maximize resources and capacity; and learn from their collective successes and challenges.

The astute reader will notice that this platform appeals mainly to the “elected leaders”, that is, the Democrats, and the main demand is for more electoralism and more labor law, along with other minor concessions like affordable healthcare (a meaningless demand when raised by capitalist agents as proven by Obamacare) and impossibly vague concessions like “dignity”. Now that the AFL-CIO has absorbed the supposedly “progressive” SEIU, the combined machinery of the AFL-CIO and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) make up what could be called the “Democratic” wing of state unionism.

As a matter of fact, these unions have already adopted the main planks of Democratic Party policy, namely, collaborating with Republicans while pretending to do the opposite, and channeling the legitimate anger of the masses back into the system. The SEIU described the AFL-CIO merger like this: “At a critical moment when everything is on the line for the nation’s working people, the labor movement is uniting to challenge the status quo and build a movement of workers who will fight—on the job, in the streets, at the ballot box, in our communities—for higher pay, expanded benefits and new rules that empower them to join together in unions and organize across industries.” In 2020, when the COVID-19 crisis was at its peak, Trump set up a taskforce for keeping the country open and workers working. This was called the Great American Economic Revival Industry Groups (GEARIG), and it included then-AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. Apparently, the SEIU would like to have its members believe that the AFL-CIO has done a complete about-face in the last few years—whereas before it was working with Trump directly in keeping workers on the job during the COVID emergency, now it is apparently ready to “challenge the status quo” under a new Trump administration.

Pretending to oppose the current Republican administration by supporting Democrats is one trend in the state unions. The other trend is outright supporting the Republicans. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters did this even before Trump’s re-election, donating to the RNC and speaking at their convention. An internal poll of Teamsters revealed a majority favored Trump over Harris, although certain locals and joint councils endorsed Harris anyway. The International Longshoremen’s Association similarly sucked up to Trump:

“You [Trump] have proven yourself to be one of the best friends of working men and women in the United States.” Harold J. Daggett, International President of the ILA, cites a face-to-face meeting he had with President-Elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida on December 12, 2024, joined by his son and ILA Executive Vice President Dennis A. Daggett, as the chief reason the ILA was able to win protections against automation for his 85,000 members, and negotiate a tentative Master Contract Agreement. “President Trump clearly demonstrated his unwavering support for our ILA union and longshore workers with his statement “heard round the world” backing our position to protect American longshore jobs against the ravages of automated terminals,” said ILA President Daggett. “President Trump’s bold stance helped prevent a second coast wide strike at ports from Maine to Texas that would have occurred on January 15, 2024, if a tentative agreement was not reached.”

President Daggett and his Executive VP son thus tie their own betrayal of the rank and file, and unwillingness to organize a strike, to their subservience to the incoming Trump administration. The Republican wing of state-unionism is not limited to these two unions, however: the Laborers International Union of North America was also a part of Trump’s GEARIG and President O’Sullivan praised Trump’s decision in his first term to resume construction on the Keystone XL pipeline. There are also police unions such as the Fraternal Order of Police and National Border Patrol Council that support Trump.

The IBT under “reformer” Sean O’Brien has openly courted Trump.

Thus the state unions are divided into two camps: one centered around the Democratic Party led by the AFL-CIO which nominally opposes Trump, and one centered around the so-called “America First” wing of the Republican party associated with Trump, with both trends acting directly on behalf of the government and the corporations they supposedly “bargain” with in the labor movement. It was inevitable that the “split” in American imperialism into two different nominal factions of the ruling class, Democrat and Republican, should give rise to a similar “split” in the imperialist labor organizations.

On the other hand, there are the so-called “independent” labor organizations such as the International Workers of the World (IWW) locals and their collective bargaining units and Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment (CAUSE). These groups are independent in the sense that they are not affiliated to the AFL-CIO and generally do not endorse Democrats or Republicans or rely on their support when organizing. However, these groups do not meaningfully break with the methods or politics of state unionism, such as legalism, class collaborationism, opportunism, revisionism, etc. This often means that after an initial period of independent work, many IWW organizing campaigns or independent unions like CAUSE end up either liquidating themselves through outright dissolution, or by merging with an existing state union. This can be seen most recently and dramatically with Amazon Labor Union (ALU) and Starbucks Workers United (SBWU), neither of which ever really broke with the theory and practice of state unionism, and were easily brought back “into the fold” of the IBT and SEIU, respectively, after a brief period of “independent unionism”.

These groups form something like a reactionary “third way” in the labor movement—they do not capitulate to the same extent as the reformist caucuses in the established unions, but they do not fully break with state unionism either. To the extent that these groups do not get bogged down in the NLRB process and genuinely reflect the struggles of the trade union masses, they are progressive, but insofar as they reflect the class collaborationist methods of state unionism (arbitration panels, electoralism, dependence on the government for legitimacy and structure, etc) they are a brake on the trade union movement.

Lastly, there are the New Labor organizations, which are opposed to American imperialism and work on the basis of the “class against class” policy. The rapid movement of the masses into the trade union struggle and away from the state unions is a positive factor driving forward the development of the New Labor camp. On the other hand, the corporatization of the masses, the existing state labor apparatus, the control of existing economic concessions by corrupt labor bureaucrats, and the subjective weakness of the proletariat are all major factors hindering progress in the labor movement.

The second Trump administration began with the termination of NLRB Member Gwynne Wilcox and General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo. The National Labor Relations Board may not be able to function at all without enough staff, and for 45 hours federal funding was cut entirely. For the first time since before the second World War, the American trade unions may be forced to stand on their own two feet. The fact is, present leadership in the labor movement is completely unable to cope with the challenges facing the US working-class. Those who aren’t openly collaborating with the Trump administration have no answers beyond pandering to the Democrats. The reformist caucuses in the state unions are trying to drag the masses backwards into the mire of state unionism, by convincing them to fight for the NLRB-system (and the bourgeois politicians who back it) instead of their own grievances. The labor movement is in a vulnerable position not seen in decades: the only way forward is a militant struggle for the trade union rights and aspirations of the rank and file.

Sources

[1] “SEIU Joins AFL-CIO to Build Unprecedented Worker Power, Win Unions for All Workers”, SEIU, retrieved from https://www.seiu.org/2025/01/seiu-joins-afl-cio-to-build-unprecedented-worker-power-win-unions-for-all-workers

[2] “Teamsters’ PAC gives its first large donation to RNC in years”, NBC, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/teamsters-pac-gives-first-large-donation-rnc-years-rcna139898

[3] “Teamsters Release Presidential Endorsement Polling Data”, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, https://teamster.org/2024/09/teamsters-release-presidential-endorsement-polling-data/

[4] “ILA President Harold Daggett Credits President Donald J. Trump’s Support As Key To Helping His Members Secure Greatest Contract”, International Longshoreman’s Association, https://ilaunion.org/ila-president-harold-daggett-credits-president-donald-j-trumps-support-as-key-to-helping-his-members-secure-greatest-contract/

[5] “The Unions Betraying the Left”, The New Republic, https://newrepublic.com/article/140423/unions-betraying-left

[6] “FOP Endorses Trump!”, Fraternal Order of Police, https://fop.net/2024/09/fop-endorses-trump/

[7] “The Truth About CAUSE and RDU1”, The Durham Dispatch, https://www.durhamdispatch.com/post/the-truth-about-cause-and-rdu1

[8] “Trump paralyzes US labor board by firing Democratic member”, Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-fires-us-labor-board-member-hobbling-agency-amid-legal-battles-2025-01-28/