The Trump administration’s cancelling of collective bargaining rights for over 1.3 million government workers is the biggest act of union busting in U.S. history. It’s a shot across the bow of the entire labor movement. In fact, it’s a declaration of open class war on the entire working class. How else can the rounding up of migrant workers and their families, the deployment of troops in our cities, and the firing of tens of thousands of federal workers be described?

For now, their prime targets are the public sector, civil service and federal worker unions but make no mistake—workers in the private sector are next. And let’s be clear: the attack is going to especially impact workers of color and women.

It’s not the first time a U.S. president has busted unions. Ronald Reagan fired and broke the strike of the Air Traffic Controllers (PATCO) in 1981 giving a green-light to private sector bosses that they could openly and aggressively bust our unions, force deep concessions, and impoverish our communities.

Trump is the union buster in chief.

But what Reagan did in 1981 pales in comparison to the open, frontal assault on our trade union and worker protections that characterizes the Trump administration. It is now estimated that 84 percent of public and civil service workers have lost their right to collectively bargain due to Trump’s executive orders.

Consider that Reagan’s brazen act of union busting set the stage for a decades-long assault on the working class. Its aftermath resulted in the so-called “free trade” policies that, along with new technologies, resulted in more than 60 million workers being displaced from their jobs in basic industry. Union density has now plummeted to below 10 percent as of this year. It’s less than 5 percent in the private sector where the overwhelming majority labor.

Workers everywhere should take notice. This is just the beginning and no section of our class will be spared. The attack on union rights inevitably hurts the American public as a whole and the institutions won through bitter struggle to provide for its welfare—most notably the Social Security Administration, the Veterans Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Agricultural Department, in addition to several others.

At the behest of the big banks, the president also crippled several key independent boards, such as the National Labor Relations Board, that adjudicate worker disputes and unfair labor practices. This makes it that much harder for workers everywhere to exercise their organizing rights and fight back against the bosses’ attacks at the workplace.

The labor movement is beginning to respond to the MAGA attacks.

Importantly, the labor movement is beginning to respond to the attacks, particularly in cities facing the brunt of the crisis, like L.A. and D.C. In this regard, May Day around the country may have been a turning point. The Labor Day “Workers over Billionaire” protests continued the fightback.

That said, overall the response is not in keeping with the degree of the crisis. Some unions, so far, seem to be “keeping their heads down” in the hope that MAGA will give them a pass. In so doing they are in effect giving the capitalist class more leeway to gut and destroy the entire trade union movement.

Importantly, some labor leaders are calling for more militant and aggressive action. But they are also fighting to push the labor movement further to go on the offensive against the capitalist class. Calls are gaining momentum around the country for deeper and sharper tactics to fight back—ranging from increased boycotts, strikes, civil disobedience, and the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists’ call for a national day of union solidarity to defend our basic rights.

Labor must talk in the only language Big Business understands: the language of economic power. 

More and more struggle-oriented rank-and-file and union leadership are fed up with “business-as-usual” trade unionism and are demanding we start speaking in the only language the capitalist class understands: the language of economic power and our ability to withhold our labor.

This is not to minimize the importance of the courts. Not at all. But if legal suits are not accompanied by mass militant protest they’ll likely fail or be reversed. The big issue now is how are we going to fight forward? And while not everything is clear one thing is certain: we need to use all the tools in the tool box in the fight ahead. Mass public pressure must be combined with shop floor organizing and bringing as many workers into the fold as possible.

The Communist Party USA Labor Commission calls on the U.S. working class, the labor movement, and all our allies to immediately prepare for increased struggle—we are in an open class war!

• Hands off our unions! Defend federal workers union rights!
• No to the military and troops in our cities!
• Solidarity with immigrant workers!
• Organize the unorganized workers!
• Refuse to work for war!
• For a militant, national day of action and march for union/community solidarity!

Image:  AFL-CIO