The labor history of the United States is a brutal affair. The last 150 years have been a story of striking workers massacred by police and private security, surveillance by the FBI, and a government intent on stamping out any threat to Big Business.

It is naive to think that the Left and the American working class can gain power and solve its existential problems through electoralism alone. However, If a Left wing working class movement is to succeed in the US, it needs the protection of the Federal executive. The forces of capital arrayed against the working class are too strong for the workers to take on alone. Without the aid of a Left wing White House, history will repeat itself and any Left wing working class movement will be crushed.

US Labor history

US history is littered with the dead bodies of striking workers. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 was the first large scale labor unrest. Railroad workers all over the country went on strike to protest low wages and poor working conditions. The Federal government responded by sending in National Guard units as well as private militias to put down the strike. Hundreds of workers were killed over the course of the 45 day strike.

The Great Railroad Strike of 1877

This pattern repeats time and again. The Ludlow Massacre, the Battle of Blair Mountain, the Women’s Day Massacre. Workers striking to protest low wages and poor working conditions were met with violence ordered by the Federal government on behalf of Big Business.

Furthermore, labor activists and the civil rights movement were the subject of covert surveillance and assassination by the US intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Under COINTELPRO, the FBI surveilled, infiltrated and disrupted dissident movements within the US. Initially COINTELPRO was set up to target socialist and communist organizations within the US. However with the rise of the civil rights movement its scope was expanded. The FBI attempted to blackmail Martin Luther King into suicide. Fred Hampton was murdered by the Chicago PD at the behest of the FBI after Hampton attempted to unite the Black Panther movement with other working class movements.

More recently, the Black Lives Matter protests in Ferguson, Missouri were met by a fully militarized police force. Protests were faced with police decked in camouflage, Kevlar vests and military grade rifles. Tear gas and Long Range Accoustic Devices (LRAD), a sonic weapon that fires a beam of sound, were used to disperse protestors. Similarly, the Water Protectors at Standing Rock were hit with water cannons in sub freezing weather and rubber bullets as the tried to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Water cannons used against peaceful Dakota Access Pipeline protestors in sub freezing temperatures (Washington Post)

The US government doesn’t just use heavy handed and violent tactics against working class movements, they have also deployed the US Federal executive and legislature to stymie pro-worker efforts. When air traffic controllers went on strike in 1981 to protest low pay and poor working conditions, President Ronald Reagan fired all the striking workers. The striking workers were replaced, and banned from Federal service for life.

In 1947 the federal legislature passed the Taft-Hartley act at the behest of Big Business that restricted the activities and power of unions. More broadly, Right to Work legislation has been passed in the majority of US states. Right to Work laws prohibit agreements between employers and unions, making it impossible for unions to fight for the wages and working conditions of their members.

The Protector in Chief

The labor history of the US shows that any Left wing working class movement will be met with government violence, surveillance and antagonistic legislation at the behest of Big Business. The threat of violence or even the loss of economic security will dissuade a mass of the working class from joining in a Left wing labor movement that seeks to disempower the capital class.

The only institution powerful enough to protect a Left wing working class labor movement is the White House itself. A Left wing White House administration would ensure that there would be no repeat of the PATCO debacle. The PATCO dismissals were the result of the Federal executive exerting its power. A Left wing White House would eliminate the threat posed by an anti-labor executive.

Air-traffic controllers on strike in Ronkonkoma, New York, in August, 1981. (DAVID HANDSCHUH)

A Left wing White House administration would mitigate the threat of violence against striking workers. First, the Federal government would not actively attack striking workers as it so often has in US history. Second, a Left wing White House would use its power to discourage the use of militarized police force or state directed national guard units against striking workers. Third, a Left wing White House would use the forces at its disposal to protect striking workers from state level or corporate backed forces that would attack or intimidate striking workers.

A Left wing White House would also, theoretically, control the surveillance state. Obviously there are plenty of examples of the intelligence community going off the reservation. However, at the very least, a Left wing White House administration would offer some level of oversight to the surveillance community. It could also bring to light illegal surveillance or disruptive clandestine activities directed at an anti-capitalist working class movement. This is infinitely preferable to how the FBI and multiple Democratic and Republican White House administrations worked hand in glove to attack dissenting political movements. At the very least we would not have to wait decades for another Church Committee.

The Federal executive has an extreme power when it comes to immigration. If the Left is successful in capturing the White House they could abolish, or at least neuter, ICE. By disempowering immigration enforcement, this would allow undocumented-workers to come out from the shadows and join the labor movement.

A sword against the bourgeoisie

By capturing the White House, the Left would be able to impose its vision on a number of different institutions.

First, the Left would be able to put forward progressive Left wing Federal and Supreme Court nominees. This has been the primary focus of the right over the past four decades and they have been remarkably successful in capturing the judicial system. If the Left is ever going to succeed in passing bold anti-capitalist legislation, it will need to clear the significant hurdles of the judiciary.

Second, by capturing the White House, the Left would gain influence over a number of important economic institutions. The Treasury Department through legislation like FATCA could be used to attack the wealth horded in international tax havens like the Cayman Islands. Domestically, the IRS could be used to leverage Big Business into negotiating with labor. Finally, the Department of Labor could be expanded to work hand in glove with the labor movement against Big Business.

The shield of the working class

There is no limit to what the labor movement could achieve with the protection of the White House. A Left wing White House would protect workers from the threats of violence and surveillance. Without the threat of violence or surveillance, millions would be encouraged to join the labor movement. Without the threat of ICE, undocumented workers could join the labor movement en masse. Even the prospect of an American president encouraging the working class to fight for better wages would be a boon for the labor movement.

LA teachers strike (Francine Orr/LA Times)

A Left wing White House would unleash the power of the working class. The labor movement would fight for better wages and working conditions.

Sara Nelson, head of the Flight Attendants Union, quietly one of the most powerful working women in America. (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images)

More importantly, a protected and encouraged labor movement could take action to force Congress to pass meaningful progressive legislation that would change the economic structure of society. We have seen from the threatened airline strike how much power the working class can have over the government.

If the labor movement uses that leverage over the legislature it would help to pass legislation like the Green New Deal and Medicare for All. Progressive legislation like this would shift the economic structure of society away from capital and for the benefit of the working class.

2020

The power of the Federal executive is unprecedented in world history. With a Left wing White House, the working class would be protected and encouraged to fight to better its condition and change the economic structure of society. A Left wing White House would use the levers of power to attack capital through bureaucratic institutions like the Treasury or Department of Labor.

However, US history suggests that any meaningful working class movement is doomed to be crushed without an ally in the White House. The forces arrayed against a successful Left wing working class movement are too powerful. Time and again capital and the government have shown that they will chose massacre, assassination and surveillance over compromising away even a small amount of their power.

The recent successes in the labor movement, whether the teachers strike or ending the government shutdown, will be for naught if the burgeoning labor movement is crushed. While the left must continue its focus on building working class power through solidarity and collector action, it must gain the White House. The next year must be spent intensely focused on electing a Left wing president. If that means Bernie Sanders, then so be it.

America’s first pro-worker president in a

With a Left wing White House, there is no ends to what the left can achieve through the labor movement. However, without the presidency, history tells us that the Left and the labor movement are destined to be crushed.