S.F. unions to Mayor Lurie: Make tech companies ‘pay their fair share’
https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/unions-mayor-lurie-tech-companies-pay-20251227.php

By J.D. Morris,
City Hall Reporter
March 31, 2025

Hardy, vice president of SEIU 1021’s San Francisco …region, speaks outside City Hall during a rally organized by multiple unions to kick off contract negotiations with the city in January 2024.
Kristin Hardy, vice president of SEIU 1021’s San Francisco region, speaks outside City Hall during a rally organized by multiple unions to kick off contract negotiations with the city in January 2024.
Stephen Lam/The Chronicle

San Francisco public-sector unions are urging Mayor Daniel Lurie to close the city’s massive budget deficit without making deep cuts to government-funded services and the city workers who provide them, providing a glimpse into a potential looming battle.
High-ranking leaders from SEIU Local 1021 and IFPTE Local 21, which collectively represent a majority of the City Hall workforce, released a statement Monday that said Lurie can balance the budget partly by spending less on outside contractors and also making sure that “wealthy tech companies pay their fair share in taxes.”
SEIU and IFPTE made their remarks in response to new financial projections that showed the city now faces a two-year shortfall of about $818 million, an improvement over the $876 million deficit the city forecasted in December. The city, which has an annual budget of about $16 billion, faces structural fiscal issues. San Francisco’s anticipated costs are rising faster than tax revenue beset by empty downtown offices, shuttered retail stores and a sluggish rebound in tourism.

Lurie is facing difficult choices as he works to close the deficit in his city budget proposal due by May 1. He has indicated that he’s not looking for short-term fixes: He imposed a hiring slowdown on his first day in office and declared that “the era of Band-Aid solutions is over” when it comes to reining in city spending. But the unions’ statement on Monday suggested that organized labor will try to pressure him to avoid large-scale layoffs as much as possible.
SEIU and IFPTE said in their statement unions have been meeting with Lurie “in the hopes of partnering on the City’s budget challenges.” They said job vacancies resulting from Lurie’s hiring freeze had already saved the city $200 million and they had proposed additional steps to cut costs, including a $100 million reduction in the amount the city spends on outside contractors.
The labor leaders also took aim at San Francisco’s dominant industry.

“San Francisco can balance its budget without major cuts to core services, but only if wealthy tech companies pay their fair share,” Sarah Perez, a vice president for IFPTE, said in the unions’ statement. “We’re asking Mayor Lurie to join us in calling for accountability. It’s time to pick up the phone.”
The unions’ statement specifically called out Airbnb, which has filed litigation against the city seeking a refund of about $120 million in taxes it paid. Airbnb is disputing the city’s calculation of its tax bill from 2019 to 2022, arguing that the city misclassified the company’s business activity and therefore overcharged it, according to court papers filed in January.
SEIU and IFPTE said in their statement that the city is holding tens of millions of dollars in reserve that “could go towards balancing the budget, but is being set aside in case Airbnb refuses to drop their lawsuit and pay their taxes.” Airbnb did not immediately return a request for comment.

Lurie did not directly address the unions’ specific requests. But he issued a statement Monday reacting to the city’s new financial projections, which he said underscored “the sobering reality that San Francisco is confronting one of the most daunting structural budget deficits in its history.” The Controller’s Office estimates that San Francisco’s shortfall could grow to about $1.3 billion in the 2030 fiscal year if no action were taken to cut costs before then.
“My priority is to protect our city’s core services — public safety, clean and safe streets, transit, and public health,” Lurie said in his statement. “We cannot meet this moment with short-term thinking. We must take responsible action to confront the long-term structural challenges that have led us here.”
Lurie cited some “signs of hope” for the city’s finances, pointing to a modest improvement in business tax revenue as a sign of “the resilience and innovation of our local economy.” But he also acknowledged the large degree of fiscal uncertainty hanging over City Hall.
The Controller’s Office said in its Monday report on the city’s finances that local officials are reducing the amount of money they expect to be reimbursed by the federal government for expenses incurred during the early years of the pandemic. The report also said that future federal policy changes from the Trump administration could also worsen the city’s economic outlook in the years ahead.
“In this time of federal uncertainty, San Francisco must take control of its fiscal future,” Lurie said in his statement. “That means building a stronger, more resilient budget — one that delivers for residents today and preserves our ability to invest in the city we believe in tomorrow.”
Reach J.D. Morris: jd.morris@sfchronicle.com; X: @thejdmorris

S.F. unions to Mayor Lurie: Make tech companies ‘pay their fair share’

S.F. unions tell Mayor Lurie to close deficit without mass layoffs and make tech companies ‘pay their fair share’

www.sfchronicle.com

SFSU Rally At Malcom X Plaza On The Fight To Defend Public Education & Fight Against Fascism
https://youtu.be/8TjRqSzp5y8
Hundreds of SFSU students and SEIU, UAW and CFA faculty and staff rallied on April 17 as part of a national day of action to defend public education. The Democratic… Party governor Gavin Newsom is demanding another cutback of 8% which would mean further layoffs of faculty and staff at the same time that they are raising the fees for students. The rally took place at the Malcom X plaza and from all the unions on campus as well as students spoke out. They also reported on the need to fight to defend democratic rights and to stop the raids and terror arrests by ICE and the Trump government.
Additional Media:
SF State Speak Out On National Day Of Action To Defend Higher Education
https://youtu.be/ypmfO4KQDns
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net

SFSU Rally At Malcom X Plaza On The Fight To Defend Public Education & Fight Against Fascism

Hundreds of SFSU students and SEIU, UAW and CFA faculty and staff rallied on April 17 as part of a national day of action to defend public education….

youtu.be

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/two-killed-6-injured-in-florida-state-university-shooting/ar-AA1D8ETo?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=b33a5fc78e524e70bec3b3ac3d225e05&ei=16

Two killed, 6 injured in Florida State University shooting

Police said those killed in the shooting, which occurred in the waning days of the semester, were not students.

www.msn.com

SF State Speak Out On National Day Of Action To Defend Higher Education
https://youtu.be/ypmfO4KQDns
As part of a national day of action on 4/17/25 to defend higher education an educational and rallies were held in San Francisco. An educational took place at the San Francisco State Quad …with speakers from the college and supporters.
Speakers also talked about the massive repression by the fascist government and the Democrats in California who are pushing cutbacks in public education.
Also speakers addressed the attack on students, staff and workers opposing the US supported genocide in Gaza and the Zionist campaign to criminalize people as anti-semitic if they criticize the Israeli genocide in Gaza and the terror and displacement of Palestinians on the West Bank.
Additional Info:
4/17/25 National Day of Action to Defend Higher Education
https://sites.google.com/view/forpublichighered/home?authuser=0
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net

SF State Speak Out On National Day Of Action To Defend Higher Education

As part of a national day of action on 4/17/25 to defend higher education an educational and rallies were held in San Francisco. An educational took…

youtu.be

National Day of Action, May 31, 2025, Put Single Payer on the Nation’s Agenda
https://kyhealthcare.org/posts/national-day-of-action-may-31-2025-put-single-payer-on-the-nations-agenda

May 31, 2025, Put Single Payer on the Nation’s Agenda
Posted on April 13, 2025 by Kay …Tillow
Over 60 organizations are cosponsoring this event in cities across the country. Actions are planned in Louisville, Pittsburgh, Houston, Charlotte, Seattle, Portland, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, with more on the way.

Louisville will Rally on Saturday, May 31, 2025, at 11 AM at the Mazzoli Federal Building, 600 Martin Luther King Jr. Pl. 40202. Join us!

In Kentucky cosponsors include:

Kentucky Poor Peoples Campaign, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, Kentucky State AFL-CIO, Greater Louisville Central Labor Council, Kentucky Unitarian Universalist Justice Action Network, Louisville Showing up for Racial Justice, Derbiy Coalition of Labor Union Women, United Auto Workers Local 862.

Your organization can sign on as a cosponsor here

See the list of cosponsors and further details here

Cuban 5 exhibit 117
Call To Action May 31, 2025: Demand Health Not Profit!
We call on communities across the country to join in a National Day of Action on Saturday, May 31, 2025, to put National Single Payer Healthcare on the nation’s agenda.

Our health care system is broken beyond repair. Insurance companies and for-profit middlemen create barriers to care and massive administrative waste. These result in unnecessary suffering and deaths. For over 60 years, piecemeal reforms have resulted in higher costs and the worst health outcomes among comparable nations.

We demand the recognition by our government that health care is a human right.

We demand the elimination of private health insurance and the banning of for-profit delivery of care.

We demand the enactment of a publicly financed, national single payer program that would provide comprehensive coverage to everyone.

We demand that health care delivery be transformed from profit-seeking ventures into services organized to serve the people of our country, a system in which all caregivers are freed from corporate control.

The National Day of Action will bring people together locally and nationally from neighborhoods, unions, faith groups, businesses, and all types of civic organizations to join the demand to remove profit from health care. We must focus our collective anger towards corporate health insurers to bring real reform: put National Single Payer on the nation’s agenda!

Your organization can sign on as a cosponsor here.

KyHealthCare.org: National Day of Action, May 31, 2025, Put Single Payer on the Nation’s Agenda

Over 60 organizations are cosponsoring this event in cities across the country. Actions are planned in Louisville, Pittsburgh, Houston, Charlotte,…

kyhealthcare.org

Union Busting Through Privatization
Texas Is Poised to Create a $1 Billion Private School Voucher Program
The Texas House approved the plan, part of a push by President Trump’s allies to offer up to about $10,000 for private school, home-school or virtual learning.
…https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/us/texas-trump-private-school-vouchers.html

A view of the Texas State Capitol building, flanked by trees.
The Texas voucher program is expected to reach up to 90,000 students in its first year, and to grow quickly.Credit…Desiree Rios for The New York Times
Dana Goldstein.pngJ. David Goodman.png
By Dana Goldstein and J. David Goodman
Dana Goldstein reported from New York, and J. David Goodman reported from Austin, Texas.
April 17, 2025
Updated 3:55 a.m. ET
The Texas House of Representatives voted early Thursday morning to create one of the largest taxpayer-funded school voucher programs, a hard-fought victory for private school choice activists as they turn their attention to a nationwide voucher push.

The measure still has some legislative hurdles to clear before Gov. Greg Abbott signs it into law, but the House vote — 85 to 63 — secured a win that was decades in the making, propelled by the governor’s hardball politics last year. It was also a significant defeat for Democrats, teachers’ unions and some rural conservatives who had long worried that taxpayer-funded private-school vouchers would strain public school budgets.

The program would be capped at $1 billion in its first year, but could grow quickly, potentially reaching an estimated $4.5 billion a year by 2030. The funds can be used for private school tuition and for costs associated with home-schooling, including curriculum materials and virtual learning programs.

The bill was championed by an ascendant wing of the Republican Party, closely allied with President Trump and important conservative donors, including Betsy DeVos, Mr. Trump’s wealthy former education secretary, and Jeff Yass, a billionaire financier from Pennsylvania and a Republican megadonor.

Hours before the vote, the president spoke by phone to Mr. Abbott and Republican representatives, urging them to support the measure. “It’s a really forward-thinking vote,” Mr. Trump said, his voice heard on speakerphone. “Whatever I can do, let me know.”

Those in the room cheered.

“It’s time to provide a full array of options to parents,” Representative Brad Buckley, a sponsor of the bill, said from the House floor before the vote.

Conservatives and some liberal allies, especially in urban centers, have long argued that vouchers would free parents from underperforming public schools, while competition from private schools would force public education to improve. Opponents, especially teachers’ unions, have argued just as vociferously that taxpayer-funded vouchers would drain resources from public education and leave children with the fewest resources stuck in underfunded public schools of last resort.

Representative Chris Turner, a Democrat from the Dallas area, accused supporters of seeking to resegregate education.

The measure, he said, “will harm students with disabilities. It will harm rural students.”

At the very least, some Democrats argued that what they called a “voucher scam” was a giveaway to parents who have already opted out of public education. The savings accounts would not be large enough to cover the full tuition of some private schools, but would instead offset the expenses of children already enrolled in such schools, opponents argued.
“With this bill,” said Representative James Talarico, a Democrat from the Austin area, “we’re giving money to parents who are already sending their kids to private school.”

For years, charter schools and public school choice seemed to be a compromise between Democrats and Republicans. But as the Covid-19 pandemic raised dissatisfaction with public education, conservative donors and their advocacy groups broke the stalemate in some states, advancing their vision of unrestrained parental choice, in which as many tax dollars as possible are redirected to families to spend on private education.

Before Texas, states such as Arizona, West Virginia and Iowa passed a new form of private-school voucher known as an education savings account, or ESA.

It gives money directly to parents — not to private schools — and is notable for the flexibility it grants in how the funds can be spent.

Supporters of private school choice said that because Texas was the last major Republican-led state to embrace the policy, attention would now shift to Washington. Mr. Trump and some congressional Republicans are attempting to pass a federal tax credit for private school scholarships, which could spread private school vouchers nationwide, including into Democratic-led states.
“It has been a 40-year hand-to-hand fight,” said Genevieve Collins, the Texas director for Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group that has pushed for the education savings account program. “This is genuinely transformative, not just for Texas, but for the rest of the country.”

Clay Robison, a spokesman for the Texas State Teachers Association, an affiliate of the National Education Association, said public school students could experience larger class sizes, canceled enrichment programs and more substitute teachers as public funds flow to private schools.

“All of those hurt students,” he said, pointing out that the vast majority of private schools in Texas are Christian or Catholic. “This has to do with, basically, helping perpetuate a religious viewpoint.”
Image
Greg Abbott, who is wearing a blue suit, gestures as he speaks into microphones. .webp
Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas has indicated he would sign the measure into law if it were passed.Credit…Eric Lee/The New York Times
The Texas Senate had already passed a similar school choice plan. Now members of the two chambers must align their proposals, after a final procedural vote in the House, expected this week.

But with support in the Texas House now confirmed by Thursday’s vote, the last real hurdle has been cleared. An amendment to put the measure to a popular referendum was voted down.

Mr. Abbott, a Republican, raised and spent millions last year in a successful effort to oust nearly a dozen Republican representatives who had opposed the measure. He exerted pressure on Republicans up until the end.

“This is an extraordinary victory,” Mr. Abbott said in a statement after the vote. “When it reaches my desk, I will swiftly sign this bill into law.”

The Texas program would provide about $10,000 to students for private school tuition, or up to $30,000 for disabled students. It would also offer up to $2,000 for home-schooling costs. If demand exceeds funding, priority for the money will go to children with disabilities and those from low-income and middle-class households who were previously enrolled in public schools. But the money could eventually become available to any child, including those already enrolled in private education.

The funding will come out of the state’s general fund.

Nationwide, more than one million American students now use public dollars for private education, double the number from 2019. The Texas program is expected to reach up to 90,000 students in its first year.

Vouchers have been a priority for Mr. Abbott for several years. But strong resistance from Democrats and some rural Republicans in the Texas House — who feared the program would undercut their local schools — prevented it from becoming law.

Last year, Mr. Abbott personally targeted many of those Republican opponents, backing primary challengers in more than a dozen races. He received help from billionaire donors from outside the state who infused those local races with millions of dollars. Mr. Yass alone gave Mr. Abbott $10 million in campaign cash last year.

Representatives for Mr. Yass declined an interview request.

No Republican member rose to speak against the measure during the floor debate, which began Wednesday afternoon and stretched nearly 11 hours, into Thursday. No Democrat voted in favor of its passage.

There has often been resistance to private school vouchers in conservative rural regions, where few private schools exist and public school districts are sometimes a county’s largest employer.

But the growth of alternative models for education has convinced some policymakers that rural students will have more options than they would have in the past. Those models include for-profit virtual schools and microschools, which are often run by a single educator working out of a home or a rented space.

The campaign for the bill focused heavily on mobilizing church communities and appealing to parents angry about liberal ideas in the curriculum, particularly around gender, sexuality and race. Mr. Abbott held numerous events at Christian schools to rally support for the measure.
Image
Children sitting in a classroom..webp
Democrats and rural Republicans in the Texas House worried the voucher program would undercut their local schools.Credit…Christopher Lee for The New York Times
A casualty in the fight over education savings accounts in recent years has been new funding for Texas public schools, which have not seen their budgets increase along with inflation. As part of the negotiations to win over the Texas House, lawmakers also approved nearly $8 billion in additional funding for public schools. Advocates said something closer to $20 billion was needed to get back to 2019 school funding levels in Texas.

Many Democrats and opponents of private school vouchers point out that in states where the idea has been submitted directly to voters, through ballot initiatives, it has generally failed.

But supporters say that the proof that parents want these programs is reflected in the deluge of applications for them once they are created.

Nationally, parents of children with disabilities have been especially enthusiastic about vouchers and ESAs. Private schools do not have the same legal obligations as public schools to provide disability services. But those parents often say they are seeking smaller class sizes and more personal attention.

Danielle Chavez, of Beaumont, Texas, hoped to be among them. She said she was excited about the bill because her youngest child, a 3-year-old boy, has autism spectrum disorder, and she believes he would benefit from being home-schooled.

Ms. Chavez, who works in human resources, said she could envision partnering with other busy parents through something like a church-based home-schooling cooperative.

The money for expenses would be crucial, she said, even if it did not fully cover her costs.

“That number is going to be helpful no matter what,” she said, “because it’s going to be more than zero.”
Dana Goldstein covers education and families for The Times.

J. David Goodman is the Houston bureau chief for The Times, reporting on Texas and Oklahoma.

Texas Is Poised to Create a $1 Billion Private School Voucher Program

The Texas House approved the plan, part of a push by President Trump’s allies to offer up to about $10,000 for private school, home-school or…

www.nytimes.com

Justifying Imperialist Trade War To Protect Jobs
UAW President Shawn Fain on Why He Supports Tariffs
It’s not perfect what’s happening right now, but it’s a hell of a lot better than what we’ve seen in the past thirty some years.

…https://jacobin.com/2025/04/uaw-fain-trump-tariffs-nafta
AN INTERVIEW WITH
SHAWN FAIN
In an interview, United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain argues that the era of “free-trade” deals like NAFTA has been a disaster for the US working class and that smart tariffs can help bring back good auto jobs.
United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain speaks to autoworkers at the Community Complex Building on November 9, 2023, in Belvidere, Illinois. (Scott Olson / Getty Images)
Our new issue, “Progress,” is out now. Subscribe to our print edition at a discounted rate today.
INTERVIEW BY
DAVID SIROTA
In the past week, Donald Trump’s ambitious yet erratic announcements on tariffs have roiled financial markets and provoked a flurry of panicked commentary in the media. But qualified support for Trump’s trade policy has come from what is in some ways an unexpected corner — the United Auto Workers (UAW), whose president, Shawn Fain, campaigned fiercely against Trump in the 2024 election.
Though the UAW has criticized Trump’s attacks on federal workers and the National Labor Relations Board as well as other administration policies, the union has been supportive of the president’s attempts to use tariffs to bring back domestic manufacturing jobs. In an interview with David Sirota for the Lever Time podcast, UAW president Fain spoke about the destructive effects that “free-trade” deals like NAFTA have had on American autoworkers and unions and how tariffs might help fix the damage. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
The Effects of NAFTA
DAVID SIROTA
Make your case about how exactly NAFTA and other free-trade deals harmed autoworkers and those other manufacturing jobs. It dovetails with what’s on [the shirt you’re wearing] right now, [which says] “Ross Perot was right.” Why was Ross Perot right?
SHAWN FAIN
It’s completely decimated the manufacturing base in this country, and it’s a big reason why we have the situation politically we have right now. When I grew up in Kokomo, Indiana, General Motors was a major employer there. As a child growing up, most of my family worked there — two of my grandparents, aunts and uncles. There were 15–17,000 jobs in GM, just in my small town at that time.
When NAFTA was put in place in 1994, you started to see those jobs disappear. And not just there, but all over the Midwest, all over this country. Since NAFTA’s inception, over 90,000 manufacturing plants have disappeared in this country. When you talk about auto in particular . . . the Economic Policy Institute did a study years ago. For every 100 automotive jobs, there are 700 secondary jobs born out of them. So when those 100 auto jobs disappear, 700 other jobs disappear.
You multiply that times millions, it’s not hard to see why we’re in the situation we’re in. Look at Flint, Michigan. Look at Ohio. Look at Wisconsin; look at Pennsylvania. Look all over the Midwest and really all over the country: all those industries have just vanished, and not because it’s better for working people. The argument for NAFTA back then was all these Nobel laureate economists and former presidents saying, “It’s gonna be great. It’s gonna create 400,000 jobs in America in the first year. It’s gonna raise the standard of living for Mexican workers and American workers.” Everything that played out is exactly the opposite.
It’s what Ross Perot said in the debate between Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, and Perot back in 1992, when he said, “We’re going to hear a giant sucking sound of all of our jobs going south.” It’s exactly what happened. We’ve seen that the standard of living for Mexican workers has been cut in half since NAFTA went into effect, and also the standard of living for American workers has been reduced.
In this past election, we talked about the swing states; the core of the swing states that were going to deliver the election was Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio. You look at how all those states went, and there’s a reason why. In my first twenty-eight years as a UAW member, working at Chrysler, all I saw was plants closed year after year, and I feel a rage to this day about how we’ve been cheated. So when you see a person like Donald Trump come along and start talking about tariffs and trade, and people still are [being threatened with] their plants being closed, that spoke to people.
Trump’s Tariff Policy
DAVID SIROTA
I think a lot of people who aren’t keyed into or don’t feel connected to manufacturing industries say, “All Donald Trump is doing is raising prices for goods by slapping on these tariffs.” What do you say to them about how tariffs, strategically used, can boost manufacturing jobs, in a way that maybe allays some of those fears?
SHAWN FAIN
Prior to NAFTA, we had tariffs in place in a lot of these sectors. But it wasn’t just a carpet bombing of tariffs, where they just put a tariff on everything everywhere. They were strategically put in place to to encourage people buying our products. And they worked somewhat reciprocally between countries, but at the end of the day, there were a lot of tariffs in place in auto and different industries. NAFTA eliminated all those tariffs [that we] had in place for decades.
Wall Street is a driver behind a lot of this fear that’s being put out about tariffs. The people who benefited over the last thirty years from these broken trade deals have been the corporate class and the wealthy. Because as they drove a race to the bottom by shifting all of our manufacturing to low-wage countries and drove their profits up, they didn’t pass those profits on to the consumer. They didn’t pass those profits on to the workers; they didn’t pass those profits on to the communities where these companies reside. The profits all [went into] stock buybacks and increased CEO pay and dividends and all that.
The last fifteen years, we’ve seen record profits in the auto industry: I believe it’s $1.6 trillion in profit for the top ten automakers in the last fifteen years. Instead of investing back in the communities where they reside, instead of investing in the workers who generate those profits, instead of paying more in taxes — or companies that have been given a lot of government assistance [paying that money back] — they’ve put $367 billion in stock dividends and buybacks and over a billion dollars in CEO pay.
The people who benefited over the last thirty years from these broken trade deals have been the corporate class and the wealthy.
That’s the problem here. So when we talk about how tariffs are going to drive the cost of things up, they don’t have to; it’s a choice. Going back to roughly 2019 or 2020, over a four-year period, automotive companies took advantage of the pandemic — and anytime there’s a crisis in this country, the corporate class and the wealthy find ways to extract more wealth for themselves — the price of automobiles over those four years went up 35–40 percent on average. There was no reason for it. They came up with the excuse that they needed parts and things like that. That wasn’t the issue. Wages didn’t go up; nothing changed for workers. They didn’t invest more in our communities. [The automakers] saw an opportunity to jack prices up, to price gouge the consumer and make more profits.
As proof of that, Stellantis alone got really aggressive with its pricing. The sticker on a Ram truck that I leased in 2020 was $62,000, which is a lot of money. In 2023 when my lease was up, that same truck was $82,000. It went up $20,000 over a three-year period, and nothing really happened. They don’t have to raise the price of anything. It’s a choice.
Now that the stock market’s been impacted somewhat by all this doomsday-scenario [talk], you hear Wall Street crying and leading the battle cry that [tariffs are] going to drive prices up and it’s the end of the world. This is one thing that I do know. For workers who have 401(k)s, such as myself, yeah, there’s concern. But ultimately, you know whose 401(k)s have been suffering for the last thirty-five years? The millions of workers who have lost their jobs due to the offshoring of this factory work.
DAVID SIROTA
What do you make of the free traders who are waving around, for instance, Stellantis’s announcement that it’s temporarily pausing production at two assembly plants and that the nine hundred US represented employees at supporting plants are going to be temporarily laid off? I’ve seen this presented as proof that Trump’s tariffs are actually hurting the autoworkers that Trump purports to be defending and helping.
SHAWN FAIN
First, I don’t find it coincidental that as Trump was announcing the tariff, Stellantis was announcing a layoff. Things didn’t change that quickly; the tariffs weren’t even in place yet. I think it was intentional. Rather than Stellantis being proactive, knowing full well for three months now that tariffs were coming . . . it had been warned. It could have been more like GM and Ford, who were looking at ways to adapt to this. GM announced it is increasing product at the Fort Wayne assembly plant for trucks. They’re not talking about that. They’re not talking about Ford coming up with employee pricing for everyone.
Ford and GM chose to get creative, and they’re looking at ways to bring work back and to work with the consumer. Meanwhile Stellantis shows the same old tired philosophy of making workers pay for its bad decisions. So I do believe that Stellantis will bring work back. I do believe these tariffs will result in auto work coming back to this country. Free traders are using that layoff as their battle cry to say, “See, we told you.” But they’re not saying, “Wait a minute, what about the GM plant in Fort Wayne, Indiana that just announced it’s going to bring back more product?” They’re not talking about that.
Trade, Tariffs, and Unions
DAVID SIROTA
What are you hearing from your rank-and-file members about the tariffs?
SHAWN FAIN
I think a majority of our members understand. They’ve lived it. You can talk to many of our members, and many of their lives have been disrupted. They’ve had to pack up their families and move more than one time, because a plant closed in in Missouri and they moved to Ohio, and then their plant in Ohio closed — now they’re in Indiana. People have already experienced the broken trade system in this country more than once, and they’re fed up with it. So a lot of them understand it.
I think a lot of them believe that tariffs aren’t the end-all, be-all solution to this. Tariffs are a tool. They’re a mechanism to force these companies to start doing the right thing and looking at American workers and looking at American jobs, which have been left behind for three decades now. So a lot of workers support that.
Now, when you talk about blanket tariffs on everything — I can’t go in depth enough on breaking down every tariff in place and every product. There’s concern, because the corporate world is being very apparent that their reaction is just going to be to jack prices up and find another way to price gouge consumer. But that doesn’t have to happen. So people are concerned about the price of things going up. But ultimately, the price of things doesn’t matter when you don’t have a job.
DAVID SIROTA
What do you say to the question: Why should it be a priority for America to manufacture things? There’s been this glib idea that we don’t want to bring back factory work to this country, because the US has sort of advanced beyond it. That’s what you see said very flippantly by a lot of people: NAFTA happened; China PNTR [Permanent Normal Trade Relations] happened; the jobs that we didn’t want went offshore. Better-paying jobs in the information sector are what we should want, and by trying to reverse that, we’re trying to get back jobs that we shouldn’t necessarily be prioritizing as an advanced industrialized country.
SHAWN FAIN
My first question would be, where are all the jobs in this advanced sector? I’m not seeing them.
I graduated high school in 1987. When I was in high school, all we were told was, college was the path to the future — you’ve got to get a college degree. I went to trade school. I became an electrician. I’ve got a lot of friends who went to college and got master’s degrees and everything. And I see a lot of people nowadays going hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt for an education, and they can’t find a job where they can live. So where are the jobs?
That’s a fallacy to say that we have transformed out of a manufacturing [economy]. The manufacturing sector has been a lifeblood. It’s what built what we used to call “the middle class” in this country. I don’t believe in the middle class; I just believe there’s a working class and there are the rich — and if you’re not an owner and you don’t own the business and you don’t make all the decisions and you don’t have massive wealth, then you’re a working-class person.
We hear this debate about national security, and this administration is using fentanyl production and border security as an issue. I don’t believe those are really issues with national security. But I do believe, when we eliminate our manufacturing base in this country, we’re going to be in big trouble if we have to defend ourselves. Because when you can’t produce anything, you’re opening yourself up for attack from anyone. I go back to the arsenal of democracy in World War II: the way that World War II was won when the United States got involved was, we utilized the excess capacity at our auto plants in this country to build bombers, to build tanks, to build jeeps.
So our manufacturing base is key to national security — and to good-paying union jobs. Prior to NAFTA’s inception in 1994, just over 20 percent of the workforce was union. Less than 10 percent is union now. So it hasn’t just been an attack on manufacturing; it’s been an attack on good-paying jobs that have pensions, that have benefits, that have high wages, that people can live a decent life off of.
Manufacturing has always provided that. A lot of people that go into these information-type jobs . . . what kind of money are they making? What kind of benefits are they getting? We have to ask those questions.
DAVID SIROTA
A poll that came out earlier this week that found 65 percent of those surveyed from union households say they disapprove of these tariffs. What do you make of that number? Is there big disagreement in the labor movement?
SHAWN FAIN
I think [with] a lot of polling, you have to take into account the politics of it. During the election, a majority of our members supported, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, but over 40 percent supported Trump. A lot of our members, when we would do polling over other issues — plant issues or working issues — they were polling along the same lines, just because they were pissed about us not endorsing Trump. They were saying they disagreed with our stance on, you know, wanting to take action at this plant.
I think politics feeds into it, and you’ve got to think about what’s going on right now. While we are applauding the tariffs for auto, you look at the [other] things that this administration is doing — ripping up the contracts of 700,000 federal workers. You look at the attacks on the National Labor Relations Board, the Department of Labor, and the Department of Education. You look at the threats to Social Security with Elon Musk being involved in all this. Part of that [polling] could be impacted by those things that are going on right now, because people are seeing a negative impact out the gate on other things that are affecting them.
But at the end of the day, I look at it this way: Nothing has impacted working-class Americans in this country more in the last thirty-plus years than our broken trade system, and nothing has been done to address that in the last thirtysome years. So it’s not that we applaud everything that this administration is doing, but it’s the first administration in my working life that’s tried to do something to address this broken trade system.
Tariffs and the Democrats
DAVID SIROTA
There has also been an argument that the Biden administration tried to strategically use tariffs in ways that boosted parts of the manufacturing economy: for instance, its tariffs on China when it comes to the domestic solar manufacturing industry. There is an argument that the Biden administration strategically tried to use tariffs in a smarter way, as opposed to such a blunt or blanket way.
Did we see some of that from the Biden administration? And what do you make of the argument that Trump has taken those seeds of a constructive industrial policy and taken them way too far?
SHAWN FAIN
I believe Trump put tariffs on China in his first presidency, and I know the Biden administration continued those tariffs. But when it came to the electric vehicle (EV) transition, the Biden administration put a 100 percent tariff on China due to national security issues and theft of information, things like that. We applauded that when it happened. But the problem with those tariffs was that — and the Biden administration doesn’t get enough credit for this, with the transition to battery EVs — a lot of factories were being built, a lot of work was being put in place. . . . A lot of that is still in process right now. So I don’t think we fully recognize the benefit of that and won’t for a couple years.
That’s when you hear this argument now from the people that are crying a lot about the tariffs, who are saying, “It takes two to three years to build a new plant.” What they’re not talking about is the excess capacity we have in this country right now when it comes to our auto industry. Take Stellantis alone: the Toledo Jeep South plant — it could put new product in there. Take Warren Truck right here in Michigan, where I am right now, where they made Ram trucks for eight years. It quit making them there a year ago and shifted that work to Mexico. It could put that work back in that plant tomorrow, where 3,000 people are laid off right now.
We project, just looking at the Big Three alone, they could bring back 50,000 jobs using the excess capacity they have in their plants in very short order. It doesn’t take two to three years to retool and adjust what you already have. You can just throttle up.
We project, just looking at the Big Three alone, they could bring back 50,000 jobs using the excess capacity they have in their plants in very short order.
Yes, the Biden administration did strategically use tariffs. But we asked it to put auto tariffs on the companies that exist now to try to stop the bleeding of the millions of jobs that have been leaving in the last thirty years. And [the administration wasn’t] willing to go that far.
We’ve said from day one in politics, we’re going to call balls and strikes, and no matter what party it is, when you take an issue like trade — which is the biggest issue that has impacted working-class Americans in this country, in my thirty-six years as a worker — it’s a big deal for someone to to go this hard on tariffs. And like I said, we agree with strategically doing tariffs, in the right areas and the right industries, and not punishing everyone. Canada pays decent wages; they have good standards; they have good health care. They’re not the enemy in this.
Even our neighbors in Mexico — the workers aren’t the enemy here. The workers are the victims, because the standard of living was supposed to come up for these workers, and just the opposite happened. They don’t have insurance, they don’t have retirement security, and their wages have went down with the inception of NAFTA. So I don’t blame the workers. I blame corporate greed, and that’s where the focus of this has to be. We have to have standards in our trade policies, that if we’re going to do business with someone, they need to lift up the standard of [living of] working people. And if the workers get left behind in that equation, then we shouldn’t be doing business with them.
DAVID SIROTA
I feel like there’s been a culture created in Democratic Party politics, or non-Republican politics where there is this expectation that the labor movement simply parrot anything that is politically good for the Democratic Party. Which is to say that the labor movement is not perceived to be an independent force that is trying to push both parties to do what the labor movement believes is in the interest of workers. What do you say to folks who say, “The only thing anybody should be saying is that Trump is bad” — that even trying to say some tariffs are good, some tariffs are bad, is helping him, and by helping him, that’s eventually, ultimately bad for workers?
SHAWN FAIN
When you talk about the labor movement and unions . . . for the UAW, complacency has ruled the day for the last several decades. And a lot of the labor movement has been asleep at the wheel while things have been happening. We’ve not been fighting the fights we should be fighting.
So when I came in as president with our new International Executive Board, we pledged that we’re putting members first. We’re getting back to our roots, and we’re going to fight like hell. In my first month of being president of the UAW, I remember getting a call from the AFL-CIO, and it said, “President Biden’s going to make his announcement for reelection, and we’re going to try to get all the principal unions to come in and announce their endorsement as he makes the announcement.” I said, “I can’t do that. There’s a lot of work that’s got to be done right now, and we’re going to make sure that we’re on the right side of this, and we have expectations. We’re not going to freely give our endorsement to somebody.”
A big problem in this fight all along has been, the Democratic Party has come to take labor for granted when it comes to elections. And it was always this mantra, “What are you going to do, vote Republican? They don’t support unions.” I go back to these Midwest states that are always the swing states: Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. You look at what’s happened in those states over the last three decades, and they’ve seen their futures disappear. All we’ve been told by the other side and by the Democrats mostly is, “It’s okay.” No one’s been leading that fight.
There have been some really good, strong Democrats that have stood with us in those fights. But there’s a huge faction in the Democratic Party that, under the Clinton administration and since, became basically corporate Democrats. They’re taking money from the wealthy — the same people that fund both [Democratic and Republican] campaigns hedge their bets. Working-class people have been left behind, and working-class people are tired of being told that the Democrats have your back when, when we go to fight these fights, they haven’t.
We’ve been very clear over and over since I’ve been president, with everyone in Congress who we talked to, Democrat or Republican. This is our expectation. Our mission is not going to change no matter who’s in the White House or who’s in Congress. We expect you to go to bat on these issues, and if you don’t, we’re not going to be there for you no matter what party you are. If you support these issues, if you stand up for workers and a better life for working-class people, we’ll be there no matter what party you are. I believe the Democrats came to take us for granted, and those days are over in the UAW.
What Happens Next?
DAVID SIROTA
A lot of people who are listening to this are looking at the stock market. They’re looking at that line going down and saying, “I’m five or seven years from retirement. I’m trying to save for retirement. I’m seeing my 401(k) go down.” And this is terrifying, and it’s clearly being prompted by a panic over the Trump tariff policy. They see the UAW say, the auto tariffs specifically — I’m not saying you’re saying you’re for all the tariffs, but the auto tariffs specifically — are something that we support, and we’re happy that this is the potential end of the NAFTA free-trade era. What do you say to those listeners?
SHAWN FAIN
They’re justifiably worried. Everyone is, because there’s uncertainty, and the reason we have this uncertainty is because our manufacturing base in this country has disappeared. It’s been ripped out from under us for thirty-plus years, so we have to change that. There may be some short-term pain in this, but we have to get this right.
We have a chance now to redefine what trade looks like in this country — the thing that’s had the biggest impact on all of our 401(k)s, on all of our pension plans — and we have to get it right. Again I’m not saying that this administration has all the right solutions to this, because what has to happen as we bring these jobs back . . . they also have to be good-paying jobs with adequate health care, with retirement security — with people not having to work two and three jobs or work seven days a week just to live paycheck to paycheck. We have to have a social policy.
When it comes to the stocks and 401(k)s: yes, there’s going to be some temporary pain involved in this transition right now. But I do believe we have to look at the long term, and long term, we have to bring back the manufacturing base in this country. I go back to what I said earlier. When every 100 manufacturing jobs creates 700 secondary jobs that support all that, that’s how you generate wealth, that’s how you generate income, that’s how you generate security for a good future and for a decent retirement. Without those things, we’re going to see more of the same. And right now, 60 percent of Americans have no retirement savings, so I don’t know what the hell they’re going to do when they retire.
DAVID SIROTA
When you say we have to get it right, is there a danger that, in Trump getting it wrong — going too far, too broad, too volatile, too inconsistent, and so on — that ultimately he sets back the argument that you’re making about the smart, strategic use of tariffs? That if he gets it wrong and creates too much pain, the narrative then becomes “All tariffs are bad. Tariffs are the problem.” And then we’re back to where the trade debate was after NAFTA and after China PNTR.
SHAWN FAIN
I know what risk there is in doing nothing, because we’ve seen it play out for thirty to thirty-five years. Doing nothing has basically driven our economy and our working class’s ability to have a decent life off a cliff.
There are risks with anything that we do. But when I say we have to get it right, this isn’t going to happen overnight. It’s going to take time. There are elections coming up in 2026, so we have to put the things out there that are important. We have to push for the things that matter, like decent wages and having standards involved in bringing this work back where people can have a decent quality of life. And the politicians that support those things we go to war for, and the ones that don’t we go to war against. All those things are going to play into this.
Prior to NAFTA’s inception in 1994, just over 20 percent of the workforce was union. Less than 10 percent is union now.
We’ll see the impact when companies are bringing jobs back, if they choose to utilize excess capacity and act now and really change things for the good. If they’re going to cry, “We’ve got to build new plans. It’s going to take too long,” then it’s going to be a struggle. But we’ve seen time and time again, tariffs have been used in this country: back in the 1960s with President Lyndon B. Johnson’s chicken tax, prior to NAFTA in the ’80s and ’90s with the auto industry, and they’ve been successful.
So tariffs do work, but again, it’s about how we implement them and how we go about ensuring that they’re used in the right way. It’s not perfect what’s happening right now, but it’s a hell of a lot better than what we’ve seen in the past thirty some years.

UAW President Shawn Fain on Why He Supports Tariffs

In an interview, United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain argues that the era of “free-trade” deals like NAFTA has been a disaster for the US…

jacobin.com

Trade War, Auto Workers, Teamsters, ILWU, Class Struggle & Uniting Mexican, US & Canadian Workers

Workers and the unions in Mexico, Canada and the United States are faced with a massive attack on their jobs, conditions and benefits with a major escalation of the trade war launched… by the Trump fascist government on April 2, 2025.

On March 26, 2025 a panel was held with Mexican, Canadian and US workers from the UAW, Teamsters, Unifor, ILWU and Mexican unionists and an auto worker.

This could lead to massive inflation and growing attacks on the living conditions of all workers in the US, Canada and Mexico and workers throughout the world.

Workers talked about the role of the unions in organizing to deal with a trade war and why Canadian, Mexican and US workers need united action to defend against trade war which could lead to a massive depression and world war.

The panel was sponsored by WorkWeek and United Front Committee For A Labor Party

UFCLP

Watch or listen to the interview HERE

Steve Zeltzer: This is Steve Zeltzer, I'm with Workweek and the United Front Committee for a Labor Party and we're having a panel today just before a major trade war is going to be breaking out on April the 2nd when Trump and his administration are going to institute a 25% tariff on automobiles and other products all over the world including in Canada and Mexico. This is going to be devastating to working people in Mexico, the United States, and Canada, as well as working people around the world. The panel that we're having today is to look at the development of the tariffs, trade war, what they mean for workers and unions, and what working people should do about trade war and tariffs to defend themselves, their unions, and the working class as a whole. This is already a debate in the labor movement including in the UAW and in the Teamsters. So it's an important issue for working people already in the unions in the United States. Our first speaker is John Palmer and he's Vice President at Large for the Teamsters and he's going to be talking about the struggle in the Teamsters and the issue of what this trade war will mean for Teamsters. So welcome John.

John Palmer: Good afternoon. In my limited Spanish I would say hola. But yes, there has been sort of this business unionism approach to handling the situation where the leadership of the Teamsters, primarily the General President, has decided that it's easier to play go-along-and-get-along with the Trump administration, and some of the political hacks that are part of this administration. So I've been very vocal about the effects this was going to have on our membership. Obviously a large portion of what we do is transportation, and of course a very varied membership – we have a lot of farmworkers and people that are involved with, not necessarily farmwork, but produce, canning, and meat production. So the impact of this, we have Canadian Teamsters – and the president of Teamsters Canada was very outspoken in a statement about the impact it was going to have on Teamster members on both sides of the border, and the trade that had been – our most valuable trade partners are Canada and Mexico. So the impact upon the auto industry in particular, where we transport parts and all kinds of stuff to the auto manufacturers is going to be impactful. Our silence around all this has been deafening, and so I've been very outspoken about it. I think now is not a time for anybody in this country in particular, to think that this is going to go away in the next election cycle, or by simply playing go-along-get-along. Our stock market is already in a downfall, it's down more than 10%. So the impacts are going to be great. Sitting on your hands is not an option.

Steve Zeltzer: Has there been a debate in the Teamsters about what's going on?

John Palmer: I can say no, other than myself I mean, and that's part of – without getting into union politics too much – that's part of the fallacy of our system, is everybody falls in line. The idea that you would speak out in public without the falling in line with the rest of people, is sort of a no no in the Teamsters although the Teamsters Canada president has been very vocal about it, and of course, I put a statement out and as usual they've attacked me. But it's bigger than attacks on John Palmer, is much more important that we…

Steve Zeltzer: Julian do you want to introduce our next speaker?

Julian de Gotari: Well I can introduce Nahúm. Nahúm has been working like years in the north, the maquilas, with workers in various industries, also in the with the agricultural workers. He's from UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), a political scientist, and he's a trade unionist, and he has a lot of experience and we will be hearing more about him, and what his view of the current situation with the tariffs – I will let him speak whenever he wants to speak…

Nahúm Monroy: Thank you very much for the invitation. I apologize because my English is not so good, so I will start in Spanish, so thank you very much for the invitation.

The first thing I have to say my friends, thank you for the invitation, is that the announcement of the imposition of tariffs by the government of Donald Trump, has generated a lot of uncertainty among the Mexican working class. Not only in the maquiladora auto parts sector, but also in a good part of the workers who manufacture in the agribusiness that export food to the United States.

We must keep in mind that Mexico currently exports – almost 80% of the products that Mexico produces go to the United States. There is a strong nervousness that about 700,000 jobs will be lost immediately with the introduction of tariffs in the steel sector, and also in the automotive sector.

There is an important point that we must understand. Most of the unions on the northern border and in the automotive sector are not democratic unions, they are employer unions, that are fiercely controlled by the businessmen and by the politicians and there are very low working conditions. We know that one of the reasons why many U.S. companies moved here in the 1980s was because Mexican labor is much cheaper, wages are lower, and conditions are very poor. So the fact that the unions are not democratic is also a very important obstacle for workers to fight for a better standard of living.

Very good. In the last few years there has been an important mobilization especially in independent unions and also in agricultural day laborers. It is very important, it is now a vital necessity that there may be a call for an international mobilization of workers.

I want to say something more important, a very recurrent practice in the northern border of Mexico, where there are no democratic unions, is that the companies leave the cities without giving prior notice to the workers. There are spontaneous closures of factories and that generates – that thousands of families are left without employment. With the announcement of tariffs this situation is expected to accelerate in a dramatic way and this, together with the conditions of violence that exist in Mexico, could generate a social disaster. I would like to close this part of my speech by saying that there is a nervousness that there could be strong mobilizations and that unemployment together with inflation could be a situation of important social unrest.

It will generate unemployment, it will generate a lot of unrest.

Steve Zeltzer: Ok thank you. Our next speaker is – we're happy to have him here – Israel Cervantes who is a former General Motors worker and was involved in organizing the first unionized GM plant in Mexico and he's been continuing the struggle to organize and defend workers.

Israel Cervantes: Good afternoon, greetings to all of you, thank you very much for this invitation. Yes, today we see a somewhat difficult panorama for the workers not only in Mexico but it will affect the different countries that participate in this free trade agreement.
Today as a union activist, we have had information from different workers in different companies where there is already a risk of losing jobs or companies that are going to cut personnel due to the uncertainty of the tariffs or which companies will be affected more than others, right? And I think it is very important to organize the workers in the different countries, in this case the United States, Canada, and Mexico, where we can organize more people across the borders, but supporting each other, since this is something that has been forgotten.

That would be what I would say for the time being.

Steve Zeltzer: Thank you brother Israel.

So our next speaker is going to be Frank Hammer. Frank Hammer is a former president of UAW 909. He's been a lifetime activist, internationalist, and trade unionist in auto and for all workers, and has been particularly involved in the fight of Colombian workers, GM workers who were injured on the job, and has been involved in that struggle as well, so welcome Frank.

Frank Hammer: Thank you Steve, and I just want to say in regards to my brother Israel, that for those of you who may not know, his practice of international solidarity is in deeds, not only in words, and back in 2019 when US GM workers were on strike, in the previous 40 day strike, it was workers at GM Silao (Guanajuato, Mexico) where Israel worked, that GM sought to have increased production to make up for lost production in the US. And it was workers including Israel who resisted the speed up and the forced overtime to prevent General Motors for being in a better position to try to defeat the UAW strike. So I'm so glad that he's on the call today. He also was in the US during the most recent standup strike and visited workers on the picket lines at Stelantis and at Ford and so on. So he has really shown what it means for international solidarity and I am really grateful.

So instead of making my own statement, I'm going to actually read a statement that was written by a manufacturing worker that belongs to – a UAW member – also a member of the UAWD (Unite All Workers for Democracy) who is out of North Carolina and today is participating in a demonstration against Tesla, so I'm taking the liberty to read the statement that he wrote in regards to the tariffs.

My brother from UAW in North Carolina said: “Trump is implementing a program aimed at cracking down on worker's rights, slashing the social safety net, conducting mass firings of federal workers, destroying federal worker's unions, possibly privatizing the Post Office, etc.

The reason why Trump is enacting these tariffs, and this includes the auto tariffs, the steel and aluminum tariffs, and the reciprocal tariffs – has everything to do with bolstering US imperialism and strengthening the United States industrial base in order to more effectively compete with China which has emerged as the core imperialist rival of the United States.

Beyond this is also the case that Trump's tariffs could well trigger a recession. If that happens then clearly the workers will suffer the worst consequences. That is an outcome that Trump has signaled he is willing to risk.

So my brother feels that in the short run, it will increase manufacturing jobs and thereby strengthen the working class objectively with more manufacturing jobs, but he says, the core demand of the US working class has been for an end to the free trade nightmare, and an end to the practice of the capitalist class of whipsawing us against workers in countries like Mexico and China (and I would add Canada).

While it may increase some ranks of the working class, it is not a concession to labor, but because the enactment of this policy accords with the interests of U.S. imperialist capital at this time. What’s more, this policy is being coupled with a wide range of grotesque attacks against workers and oppressed people, and a massive escalation of imperialist tension.

And he concludes, we live in very dangerous times.

Steve Zeltzer: Thank you Frank for that contribution. Obviously this is a threat to millions of workers and also trade wars have led to imperialist wars, the prelude to military confrontations. So we have to be I think, clear that this is not just about an economic war, it can lead to a military confrontation.

So Julian, who is going to make a contribution, is a member of UAWD and a graduate student at at UCLA, and he is going to make some comments about what's going on as well, so welcome Julian.

Julian de Gotari: Thank you Steve. I think as Frank has already been saying, no? The effect of these tariffs are [unclear] here.

As Steve was saying I'm part of UAW, and here in our union we are seeing how our own president, which is Sean Fain, has decided, in a way that is shortsighted, to ally itself with Trump in the question of tariffs. Assuming that indeed these tariffs will actually make these manufacturing companies bring all their equipment to the US and increase the number of jobs here, without understanding that companies won't seek in the US jobs that are protected by unions, they will want to hire people in the same conditions as they hire them in Mexico which are very marginalized conditions, no?

So we have this problem with Sean Fain and there's this division in our in our union because there are some workers that actually have deluded themselves into thinking that this work, these jobs that are going to be created in the US are going to be jobs that are going to be protected by the unions and are going to pay well. And that division is actually also being shown in UAWD. So there's a lot of problems here and there's no easy solution besides actually trying to create links between the international working class. I don't think there's any other way of solving this.

The workers should just think of themselves as a class, against the capitalist class, and not fall under these nationalist discourses.

Steve Zeltzer: I want to say that the AFL-CIO, the United Steelworkers, and the International Association of Machinists, have all come out against this trade war with Canada and Mexico. John Palmer has said that the Teamsters in Canada have come out against it.

But what has not happened, is the unions, on all borders – US, Mexico, and Canada – coming together and having a united front against the trade war and the attacks on workers on all sides of the border.

And I think that as others have said, this is critical that the workers and unions on all sides of the borders, come together, and discuss and have a plan to defend all workers – autoworkers, Teamsters, longshoremen – all workers, so that they're not pitted against each other, which is the plan of Trump and the billionaires and the capitalists.

John Palmer: I think the the key thing that I continue to hear, which is number one, the capitalists, the imperialists, care nothing about the working class. We have unions – I'm well aware of how bad, how undemocratic the unions are in Canada. Unfortunately some of our unions (in the US) are behaving in very similar manners.

I think it's important that we set aside any misgivings we have. The previous speaker spoke about Shawn Fain. Sean O'Brien is our general president (of the US Teamsters). The idea that we can ally ourselves with these people and gain some sort of favor is just pie in the sky. We have to understand who the enemy is. I always use the adage that you don't pick a snake up, you know it will bite you, you don't play with the snake. It's time for workers to work together.

Steve Zeltzer: At the same time that the trade war is taking place, the fascist government that Trump has established with Musk is leading an attack on immigrant workers with raids, terrorizing the immigrant workers in the United States.

And it's interesting that at the Tesla Fremont plant in California, which has fought the union, which fired 700 UAW supporters, in order to prevent the unionization of the plant, has large numbers of immigrant workers from Afghanistan, Mexico, all over the world, at that plant.

And the black workers at that plant called it 'the plantation' because they were treated like slaves in that plant. And this is the kind of conditions that these billionaires and the Trump government, the fascists want. They want slave labor in the United States in Mexico and Canada and aim to increase their profits and destroy the unions. Trump has just terminated the union rights of over 700,000 federal workers. So this is connected really, with the direct frontal attack on the working class.

And we have to say that the UAW which is trying to organize many plants in the south, and the Teamsters which is trying to organize at Amazon – the hundreds of thousands of workers – that is all based on the NLRB which has been shut down basically by the Trump administration. Now these unions the UAW, the Teamsters, the SEIU are not saying that they are going to have to use different methods to organize because there are not going to be any government agencies to process organizing. It's going to have to be a mass mobilization of the working class which they're afraid of, and they're not prepared for.

Now I want to introduce Gabriel Prawl, he's the past president of ILWU Seattle local 52, and is also president of the A. Philip Randolph Institute in Seattle. His family was also from Panama, they came to Panama from Jamaica to build the Panama Canal. It was immigrants who built that canal, very few Americans died in that canal.

Welcome Gabriel.

Gabriel Prawl: How you doing Steve, thank you for inviting me. I want to say that it's important that things like this is happening and it is a pleasure to be here with workers talking about fighting for a better future and a better life for us all. You know, we've been dealing with this issue that's going on in this country in the US and we have our administration that's leading us down down down the drain. I mean it's going to take the workers to really make the change. Glad to be here and I think I'm going to slow down so we can get translation.

I've been a longshoreman working like that for 32 years. This trade war that we got right now is not helping the shipping industry. It's really costing the American people, the tax payers a whole lot of money. The things that I worry about is not only as a longshoreman, we make decent wages and we can probably survive some of this stuff going on, but I – my workers all around me that I see I'm talking about union workers from other trades that are working all day long and still can't make enough to keep up with the expenses. We just had, just this week here in in Seattle, a farmworker activist organizer was attacked and arrested and taken to one of those ICE detention centers just 5 days ago. There was an action done by, led by the Washington State Labor Council and I and I'm saying that because I'm glad that labor is seeing that they have to do action, because we can't stay sitting while all of this is going on. I am part of organizing an action next week Saturday which we're going to rally and march to the federal detention because one of the goals that we – our demands is; melt ICE, fund public school, support immigrant and trans students, defend public workers and services.

The reality is that we have farmworkers, essential workers in this country that work hard to make sure people in this country are fed healthy food. In fact they are being attacked – it makes me wonder what we're gonna do if we get rid of the farmworkers, who's gonna replace them?

I have to wonder, if they plan – because the direction this administration is going – if they pan to use incarcerated people to do the work. If they plan to do that it means cheap labor, or slave labor. I mean, this is my opinion, because I can't see who else they're going to try to use, to do that hard work.

The agenda is just about profit, they don't care about survival of the human race and I think that's something that we as a labor movement, we as a people, need to come together to make change and shape the future of this world, not just the country but the world.

I think the fact that, so many tens of thousands of federal employees are getting fired, by this administration, I believe that that is shaping the movement to rise up and do something because these federal workers are a sleeping giant. They've been sleeping for a long time and now they got a reality check to wake up. But also we want to look at that as our inspiration to bring the labor movement together because I think the labor movement has been sleeping as well. Because we have moved to the position where we are begging the politicians when it used to be the other way around. And I think – I don't know where we lost that focus, but that's exactly where we move. They are calling shots and we are just standing by taking the hits. And before the labor movement used to do action to change the demographic and to change the reality of how we've been governed in this country.

I'm from a radical tradition union and I have to really be true to the fact that I'm ashamed that many of my union members voted for Trump, and it's a disgrace, and now they are seeing the after effect of it. I know their families are feeling the after effect of it and I don't know what is next, because I have to ask the question, what if an ILWU rank and file member of our union gets taken by ICE, what are we gonna do next?

It's clear that we have to build a united front, and that the state that we're in today – I think it has to be a real radical response, and when I say radical response, I'm talking about something like a general strike.

I'm gonna stop here so I can give other speakers a chance, because I got so much in my head – I don't know – but the work is long and the struggle is something that we really have to take on.

Steve Zeltzer: Thank you Gabriel. And our next speaker is going to be Barry Anderson who's a Teamster and then we'll open it up to people would like to speak or ask questions.

Barry Anderson: Greetings to all – greetings – my name is Barry Anderson I'm also member of the Teamsters 856 out in the Frisco Bay, I'm in Northern California, I'm from Sacramento, California. Originally I'm from a small city called East St Louis, Illinois – raised in Sacramento. With that being said, I was raised – my mother was a union member, my father a union member, grandparents on both of my parents side, even my great grandparents. I come from a long history of people who have been involved in the civil rights movement. One of my relatives was Huey Newton's bodyguard in the in the Panther party. So when it comes to activism I had the experience and the blessing to be somewhat – to hear those conversations and to be involved. Currently I'm a factory worker.

Currently I work for a company called Sunsweet Growers. I've been involved in the labor movement for quite sometime, I'm actually familiar with a few people at ILWU out in the Bay Area, individuals like Carey Dull, Augustine Ramirez, and a few others. And I've always had a love and passion for working people because I come from working people and I am a worker. I'm also a rap artist, my music is based on class struggle, critiquing the social structure, and how to bring solutions to the table. My artist – I go by B.A. Abad, I study the Hebrew language, abad in the Hebrew language means the worker, or the slave, or the one who labors. So when it comes to being a laborer, a worker, I am deeply connected, I'm all about establishing justice for the working people.

I definitely appreciate the people here, we have people from Mexico, Canada, and I know me and Mr. Zeltzer spoke about this and that was our goal to reach out to people all over who are going to be affected by these trade wars. So with that being said, now especially here in the United States, the one thing that's going to make a difference with the working class here is number one, we have to abolish or we have to do a exit when it comes to the Democrats and the Republicans. That's the first thing. Once we do an exodus from these capitalist parties, I honestly believe we can make a deep impact on that.

So with that being said, I also would like to stress that, just to the people who are listening live, and those who will be listening in the archive later on. In order for the American worker here in the United States to be a leader, or to play a big part in uniting with other workers, we have to break away from the capitalist two party dictatorship. And unfortunately the unions are cowards, our union bureaucrats are cowards. They have decided to play ball with the imperialists in office with this current regime – I don't got to say a man's name, we know who's in office right now. So since they decide to play ball, they have decided their concern is themselves and not their members who pay dues and who pay their salary. So with that being said, it's time for us to put them on notice and let them know, if you don't have us in the best interest we'll vote your asses out. And it's time for the working class to be a light, not just to those here in the states, but everywhere. Once the working class comes together, working people come together and establish some type of faction or whatever it is you want to call it, it will follow suit with students and even the future generations children who are watching this. This is not just about for our survival, this is for the survival for the future generations. So we got to stop thinking of selves, that's one thing about… [pause for translation]

Thank you, and this is my last statement. To establish the revolution you must have love. That's what one of my favorite heroes Che Guevara said that, a revolutionary must have love. In order to see change, in order to provoke change, you have to have a love, not just for self but others around you and your environment and those on the outside. And just want to say that real quick, much love to you Mr Palmer, definitely appreciate you, and you know when I said about voting people out had nothing to do with you, you know who I'm talking about [laughter]. With that being said I'm going to fall back, glad to be here amongst the elders. Love y'all and respect y'all. For those who want to reach out to me, hit me up in the chat and hopefully we can connect. Shalom.

Steve Zeltzer: Ok thank you Barry for your comments.

Ok, Kirby you're on. Kirby is a member of IATSE (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees) in Los Angeles, has been fighting for solidarity and also fighting against racism in his industry and I think that's an important part of our work. If we're going to transform the working class we have to fight racism on the job and in the community, and the unions can play a powerful force in doing that, and that they should take that responsibility.

Elizabeth Milos: There's some things that Israel Cervantes mentioned that why not think of the section of the UAW in Mexico and being able to create an international union that fights for the struggles of all of the workers across borders. And then, Julian de Gotari said that the autoworkers in the United States and Canada used to be members of the UAW until 1985, today Canadian workers are part of UNIFOR.

Kirby Washington: Thanks Elizabeth. So folks I just have to just tell you how much gratitude I have to be in this room with this these ideas and these thoughts and in this conversation because it's vital! When I heard Nahúm talking about his union, I was shouting at this screen because I've been in a shitty union for 38 years! It is time really for change! So I just want to throw this out there and maybe it's a question, but we need to have a new kind of conversation among union members and among workers and figure out how to build better unions. So just want to throw that out there, that's all I want to toss out, thank you.

Steve Zeltzer: Nahúm you felt like commenting on this about what he said?

Nahúm Monroy: Yes I appreciate very much this participation I didn't introduce myself properly at the beginning of my speech a little bit because of the rush but I want to say that I have worked a lot in the northern border of Mexico in the automotive industry, with day laborers also, and that I was kidnapped by an armed group in the north of Mexico in Reynosa for fighting for union democracy. So I want to explain to all the comrades who are present that the challenge that we face in the northern border is very difficult because the control over workers is very strong, the repression against workers is very strong and there are two factors added to that. On the one hand, organized crime, drug trafficking and… [pause for translation].

The force of drug trafficking and organized crime together with the businessmen exert a strong control over the Mexican working class.

And I am going to finish, we have many difficulties my friends but we also have a great advantage as a working class which is that many working class families have family all over the United States in Texas in California, and there is a continuous connection of the working class. So we have all the tools to be able to organize in an international way the workers to fight against this policy that divides us I am very grateful, and, well up to here I would like to leave it.

Elizabeth Milos: Israel wanted to say something.

Israel Cervantes: Well, more than anything else, the difficulties that many of us workers who have organized ourselves and who have organized a struggle in Mexico, have lived through very difficult situations. I lived through it as a fired worker at General Motors when we tried to organize ourselves to get out of General Motors, a union that was imposed by the company where several workers were fired. But we also managed to have the solidarity of different organizations that really helped us to move forward. As workers, we lived through insults from the unions and the government itself that attacked us saying that we were fired for x reason, when the main reason was to try to organize, to try to form a struggle. Which in our case at General Motors we achieved after 2 years of trying to organize 7000 workers. We achieved it, but also we were marginalized because the people who took the reins of the union, betrayed those people who did everything for them to be at the head of the union. As it happened in Matamoros and in other union struggles, the legal advisors took over those struggles where the groups of workers tried to make a change, but not for personal benefits.

The legal advisors who took control of the group of workers trying to make changes, continues today. We see workers who started struggles, marginalized from that change that we tried to seek for our comrades, for our families, but mainly for the future generations that were going to take those benefits. This situation is clear today with colleagues in Matamoros, as is the former general secretary of the state of Matamoros – sorry I missed the name – Susana Prieto threw out the founders of the 20/32 movement1. In my case in General Motors, those who formed generating movement, we were marginalized from the union SINTTIA (Sindicato Independiente Nacional De Trabajadores Y Trabajadoras De La Industria Automotriz)2, we were the founders of that union. In the struggle of the workers of Goodyear in San Luis Potosi, the first workers who organized that struggle have also been marginalized.

So today we currently see a person who was general secretary, Rosario Moreno. Everardo Gómez who was also a fundamental part of the 20/32 movement. I see it in my case that we try to look for a job and they have us on blacklists where we are not allowed to work. We try to organize workers but unfortunately we do not have an organization that really shows solidarity to continue trying to form a union that can have an international base.

We believe that it is necessary to form a union that can have bases from the three countries that are part of the T-MEC treaty3 to be able to fight for more benefits for the workers. Today there is a treaty where workers in Mexico are supposed to earn a minimum wage of 16 per hour for two years of this treaty, and we see that this is really impossible to reach because even though they achieve increases that are said to be incredible, the increase to the salaries of a Mexican worker is no more than 20-30 pesos per day. While in the United States wages of more than 30 per hour are achieved, in Canada more than 40 or 50 per hour while in Mexico we do not achieve with wages the supply of the basic food basket and activist workers are constantly blacklisted.

I think it is necessary to have, or to be able to form, a committee or a union so that we can maintain more strength or more solidarity with the different struggles that exist, and continue to exist in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Thank you very much.

Steve Zeltzer: Yeah one of the things that is absent completely, is that the unions in Mexico the United States and Canada are not coming together around the trade war, around these attacks. It's amazing! They're representing workers in the same industries. They're facing the same attacks; transportation, auto, Teamsters, and yet there's no need for unity? There's no need for these unions to come together? I think they're afraid of bringing workers from Mexico, Canada, and the United States together, because that threatens their control. They're national unions and they don't see the need to unify the working class – as a class – in Canada, Mexico, and the United States and internationally, and that's exactly what we need to unify the working class internationally.

Also joining us is Tony Leah who's a retired member of Unifor4 in Canada and also has written a document calling for a united front – of unification of workers on all sides of the border, and workers at least in North America. Welcome Tony.

Tony Leah: Hello everybody. I think that really what is critical is to – as Steve just pointed out – to have unity amongst workers who are in the same industry, battling the same corporations, and to do it in a way to raise demands, that confronts the corporate control of the industry, and of our countries. The problem with tariffs is that first of all it leads to a tariff war, and in these days tariff wars are increasingly dangerous of developing into other sorts of wars. And also it creates the idea that it's workers fighting against each other over the jobs. From the point of view of an auto worker in Canada, for example because of the integration of our industry over 90% of the vehicles that are assembled in Canada are exported, almost all of them to the United States. We're not building vehicles for our own market. I think that's not quite the same in Mexico but it's similar in that a lot of the production in Mexico is for export to the United States. So as soon as you say 'tariff', you're saying take those jobs out of Mexico and out of Canada and moving them to the US.

And so I think that we need demands that lead us in the direction of workers having more power and more control and the working class being able to reconstruct our economies and our countries so that our interests come to the fore. So for example, public ownership in transportation and manufacturing, to take power away from the corporations, and to ensure that decisions are being made in the interests of our communities, and in the interests of workers.

It's indicative of the lack of working class consciousness amongst much of the leadership of our unions in Canada and the United States, that there is such a negative view of Mexico – Mexican workers, and Mexican unions. For example a complete lack of recognition of the positive steps that have been made under the the government of AMLO and now Claudia Sheinbaum, doubling the the minimum wage in Mexico over the last four years – much better labor legislation overall in Mexico than in either the United States or Canada. We can be learning from each other, learning from our strengths, if we put more emphasis on unity, and absolutely that means that workers in the United States and Cananda and Mexico should be meeting and talking to each other, so that we can develop a common program.

Steve Zeltzer: One of the things that we can – we can develop a statement for US, Mexican, and Canadian autoworkers for unification against trade war, and for mobilizing the workers to fight back and to defend themselves against these attacks. I think the same should go for Teamsters and longshore workers. There's also going to be rallies on May 1st and I think we have to demand at these rallies, we have to fight for, in the United States a general strike against the fascist government, for a labor party, and also against trade war. The trade wars are not going to benefit workers anywhere and particularly now a war that the United States wants to engage towards not only Greenland and other countries, but China, which I think is a real threat for the world.

Gabriel?

Gabriel Prawl: Yes Steve. I just wanted to mention – I want people to pay attention to what's going on, that just on Thursday, Trump signed an executive order making federal employee unions illegal. He wants to make sure – and ironically, you know, the cops and the firefighters – he hasn't touched those. We gotta think about the fact that he might be privatizing ICE to Blackwater, and these are the private agencies trying to run federal employees – that he is trying to make it illegal for being part of a union, so people need to pay attention! Their focus is to eliminate unions. So all union members that were so gladly supporting Trump, here you go, this is the response! He's coming after us.

We gotta think about where we go from here.

Steve Zeltzer: We have Jerry Goldberg here who's from UAW in Detroit has joined us as well.

But I I do think we need to plan a united action – and how we can organize to unite workers in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. I think – as I said, that my proposal is that we develop a statement, that would bind together – show a way forward for workers in the three countries. And also that we act together on May 1st. Maybe we can have a statement for May 1st, for workers in all three countries, because all countries – all workers in the three countries should be marching together really. They face the same they fight, they face the same issues. And I think it might be a way of organizing in our unions as well, to build solidarity. And the brother Nahúm from Mexico, when he talks about the Mexican working classes in the United States, they're part of the American working class, they're integrated, and we have to build that unity! The idea of borders by the capitalists, is to pit worker against worker and to have slave labor in all countries. So I think if we can break that down and call for the unification of workers in Mexico, the United States, and Canada, that would be a powerful challenge to racist… [crosstalk into translation].

And I think the great fear that the billionaires, the fascists, the capitalist class have – and the trade union bureaucracy – is that the workers in the United States, Mexico, and Canada come together. Because that would not only break down the borders, but say "who should be running things?" – what Tony said is true…

Elizabeth Milos: Jerry had his hand up.

Jerry Goldberg: I'll just make a couple of short points. Obviously I agree that a solidarity statement among autoworkers from all over the world is certainly what's called for. And I think one of the things we want to emphasize in that is that jobs – we can't depend on the ruling class or the corporations to protect our jobs. Those jobs are our jobs, are our property. We have created the wealth and we have a right to those jobs – to our jobs, and we need to again raise demands for a short work week. In the UAW we had a guaranteed jobs bank, we had guaranteed jobs that were won through struggle, that were actually in effect until they were sold out in the bankruptcy in 2008. So I think we need to raise that idea too that the defense of our jobs is done through the strength of our union demanding that our jobs are our right and that they're guaranteed and it's through short work weeks, guaranteed jobs, demands that ensure the jobs on all fronts.

I just want to make one other point. One thing I think is that we shouldn't despair about the prospects for the period to come. I remember in 81 when Reagan got elected on a program that wasn't a whole lot different than Trump's, it led to solidarity, to an AFL-CIO leadership, that was actually even worse than the current leadership, being compelled to call the biggest labor march that I've ever seen in my 55 years of activism, of 500,000 workers. And I remember at that moment, the buses that I organized from my local, every worker was ready for a general strike. Unfortunately the union leadership didn't take it that far, but there was a mood that was created through struggle, and that compelled leadership to take action.

The last point I'll make, I feel that optimism that we're going to move – that the labor movement with all its contradictions is going to be pushed into that direction, and being pushed, being forced to unify with all those who are already fighting; LGBTQ people fighting because they've been variously eliminated, the fight against racism which is so grotesque right now, immigrant rights. It's interesting to me that as bad as Fain's statement was on tariffs, yesterday he issued a very good statement on defending the federal workers and he invoked PATCO5. He said: "The actions the administration has taken today are many times worse than PATCO, affecting over 1 million federal employees. We have learned from the past and won't sit back quietly while unions are dismantled. The labor movement is not about party politics, we're not Democrats, Republicans, we're trade unionists! And when you come after workers you're going to find us standing shoulder to shoulder, ready to fight back!" Fain said even that… [pause for translation]

Having been active in the UAW for many years, when I see Fain, I see a leader on one hand, embrace his class struggle but without an ideological basis – he's not ideologically rooted, so he shifts from left to right, you know, we saw it in in the election. But we shouldn't write off even someone like him. I think the whip of reaction is going to push many leaders who we look at pretty rarely now, to take it to be forced into a stand. I think we need to encourage that. Workers sometimes learn more through action than they do through all the manifestos we can put out. And I think we're in a period that's going to compel that action, and I think I we should encourage that action and find a way – the ILWU gave the model many years ago with the a million worker march. I always felt it was a shame they did it in an election year. But the million worker march is just what's needed now. A march of all workers, not just union workers, but workers – immigrant workers, unemployed workers, people losing their food stamps. Oh that's our class of our entire class. LGBTQ let's not forget, they've written off transgender people like they don't exist. That's part of our class too. And if we can find a way that encourages a mobilization, have labor spearhead that mobilization, I think we'll see a big – it'll open up the door ideologically as well, because action sometimes precedes ideology in terms of the consciousness. It opens up the consciousness of the workers. Let's have optimism and push it forward!

Barry Anderson: I'm all for the general strike, and I think that's probably the best weapon we have. So my question is, is that since we understand that this could actually work, how do we get the masses of people on board? Because unfortunately like I said earlier, our union bureaucrats our leadership they're not going to support it. It threatens what they're trying to do with the elite class. So how do we as working people, common people, who labor for a reason, who don't own the means of production, who are doing the work, who are living day to day, paycheck to paycheck and so forth, how do we get this plan out, and establish it fully, not just working people unions, but nonunion members students and whoever else down the line? In order for the general strike to work, we have to effectively organize and get it out there.

I've seen other guys right now like what's name, Chris Smalls6, I even see him talking about it7, but to be honest I don't take him serious because I think he's in this just for clout, to get his name and his prestige out there to make it seem like he's some social activist type guy like he looks good. No I don't take him serious at all. Nothing personal I just don't take him serious. He's not in this for real.

Elizabeth Milos: [after translating] So I got to this Chris Smalls and about him being basically there for clout…

Barry Anderson: Sure yeah to promote himself to make himself look good, because a general strike sounds good. So since he somewhat has a little bit of prestige going for himself on social media and he's been on various mainstream news outlets It makes him look good.

I'll close out with this. [unclear] himself, and it's not good. And the reason why I say that is I am convinced that people like him don't care about the people who they say they so-called are speaking for. You're not in the struggle. You're doing it to look good. So what about the people who are going to actually going to participate and have to sacrifice and lose just to gain something. That's what it's all about, it's about the masses of the people, not a few people just trying to make a name for themselves.

Elizabeth Milos: The interpreter would like to speak, and also speak as a fact that she's a union member as well.

Steve Zeltzer: Lisa, go for it. Thank you, you've done a fantastic job, and I want to thank you for all the work that you've done. I mean, to have a professional, fine interpreter for our meeting is amazing! [cordial laughter]

Elizabeth Milos: Well next time we'll do it simultaneously, because it''s much easier to do it that way. Next time we need to set that up. Ok.

I'm a member of University Professional and Technical Employees, UCSF (University of California, San Francisco) I'm a medical interpreter, and I'm also a member of UPTE Members For Palestine, and I think that's really really really important that we also tie the struggle to the anticolonial struggle that the people of Palestine are going through right now. It is the remnants of the colonialism – settler colonialism, and it is an issue that is very important. It is a a long time debt that we have to pay in the support of the Palestinian people, at this time. And to be able to create a society where it would be equality for all, and equality under the law. I want to say that there are a lot of intersectionalities with workers in United States and immigrant workers in particular with regard to the issue of apartheid Israel.

The Elbit Systems, for example is an Israeli company that's on the border of Arizona that has been – that kind of technology has been used to track immigrants and refugees who are trying to cross the borders, and track them and detain them. That kind of surveillance technology has been in part created by companies here in the in the US, Palantir. And unfortunately we've had workers in CWA who are also involved in that, and many of whom got fired for refusing to create software and to create this kind of technology or work on this kind of technology that was tracking down and killing journalists in Gaza at this time, and it is continuing to do so.

There's also the issue of the Israeli government and the US police force collaborating and training missions which have created a more lethal police force against our black and brown communities here, which also have affected workers. A black worker from AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees ) was attacked in one of the strike pickets back in 2019. And as we know the UAW research workers at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) and UC Santa Cruz who were part of the encampment struggles, were attacked by not only police but also by Zionist thugs.

So I really do think that we need to make sure that our struggle also incorporates the struggle against Zionism, which me as a Chilean-American, equates with fascism as well . We are looking at a very dangerous situation. It's not only the Republicans It's been the Democrats for a long time who've been playing footsy with even the more pernicious, and more violent – and the eliminationists of Zionists. They have been financing the politicians in the US, as well as in other western countries, and influencing our political system with money. And at UCSF in particular, which Helen Diller Foundation is a supporter of Canary Mission. Helen Diller Foundation is one of the major funders of UCSF, and they've been supporting the Canary Foundation which has tried to destroy the lives of academics, students, and right now for example Dr. Rupa Mayra is being suspended by UCSF. There's been firings of people and workers as well as students at UCs statewide, as a result of this. So I think whatever statement we put out, and whatever work we do, we need to join together with the Palestinians, as well as the Israelis that are fighting against apartheid. Thank you.

Steve Zeltzer: We're going to be raising this issue at the San Francisco Labor Council on May 1st, because San Francisco Labor Council leadership, which is a pro-zionist leadership, have excluded any mention of Palestine in the slogans. And we're taking that up. We're going to public workers are going to be uniting at General Hospital other public workers and raising the issue of Palestine no money for Palestine's blockade and stop the genocide.

So our last speaker is Kirby and we'll close it out, but I think it's been an important discussion.

Kirby you're on.

Kirby Washington: So I just wanted to respond to Barry's question which was, how do we do this, how do we convince people? And it's – I'm going hit this hammer again – I've said it before, and Steve has said it before me so I credit to him, but an education campaign would go a long way to building a conversation. And then we can throw into it what we need and what we want, but we start on that and get people – workers always want to be educated, they want to know more. So if we lead with that hand open and then fill it in with what we need, I think we'll go far.

Thank you Elizabeth, I love what you're doing.

Steve Zeltzer: So we will get this video out, and I think we have to plan another event where we come together again and have more participation from workers in in Mexico, Canada, and the United States. Because this is a working class issue that's critical to our future and we need to unite and educate ourselves, and build solidarity and unity, and I think we've done that in the in the discussion today. So I want to thank all of you for joining, all the contributions and especially our interpreter, comrade Lisa Milos.

footnotes

"Two months after workers launched wildcat strikes in the Mexican city of Matamoros, 89 “maquiladora” factories, mostly in the auto parts, electric, and metallurgical industries, have agreed to workers’ demands for a 20 percent raise and a bonus of 32,000 pesos (US$1,655)—half of the average yearly salary. The strike wave has become known across Mexico as the “20/32 movement.”
The Mexican and US ruling classes have sought to claw back concessions and contain and isolate the rebellion by laying off 4,700 workers to date. The ruling class has also threatened to fire 50,000 of the 85,000 maquiladora workers in the city and is desperately propping up the trade union apparatus to block further struggles. It is accelerating its attacks against democratic rights and is turning toward authoritarian and militaristic forms of rule." https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/03/25/mat1-m25.html
https://www.unifor.org/news/all-news/mexican-auto-workers-elect-independent-union-after-unifor-presses-canada-intervene
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States-Mexico-Canada_Agreement
Unifor is a Canadian general trade union founded in 2013 as a merger of the Canadian Auto Workers and Communications, Energy and Paperworkers unions. It consists of 310,000 workers and associate members in industries including manufacturing, media, aviation, forestry and fishing, making it the largest private sector union in Canada. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unifor
The PATCO Strike of 1981 was a union-organized labor strike of air traffic controllers. Following a decade of successful strikes in other industries, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization declared a strike on August 3, 1981, demanding higher wages and more benefits. Despite 13,000 ATCs striking, the strike ultimately failed, as the Reagan administration was quickly able to replace the striking ATCs, resulting in PATCO's decertification. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Professional_Air_Traffic_Controllers_Organization_strike
Christian Smalls is an American labor organizer known for his role in leading Amazon worker organization in Staten Island, a borough in New York City. He is a co-founder and the former president of the Amazon Labor Union. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Smalls
General STRIKE Coming w/ Christian Smalls & Afeni | Union SELLOUTS | Building Solidarity | RBN LIVE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q0uZP6ebUA

Trade War, Auto Workers, Teamsters, ILWU, Class Struggle & Uniting Mexican, US & Canadian Workers

Workers and the unions in Mexico, Canada and the United States are faced with a massive attack on their jobs, conditions and benefits with a major escalation of the trade war launched… by the Trump fascist government on April 2, 2025.

On March 26, 2025 a panel was held with Mexican, Canadian and US workers from the UAW, Teamsters, Unifor, ILWU and Mexican unionists and an auto worker.

This could lead to massive inflation and growing attacks on the living conditions of all workers in the US, Canada and Mexico and workers throughout the world.

Workers talked about the role of the unions in organizing to deal with a trade war and why Canadian, Mexican and US workers need united action to defend against trade war which could lead to a massive depression and world war.

The panel was sponsored by WorkWeek and United Front Committee For A Labor Party

UFCLP

Watch or listen to the interview HERE

Steve Zeltzer: This is Steve Zeltzer, I'm with Workweek and the United Front Committee for a Labor Party and we're having a panel today just before a major trade war is going to be breaking out on April the 2nd when Trump and his administration are going to institute a 25% tariff on automobiles and other products all over the world including in Canada and Mexico. This is going to be devastating to working people in Mexico, the United States, and Canada, as well as working people around the world. The panel that we're having today is to look at the development of the tariffs, trade war, what they mean for workers and unions, and what working people should do about trade war and tariffs to defend themselves, their unions, and the working class as a whole. This is already a debate in the labor movement including in the UAW and in the Teamsters. So it's an important issue for working people already in the unions in the United States. Our first speaker is John Palmer and he's Vice President at Large for the Teamsters and he's going to be talking about the struggle in the Teamsters and the issue of what this trade war will mean for Teamsters. So welcome John.

John Palmer: Good afternoon. In my limited Spanish I would say hola. But yes, there has been sort of this business unionism approach to handling the situation where the leadership of the Teamsters, primarily the General President, has decided that it's easier to play go-along-and-get-along with the Trump administration, and some of the political hacks that are part of this administration. So I've been very vocal about the effects this was going to have on our membership. Obviously a large portion of what we do is transportation, and of course a very varied membership – we have a lot of farmworkers and people that are involved with, not necessarily farmwork, but produce, canning, and meat production. So the impact of this, we have Canadian Teamsters – and the president of Teamsters Canada was very outspoken in a statement about the impact it was going to have on Teamster members on both sides of the border, and the trade that had been – our most valuable trade partners are Canada and Mexico. So the impact upon the auto industry in particular, where we transport parts and all kinds of stuff to the auto manufacturers is going to be impactful. Our silence around all this has been deafening, and so I've been very outspoken about it. I think now is not a time for anybody in this country in particular, to think that this is going to go away in the next election cycle, or by simply playing go-along-get-along. Our stock market is already in a downfall, it's down more than 10%. So the impacts are going to be great. Sitting on your hands is not an option.

Steve Zeltzer: Has there been a debate in the Teamsters about what's going on?

John Palmer: I can say no, other than myself I mean, and that's part of – without getting into union politics too much – that's part of the fallacy of our system, is everybody falls in line. The idea that you would speak out in public without the falling in line with the rest of people, is sort of a no no in the Teamsters although the Teamsters Canada president has been very vocal about it, and of course, I put a statement out and as usual they've attacked me. But it's bigger than attacks on John Palmer, is much more important that we…

Steve Zeltzer: Julian do you want to introduce our next speaker?

Julian de Gotari: Well I can introduce Nahúm. Nahúm has been working like years in the north, the maquilas, with workers in various industries, also in the with the agricultural workers. He's from UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), a political scientist, and he's a trade unionist, and he has a lot of experience and we will be hearing more about him, and what his view of the current situation with the tariffs – I will let him speak whenever he wants to speak…

Nahúm Monroy: Thank you very much for the invitation. I apologize because my English is not so good, so I will start in Spanish, so thank you very much for the invitation.

The first thing I have to say my friends, thank you for the invitation, is that the announcement of the imposition of tariffs by the government of Donald Trump, has generated a lot of uncertainty among the Mexican working class. Not only in the maquiladora auto parts sector, but also in a good part of the workers who manufacture in the agribusiness that export food to the United States.

We must keep in mind that Mexico currently exports – almost 80% of the products that Mexico produces go to the United States. There is a strong nervousness that about 700,000 jobs will be lost immediately with the introduction of tariffs in the steel sector, and also in the automotive sector.

There is an important point that we must understand. Most of the unions on the northern border and in the automotive sector are not democratic unions, they are employer unions, that are fiercely controlled by the businessmen and by the politicians and there are very low working conditions. We know that one of the reasons why many U.S. companies moved here in the 1980s was because Mexican labor is much cheaper, wages are lower, and conditions are very poor. So the fact that the unions are not democratic is also a very important obstacle for workers to fight for a better standard of living.

Very good. In the last few years there has been an important mobilization especially in independent unions and also in agricultural day laborers. It is very important, it is now a vital necessity that there may be a call for an international mobilization of workers.

I want to say something more important, a very recurrent practice in the northern border of Mexico, where there are no democratic unions, is that the companies leave the cities without giving prior notice to the workers. There are spontaneous closures of factories and that generates – that thousands of families are left without employment. With the announcement of tariffs this situation is expected to accelerate in a dramatic way and this, together with the conditions of violence that exist in Mexico, could generate a social disaster. I would like to close this part of my speech by saying that there is a nervousness that there could be strong mobilizations and that unemployment together with inflation could be a situation of important social unrest.

It will generate unemployment, it will generate a lot of unrest.

Steve Zeltzer: Ok thank you. Our next speaker is – we're happy to have him here – Israel Cervantes who is a former General Motors worker and was involved in organizing the first unionized GM plant in Mexico and he's been continuing the struggle to organize and defend workers.

Israel Cervantes: Good afternoon, greetings to all of you, thank you very much for this invitation. Yes, today we see a somewhat difficult panorama for the workers not only in Mexico but it will affect the different countries that participate in this free trade agreement.
Today as a union activist, we have had information from different workers in different companies where there is already a risk of losing jobs or companies that are going to cut personnel due to the uncertainty of the tariffs or which companies will be affected more than others, right? And I think it is very important to organize the workers in the different countries, in this case the United States, Canada, and Mexico, where we can organize more people across the borders, but supporting each other, since this is something that has been forgotten.

That would be what I would say for the time being.

Steve Zeltzer: Thank you brother Israel.

So our next speaker is going to be Frank Hammer. Frank Hammer is a former president of UAW 909. He's been a lifetime activist, internationalist, and trade unionist in auto and for all workers, and has been particularly involved in the fight of Colombian workers, GM workers who were injured on the job, and has been involved in that struggle as well, so welcome Frank.

Frank Hammer: Thank you Steve, and I just want to say in regards to my brother Israel, that for those of you who may not know, his practice of international solidarity is in deeds, not only in words, and back in 2019 when US GM workers were on strike, in the previous 40 day strike, it was workers at GM Silao (Guanajuato, Mexico) where Israel worked, that GM sought to have increased production to make up for lost production in the US. And it was workers including Israel who resisted the speed up and the forced overtime to prevent General Motors for being in a better position to try to defeat the UAW strike. So I'm so glad that he's on the call today. He also was in the US during the most recent standup strike and visited workers on the picket lines at Stelantis and at Ford and so on. So he has really shown what it means for international solidarity and I am really grateful.

So instead of making my own statement, I'm going to actually read a statement that was written by a manufacturing worker that belongs to – a UAW member – also a member of the UAWD (Unite All Workers for Democracy) who is out of North Carolina and today is participating in a demonstration against Tesla, so I'm taking the liberty to read the statement that he wrote in regards to the tariffs.

My brother from UAW in North Carolina said: “Trump is implementing a program aimed at cracking down on worker's rights, slashing the social safety net, conducting mass firings of federal workers, destroying federal worker's unions, possibly privatizing the Post Office, etc.

The reason why Trump is enacting these tariffs, and this includes the auto tariffs, the steel and aluminum tariffs, and the reciprocal tariffs – has everything to do with bolstering US imperialism and strengthening the United States industrial base in order to more effectively compete with China which has emerged as the core imperialist rival of the United States.

Beyond this is also the case that Trump's tariffs could well trigger a recession. If that happens then clearly the workers will suffer the worst consequences. That is an outcome that Trump has signaled he is willing to risk.

So my brother feels that in the short run, it will increase manufacturing jobs and thereby strengthen the working class objectively with more manufacturing jobs, but he says, the core demand of the US working class has been for an end to the free trade nightmare, and an end to the practice of the capitalist class of whipsawing us against workers in countries like Mexico and China (and I would add Canada).

While it may increase some ranks of the working class, it is not a concession to labor, but because the enactment of this policy accords with the interests of U.S. imperialist capital at this time. What’s more, this policy is being coupled with a wide range of grotesque attacks against workers and oppressed people, and a massive escalation of imperialist tension.

And he concludes, we live in very dangerous times.

Steve Zeltzer: Thank you Frank for that contribution. Obviously this is a threat to millions of workers and also trade wars have led to imperialist wars, the prelude to military confrontations. So we have to be I think, clear that this is not just about an economic war, it can lead to a military confrontation.

So Julian, who is going to make a contribution, is a member of UAWD and a graduate student at at UCLA, and he is going to make some comments about what's going on as well, so welcome Julian.

Julian de Gotari: Thank you Steve. I think as Frank has already been saying, no? The effect of these tariffs are [unclear] here.

As Steve was saying I'm part of UAW, and here in our union we are seeing how our own president, which is Sean Fain, has decided, in a way that is shortsighted, to ally itself with Trump in the question of tariffs. Assuming that indeed these tariffs will actually make these manufacturing companies bring all their equipment to the US and increase the number of jobs here, without understanding that companies won't seek in the US jobs that are protected by unions, they will want to hire people in the same conditions as they hire them in Mexico which are very marginalized conditions, no?

So we have this problem with Sean Fain and there's this division in our in our union because there are some workers that actually have deluded themselves into thinking that this work, these jobs that are going to be created in the US are going to be jobs that are going to be protected by the unions and are going to pay well. And that division is actually also being shown in UAWD. So there's a lot of problems here and there's no easy solution besides actually trying to create links between the international working class. I don't think there's any other way of solving this.

The workers should just think of themselves as a class, against the capitalist class, and not fall under these nationalist discourses.

Steve Zeltzer: I want to say that the AFL-CIO, the United Steelworkers, and the International Association of Machinists, have all come out against this trade war with Canada and Mexico. John Palmer has said that the Teamsters in Canada have come out against it.

But what has not happened, is the unions, on all borders – US, Mexico, and Canada – coming together and having a united front against the trade war and the attacks on workers on all sides of the border.

And I think that as others have said, this is critical that the workers and unions on all sides of the borders, come together, and discuss and have a plan to defend all workers – autoworkers, Teamsters, longshoremen – all workers, so that they're not pitted against each other, which is the plan of Trump and the billionaires and the capitalists.

John Palmer: I think the the key thing that I continue to hear, which is number one, the capitalists, the imperialists, care nothing about the working class. We have unions – I'm well aware of how bad, how undemocratic the unions are in Canada. Unfortunately some of our unions (in the US) are behaving in very similar manners.

I think it's important that we set aside any misgivings we have. The previous speaker spoke about Shawn Fain. Sean O'Brien is our general president (of the US Teamsters). The idea that we can ally ourselves with these people and gain some sort of favor is just pie in the sky. We have to understand who the enemy is. I always use the adage that you don't pick a snake up, you know it will bite you, you don't play with the snake. It's time for workers to work together.

Steve Zeltzer: At the same time that the trade war is taking place, the fascist government that Trump has established with Musk is leading an attack on immigrant workers with raids, terrorizing the immigrant workers in the United States.

And it's interesting that at the Tesla Fremont plant in California, which has fought the union, which fired 700 UAW supporters, in order to prevent the unionization of the plant, has large numbers of immigrant workers from Afghanistan, Mexico, all over the world, at that plant.

And the black workers at that plant called it 'the plantation' because they were treated like slaves in that plant. And this is the kind of conditions that these billionaires and the Trump government, the fascists want. They want slave labor in the United States in Mexico and Canada and aim to increase their profits and destroy the unions. Trump has just terminated the union rights of over 700,000 federal workers. So this is connected really, with the direct frontal attack on the working class.

And we have to say that the UAW which is trying to organize many plants in the south, and the Teamsters which is trying to organize at Amazon – the hundreds of thousands of workers – that is all based on the NLRB which has been shut down basically by the Trump administration. Now these unions the UAW, the Teamsters, the SEIU are not saying that they are going to have to use different methods to organize because there are not going to be any government agencies to process organizing. It's going to have to be a mass mobilization of the working class which they're afraid of, and they're not prepared for.

Now I want to introduce Gabriel Prawl, he's the past president of ILWU Seattle local 52, and is also president of the A. Philip Randolph Institute in Seattle. His family was also from Panama, they came to Panama from Jamaica to build the Panama Canal. It was immigrants who built that canal, very few Americans died in that canal.

Welcome Gabriel.

Gabriel Prawl: How you doing Steve, thank you for inviting me. I want to say that it's important that things like this is happening and it is a pleasure to be here with workers talking about fighting for a better future and a better life for us all. You know, we've been dealing with this issue that's going on in this country in the US and we have our administration that's leading us down down down the drain. I mean it's going to take the workers to really make the change. Glad to be here and I think I'm going to slow down so we can get translation.

I've been a longshoreman working like that for 32 years. This trade war that we got right now is not helping the shipping industry. It's really costing the American people, the tax payers a whole lot of money. The things that I worry about is not only as a longshoreman, we make decent wages and we can probably survive some of this stuff going on, but I – my workers all around me that I see I'm talking about union workers from other trades that are working all day long and still can't make enough to keep up with the expenses. We just had, just this week here in in Seattle, a farmworker activist organizer was attacked and arrested and taken to one of those ICE detention centers just 5 days ago. There was an action done by, led by the Washington State Labor Council and I and I'm saying that because I'm glad that labor is seeing that they have to do action, because we can't stay sitting while all of this is going on. I am part of organizing an action next week Saturday which we're going to rally and march to the federal detention because one of the goals that we – our demands is; melt ICE, fund public school, support immigrant and trans students, defend public workers and services.

The reality is that we have farmworkers, essential workers in this country that work hard to make sure people in this country are fed healthy food. In fact they are being attacked – it makes me wonder what we're gonna do if we get rid of the farmworkers, who's gonna replace them?

I have to wonder, if they plan – because the direction this administration is going – if they pan to use incarcerated people to do the work. If they plan to do that it means cheap labor, or slave labor. I mean, this is my opinion, because I can't see who else they're going to try to use, to do that hard work.

The agenda is just about profit, they don't care about survival of the human race and I think that's something that we as a labor movement, we as a people, need to come together to make change and shape the future of this world, not just the country but the world.

I think the fact that, so many tens of thousands of federal employees are getting fired, by this administration, I believe that that is shaping the movement to rise up and do something because these federal workers are a sleeping giant. They've been sleeping for a long time and now they got a reality check to wake up. But also we want to look at that as our inspiration to bring the labor movement together because I think the labor movement has been sleeping as well. Because we have moved to the position where we are begging the politicians when it used to be the other way around. And I think – I don't know where we lost that focus, but that's exactly where we move. They are calling shots and we are just standing by taking the hits. And before the labor movement used to do action to change the demographic and to change the reality of how we've been governed in this country.

I'm from a radical tradition union and I have to really be true to the fact that I'm ashamed that many of my union members voted for Trump, and it's a disgrace, and now they are seeing the after effect of it. I know their families are feeling the after effect of it and I don't know what is next, because I have to ask the question, what if an ILWU rank and file member of our union gets taken by ICE, what are we gonna do next?

It's clear that we have to build a united front, and that the state that we're in today – I think it has to be a real radical response, and when I say radical response, I'm talking about something like a general strike.

I'm gonna stop here so I can give other speakers a chance, because I got so much in my head – I don't know – but the work is long and the struggle is something that we really have to take on.

Steve Zeltzer: Thank you Gabriel. And our next speaker is going to be Barry Anderson who's a Teamster and then we'll open it up to people would like to speak or ask questions.

Barry Anderson: Greetings to all – greetings – my name is Barry Anderson I'm also member of the Teamsters 856 out in the Frisco Bay, I'm in Northern California, I'm from Sacramento, California. Originally I'm from a small city called East St Louis, Illinois – raised in Sacramento. With that being said, I was raised – my mother was a union member, my father a union member, grandparents on both of my parents side, even my great grandparents. I come from a long history of people who have been involved in the civil rights movement. One of my relatives was Huey Newton's bodyguard in the in the Panther party. So when it comes to activism I had the experience and the blessing to be somewhat – to hear those conversations and to be involved. Currently I'm a factory worker.

Currently I work for a company called Sunsweet Growers. I've been involved in the labor movement for quite sometime, I'm actually familiar with a few people at ILWU out in the Bay Area, individuals like Carey Dull, Augustine Ramirez, and a few others. And I've always had a love and passion for working people because I come from working people and I am a worker. I'm also a rap artist, my music is based on class struggle, critiquing the social structure, and how to bring solutions to the table. My artist – I go by B.A. Abad, I study the Hebrew language, abad in the Hebrew language means the worker, or the slave, or the one who labors. So when it comes to being a laborer, a worker, I am deeply connected, I'm all about establishing justice for the working people.

I definitely appreciate the people here, we have people from Mexico, Canada, and I know me and Mr. Zeltzer spoke about this and that was our goal to reach out to people all over who are going to be affected by these trade wars. So with that being said, now especially here in the United States, the one thing that's going to make a difference with the working class here is number one, we have to abolish or we have to do a exit when it comes to the Democrats and the Republicans. That's the first thing. Once we do an exodus from these capitalist parties, I honestly believe we can make a deep impact on that.

So with that being said, I also would like to stress that, just to the people who are listening live, and those who will be listening in the archive later on. In order for the American worker here in the United States to be a leader, or to play a big part in uniting with other workers, we have to break away from the capitalist two party dictatorship. And unfortunately the unions are cowards, our union bureaucrats are cowards. They have decided to play ball with the imperialists in office with this current regime – I don't got to say a man's name, we know who's in office right now. So since they decide to play ball, they have decided their concern is themselves and not their members who pay dues and who pay their salary. So with that being said, it's time for us to put them on notice and let them know, if you don't have us in the best interest we'll vote your asses out. And it's time for the working class to be a light, not just to those here in the states, but everywhere. Once the working class comes together, working people come together and establish some type of faction or whatever it is you want to call it, it will follow suit with students and even the future generations children who are watching this. This is not just about for our survival, this is for the survival for the future generations. So we got to stop thinking of selves, that's one thing about… [pause for translation]

Thank you, and this is my last statement. To establish the revolution you must have love. That's what one of my favorite heroes Che Guevara said that, a revolutionary must have love. In order to see change, in order to provoke change, you have to have a love, not just for self but others around you and your environment and those on the outside. And just want to say that real quick, much love to you Mr Palmer, definitely appreciate you, and you know when I said about voting people out had nothing to do with you, you know who I'm talking about [laughter]. With that being said I'm going to fall back, glad to be here amongst the elders. Love y'all and respect y'all. For those who want to reach out to me, hit me up in the chat and hopefully we can connect. Shalom.

Steve Zeltzer: Ok thank you Barry for your comments.

Ok, Kirby you're on. Kirby is a member of IATSE (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees) in Los Angeles, has been fighting for solidarity and also fighting against racism in his industry and I think that's an important part of our work. If we're going to transform the working class we have to fight racism on the job and in the community, and the unions can play a powerful force in doing that, and that they should take that responsibility.

Elizabeth Milos: There's some things that Israel Cervantes mentioned that why not think of the section of the UAW in Mexico and being able to create an international union that fights for the struggles of all of the workers across borders. And then, Julian de Gotari said that the autoworkers in the United States and Canada used to be members of the UAW until 1985, today Canadian workers are part of UNIFOR.

Kirby Washington: Thanks Elizabeth. So folks I just have to just tell you how much gratitude I have to be in this room with this these ideas and these thoughts and in this conversation because it's vital! When I heard Nahúm talking about his union, I was shouting at this screen because I've been in a shitty union for 38 years! It is time really for change! So I just want to throw this out there and maybe it's a question, but we need to have a new kind of conversation among union members and among workers and figure out how to build better unions. So just want to throw that out there, that's all I want to toss out, thank you.

Steve Zeltzer: Nahúm you felt like commenting on this about what he said?

Nahúm Monroy: Yes I appreciate very much this participation I didn't introduce myself properly at the beginning of my speech a little bit because of the rush but I want to say that I have worked a lot in the northern border of Mexico in the automotive industry, with day laborers also, and that I was kidnapped by an armed group in the north of Mexico in Reynosa for fighting for union democracy. So I want to explain to all the comrades who are present that the challenge that we face in the northern border is very difficult because the control over workers is very strong, the repression against workers is very strong and there are two factors added to that. On the one hand, organized crime, drug trafficking and… [pause for translation].

The force of drug trafficking and organized crime together with the businessmen exert a strong control over the Mexican working class.

And I am going to finish, we have many difficulties my friends but we also have a great advantage as a working class which is that many working class families have family all over the United States in Texas in California, and there is a continuous connection of the working class. So we have all the tools to be able to organize in an international way the workers to fight against this policy that divides us I am very grateful, and, well up to here I would like to leave it.

Elizabeth Milos: Israel wanted to say something.

Israel Cervantes: Well, more than anything else, the difficulties that many of us workers who have organized ourselves and who have organized a struggle in Mexico, have lived through very difficult situations. I lived through it as a fired worker at General Motors when we tried to organize ourselves to get out of General Motors, a union that was imposed by the company where several workers were fired. But we also managed to have the solidarity of different organizations that really helped us to move forward. As workers, we lived through insults from the unions and the government itself that attacked us saying that we were fired for x reason, when the main reason was to try to organize, to try to form a struggle. Which in our case at General Motors we achieved after 2 years of trying to organize 7000 workers. We achieved it, but also we were marginalized because the people who took the reins of the union, betrayed those people who did everything for them to be at the head of the union. As it happened in Matamoros and in other union struggles, the legal advisors took over those struggles where the groups of workers tried to make a change, but not for personal benefits.

The legal advisors who took control of the group of workers trying to make changes, continues today. We see workers who started struggles, marginalized from that change that we tried to seek for our comrades, for our families, but mainly for the future generations that were going to take those benefits. This situation is clear today with colleagues in Matamoros, as is the former general secretary of the state of Matamoros – sorry I missed the name – Susana Prieto threw out the founders of the 20/32 movement1. In my case in General Motors, those who formed generating movement, we were marginalized from the union SINTTIA (Sindicato Independiente Nacional De Trabajadores Y Trabajadoras De La Industria Automotriz)2, we were the founders of that union. In the struggle of the workers of Goodyear in San Luis Potosi, the first workers who organized that struggle have also been marginalized.

So today we currently see a person who was general secretary, Rosario Moreno. Everardo Gómez who was also a fundamental part of the 20/32 movement. I see it in my case that we try to look for a job and they have us on blacklists where we are not allowed to work. We try to organize workers but unfortunately we do not have an organization that really shows solidarity to continue trying to form a union that can have an international base.

We believe that it is necessary to form a union that can have bases from the three countries that are part of the T-MEC treaty3 to be able to fight for more benefits for the workers. Today there is a treaty where workers in Mexico are supposed to earn a minimum wage of 16 per hour for two years of this treaty, and we see that this is really impossible to reach because even though they achieve increases that are said to be incredible, the increase to the salaries of a Mexican worker is no more than 20-30 pesos per day. While in the United States wages of more than 30 per hour are achieved, in Canada more than 40 or 50 per hour while in Mexico we do not achieve with wages the supply of the basic food basket and activist workers are constantly blacklisted.

I think it is necessary to have, or to be able to form, a committee or a union so that we can maintain more strength or more solidarity with the different struggles that exist, and continue to exist in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Thank you very much.

Steve Zeltzer: Yeah one of the things that is absent completely, is that the unions in Mexico the United States and Canada are not coming together around the trade war, around these attacks. It's amazing! They're representing workers in the same industries. They're facing the same attacks; transportation, auto, Teamsters, and yet there's no need for unity? There's no need for these unions to come together? I think they're afraid of bringing workers from Mexico, Canada, and the United States together, because that threatens their control. They're national unions and they don't see the need to unify the working class – as a class – in Canada, Mexico, and the United States and internationally, and that's exactly what we need to unify the working class internationally.

Also joining us is Tony Leah who's a retired member of Unifor4 in Canada and also has written a document calling for a united front – of unification of workers on all sides of the border, and workers at least in North America. Welcome Tony.

Tony Leah: Hello everybody. I think that really what is critical is to – as Steve just pointed out – to have unity amongst workers who are in the same industry, battling the same corporations, and to do it in a way to raise demands, that confronts the corporate control of the industry, and of our countries. The problem with tariffs is that first of all it leads to a tariff war, and in these days tariff wars are increasingly dangerous of developing into other sorts of wars. And also it creates the idea that it's workers fighting against each other over the jobs. From the point of view of an auto worker in Canada, for example because of the integration of our industry over 90% of the vehicles that are assembled in Canada are exported, almost all of them to the United States. We're not building vehicles for our own market. I think that's not quite the same in Mexico but it's similar in that a lot of the production in Mexico is for export to the United States. So as soon as you say 'tariff', you're saying take those jobs out of Mexico and out of Canada and moving them to the US.

And so I think that we need demands that lead us in the direction of workers having more power and more control and the working class being able to reconstruct our economies and our countries so that our interests come to the fore. So for example, public ownership in transportation and manufacturing, to take power away from the corporations, and to ensure that decisions are being made in the interests of our communities, and in the interests of workers.

It's indicative of the lack of working class consciousness amongst much of the leadership of our unions in Canada and the United States, that there is such a negative view of Mexico – Mexican workers, and Mexican unions. For example a complete lack of recognition of the positive steps that have been made under the the government of AMLO and now Claudia Sheinbaum, doubling the the minimum wage in Mexico over the last four years – much better labor legislation overall in Mexico than in either the United States or Canada. We can be learning from each other, learning from our strengths, if we put more emphasis on unity, and absolutely that means that workers in the United States and Cananda and Mexico should be meeting and talking to each other, so that we can develop a common program.

Steve Zeltzer: One of the things that we can – we can develop a statement for US, Mexican, and Canadian autoworkers for unification against trade war, and for mobilizing the workers to fight back and to defend themselves against these attacks. I think the same should go for Teamsters and longshore workers. There's also going to be rallies on May 1st and I think we have to demand at these rallies, we have to fight for, in the United States a general strike against the fascist government, for a labor party, and also against trade war. The trade wars are not going to benefit workers anywhere and particularly now a war that the United States wants to engage towards not only Greenland and other countries, but China, which I think is a real threat for the world.

Gabriel?

Gabriel Prawl: Yes Steve. I just wanted to mention – I want people to pay attention to what's going on, that just on Thursday, Trump signed an executive order making federal employee unions illegal. He wants to make sure – and ironically, you know, the cops and the firefighters – he hasn't touched those. We gotta think about the fact that he might be privatizing ICE to Blackwater, and these are the private agencies trying to run federal employees – that he is trying to make it illegal for being part of a union, so people need to pay attention! Their focus is to eliminate unions. So all union members that were so gladly supporting Trump, here you go, this is the response! He's coming after us.

We gotta think about where we go from here.

Steve Zeltzer: We have Jerry Goldberg here who's from UAW in Detroit has joined us as well.

But I I do think we need to plan a united action – and how we can organize to unite workers in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. I think – as I said, that my proposal is that we develop a statement, that would bind together – show a way forward for workers in the three countries. And also that we act together on May 1st. Maybe we can have a statement for May 1st, for workers in all three countries, because all countries – all workers in the three countries should be marching together really. They face the same they fight, they face the same issues. And I think it might be a way of organizing in our unions as well, to build solidarity. And the brother Nahúm from Mexico, when he talks about the Mexican working classes in the United States, they're part of the American working class, they're integrated, and we have to build that unity! The idea of borders by the capitalists, is to pit worker against worker and to have slave labor in all countries. So I think if we can break that down and call for the unification of workers in Mexico, the United States, and Canada, that would be a powerful challenge to racist… [crosstalk into translation].

And I think the great fear that the billionaires, the fascists, the capitalist class have – and the trade union bureaucracy – is that the workers in the United States, Mexico, and Canada come together. Because that would not only break down the borders, but say "who should be running things?" – what Tony said is true…

Elizabeth Milos: Jerry had his hand up.

Jerry Goldberg: I'll just make a couple of short points. Obviously I agree that a solidarity statement among autoworkers from all over the world is certainly what's called for. And I think one of the things we want to emphasize in that is that jobs – we can't depend on the ruling class or the corporations to protect our jobs. Those jobs are our jobs, are our property. We have created the wealth and we have a right to those jobs – to our jobs, and we need to again raise demands for a short work week. In the UAW we had a guaranteed jobs bank, we had guaranteed jobs that were won through struggle, that were actually in effect until they were sold out in the bankruptcy in 2008. So I think we need to raise that idea too that the defense of our jobs is done through the strength of our union demanding that our jobs are our right and that they're guaranteed and it's through short work weeks, guaranteed jobs, demands that ensure the jobs on all fronts.

I just want to make one other point. One thing I think is that we shouldn't despair about the prospects for the period to come. I remember in 81 when Reagan got elected on a program that wasn't a whole lot different than Trump's, it led to solidarity, to an AFL-CIO leadership, that was actually even worse than the current leadership, being compelled to call the biggest labor march that I've ever seen in my 55 years of activism, of 500,000 workers. And I remember at that moment, the buses that I organized from my local, every worker was ready for a general strike. Unfortunately the union leadership didn't take it that far, but there was a mood that was created through struggle, and that compelled leadership to take action.

The last point I'll make, I feel that optimism that we're going to move – that the labor movement with all its contradictions is going to be pushed into that direction, and being pushed, being forced to unify with all those who are already fighting; LGBTQ people fighting because they've been variously eliminated, the fight against racism which is so grotesque right now, immigrant rights. It's interesting to me that as bad as Fain's statement was on tariffs, yesterday he issued a very good statement on defending the federal workers and he invoked PATCO5. He said: "The actions the administration has taken today are many times worse than PATCO, affecting over 1 million federal employees. We have learned from the past and won't sit back quietly while unions are dismantled. The labor movement is not about party politics, we're not Democrats, Republicans, we're trade unionists! And when you come after workers you're going to find us standing shoulder to shoulder, ready to fight back!" Fain said even that… [pause for translation]

Having been active in the UAW for many years, when I see Fain, I see a leader on one hand, embrace his class struggle but without an ideological basis – he's not ideologically rooted, so he shifts from left to right, you know, we saw it in in the election. But we shouldn't write off even someone like him. I think the whip of reaction is going to push many leaders who we look at pretty rarely now, to take it to be forced into a stand. I think we need to encourage that. Workers sometimes learn more through action than they do through all the manifestos we can put out. And I think we're in a period that's going to compel that action, and I think I we should encourage that action and find a way – the ILWU gave the model many years ago with the a million worker march. I always felt it was a shame they did it in an election year. But the million worker march is just what's needed now. A march of all workers, not just union workers, but workers – immigrant workers, unemployed workers, people losing their food stamps. Oh that's our class of our entire class. LGBTQ let's not forget, they've written off transgender people like they don't exist. That's part of our class too. And if we can find a way that encourages a mobilization, have labor spearhead that mobilization, I think we'll see a big – it'll open up the door ideologically as well, because action sometimes precedes ideology in terms of the consciousness. It opens up the consciousness of the workers. Let's have optimism and push it forward!

Barry Anderson: I'm all for the general strike, and I think that's probably the best weapon we have. So my question is, is that since we understand that this could actually work, how do we get the masses of people on board? Because unfortunately like I said earlier, our union bureaucrats our leadership they're not going to support it. It threatens what they're trying to do with the elite class. So how do we as working people, common people, who labor for a reason, who don't own the means of production, who are doing the work, who are living day to day, paycheck to paycheck and so forth, how do we get this plan out, and establish it fully, not just working people unions, but nonunion members students and whoever else down the line? In order for the general strike to work, we have to effectively organize and get it out there.

I've seen other guys right now like what's name, Chris Smalls6, I even see him talking about it7, but to be honest I don't take him serious because I think he's in this just for clout, to get his name and his prestige out there to make it seem like he's some social activist type guy like he looks good. No I don't take him serious at all. Nothing personal I just don't take him serious. He's not in this for real.

Elizabeth Milos: [after translating] So I got to this Chris Smalls and about him being basically there for clout…

Barry Anderson: Sure yeah to promote himself to make himself look good, because a general strike sounds good. So since he somewhat has a little bit of prestige going for himself on social media and he's been on various mainstream news outlets It makes him look good.

I'll close out with this. [unclear] himself, and it's not good. And the reason why I say that is I am convinced that people like him don't care about the people who they say they so-called are speaking for. You're not in the struggle. You're doing it to look good. So what about the people who are going to actually going to participate and have to sacrifice and lose just to gain something. That's what it's all about, it's about the masses of the people, not a few people just trying to make a name for themselves.

Elizabeth Milos: The interpreter would like to speak, and also speak as a fact that she's a union member as well.

Steve Zeltzer: Lisa, go for it. Thank you, you've done a fantastic job, and I want to thank you for all the work that you've done. I mean, to have a professional, fine interpreter for our meeting is amazing! [cordial laughter]

Elizabeth Milos: Well next time we'll do it simultaneously, because it''s much easier to do it that way. Next time we need to set that up. Ok.

I'm a member of University Professional and Technical Employees, UCSF (University of California, San Francisco) I'm a medical interpreter, and I'm also a member of UPTE Members For Palestine, and I think that's really really really important that we also tie the struggle to the anticolonial struggle that the people of Palestine are going through right now. It is the remnants of the colonialism – settler colonialism, and it is an issue that is very important. It is a a long time debt that we have to pay in the support of the Palestinian people, at this time. And to be able to create a society where it would be equality for all, and equality under the law. I want to say that there are a lot of intersectionalities with workers in United States and immigrant workers in particular with regard to the issue of apartheid Israel.

The Elbit Systems, for example is an Israeli company that's on the border of Arizona that has been – that kind of technology has been used to track immigrants and refugees who are trying to cross the borders, and track them and detain them. That kind of surveillance technology has been in part created by companies here in the in the US, Palantir. And unfortunately we've had workers in CWA who are also involved in that, and many of whom got fired for refusing to create software and to create this kind of technology or work on this kind of technology that was tracking down and killing journalists in Gaza at this time, and it is continuing to do so.

There's also the issue of the Israeli government and the US police force collaborating and training missions which have created a more lethal police force against our black and brown communities here, which also have affected workers. A black worker from AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees ) was attacked in one of the strike pickets back in 2019. And as we know the UAW research workers at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) and UC Santa Cruz who were part of the encampment struggles, were attacked by not only police but also by Zionist thugs.

So I really do think that we need to make sure that our struggle also incorporates the struggle against Zionism, which me as a Chilean-American, equates with fascism as well . We are looking at a very dangerous situation. It's not only the Republicans It's been the Democrats for a long time who've been playing footsy with even the more pernicious, and more violent – and the eliminationists of Zionists. They have been financing the politicians in the US, as well as in other western countries, and influencing our political system with money. And at UCSF in particular, which Helen Diller Foundation is a supporter of Canary Mission. Helen Diller Foundation is one of the major funders of UCSF, and they've been supporting the Canary Foundation which has tried to destroy the lives of academics, students, and right now for example Dr. Rupa Mayra is being suspended by UCSF. There's been firings of people and workers as well as students at UCs statewide, as a result of this. So I think whatever statement we put out, and whatever work we do, we need to join together with the Palestinians, as well as the Israelis that are fighting against apartheid. Thank you.

Steve Zeltzer: We're going to be raising this issue at the San Francisco Labor Council on May 1st, because San Francisco Labor Council leadership, which is a pro-zionist leadership, have excluded any mention of Palestine in the slogans. And we're taking that up. We're going to public workers are going to be uniting at General Hospital other public workers and raising the issue of Palestine no money for Palestine's blockade and stop the genocide.

So our last speaker is Kirby and we'll close it out, but I think it's been an important discussion.

Kirby you're on.

Kirby Washington: So I just wanted to respond to Barry's question which was, how do we do this, how do we convince people? And it's – I'm going hit this hammer again – I've said it before, and Steve has said it before me so I credit to him, but an education campaign would go a long way to building a conversation. And then we can throw into it what we need and what we want, but we start on that and get people – workers always want to be educated, they want to know more. So if we lead with that hand open and then fill it in with what we need, I think we'll go far.

Thank you Elizabeth, I love what you're doing.

Steve Zeltzer: So we will get this video out, and I think we have to plan another event where we come together again and have more participation from workers in in Mexico, Canada, and the United States. Because this is a working class issue that's critical to our future and we need to unite and educate ourselves, and build solidarity and unity, and I think we've done that in the in the discussion today. So I want to thank all of you for joining, all the contributions and especially our interpreter, comrade Lisa Milos.

footnotes

"Two months after workers launched wildcat strikes in the Mexican city of Matamoros, 89 “maquiladora” factories, mostly in the auto parts, electric, and metallurgical industries, have agreed to workers’ demands for a 20 percent raise and a bonus of 32,000 pesos (US$1,655)—half of the average yearly salary. The strike wave has become known across Mexico as the “20/32 movement.”
The Mexican and US ruling classes have sought to claw back concessions and contain and isolate the rebellion by laying off 4,700 workers to date. The ruling class has also threatened to fire 50,000 of the 85,000 maquiladora workers in the city and is desperately propping up the trade union apparatus to block further struggles. It is accelerating its attacks against democratic rights and is turning toward authoritarian and militaristic forms of rule." https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/03/25/mat1-m25.html
https://www.unifor.org/news/all-news/mexican-auto-workers-elect-independent-union-after-unifor-presses-canada-intervene
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States-Mexico-Canada_Agreement
Unifor is a Canadian general trade union founded in 2013 as a merger of the Canadian Auto Workers and Communications, Energy and Paperworkers unions. It consists of 310,000 workers and associate members in industries including manufacturing, media, aviation, forestry and fishing, making it the largest private sector union in Canada. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unifor
The PATCO Strike of 1981 was a union-organized labor strike of air traffic controllers. Following a decade of successful strikes in other industries, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization declared a strike on August 3, 1981, demanding higher wages and more benefits. Despite 13,000 ATCs striking, the strike ultimately failed, as the Reagan administration was quickly able to replace the striking ATCs, resulting in PATCO's decertification. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Professional_Air_Traffic_Controllers_Organization_strike
Christian Smalls is an American labor organizer known for his role in leading Amazon worker organization in Staten Island, a borough in New York City. He is a co-founder and the former president of the Amazon Labor Union. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Smalls
General STRIKE Coming w/ Christian Smalls & Afeni | Union SELLOUTS | Building Solidarity | RBN LIVE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q0uZP6ebUA

Let’s Talk About a General STRIKE, Afeni Evans & Christian Smalls Join

Let’s Talk About a General STRIKE, Afeni Evans & Christian Smalls Join #usa #america #general #generalstrike #strike #union #amazon #corporations…

www.youtube.com

UE Statement-Graduate Worker Unions Urge Universities to Form Mutual Defense Pact in Face of Trump Threats
https://x.com/ueunion/status/1912503241507586351/photo/1
ULE PRESS RELEASE
UNITED ELECTRICAL, RADIO & MACHINE WORKERS OF AMERICA (UE) Graduate Worker Unions Urge Universities …to Form Mutual
Defense Pact in Face of Trump Threats
For more information, or to arrange an interview with a UE graduate worker leader, contact:
Jonathan Kissam, UE Communications Director at (802) 343 1745 or jkissam@ueunion.org Twelve UE locals, representing over 30,000 graduate workers at both private and public universities, released a statement today urging colleges and universities to form a "Mutual Academic Defense
Compact" to respond to the Trump administration's ongoing attacks on higher education. "As the Trump administration weaponizes public funds to force capitulation to his extreme, authoritarian agenda, we demand that universities and colleges band together to protect against the incessant attacks on higher education, immigrant rights, and the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals," said Greyson Arnold, a graduate worker at the University of Minnesota and leader of UE Local 1105, the University of
Minnesota Graduate Labor Union. The locals also urge colleges and universities to establish a common fund to support international
workers, who are particularly vulnerable to attacks by the Trump administration. "At a moment when the rights of non-citizen students and workers are under attack nationwide, we need our universities to band together to provide meaningful protection and support for international students and workers," said Ewa Nizalowska, a graduate worker at Cornell University and leader of UE
Local 300, Cornell Graduate Students United. The statement notes that the Trump administration's attacks are an "attempt to dismantle this country's higher education infrastructure. These attacks undermine our institutions' teaching and research
missions and threaten the safety and well-being of our members." The Universities need to remember that we and the work we do are the reasons they are getting the recognition and funding to grow as they do now," said Hwa Huang, a graduate worker at North Carolina
State University and a leader of The Workers Union at North Carolina State University/UE Local 150. "Our international colleagues are central to our communities, and we should come together to protect
one another, not subjecting one of our own to the racist violence of detainment, deportation, or worse."
The full statement can be found at ueunion.org/mutual-academic-defense-compact.
The UE locals who issued the statement represent graduate workers at the following institutions: Cornell University, Dartmouth College, John Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New Mexico State University, North Carolina State University, Northwestern University, Stanford University, University of Chicago, University of lowa, University of Minnesota, University of New Mexico,
and the University of North Carolina,
– 30

x.com

x.com

OEA Oakland teachers union calls on members to authorize strike
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/oakland-teachers-union-calls-members-authorize-20279867.php
By Jill Tucker,
Education Reporter
April 16, 2025

The Oakland teachers union Wednesday called for a …strike vote, asking its members to approve a one-day walkout set for May 1 to protest what labor leaders say is a lack of transparency about district finances.
“The school year is coming to an end and, despite our best efforts to meet with the district, request information, and come to resolutions together, we still do not know how many positions are being cut, which educators are being impacted, which funding sources have savings that can be used to restore positions at our sites,” officials said in an FAQ regarding the strike vote.
The Oakland Education Association’s 3,000 members can vote between Wednesday and April 25. If a majority of members approve a strike, union leadership could proceed with a strike if they choose to do so.
District officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The threat of a one-day strike comes amid significant turmoil in the East Bay district, where the school board has met behind closed doors, reportedly to push out the popular, long-time superintendent, Kyla Johnson-Trammell, by this summer, after extending her contract by two years last August.
Few in the community have forgotten the nearly two-week teachers strike in May of 2023, which followed a one-day strike in March. The end of the longer strike came with 11% to 22.3% pay raises and a retroactive 10% raise for all teachers plus a $5,000 bonus.
That contract remains in place.
Oakland Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Kyla Johnson-Trammell addresses the media while announcing the end of the OUSD strike in May 2023 at McClymonds High School. Almost exactly two years later, the teachers union on Wednesday called for a vote for a one-day strike on May 1.
Oakland Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Kyla Johnson-Trammell addresses the media while announcing the end of the OUSD strike in May 2023 at McClymonds High School. Almost exactly two years later, the teachers union on Wednesday called for a vote for a one-day strike on May 1.
Don Feria/Special to The Chronicle
Several months later, the Chronicle learned the Oakland teachers union owed the district more than $400,000 for the salary and benefits of district staff on leave for union work — payments they should have been making over a two-year period.
The lack of payments meant the district paid the salaries and benefits of union leaders through the months of negotiations and the strike without reimbursement.
It was unclear Wednesday whether that debt had been fully repaid.
Union leaders said Wednesday their frustration over district finances followed meetings with the county superintendent and the district’s chief business officer that “didn’t result in any progress towards understanding the budget any better.”
Instead, union leaders said, they later got “data dumps” that lacked analysis and context.
“It is OEA’s right to understand how the budget will impact our members, schools, students and community, instead of blindly accepting OUSD harmful decisions that are directly leading to the loss of jobs and stability in our schools,” according to the statement from union leaders.
Oakland is among the majority of districts across the state scrambling to balance their bottom lines as they face a stagnant state budget, one-time pandemic funding running out and less revenue due to widespread declining enrollment. Some districts are closing schools and enacting hiring freezes, while others are asking voters to pass tax measures to subsidize coffers. Nearly all are making at least some cuts to staffing, programs, administration and other spending.
In Oakland, the district’s budget has been a moving target for months, with district leaders and the school board proposing a variety of cuts and other solutions to address a $95 million deficit and a negative budget certification in December, which meant the city’s schools would run out of cash within the next year if the status quo remained unchanged.
Since then, the fiscal outlook has improved significantly, with the budget shortfall now at $12 million after the elimination of about 100 positions districtwide and other cost-saving measures.
In December, the school board voted to eliminate management positions in senior leadership, cut 60% of all current vacant job positions, reduce consultant contracts, reduce the number of assistant principals, standardize school staffing levels and significantly reduce overtime, among other decisions.
School district budgets, however, remain in flux, given the amount of money from state funding is still unknown and ultimately dependent on the Legislature and the governor. More won’t be known until the governor’s so-called May revise and more specifically until the state budget is approved later this summer.
April 16, 2025

Oakland teachers union calls on members to authorize strike

The Oakland Education Association’s 3,000 members can vote between Wednesday and April 25.

www.sfchronicle.com

OEA Oakland teachers union calls on members to authorize strike
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/oakland-teachers-union-calls-members-authorize-20279867.php
By Jill Tucker,
Education Reporter
April 16, 2025

The Oakland teachers union Wednesday called for a …strike vote, asking its members to approve a one-day walkout set for May 1 to protest what labor leaders say is a lack of transparency about district finances.
“The school year is coming to an end and, despite our best efforts to meet with the district, request information, and come to resolutions together, we still do not know how many positions are being cut, which educators are being impacted, which funding sources have savings that can be used to restore positions at our sites,” officials said in an FAQ regarding the strike vote.
The Oakland Education Association’s 3,000 members can vote between Wednesday and April 25. If a majority of members approve a strike, union leadership could proceed with a strike if they choose to do so.
District officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The threat of a one-day strike comes amid significant turmoil in the East Bay district, where the school board has met behind closed doors, reportedly to push out the popular, long-time superintendent, Kyla Johnson-Trammell, by this summer, after extending her contract by two years last August.
Few in the community have forgotten the nearly two-week teachers strike in May of 2023, which followed a one-day strike in March. The end of the longer strike came with 11% to 22.3% pay raises and a retroactive 10% raise for all teachers plus a $5,000 bonus.
That contract remains in place.
Oakland Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Kyla Johnson-Trammell addresses the media while announcing the end of the OUSD strike in May 2023 at McClymonds High School. Almost exactly two years later, the teachers union on Wednesday called for a vote for a one-day strike on May 1.
Oakland Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Kyla Johnson-Trammell addresses the media while announcing the end of the OUSD strike in May 2023 at McClymonds High School. Almost exactly two years later, the teachers union on Wednesday called for a vote for a one-day strike on May 1.
Don Feria/Special to The Chronicle
Several months later, the Chronicle learned the Oakland teachers union owed the district more than $400,000 for the salary and benefits of district staff on leave for union work — payments they should have been making over a two-year period.
The lack of payments meant the district paid the salaries and benefits of union leaders through the months of negotiations and the strike without reimbursement.
It was unclear Wednesday whether that debt had been fully repaid.
Union leaders said Wednesday their frustration over district finances followed meetings with the county superintendent and the district’s chief business officer that “didn’t result in any progress towards understanding the budget any better.”
Instead, union leaders said, they later got “data dumps” that lacked analysis and context.
“It is OEA’s right to understand how the budget will impact our members, schools, students and community, instead of blindly accepting OUSD harmful decisions that are directly leading to the loss of jobs and stability in our schools,” according to the statement from union leaders.
Oakland is among the majority of districts across the state scrambling to balance their bottom lines as they face a stagnant state budget, one-time pandemic funding running out and less revenue due to widespread declining enrollment. Some districts are closing schools and enacting hiring freezes, while others are asking voters to pass tax measures to subsidize coffers. Nearly all are making at least some cuts to staffing, programs, administration and other spending.
In Oakland, the district’s budget has been a moving target for months, with district leaders and the school board proposing a variety of cuts and other solutions to address a $95 million deficit and a negative budget certification in December, which meant the city’s schools would run out of cash within the next year if the status quo remained unchanged.
Since then, the fiscal outlook has improved significantly, with the budget shortfall now at $12 million after the elimination of about 100 positions districtwide and other cost-saving measures.
In December, the school board voted to eliminate management positions in senior leadership, cut 60% of all current vacant job positions, reduce consultant contracts, reduce the number of assistant principals, standardize school staffing levels and significantly reduce overtime, among other decisions.
School district budgets, however, remain in flux, given the amount of money from state funding is still unknown and ultimately dependent on the Legislature and the governor. More won’t be known until the governor’s so-called May revise and more specifically until the state budget is approved later this summer.
April 16, 2025

Oakland teachers union calls on members to authorize strike

The Oakland Education Association’s 3,000 members can vote between Wednesday and April 25.

www.sfchronicle.com