Hi Tony > On Jun 19, 2026, at 22:13, Anthony Teso via groups.io > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Mark, > > Thanks — this is precisely the kind of criticism the argument needs. You > caught several places where I was sliding too quickly from one distinction to > another. > > On the union numbers: you’re right that the wording needs tightening. The BLS > figures are based on wage and salary workers, excluding the self-employed. In > 2025, union density was 10.0% overall, with 5.9% density in the private > sector and 32.9% in the public sector. By number of union members, public and > private were actually very close: about 7.3 million public-sector union > members and 7.4 million private-sector union members. Public-sector workers > are more densely unionized, while total union membership is nearly equal > between public and private sectors. >
You're right. While explaining your mistake on public-sector unions in my last message, I made a similar mistake on private-sector unions. But I agree that they roughly split the US labor union population in half. Or at least they did: Trump eliminated the federal bargaining rights of 1M federal workers, and he terminated the employment of between 140k to 300k federal workers. "According to a Center for American Progress analysis of federal employment data, the Trump administration ended collective bargaining rights for 84.4 percent of the unionized federal workforce" https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-trump-administration-ended-collective-bargaining-for-1-million-federal-workers/ What has not happened during this time are any kind of job actions, labor solidarity, or any fight back beyond variations on the theme of getting Democrats elected in the midterms, and then do it again for all branches of government two years later. This goes beyond business unionism and turns the union into an extension of the Democratic party. > Your point about wage and salary workers is also important. “Wage and salary” > is a statistical category, not a Marxist class category. Musk or Bezos > drawing a salary does not make them proletarians. The issue is not whether > money arrives as wages, salary, options, dividends, or bonuses. The issue is > whether one is dependent on selling labor power in order to live or whether > one controls capital and the labor of others. That distinction needs to be > made more carefully. > I am curious about where you got your 60% figure on the US working class. Matt Huber cited a similar figure from Kim Moody at 63% of employed people being working class, and he expanded it to 75% of the population when adding unemployed, retirees, non-working spouses. A half-century earlier, Harry Braverman came up with 69% as an initial estimate that he also raised to 75% after correcting census data. ... > I would also revise the conclusion. I overstated the claim that organized > labor now directs its efforts against the state rather than capital. More > precisely, a large and strategically important part of organized labor now > fights through the state and against state austerity, while important > concentrations of private-sector labor still confront capital > directly—especially in logistics, energy, utilities, healthcare, > construction, and transport. The problem is that many of these private-sector > choke points are weakly organized, while many public-sector unions are > densely organized but politically integrated into the Democratic Party system. > I see your point. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union is an exception in that it is strongly organized at choke points on the North American west coast and Pacific islands. I recently read the ILWU resolution from 2021 opposing the embargo of Cuba. They were appealing to the Biden administration to rescind Trump's executive order that continued the US forever war against Cuba. Biden refused to do it and the ILWU protested that. Political actions like these often proceed economic actions like last year when the French dockworkers refused to move munitions destined to Israel. In the US, the political action we need is for US unions and civic organizations to demand the repeal of Taft Hartley. ... > . > > So where does that leave the concrete question? > > I would say the task is not simply “revive unions" but rebuild the mediating > institutions that can turn scattered class locations into class power. That > means: > > building rank-and-file networks in strategic sectors — logistics, ports, > rail, trucking, utilities, energy, healthcare, education, municipal services, > data infrastructure, and major supply chains; > linking public-sector labor struggles to anti-austerity demands instead of > letting them remain trapped as Democratic Party bargaining chips; > organizing private-sector choke points where workers can interrupt > accumulation directly; > developing cross-union and cross-sector caucuses capable of solidarity > action, including preparation for illegal or semi-legal action where labor > law blocks effective struggle; > rebuilding socialist political organization outside simple > electoralism—party, program, cadre, education, publications, workplace cells, > tenant links, and strike support; > treating union work, electoral work, tenant work, antiwar work, and social > movements as partial fronts of a broader class project rather than separate > activist silos. > So I would put the matter this way: the working class exists structurally, > but it does not yet exist as an organized political subject. Productive > labor, public-sector work, logistics, managerial strata, and union density > all matter, but none of them alone solves the problem. The strategic question > is how to create the forms that mediate among them. > I generally agree. How do you feel about transitional demands (Trotsky) or non-reformist reforms (Gorz)? thanks, Mark -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#42127): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/42127 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/119843448/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
