Democrats Caved in the Shutdown Fight. Unions Let Them.
Millions of Americans could lose their health care because Democratic and union leaders refused to fight.
In a spectacular act of cowardice and idiocy, seven Democratic Party senators and one independent voted last night to end the shutdown on Republicans’ terms, squandering their momentum and leverage. Bernie Sanders laid out the likely consequences of this capitulation:
It raises health care premiums for over 20 million Americans by doubling, in some cases, tripling or quadrupling and it paves the way for 15 million people to be thrown off of Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. Studies show that some 50,000 Americans will die every year unnecessarily — and all that was done to give a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the 1%.
Countless Americans today are rightfully incensed not only at the senators who caved, but also at senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, who let this capitulation happen.
But there’s one more group that deserves our anger today: top union leaders.
The major domino to set off last night’s capitulation was the decision by the American Federation of Government Employees’s national leadership on October 27 to call on Democrats to end the shutdown on Trump’s terms — without any guarantees for tens of millions of Americans’ health care coverage.
The main rationale provided by AFGE president Everett Kelley was that his members were suffering economically from the shutdown. This hurt is very real, and I do not doubt the sincerity of Kelley’s commitment to his membership. But AFGE’s leadership could have decided to pressure Republicans rather than Democrats to end the shutdown. The fact that other unions representing federal employees like IFPTE and SEIU chose not to cave to Republicans puts into sharp relief that AFGE made a political choice.
Rank-and-file AFGE members this morning released an open letter calling on their national leadership to oppose the deal. As one AFGE member wrote to me last night, “Many of us are furious at AFGE leadership. … Even if AFGE leaders thought the shutdown had become too costly, they could‘ve put the blame squarely on the Republicans who can reopen the gov at any time by changing the senate rules.” And far from surrendering after putting up a hard fight, AFGE from day one of this shutdown has refused to provide any serious redlines for the Republicans and has refused to launch any real pressure campaigns against them.
AFGE leaders aren’t the only part of organized labor that paved the way for this debacle. Both Democratic senators caved in Nevada, a state where the primarily immigrant and periodically militant Culinary Union, a UNITE-HERE affiliate, is the most powerful player in Democratic politics. It’s hard to imagine that Nevada’s senators would have made such a consequential decision without the tacit or explicit green light of Culinary leaders — indeed, there’s no mention of the shutdown fight in any of the union’s recent press releases (see below). The Culinary leadership was likely worried that continued air traffic delays would hurt their members by dampening tourism in Vegas, but this doesn’t justify refusing to put up a cross-union fight to force the Republicans to cave. Culinary workers have famously great health care; it’s sad that their union leaders still appear reluctant to fight for the same rights for every American. (In the 2020 presidential election, Culinary leaders similarly opposed Bernie Sanders and his demand for Medicare for All).
Part of the reason Democratic politicians don’t fight is that most union leaders don’t fight either — at least not in a way that meets the urgency of this authoritarian and oligarchic moment. AFGE, the Culinary union, and the rest of organized labor could have built a massive solidarity fund to support needy federal workers and other employees hurt by the shutdown. They could have held regular press conferences, rallies, and actions in front of the offices of both Republicans and Democrats who refused to commit to preserving Americans’ health care. And they could have pushed for nonviolent direct actions to pressure Trump to stop starving Americans by continuing to block SNAP benefits.
Instead, we saw pressure on Democrats to cave — and, unsurprisingly, Democratic capitulators like Tim Kaine of Virginia last night explained their decision primarily as a way to support federal workers.
It would be too generous to say AFGE and the Culinary leaders’ decisions reflect a prioritization of the interests of their members over the interests of the broader American working class. That would be bad enough. What makes their actions doubly tragic is that their own members will also be hurt by this capitulation, since it throws away the real possibility to deliver a decisive defeat against a Trump administration which remains dead set on terrorizing federal workers and immigrants across the country.
Republicans were rightfully getting blamed by Americans for the shutdown. Finally, we had real leverage over this authoritarian administration. After last Tuesday’s Democratic electoral sweep, after Trump’s politically suicidal push to cut off SNAP benefits, and with escalating air traffic delays and health care premium hikes looming, holding out longer would likely have forced the Republicans to blink, most likely by nuking the filibuster — a move, in itself, that would have been a boon for democracy.
But due to the weakness of Democratic and union leaders, the headline is now “Democrats cave because they are cowards,” rather than “Republicans cave because they want your health care costs to go up.” This puts Trump in a significantly better position to continue his war against federal employees, immigrants, and American democracy.
A share of responsibility for this falls on the labor movement as a whole. Most unions said the right thing in their press releases about the shutdown, but where was the big public fight to stop Democrats from caving? Last night wasn’t a surprise. For weeks now everybody has known that moderate Democrats were trying to broker a capitulatory “deal” with Republicans. It wouldn’t have been hard for the AFL-CIO and big progressive unions to have called on every senator to commit to hard red lines on health care — and to start protesting daily against those who refused to commit. In fights like these, good press releases are far from enough.
This shutdown fight was a “structure test” showing where we’re strong and where we’re weak. The results are in: most top union leaders are failing to meet the moment. Despite a widespread desire from below to fight, institutional inertia and risk-aversion up top remain the norm. As Bernie noted last night, what last Tuesday’s “election showed is that the American people want us to stand up to Trumpism, to his war against working-class people, to his authoritarianism — that is what the American people want us to do. But tonight that is not what happened.”
The struggle is far from over. Trump can be defeated and health care defended. Trump’s popularity is plummeting, Republicans were dealt a severe electoral blow last week, and there is still time for the movement against them to course correct by putting up a real fight against authoritarian rule by supporting walkouts against ICE invasions and by launching ambitious campaigns to pressure the regime’s pillars of support — businesses, media outlets, school administrations, and the rest — to break from Trump.
We still have the momentum. But what last night’s debacle made clear is that we can’t wait for our side’s top “leaders” to start leading. Winning a better country and democracy requires a new leadership in the Democratic Party and in organized labor. Anything short of that is a recipe for continued disaster.
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Rank and file AFGE workers have issued a press release calling on Democrats to vote against this bad deal. Here’s a press release, a form to sign on, and an IG and Facebook post.
Fortunately, the US still has some fighting unions. One of the most important of these is Starbucks Workers United, which is about to launch a long strike and customer boycott to win a first contract, starting this Thursday November 13. A win at Starbucks would be a win for all working people — and a significant blow to authoritarianism in the company and in our country. Spread the word that nobody should shop at Starbucks as long as workers are striking! And be sure to attend one of the union's rallies this Thursday: RSVP here.
The volunteer movement that drove Zohran Mamdani to victory in NYC is coalescing into a new campaign, Our Time, to organize over a million New Yorkers to pressure politicians to pass Zohran’s ambitious agenda and tax the rich. You can sign up for Our Time here. And please also join the Democratic Socialists of America — we need a long-term home for all of us fighting to win true economic and political democracy.
Hopefully Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez decides to primary Chuck Schumer. And in the meantime, as Ro Khanna is right to argue, Democratic senators should boot Schumer from his post as senate minority leader.
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. - Winston Churchill