In both the US and the UK, political strikes are illegal. Nevertheless, US trade unionists are discussing the possibility of strikes to oppose attempts by far-right president Donald Trump to sabotage the upcoming election.

We republish an interview with David Van Deusen, president of the Vermont State Labour Council, the local organisation of the AFL-CIO, the US equivalent of the TUC. The interview was first published in Solidarity here.

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There’s a real possibility that Donald Trump will lose this election, outright, but manipulate the process and use his powers as President to refuse to go. This is not a fringe idea – our United States Senator, Bernie Sanders, is rightly banging the drum about it too. It’s a real possibility, and no joke.

There’s various ways it could happen – there could be attempts to discount certain ballots, with so many mail-in votes this year, and ballots could be destroyed. And if for instance Trump loses Pennsylvania, they have a Republican legislature which could choose to send pro-Trump delegates to the electoral college. Trump may have support from within the Department of Homeland Security, in addition to the non-AFL-CIO police unions supporting his candidacy, and the extreme right-wing groups.

I don’t know how quickly things would unfold. The US system of elections means there are various benchmark dates. 14 December is when the electoral college votes. It may be a slow roll into crisis or it may happen rapidly.

Vermont AFL-CIO is the first state labour council to come out for a general strike if Trump attempts a coup. We’ll be taking that position to our state convention on 21 November, and asking for authorisation to call strikes if it comes to it. Our leadership is ready to do whatever it takes to defend democracy, but we want a mandate from the rank and file as we head into uncertain waters. I’m confident we’ll get one. [See their public statement here.]

We’re not going to let this country flip into dictatorship without using every weapon to stop it, and the strongest weapon we have is withholding our labour.

What kind of discussion and debate have you had in Vermont?

In addition to our elected leadership, we have a wider advisory committee made up of rank-and-file leaders from different unions. In the debate there, there hasn’t been any disagreement about the need to organise in resistance to a coup. As we get closer, if it becomes more concrete, I’m sure there will be more debate. A general strike is really outside the political experience of labour in the US, with the partial exception of some city general strikes and those were long ago.

Last year we elected a new, progressive leadership in our state AFL-CIO. Our caucus is called United and we’re clearly on the left. We have the most progressive programme of any state labour council in the US; we’re committed to fundamental changes in the labour movement. We have DSA [Democratic Socialists of America] members like me, former ISO [International Socialist Organization] members, people involved in the Movement for a People’s Party. We have a strong relationship with the Vermont Progressive Party, a social democratic organisation which is a significant force in the state.

There is no pro-Trump voice within our leadership. There is a range of views, from people who are excited to elect Biden to probably more who think he’s not likely to go anywhere like far enough.

No one is arguing for anything less than defeating Trump, but our main focus is defending democracy. Once we’ve secured that we need to fight for a labour-oriented Green New Deal-type recovery program, and that will be a fight whoever wins.

What about your membership? Are there pro-Trump voices?

We only have 10,000 members, but that’s a significant part of the workforce in Vermont. We have people all across the state.

Of course some of our members hold political views which are not as left-wing as our leadership, or not left-wing at all, but I don’t think pro-Trump views will be a major obstacle to mobilisation. I’d be surprised if he gets 30% of the vote in this state, and among union members it will be much less. Even our Republican governor is critical of Trump.

The hardest challenge will be the unfamiliarity of using strike action as a political tool. But even in 2016 when Trump was installed we had 20,000 protest in our capital Montpelier, whose population is less than 8,000. There is a large well to draw on. If there is a coup I would expect much larger numbers, and if we call a general strike larger still.

What’s the law in the US regarding political strikes?

Political strikes are illegal under federal law. But coups are illegal too! If the right seeks to disregard the constitution and have one of their own remain in power despite the will of the people, all bets are off. We will do what we have to do.

If we have to go above and beyond normal legal procedures, opposing a coup and defending democracy is more important than whether we have an “unfair labour practice” charge filed against us.

Where is the discussion at more widely, across the US?

A number of significant local union bodies have passed resolutions calling for a general strike if a coup takes place, including the local labour councils in Troy and Rochester in New York state and in Seattle. Those plus Vermont is not a general strike, but it’s a start. I think the discussion will spread, and if it becomes clear the Trump administration intends to reverse or negate the outcome, it will spread exponentially.

Obviously my state labour council only has jurisdiction in Vermont, and others have to have their own discussions, but we are engaging in as many conversations as we can. A number of local leaders from outside the state will be attending our convention on the 21st.

National AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has said the federation will do all in its power to resist a coup. We take that at face value and we look forward to coordinating with the AFL-CIO nationally too.

Are the Democrats likely to try to prevent or restrain workers’ action?

There’s two different layers to that: the national Democratic Party, and local state parties. Yesterday I contacted pro-labour leaders from the Vermont state house to discuss how we can support each other. I think there will be support, and in fact in Vermont there may also be some Republican leaders and officials who want to defend democracy – I would not count that out at all. At a national level I have less faith in the Democratic Party and how it operates. That conversation is something the national AFL-CIO will take up, but for sure in Vermont we want to coordinate with everyone who really wants to defend democracy.

If there’s a coup and you resist, do you expect clashes with right-wing activists and militias?

I don’t think that would be a major issue in Vermont. There aren’t any well-organised paramilitary groups here. But of course if we come under threat we will take appropriate steps to provide for our security and the security of labour and democratic forces generally. In other areas of the country it could be a much more serious problem. These extreme right-wing groups are in many cases well-armed, and the labour movement and left need to be prepared for self-defence. If it was in Michigan or Pennsylvania that would be one of the first issue on my agenda. Here we are considering it in a cautious way.

If Biden wins and takes office, and there’s right-wing protests or resistance, what then?

No doubt this is possible. Donald Trump is a sort of third rate Mussolini; he’s given neo-fascist groups real encouragement on various levels, and helped them build up a real movement. Even the lone wolf actions we saw in the past were dangerous, but that was one thing; now we are seeing actions by organised groups. Regardless of the outcome I would anticipate violence in certain areas of the US, even if not Vermont, and the left has to be prepared for that.

Strike action, certainly the call for a general strike, might play a different role from if there’s a coup from above, but there will certainly need to be push back and strikes are an important part of that.

Have strikes and work actions around Black Lives Matter impacted the consciousness of union members about all this?

To a certain extent yes. There have been a range of actions, the most important being the longshoremen on the West Coast, who are one of the few bastions of labour with a long tradition of political strikes. They struck over Mumia Abu-Jamal and South African apartheid. I think more broadly the Black Lives Matter movement has compelled labour to look inward and consider our relationship to the black liberation struggle, and obviously that has implications for our attitude to Trump.

In the wake of George Floyd’s killing Vermont was the first state labour council to come out with an unequivocal position that we support black self-determination. We have made a number of practical and financial contributions to black liberation groups.

The labour movement needs to discuss and build up its relationship with oppressed peoples in the US to help overcome that oppression. Racism wasn’t fixed by these protests, obviously; there is a long road ahead.

• For Vermont State Labor Council’s public statement, see here
• For more on discussions in the US labour movement, see this article on Labor Notes and this video from the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee.

This is a discussion piece from a supporter of our campaign. To contribute a response, or an article of your own, please email freeourunions@gmail.com.

At the end of August, players in the US’s National Basketball Association effectively went on unofficial strike in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, sparked by the Milwaukee Bucks team refusing to play in protest at the police murder of Jacob Blake. Similar actions have since spread to teams in other sports.

The context is a ferment in the US around the idea of “striking for black lives”. In July a coalition of unions and workers’ groups held a day of action under that banner, with work stoppages and protests across the country.

This movement, or proto-movement, was inspired by unionised bus drivers in Minneapolis and New York who at the start of the BLM struggle refused to work transporting protesters for the police.

Most impressively, in June the ILWU dockers’ union twice stopped the West Coast ports in support of Black Lives Matter, demanding an end to “white supremacy” and “police terror” – once for nine minutes and once for a whole day. They chose to hold their second, all day, strike on Juneteenth, a date which celebrates the abolition of US slavery in the 1860s. (The ILWU has a tradition, having also taken action against South African apartheid for instance.)

Could we see anything similar in the UK?

We certainly have political causes which demand urgent and effective action – from racism in the police and the prison system to the Tories’ appalling handling of the pandemic, from the scandal of fire and building safety to the climate crisis. And there are few forms of action more effective than industrial action. As the Fire Brigades Union’s Firefighter magazine put it last year:

“More broadly, consider the injustices we face – like those that still plague the Grenfell community two years on. We hold meetings, we petition, we march. But imagine the change we could effect if workers were able to withdraw their labour to stand up in solidarity with other workers and the wider community.”

We saw something of the possibilities last September when groups of workers stopped work alongside the school student climate strikers.

However, such political strike action faces a huge barrier in the form of the anti-trade union laws. Put simply, since the 1980s industrial action for anything other than strictly limited industrial demands has been illegal. Workers do not have the legal right to withdraw their labour as an instrument of political or social protest.

What this means is that you can engage limited democratic self-expression – on marches, protests and so on – in your own time, but as soon as you’re on the clock, democracy and the right to protest are suspended. That is something the labour movement should challenge, not accept as inevitable.

These laws hinder struggles against racism and injustice in other ways too. They ban solidarity action by one group of workers to support another, with all the obvious consequences for fighting injustice and oppression effectively.

In a Covid crisis which has disproportionately hit black and brown workers, the requirement for lengthy balloting processes, noticed periods and the like has hindered the kind of quick, decisive action necessary to act for safety and workers’ rights. Many workers have take action in defiance of the law but it nonetheless acts as a powerful limiting force.

We should argue:

Firstly – that however limited the things we can do immediately, we should sow the ground by popularising the idea of workers’ action as not just a tool to defend and improve terms and conditions, but as a weapon in the fight against injustice. In the circumstances we face – outrage at racism, a second wave of the pandemic, runaway corporate greed and the threat to our NHS and public services – the idea of political strikes could be very popular. It needs explaining. We should demand the right to exercise democratic rights, including the right to protest, at work.

We should point to and talk about the strikes for black lives in the US, about the climate strikes, about the Italian dockers who last year refused to load weapons for the Saudi war in Yemen. We should unearth inspiring historical examples like the Australian construction workers who stopped construction sites to defend the environment, working-class communities and indigenous peoples in the 1970s.

Secondly – that all the restrictions contained in the anti-trade union laws must go. All these laws must be repealed – not just the Tories’ 2016 Trade Union act, which makes things more difficult but doesn’t touch on the fundamental limitations discussed here. They should be replaced by positive legal rights for workers and unions, including strong legal rights to strike and picket freely for any demand.

Labour Party conference has repeatedly voted to repeal all the anti-union laws, as did TUC Congress last year. But so far the bulk of the labour movement is not fighting for this.

It is all very well for Labour politicians to say they support the climate strikers, but refuse to commit to scrapping the laws that prevent workers from striking alongside them. Similarly, Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner took the knee: but do they support workers being able to legally strike against racism, or not?

Thirdly – that the labour movements need to be ambitious. What can we do to take action despite the legal barriers?

US law is not quite as clear on banning political strikes as ours is, but there are restrictions. The West Coast dockers got round them by simultaneously holding a strike for a legal demand – against privatisation of the Port of Oakland, with its consequences for African American jobs – but explicitly raising the wider political questions.

In the 2016-2018 our Picturehouse Cinema workers did something similar on a smaller scale, striking for their legal industrial demands on International Women’s Day and using the opportunity to highlight their call for maternity pay as well as wider questions of women’s liberation.

There is nothing to stop unions holding legal strikes over industrial issues but on particular dates or with messaging that links them to wider political demands.

Many unions and union branches are already in dispute over industrial questions which are also racial injustices, such as pay gaps and safety at work. Such struggles should be spread and linked to a political message.

Lastly, as unofficial grassroots industrial action during the lockdown showed, we need to build confidence to defy the anti-union laws.

Trade unions, wrote Marx in 1866, must “learn to act deliberately as organising centres of the working class in the broad interest of its complete emancipation. They must aid every social and political movement tending in that direction… They must convince the world at large that their efforts, far from being narrow and selfish, aim at the emancipation of the downtrodden millions.”

Those words echo today. If our labour movement makes itself central to the fight against injustice and oppression it will help us rebuild strength in the workplace too.

By Sacha Ismail