Why is the Pro Act, whose passage is contingent on unlikely filibuster reform, considered a more "grown up," real wold, achievable goal than withholding COVID bill votes for the $15 min wage? Or FTV? We discuss on the latest @BadFaithPod https://twitter.com/briebriejoy/status/1385272505993154560
Because one has the entirety of organized American labor behind it and the other was an idea someone had on a podcast.
Yeah, that’s the problem, genius... someone on a podcast shouldn’t be coming up with these ideas, because they’re extremely simple and easy to figure out.
Pressuring politicians to force them to do what their supporters/constituents want is not really that complicated.
https://twitter.com/Left_Blacksmith/status/1385937077598965762
another post in conversation under that anti-FTV/anti-podcaster (!) guy's feed:
why is the symbolic vote on the PRO-act that does nothing and won't become law so superior to a symbolic vote on M4A that does nothing and won't become law?
Because unions are an important institution in the labor aristocrat wing of capitalism. Who else is going to send newsletters to worker telling them to vote for the Democratic candidate? The CFL-AIO are literally agents of CIA imperialism, these Liz Warren voting radlibs who are pushing this program are just maintaining their hegemony with this virtue signalling capitalist reform bullshit.
I'm not really sure what your point is, but to Gray's critique, it's obvious that labor actually has some institutional power and they actually care about the PRO act which they stand to benefit immensely from, whereas a federal $15 dollar minimum wage didn't really offer them that much. So what organized political force was pushing for a $15 dollar minimum wage? Nobody was. Who was pushing FTV? A bunch of too online people who can't even vote for AOC. Labor is involved in politics and has a hand on the wheel. Random twitter accounts are not. That's why one is realistic, the others are not.
Now it's probably true that labor is still coopted by imperialists, but the PRO act does something which nothing else does, and that makes it easier to initiate working class struggle. It very well could harm our efforts (by removing the "struggle" from labor struggles), but it would also make it a hell of a lot easier to organize a union and communists could stand to gain from that by leading labor struggles, recruiting and educating leaders, and directing the movement. This is especially the case if the rate of profit is falling despite imperialist ventures, because the imperialists will be forced to be antagonistic to labor.
Imagine if we could build a new CIO and radicalize the rank and file of the AFL-CIO by reinvigorating their struggle against the capitalists and their leadership. The PRO act might be that opportunity.