New York City marchers express support for Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen’s policies during “No Kings” protest last year. Photo/Joe Maniscalco
By Joe Maniscalco
OPEIU, the more than 90,000-member union representing office workers and others at nonprofits, hospitals, colleges, universities, and hotels across the US and Canada has joined a growing chorus of trade unionists calling on New York Senator Chuck Schumer to drop his bid to become Democratic Majority Leader in January.
“The overwhelming support for congressional Democrats at this time in history cannot be squandered,” OPEIU President Tyler Turner told Schumer in an open letter dated Nov. 13 [see below]. “After careful deliberation in consultation with the OPEIU Executive Board, consisting of union leaders from coast-to-coast, we are respectfully asking you to decline to seek to become the next Senate Majority Leader. The American people are desperate for change, and for a new generation of political leaders to deliver that change.”
The Office and Professional Employees International Union joins the 600,000-member International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Union [IAM] who on Friday also announced they are backing Schumer challenger Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland for the top leadership role.
“Senate Democrats should be afforded the opportunity to reach consensus and select a Majority Leader who can unite the party and carry forward an unapologetically bold vision for the future of this country,” Turner further wrote in his letter to Schumer. “We believe Sen. Van Hollen is best positioned to serve in that role.”
An “unapologetically bold vision for the future of this country” is precisely what voters want following last week’s blue wave that swamped Trump Republicans and gave Democrats firm control of both the House and Senate.
“While Senator Schumer has contributed to serious strides for workers throughout his long career, workers are looking to take our country in a bold new direction, and he is not currently up to the task. ”
But neither Schumer, who is on his second stint as Senate Minority Leader, or Rep. Hakeem Jeffries [D-NY 8th District], who hopes to be crowned House Speaker come January, are seen as capable of delivering that unapologetically bold vision.
In a recent Work-Bites interview, labor academic and author Robert Ovetz called both Schumer and Jeffries “out of touch” and outright “enemies of the working class.”
“Their policies are terrible,” Ovetz told Work-Bites during a wide-ranging interview broadcast Monday on WBAI’s Labor and Healthcare Confidential show. “They're tone deaf to the important issues. They have made no efforts to do anything like raise the minimum wage, or stop funding Israel.”
The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America [UE] issued a statement three days after the November 3 midterms calling the “blue tsunami” of Democratic wins a “stunning rebuke of division, war, and corruption, and of the corporate crime wave that Republican rule has enabled.”
“However, the credit for these wins belongs not to the Democratic Party—whose leadership has offered at best tepid resistance to the Republican agenda over the past two years—but to the working people across the country who have spent the last two years organizing and fighting back in their communities and workplaces,” the non-AFL-CIO-aligned UE said.
IAM Union head Brian Bryant previously sent an open letter to Schumer on Nov. 9, also urging him to drop his bid to become Senate Majority Leader.
“We have a tremendous opportunity to build on this momentum, but doing so will require fresh ideas, new energy and a new generation of leadership,” Bryant wrote. “This election also proved that we are bringing a new generation of working-class voters into the Democratic Party—people who are putting their faith in us to deliver real change. We cannot take their trust for granted. We must deliver on that promise and prove that the Democratic Party will fight for working people, not the wealthy and well-connected.”
Schumer, 75, first entered Congress way back in 1981, and remained there for nearly 20 years before being elected to the Senate in 1999 where he’s been ever since.
Van Hollen, meanwhile, entered the Senate in 2017 after serving in the House for 14 years. He is a member of the Appropriations Committee, Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, Budget Committee, and Foreign Relations Committee.
“We came to this demand after hearing the clear will of American workers in the elections last week that they are ready for a fundamental transformation of how D.C., and our economy overall, works,” an OPEIU spokesperson told Work-Bites on Friday. “While Senator Schumer has contributed to serious strides for workers throughout his long career, workers are looking to take our country in a bold new direction, and he is not currently up to the task. Listening to the American people and taking their mandate seriously will be essential over the next two years if the Democrats want to hold their seats and reclaim the presidency in 2028.”
The OPEIU spokesperson also said, however, that the union hasn’t taken a position on the race for House Speaker or Jeffries’ bid.
On Thursday, more than 50 climate and social justice activists with the Sunrise Movement were arrested at a sit-in held inside Schumer’s Washington, D.C. offices protesting his stultified leadership and calling on him to “Step up, or step aside.”
OPEIU President Tyler Turner sent this letter to Sen. Chuck Schumer on Friday calling on him to drop his bid to be the next Senate Majority Leader.