Ep 343 Gene Bruskin on Labor, Resistance, and Musicals

Gene has spent two years as Jesse Jackson's labor director for the National Rainbow Coalition in the 1990s and was secretary-treasurer of the Food and Allied Service Trades of the AFL-CIO .

He was the Justice at Smithfield campaign director for the UFCW in an effort that successfully culminated a 16-year fight for a union by 5,000 meatpacking workers in Tar Heel , north Carolina , in 2008 . During the Iraq War , he was a founder of US Labor Against the War . He retired in 2012 . As the director of strategic campaigns at the AFT .

He recently helped establish the National Labor Network for Ceasefire in Gaza . Since retirement , gene has continued mentoring young worker organizers , particularly Amazon workers , and he has written and produced three musicals . His current production is called the Return of John Brown . So , gene , welcome to Revolution Z .

I admit I am very curious about the musicals and the whole immense area of possible talk that that involves , but I feel I should start instead by querying about labor , partly where it is , at both organized unions , and also the much broader population of working people , especially regarding our current crises and prospects .

So how about we start with the organized union part ? What are they doing , or contemplating ? Doing , or , I guess , not doing and not contemplating regarding Trumpism ? It's a big question , I know , but take it however you like to get us started .

Since then I think that the labor movement , like everybody else , has sort of been overwhelmed by the multiplicity of attacks and has responded in a bunch of different ways and places . Definitely we've had members fired , both because we represent a lot of higher ed unions and UAW , seiu , ue . Others have responded to try and defend those members .

We had members deported in the Obrega situation in Maryland and the SMART , which is the mechanical sheet metals mechanical union in the railroad and airlines . They fought really hard to get him out of jail . Seiu has been really involved because their members were deported in Massachusetts . So there's been a lot of that resistance .

In the recent demonstrations in LA , the unions were really active . The Farm Workers Union were fighting because their members are being pulled out of the fields .

The leader of SEIU in California , where they represent hundreds of thousands of workers , was just grabbed and thrown in jail and I think he's out on $50,000 bail , but the union mobilized for that and then beyond that there's a couple other significant things that have happened .

The coalition that has been really active over May Day and in no King's Day , involving the labor movement is called May Day Strong and it was initiated in Chicago from the Chicago Teachers Union but it consists of a broad range of labor and community groups , including some national labor unions like NEA , and that is still in motion .

And actually there is a convening on July 17th of Chicago of organizations , unions and community organizations this is not for individual anti-Trumpers from all over the country at two-day meeting to develop a strategy . There have been a labor for higher ed that have mobilized in a number of places to defend the attacks on higher ed .

The Federal Unionist Network has been consolidated and done demonstrations all over the country and I have helped to sort of create and help to organize something called the Labor for Democracy , which really was a merge , a transition for what had been Labor for Ceasefire , a somewhat unprecedented group of about a dozen national unions that came together to oppose our

foreign policy in Gaza , including public statements , statements against weapons , lobbying Biden in person , etc . After the inauguration that merged into Labor for Democracy or Transition and other unions have jumped on .

So there's now about 15 unions involved and that network of unions is trying to sort of coordinate with the federal unionist network , the higher ed folks , the Federal Unionist Network , the higher ed folks , mayday Strong for future actions , including focusing on Labor Day and that whole period as the next sort of focus . So there's a lot going on .

At the same time it's really , I think everybody would agree it's hardly enough , would agree . It's hardly enough .

Or do you even think it would be a good idea ? But if it would be a good idea ?

What do you think would be needed to get them to function as a whole , you know , in other words , as a block , as with a degree of strong , with a degree of strong coordination with , for example , just to give one example , when you know there are firings happening , what would it take for all the unions to react , even though it's in one sector or one place ,

thus raising the cost and the pressure ? Do you think it would be a good idea ?

You know , there's a complicated history here , and I think that's what our labor for democracy is trying to do , and I think the fact that we're also talking to the other labor networks the higher ed and Labor for Democracy and Mayday Strong everybody wants that . There's not a good history of that , and the AFL-CIO , in this instance , isn't leading .

You know they're doing whatever they're doing , but they're not really pulling together all of their unions and beyond that , there are a bunch of unions that are not in the AFL-CIO . So , for example , nea is the biggest union in the country . They're in labor for democracy and they're not in the AFL-CIO .

Neither is UE , which is arguably the most left-wing union in the country .

The ILWU is not in the AFL , and so we are sort of creating this vehicle as it's needed , and that's what's interesting about labor for democracy is that we have these independent unions and these AFL-CIO unions , including the UAW and SEIU now , and all trying tell you a quick story and this came out very clearly during UAW strikes this last year and UAW is a

part of Labor for Democracy , where Sean Fain came out and said we're not just talking about the fight on behalf of our members , we're talking about the working class , and he actually issued a call for 2028 on May Day .

There was a moment that happened a number of years back with a friend of mine , bill Fletcher , who at that point was the education director , I believe , at SEIU , took a group of workers from SEIU to South Africa to meet with COSATU , which is the militant or wasn't the militant labor federation in South Africa , and they were having this conversation about the

nature of our labor movement and one of the SEIU leaders said well , you know , let's be clear that the mission of our union is to fight on behalf of our members accents , or on our behalf , brother , you know and sort of went on and said the mission of our unions is to fight on behalf of the working class , and that concept is not broadly thought .

Every union is sort of inside their own bureaucracy . That's been the history of our labor laws . Bureaucracy , that's been the history of our labor laws .

It's also the particular history of the way social benefits have been created in this country , whereas coming out of World War II after the huge fights to organize the major industrial powers , the steel industry and the auto industry and all , whereas in Europe , following the war , the social benefit systems for pensions and healthcare and maternity leave , all those

things were created as federal goods for everybody In the labor movement . That was designated part of the sort of strange pact labor management pact coming out of the war , that was designated to the private sector after the communist unions had been smashed , so that the UAW fights over its benefits and the NEA fights over their benefits .

So when there's a fight over benefits , usually unions are fighting this thing alone , whereas in Europe , if you mess with my pension plan , you've messed with the workers all over Europe , and so France can shut the country down because everybody's hurt . We've been structured to divide ourselves .

collectively rather than case by case , union by union . Are there other obstacles that are standing in the way of that kind of let me put it this- way . When you pose that as a positive option . Right , what's the response ? Is it just well we don't do it that way , or is there a reason given ? You know , do they have some sort of ?

Are they attached to something ?

The building trades are not the same as SEIU , right , the building trades are predominantly high paid , disproportionately white men . Skilled operation SEIU is high is very diverse , ethnically job-wise service sector , many low-paid people that do home care , you know . So there's those kind of ways things have been divided up .

There's also the relationship to the Democratic Party has been a huge problem , in my view , in our particular history , the way it's evolved , because the labor movement for the most part , with some exceptions , have basically taken our cues from the Democratic Party , so that the Democratic Party is unhappy with a particular position , we don't fight on that issue , we

work it out and the party sort of rules , whereas the party couldn't live without us . We are sort of a junior partner .

And that , I feel like , is another thing that has sort of weakened our unity , because we should be as a unified movement making demands of our quote , our party , whereas the party sort of controls what our demands are in many cases , or simply by the historical relationship .

And so all of that creates isolation , division , and it essentially means there isn't the history and we are creating that history now . Even the higher ed unions , for example , so there's probably 10 unions that have members in higher ed and higher ed has been a very ed .

So the hopeful thing is in a broad coalition with Harvard University and fighting Trump right , and so this is where we're moving off of .

You can do that , but they're not leaving and we're backing them . So , in other words , they tell Musk yeah , I hear you , I'm fired , but I'm not leaving because you don't have the right to fire me . And Sean Fain says not only that , but the UAW is going to back them . What would have happened ?

Would people have just thought what the hell is going on here ? This is crazy . Or would people have been excited by that ?

You know , because what we're talking , in the case of Sean Fain , for example , his members in the federal sector are sort of dispersed , but the biggest group is a new group where he organized , they organized I don't know , 8,000 or so people at NIH , graduate researchers and so on .

These federal sector trade union laws are so horrible that they completely disempower workers in there . They're better than not having a union , but they're extremely limited .

So those unions tend to be very weak , you know , because the law is intentionally to discourage collective action , sure , and so I think that it's unlikely , given that history , if he had made the call at that moment , given that history , if he had made the call at that moment , it would have been really mixed what the response is .

It's sort of a great idea and maybe , going forward , we should start doing that in all the places where we could do that . But you know , people have to be prepared and trained to do those kind of militant actions that they've never done in their whole life and where they've been raised not to do , even when they're in unions .

That means us speaking to and training our members .

What happens if we switch over to the rest of the working class , the rest of people who are holding these disempowering and often precarious and so on and so forth jobs but are

not unionized ? What's going on there and what explains , do you think , the extent of and it does exist the extent of workers backing Trump , or at least being soft about it , but oftentimes literally backing him ? What's going on in the minds of people that's causing this kind of choice ?

I mean you know , daycare . You have to be virtually rich to have daycare or give up your rent right . And this is , aside from the general inflation .

The rent is just escalating and really the people's wages have only risen in a minuscule fashion in the last 20 years , while the cost of living continues to go up , and even those people that have been so privileged as to go to college are struggling to pay off those debts .

So there's huge problems and in this last election , people were feeling the pain , the pain , and Trump went in and said I feel your pain , you know you're being fucked , people are , conditions are horrible , you know this country is pissing all over you and I'm going to fix it .

Now , of course , that was a lie , but the Democratic Party said well , I'm pretty much , you know the same as Biden and you know we're going to make things better , but we're not going to really say anything about the dramatic inequality .

So we're not going to take on the billionaires and therefore he can not even mention them and he's going to go after the working class , but we don't have a working class critique . That's a critique that people are sympathetic to . A lot of the Trumpers sort of aren't this thing about that ?

The elites have taken over , and that's true , but the Democrats don't want to talk about it . The Republicans talk about it , even though it's phony , you know , and so you can't and we just saw that in New York just this last couple of days .

You can't win folks over who are suffering by telling them nothing can be done about it , you know , or that it's okay , you know , or without a good explanation . Trump's explanation is a phony populism , I'll fix it . The Democrats' explanation is sort of blah , blah , blah , you know , and we got to sharpen that and be clear about that .

And I think Mondani was a good example , even though New York is not the typical spot . It was a similar issue . You know , the Democrats are running as a corporate Dem , as a good manager , and he was running , you know , like I'm going to . We can't have people's rents and bus fares and all that stuff going through the roof .

We got to fight back and we have to tax the rich to pay for it . That's , that's the message , some variation of that yeah , and it's .

says that there's an element of that or a feeling of that there also . And so you look at the problem and , instead of your view of it , people are desperate , people are hurting . This guy says he's going to help , he obviously is willing to do berserk things , he obviously is willing to operate outside the lines , outside the boundaries .

I can see that , says this person . I'll take a chance with him , because the other way is more of the same and the same is unbearable . So that's one view . That seems to be what you've said and what I've been saying . But then the other view is well , they're all racist and sexist and they are attracted to the worst part of Trump right .

That's what's holding them , and I don't believe that's true .

And the immigrants . Now , the labor movement knows , because we have thousands and millions of immigrants in our unions . They're in the meatpacking unions , they're in the hotels , they're in the farmworkers union .

We know that immigrants are hard workers , the black workers against the immigrant workers , because the immigrant workers would work much harder , because they didn't feel they had any choice where black workers were willing to take the full break that they were entitled to say . And so we said nothing . The labor movement said nothing .

We gave that message completely over to the Republicans , rather than saying what's coming out now , which is , if you took all the immigrants out of all these places , we'd have no food , the hotels would shut down , the construction industry would crash , and so on . We could prove all that , and we said nothing about it .

Neither did the Democrats and , of course , the corporations didn't , and so we ceded that . So on the one hand , that sort of gave that full messaging and an explanation to a lot of white people who are suffering that maybe it really is all these millions of immigrants taking our jobs .

The other thing is sort of that you know , this sort of blame the worker thing , for a leftist to blame the working class is a complete misunderstanding of what it means to be a leftist and under capitalism , to be a leftist and under capitalism , where the capitalism in this country not only divides and oppresses workers but doesn't necessarily require the guns and

weapons although we're getting in that direction to control people . We have this intensive ideological apparatus that shapes people's thinking , and that's partly why I do musicals and cultural stuff that we have to break through and people have been shaped by that , as well as other kinds of capitalist forces . So you can't blame them .

Our responsibility is to make those changes that bring people together . And as a union organizer , where I'm still doing a lot of work , like with Amazon workers , I see all of this being played out every day . You know , the problem is like with organizing the ball is in our court as unions . When we start organizing , we see workers are ready to move .

You know , and I think it's the same way .

I'm assuming that what I heard was true . I hope it wasn't , but if it is true .

He didn't have almost 30 million right , so he went . For example , I heard the other day he went to something like 150 mosques . There are 750,000 Muslims in New York City . That's an outrageous number . That's what I heard . So he went to 150 mosques . That was probably a brilliant thing to do , you know , and so he did his piece .

He may very well not have done his homework in the black community , and he's going to have to do that now , going forward , because the current mayor , who everybody who has no approval rating is going to pull in some of the black community .

I think the older black community in general , who often has a higher vote , tends to vote very conservatively , and Cuomo had that sort of leadership group under his fold , and they also some of the leading black Democrats , like what's the guy's name ?

as truly an authoritarian apparatus above society , I think fascistic . And when you look at it , wasn't the German people who overthrew Hitler .

If Trump gets entrenched enough and is sane enough I don't know what other words to use to move forward in accord with his possibilities , it's a scary proposition that it's a race between him and the resistance , or between Trumpism on the one hand and the resistance on the other hand .

Can he be stopped before he is so entrenched that it becomes very difficult to reverse anytime soon ? And if that broad picture is right , the question arises okay , what would stop him right ? What do we have to attain ? What does the resistance have to attain , to put the brakes on and really undo this unfolding phenomena ?

Do the unions talk about it that way at all . Do you see it that way at all , or do you think maybe I'm just being a little bit alarmist ?

Like the DNC , which is , you know , this sort of elite group that makes all of the major Democratic Party policies , has had all these defections recently . First , this guy , david Hogg , who is the vice chair , because he looked at all these candidates and he wants to help support some primary challenges for progressive candidates .

They bumped him and so he's moving on , but he's going to bring a lot of money and stuff with him . Then , following that , the American Federation of Teachers and AFSCME state and county municipal workers left the DNC . I don't think that's ever happened . They took with them almost three organizations representing almost three members .

So one thing that's happening and has to happen somehow , but it's complicated is the Democratic Party has to have some kind of internal turmoil to make some new conclusions rather than do the same old thing .

And that's messy , and the Republicans have gone through that already , you know , starting after Reagan , you know , with all of the Tea Party and all that kind of stuff They've consolidated . The Democrats have just tried to hold on to what we got from Clinton to Obama to Biden . So some of that just has to happen and it's happening in front of us .

New York was just the latest example . I think that to the . Of course , the other element of it is that some of the Trump's policies seem almost inevitably going to shoot him in the foot . His tariff policies , his tax policies , all that stuff stand a real possibility of hurting people . They already are . Now , when people get hurt , who do they blame ?

That's another question , but that's another reality . But also , there has to be a cost to these corporate billionaires and these Republicans who are driving this agenda . If there's no cost , there will be no change . So I think Tesla was an interesting example .

You know , all of a sudden , you know Tesla's stock is crashing and you know Musk decides he better do his homework because his board of directors is screaming . There are other billionaires who are being discussed .

They we don't know who they are because they haven't been as prominent as Musk , but they're critical , they're Trumpers , they're funders and they they're out in the rest of the world . We need to be in front of their buildings and at their organizations .

They need to feel a cost to their building and , in addition to that , these Republicans also need to feel a cost Now . One cost will be 2026 if our ineffective Democratic Party can regroup enough to defeat some of them , and we only need to change a handful of seats to at least take that one piece of power away from them .

The other thing is that in many of these Republican districts , in these rural areas all over the country , who aren't going to be getting and aren't getting vet services , medicaid is going to close a lot of rural hospitals in these rural areas .

So people in these Republican areas are going to be hurting and hopefully , with our help and with the union's help and with their own communities , they can go after some of these Republicans who've stopped holding town halls for precisely that reason , because they don't want to be faced with the reality of their own .

They're , at this point , more loyal to Trump than they are to their constituents . That's got to flip . So all of this together means some kind of a crisis has to sort of be created for all of this to really change , and it's not going to happen tomorrow , as much as I would vote for it and you probably would second it , but that may not be enough .

I mean , it's a hard road . It's a hard road . It's a hard road to travel .

You know we had all of this incredible poetry , theater , music that happened earlier in the century in and it was so much a part of the culture of the movements Coming out of World War II .

Culture in this country has been commercialized and capitalized at an enormous amount and so they control the message to hundreds of billions of dollars in these companies and we've lost a lot of our own culture and in terms of the people's culture .

But you saw that , for example , in the United States in the civil rights movement , we couldn't have won that movement if people couldn't be singing . We shall not be moved while they're being hauled out the jail . That's the way people feel their power .

They could not have defeated apartheid in South Africa if they couldn't sing in those incredible singing , dancing that they somehow do while they're marching . And so culture is essential . And so culture is essential and you know my small

piece has been . You know I got interested in this in the 70s when I was in Boston trying to do community theater , but then I got into the labor movement . I became a local union president and I basically put it aside for 40 years , you know , except for writing poems for my friends and so on .

When I retired I decided to get back into it , you know , give it a try . This is musical theater is something I was raised on in my house , corgi and Bess , you know , fiddler on the Roof , oklahoma , that was what was on my record player . You know I had a working class family but my father , he used to take us to Broadway .

You could take a working class family abroad , then we would drive back to Philly that night , you know . So when I retired I tried , I got back into it and I've written three musicals , got back into it and I've written three musicals . All of them have been by and about and for working class people .

I get some friends over , we do a reading , they give me some ideas . It's something I just do and then I get an idea of where I think there should be songs . You know , it's part of having sang songs all my life from musicals , you know and I write the lyrics .

So , like my most recent show is a musical , is about John Brown , and he gets , he magically reappears and gets put in jail , you know , and I have this sort of serious comical scene that happens in in the courtroom . They threaten to hang him again . They're afraid he's going to stir up the Black Lives Matter . And he sings this song , you know .

Let me give you some advice . I will try to be concise , since you say I'll pay the ultimate price . You can put a man on trial , make him walk that extra mile , but you can't hang the same man twice , it ain't nice . Make him walk that extra mile , but you can't hang the same man twice , it ain't nice . No , you can't hang the same man twice .

So I wrote those words and then I sort of had that tune and I went to a friend of mine who's a pianist , who helped me put these into songs , and he got a banjo player in and the banjo player picked up his banjo and goes how about like this ? And then we went from there .

So that's the way I do it , and then I bring singers in to make it better and ultimately make it cast . My most successful musical was my second one . This is my third . That was about reconstruction . It was called the Moment Was Now Takes place in 1869 .

And it brings together in that period the leaders of the emerging labor movement , the National Labor Union , the emerging suffragette movement and the emerging Black Freedom Movement and it sort of places them at a table at the behest of Frederick Douglass , who says these are the key movements of our time .

I need you to figure out how we can organize so that we get our share as industrialization rolls out and he leaves . So the whole play is a musical argument of these different political forces , very similar to today , and Jay Gould lurks in the background .

So that played in 2019 and 2020 in Baltimore and I brought in and got endorsements of labor unions , the state , afl-cio , the building trades in Baltimore , a lot of community organizations . We filled the seats and people ate it up . I brought high schools in there . It was fantastic .

We were about to go on the road to the CBTU , the Coalition of Black Trade Unionist Convention , to Boston and other places . They were going to pay us to take it on the road and that was March 8th 2020 . And that's when the whole world went underground into our basement because of COVID , but there's a really excellent play .

I'm sorry film of that play that has been shown a bunch of times since then . Most recently was just accepted as a San Francisco as an entree official entry into the San Francisco Economic Justice Film Festival and will be shown July 26th live and in person in San Francisco .

The film of the musical and right now my show is the return of John Brown and I'm trying to find a theater group that wants to put it on stage . I've done the readings and the community work .

But it is striking that the students now and the young people now don't have helping them , you know , inspiring them , rousing them , giving them smiles , etc , etc . The kind of culture that we had .

Not that it was perfect then , by any means , but there really is a big gap between , say , current music and you know , music then and youth culture then , and whatever passes for youth culture now , and we really do need it there too . So your observation for the need for working people is valid also for their kids .

What to do about that , I don't know Well you know , people are creating culture .

You know has been drawing big crowds . You know Really that's good . There's this guy , jesse .

And probably most of us have been at some banquet or another and you see these banquet waiters running around the table to table , you know , doing all these different courses .

So the guy who's in charge in the bread and butter was out on the floor and first he went to the senator's table and handed everybody a plate with a piece of a nice roll and a piece of butter , put it on everybody's table and walked away .

And some guy in a fancy suit runs up and grabs him and says , hey , hey , the senator wants a second roll in butter . And the banquet waiter says well , I'm sorry , you know like everybody gets one roll and one piece of butter . And the guy says do you know who he is ? Do you know who Senator Smith is ?

He did this and he did that and he goes this whole thing . And the banquet waiter just stands there and says do you know who I am . And the guy says who the hell are you ? He says I'm the guy that gives out the bread and the butter . Right , and he walks off . Right , and he walks off . And so the idea do you need the boss or does he need you ?

Do the Democrats need the labor movement or does the labor movement need the Democrats ? Do the people need Trump or does he need us ? We have to flip that equation that we're sort of used to sitting on the bad end of that , and join this banquet waiter .

it , but I do think that there's a I don't know how to describe it confronted with a situation , the reflex and this is true of young people and all over the place the reflex is I , me , mine , how do I deal with this ? Individually , and maybe for my family it doesn't even cross people's minds . It's not that it's rejected to take a collective approach .

It doesn't exist , it doesn't arise as a possibility , you know , and that has to be undone because you know , you can't win that way . Well , it's been a pleasure . I really appreciate it , thank you .

We're literally five seconds past an hour and , you know , maybe we can do it again at some point not too far in the future , when you can report how labor is surging ahead and attaining a degree of unity .