Chicago Unions Building a Left-Labor-Community Coalition,United Working Families,to Restore Working-Class Democracy

Forty years of neoliberal economic and political restructuring has concentrated wealth and power at the top of the class structure, and at the expense of the working classes. Elites have captured state decision-making capacity by directly holding political offices or through campaign donations, and by structural state dependence on “business confidence” which tilts the field of electoral politics inexorably in favor of capitalist class interest (Miliband 1969). Additionally, the first-past-the-post electoral rules and the two-party system present a secondary line of advantage for the capitalist class on the field of politics. Democratic institutions beholden to the interests of capital and professional classes have left working people and communities of color without a voice to shape priorities that benefit their interests.

However, there are numerous examples of local political developments that offer significant alternatives to neoliberal politics. One such case is the evolution in Chicago of the United Working Families (UWF) Party. Formed in 2014 by two unions, the Service Employees International Union Health Care Indiana and Illinois (SEIU-HCII) and the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), and two community organizations Action Now (AN) and Grassroots Collaborative (GC) in 2014, UWF seeks to counteract the structural imbalance. UWF recognizes that “the two party political system in the United States is undemocratic, dominated by the wealthy and their corporations, and fundamentally ignores the voices and needs of working class communities, especially people of color” (United Working Families 2016). As such UWF is challenging the political system stacked against working-class interests in Chicago and provides a model of union-led working-class organizing in the neoliberal era.

Neoliberal urban restructuring transformed Chicago from the industrial “City that Works” into the city that works for the top 10 percent. The decline of industrialization and the rise of a business, finance, and real estate centered economy led to a shift in city development priorities in favor of economic-growth-above-all politics. Since the 1990s, Chicago’s two neoliberal Democratic mayors, Richard M. Daley (1989-2011) and Rahm Emanuel (2011-2019) have elevated the needs of capital over the common good. Both Mayors prioritized the construction of a world-class office, luxury housing, recreational, and amenity rich central area for elites and the professional class that serves them. They kept income taxes low for large businesses and affluent residents, while the bottom 90 percent of residents were forced to pay high property and sales taxes, and punitive fines. Consequently, Chicago has become a wonderful place to be rich.

The city’s working classes have borne the costs of growth-above-all redevelopment in higher taxes, lower wages, declining union density, a police department under consent decree for abuse of black and brown residents, and underfunded public services. In order to pay for a high quality of life in the zone of affluence, Daley and Emanuel underfunded public goods in neighborhoods. They closed over 120 public schools and reduced bus service for the working poor. They privatized city assets to enrich the financial class, such as leasing Chicago’s parking meter system to Morgan Stanley for $1 billion. The financial firm expects to make over an estimated $10 billion by charging Chicago residents higher meter rates (Preston 2010). Daley and Emanuel also scaled-back middle-class jobs by slashing large swathes of the city government’s labor force or subcontracted public sector jobs out to for-profit firms.

Service Employees Union Healthcare Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas (SEIU-HCII) and the CTU are on the front lines in the fight against this neoliberal regime. Both unions recognize the fundamental antagonism and conflict of interest between the powerful and the disempowered across all spheres of social life, in the workplace between employer and employee, in the community between property owners and non-owners, and along lines of racial and ethnic white supremacy and black and brown oppression.

SEIU-HCII has been a militant union since its inception (Kelleher 2008). SEIU-HCII traces its roots back to ACORN community organizers working with African American women in the homecare industry. From a handful of organizers and homecare workers ULU Local 880 was chartered. In 1984 Local 880 joined SEIU. Across the 1980s and 1990s SEIU-HCII organized (first) the private and (later) public homecare workers. SEIU 880 ran inside/outside campaigns to build leverage against both employers as well as government agencies. Before 2003, public sector homecare workers were not recognized under the Illinois Public Labor Relations Act (IPLRA). Using community organizing and direct-action tactics SEIU-HCII secured legal recognition for Illinois public sector homecare workers to form unions and collectively bargain in 2003. SEIU-HCII used the same inside/outside tactics in its political activities as it did with employers. When getting the minimum wage law to apply to 100 percent of homecare workers hours, pursuing inclusion in the IPLRA, pushing a living wage law for big box retail workers, or the Fight for $15 and a union, SEIU-HCII used both conventional engagement with elected officials in the halls of power, and also organized communities, led marches and carried out other public campaigns raising issues of poverty and racism in relation to the campaigns.

The CTU traces its roots back to 1937. Throughout its history the CTU has seen periods of militancy and complacency. The CTU was mostly quiescent to the roll out of the neoliberal education regime in the late 1990s. The business-union leadership of CTU was prone to take wage gains and ignore the erosion of resources for schools, the rise of charter schools, and the intrusion of factory-model educational practices until the CORE reform caucus came into leadership in 2010 (Uetricht 2014). The new leadership quickly set about turning the CTU from its service orientation toward an organizing union (Ashby and Bruno 2015; Noonan, Farmer, and Huckaby 2014). CTU organized its members around the bread and butter of wages, hours, health insurance, and pensions. But it also organized opposition to school closures and unfettered charter expansion, and the lack of wrap-around services (like librarians, social workers, and nurses) for students, and endless high-stakes student testing. Like SEIU-HCII, CTU ran its contract campaign and political operations using inside/outside tactics. CTU has led numerous marches to politicians’ homes and protested outside the offices of Chicago’s banks and investment houses. During its 2012 strike (the first CTU strike since 1987) CTU flooded the streets of Chicago in “A Sea of Red” leading many thousands of teachers, students, and community allies.

Since 2010 SEIU-HCII and CTU have been strong allies. They have also worked closely with a number of social justice community organizations, AN and GC being the two most prominent. AN and GC emphasize the necessity of grassroots organizing around the concrete needs of working people, especially of color, in their everyday lives in the neighborhoods in which they live. AN and GC work with the understanding that geographic “place,” like labor, is a foundational component of people’s lives. AN and GC canvass neighborhoods, have one-on-one organizing conversations, hold regular membership meetings, do educational events, organize marches, and hold town hall meetings in Chicago’s black and brown working-class neighborhoods. AN and GC are, in effect, community unions.

Together, SEIU-HCII, CTU, AN, and GC formed a left-labor-community alliance. This informal alliance waged defensive campaigns against evictions and foreclosures, school closings, mental health clinic closings, cuts to libraries, and public transit. They also waged offensive campaigns for raising the minimum wage, and pushed an ordinance requiring big box retailers such as Walmart and Target to pay living wages. These campaigns formed a pole of opposition to the policies of austerity and neoliberal “business first, last and always” carried out by Daley and Emanuel.

And yet, during the 2010-2014 period, the forces of accumulation and affluence for the few and austerity for the many were largely successful in pushing their agenda. SEIU-HCII, CTU, GC, and AN all share an analysis that Chicago’s working-classes lack organization and an independent voice in politics on the crucial issues of the need to tax the rich, raise the minimum wage, expand affordable housing, improve mass transit, and invest in neighborhood public schools, and other public services. Moreover, these unions and community organizations have a clear understanding of the key role of white supremacy in sustaining the ruling class. Consequently, the majority of Chicagoans (but especially working-class black and Latinx communities) lack the ability to make their interests count in the sphere of state power. The experience of working together on the picket line, in the streets, and in the halls of power built up a genuine sense of trust and solidarity among the leadership of these unions and community organizations. Furthermore, on the union side of this left-labor-community alliance, SEIU-HCII and CTU are similar in number of members and resources available to mobilize for political action. Having two large and powerful unions act as foundation for the alliance sets a tone for internal dialogue and operations that is reciprocal rather than hierarchical.

The leadership of SEIU-HCII, CTU, AN, and GC recognized the need for an independent political party that brought together labor unions and community organizations (led by women and people of color) around a left-wing social democratic platform. To this end, they formed the UWF in 2014.

Although UWF has not, yet, sought ballot status in Illinois, it is a vibrant political party. In many ways, it is more of a political party than either the Democratic or Republican party. UWF has members that pay dues, work on campaigns, and are the final decision making body in the party. Membership consists of members in affiliated unions, affiliated community organizations, ward-based Independent Political Organizations (IPOs), and individuals without organizational affiliation. UWF holds membership conventions, drawing over three hundred members, which function as the highest decision-making body of the organization. These membership conventions have created the platform of the party via a one-member one-vote deliberative process. The membership convention endorses candidates, and decides which issues (like rent control or immigrant defense) to prioritize. Between membership conventions the Party committee governs the organization.

Just as SEIU-HCII and CTU work to avoid the pitfalls of concession bargaining, UWF is working to get out of the trap of concession politics driven by the threat of throwing elections to “greater evil” Republicans as a consequence of challenging the “lesser evil” Democrats. In the City of Chicago, the intractable problem of doing independent electoral politics under the conditions of a two-party system is mitigated by the non-partisan election process. Chicago has a two-stage election process with an open non-partisan primary for the mayoral and aldermanic offices followed by a run-off between the top two candidates if no candidate wins a majority in the first round. This electoral structure allows for independent candidates to run without official Democratic party imprimatur.

In 2014, UWF made its public debut in the City of Chicago mayoral and aldermanic elections. CTU President Karen Lewis took up the challenge of running for Mayor against Rahm Emanuel. Early polling in the fall of 2014 showed Lewis had significant support as a viable alternative to Emanuel, vindicating UWF analysis that the circumstances were right for a left-labor-community opposition to emerge in Chicago. As a black woman and militant unionist Lewis used her campaign to lift up UWF’s platform around charter school and school closing moratoriums, the unelected board of education, progressive tax solutions to the city’s broken revenue streams, more accountability for acts of police violence, austerity in the public sector, living wages, housing justice, and the use of Tax Increment Financing (TIF) to subsidize for-profit businesses in central business district over and above the needs of working class neighborhoods.

Lewis had to end her campaign due to health issues in October 2014. UWF persuaded Cook County Commissioner Jésus “Chuy” Garcia to run for mayor and carry the UWF banner of left-labor-community interests against Mayor Emanuel. Garcia forced Emanuel into a runoff election, before losing with 44 percent of the vote. Despite the loss, the 2015 election cycle had a significant impact on Chicago politics. UWF built its operational capacity, turning out volunteers from affiliated unions, community groups, long-time independent activists and people who were attracted to this form of grassroots community engaged politics. These boots on the ground knocked 400,000 doors and made 250,000 phone calls across all races in the campaign.

The community-oriented organizing for Garcia had a significant impact on the aldermanic election. Down-ticket, UWF endorsed fifteen aldermanic candidates, of which seven were incumbents from the city council’s “Progressive Caucus” and eight were new challengers. The seven incumbent progressive caucus members were a mixed bag of solid labor community allies, liberals who tacked between the left and Mayor Emanuel, and one anti-mayor alderman who has since come out as an anti-immigrant Trump supporter. Only two UWF endorsed new challengers won their election.

While the mayoral loss was a bitter defeat and winning nine seats on city council, a fifty-seat body, was far from a glowing victory, UWF had established itself as a pole of authentic left-labor opposition to Emanuel. In response, over the course of his 2015-2019 term, Mayor Emanuel sought to cover his left flank by: raising the minimum wage to $13 an hour, implementing a small pre-K education program in Chicago Public Schools (CPSs) and rolling out a merit scholarship program making the city’s community college tuition free for CPS students who graduated from high school with a 3.0 or higher grade point average.

The leftward turn in national politics also shifted the local terrain. In March 2016, UWF endorsed and hosted a campaign rally for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign which packed Chicago’s Auditorium Theater. The Sanders campaign generated significant energy on the left in Chicago and has helped to boost the profile and membership of both UWF and the Chicago branch of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Although there are (at this time) no formal ties between UWF and DSA, there is significant overlap of support among members for both emerging forces on the labor-left.

Following the 2016 cycle, UWF continued building organizational capacity. New affiliates joined, adding more unions and IPO’s to the UWF membership rolls. Electoral districts were mapped looking for spaces where UWF’s left-labor politics might flourish. Thus far, over 180 people have been thru UWF’s various organizer, movement leader or candidate development training.

In the 2018 Illinois State and Cook County elections, UWF ran four candidates within the Democratic party, two for state representative (Delia Ramirez and Aaron Ortiz) and two for Cook County Commissioner (Alma Anaya and Brandon Johnson). All four candidates won their race. Importantly, all four are also working class, people of color and come out of community and union organizing in UWF affiliated groups. Both State Representative Aaron Ortiz and Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson are CTU teachers. State representative Delia Ramirez and Cook County Commissioner Alma Anaya come out of grassroots community organizations with strong ties to CTU, SEIU-HCII, and GC.

In November 2017, Congressman Luis Gutierrez, announced his retirement and endorsed Chuy Garcia to be his successor. UWF was left without an affiliated candidate to support in the 2019 Mayor’s race. Then, in September of 2018, Rahm Emanuel announced that he would not be seeking a third term in office as his electoral coalition was falling apart. African American support declined in the wake of revelations about Emanuel’s role in the cover-up of the police murder of Laquan McDonald in 2015, while more voters recognized that Mayor Emanuel’s policies systematically favored the interests of elites.

With Emanuel out of the picture, the lack of a viable affiliated candidate, and the huge field of candidates (over twenty), differences among UWF affiliates on the question of who to support in this crowded field resulted in UWF not endorsing in the 2019 mayor’s race. By this point, almost all candidates self-identified as “progressive” and spoke in support of key elements of the UWF platform. Instead, UWF focused on sharpening its politics in the races for City Council and build a labor-left opposition on the City Council. Noting that seven of the ten Aldermanic candidates UWF supported in 2015 ended up supporting Mayor Emanuel in over 90 percent of votes taken (Simpson, Rossi, and Gradel 2018), UWF chose a different tack and threw its support behind its own rank and file members and affiliated IPOs. Talking left, but turning right was not sufficient for UWF in 2019.

Nine UWF endorsed incumbents and new challengers won seats on the City Council. Thus far in office, many of the first policies pursued by UWF elected representatives have been geared toward reversing policies that curtail and control black and brown communities. Before the 2019 UWF candidates took office, Carlos Ramirez-Rosas was the only Alderman to vote against the use of $98 million to build a cop academy in a predominately African-American neighborhood. In response to President Trump’s threat to activate Immigration and Custom Enforcement to conduct immigrant roundups in major U.S. cities, Alderwoman Rossana Rodriguez put together immigrant defense networks and Know-Your-Rights training in the 33rd Ward. Jeannette Taylor’s victory in the 20th Ward turned the tide to secure a community benefits agreement for the African American community most at risk of displacement from inflated rents stemming from the construction of the Obama Center and Presidential Library on the South Side.

Additionally, UWF Aldermen are working to protect and expand labor rights and democracy. Sue Garza championed the 2019 passage of the Fair Work Week ordinance in City Council, where large employers are now required to give workers at least two weeks’ advance notice of their schedules and compensate workers for last-minute changes. UWF aldermen Rosa, Rodriguez, and Sigcho have sponsored a study investigating the feasibility of municipalizing Chicago’s energy sector that would give Chicago residents, democratic control over how the city procures its energy.

At this juncture in politics, where neoliberalism is still the policy orthodoxy but has run its course as a successful accumulation regime and is seeing its ideological legitimacy draining away, the public and service sector unions who provide the organizational infrastructure for UWF are well positioned to promote a more democratic and egalitarian politics. After decades of broken revenue streams for local and state government and a successful ideological campaign against the public sector, unions are compelled to fight for an alternative to the broken status quo. UWF is building the organizational power to take up the fight to take on these tensions in all their concrete specificity. The working class, and black and brown communities of Chicago, Cook County and Illinois are in a better position today to fight for their own interests because a labor-left coalition has formed to provide an alternative to the customary politics serving the enrichment of a wealthy few.