Imagine getting leaders from the Labor Party, the Democratic National Committee, the AFL-CIO Political Department, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the Green Party, and the New Party together in the same room for a discussion on the political future of the labor movement.

That was our intention March 30 when the Labor Party’s DC/MD/VA chapter (Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia) held a successful debate that drew a crowd of 50 people to hear political leaders of the labor movement describe their strategies.

Unfortunately, the speakers promised by the New Party and Democratic Party were no-shows, but the other speakers have to be complimented for walking the thin line between civility and tenacious defence of their unique positions.

The speakers were:

• Chris Riddiough, until recently a national organizer for DSA;

• Michael Matthews, AFL-CIO Political Department;

• Scott McLarty, Green Party;

• Chris Townsend, UE Political Action Director and Labor Party National Council Trustee.

The debate was moderated by Saul Schniderman, president of one of the AFSCME locals at the Library of Congress and director of one of the Washington, D.C., councils of that union.

Riddiough defended the idea of working for “good Democrats,” extending the “Progressive” caucus in Congress and getting more labor people to run for office. She stiffly defended the idea that voting is a tactical issue, not one of principle.

Michael Matthews, probably the best, most practiced, and most eloquent of the speakers, defended the idea that labor (the AFL-CIO) had to vote for those who supported labor’s needs and to vote out those who did not. He said labor should support any candidates (Labor, Socialist, Green, or Democrat) who supported labor’s needs and interests and that we needed to remember and vote against those who — after getting into office — did not keep their promises to the unions. Accountability was his key message.

Scott McLarty of the Green Party spoke mainly about the need to build a third-party movement, the Green Party’s support of labor, and the poor record of the Democrats on labor issues.

Chris Townsend talked about his union’s decision to support the Labor Party. It stemmed mostly from the fact that most UE members would not support the Democrats and that extensive polling had shown that 95 percent of their membership thought that neither party represented their interests, while 93 percent favored construction of another party that did. Townsend also pointed to statistics showing the amounts of money given by corporations to both major parties and the close relationship between corporate leaders and the Democrats as well as Republicans.

In rebuttal, Riddiough suggested that there were really three major parties in the U.S.: a right-wing party, the Republicans; a centrist party, led by Clinton and including most Democrat politicians; and, a left-wing party, — the weakest of the three according to her — which included the “Progressive” caucus.

Matthews emphasized the problem of money in running in elections and talked about the 2000 in 2000 campaign of the AFL-CIO. He also emphasized that the labor movement could not afford to be divided in the political arena.

The audience included people from several unions, from several of the organizations represented, and from the Labor Party. The president of the Metro Labor Council — a strong supporter of the Democrats — was in attendance, although he did not speak or contribute to the discussion.

The questions and comments from the floor included defense of the idea that the unions had a great ability to mobilize people and that that should be used to build our own party; that the Demo cratic Party had had plenty of time to show us what it could do for us and had failed; that the AFL-CIO had been too tied to the Democrats — Matthews admitted that this was the case in the past, but said it was no longer the case. Also, that building third parties would be a strong pressure on the major parties to pay attention to labor; that building the Labor Party would help the labor movement to collect on past debts of the Democrats to labor; that it was in fact a principle not to vote for the Democrats because of who they represented (the bosses); that few Democrat politicians will support labor when it is on strike; that the third parties should merge to gain more strength; that we should all be organizing on the local level but that the most important issues were national in nature and the question was, How could we combine the two?

Townsend said that labor people needed to become like the shop stewards of their neighborhoods, an idea from the CIO-PAC days.

Matthews said that the AFL-CIO supports “the issues and the mission” of the Labor Party, that the AFL-CIO was not against the Labor Party or the Greens, but rather, that it wanted to hold politicians accountable regardless of party.

Townsend pointed out that with the new leadership (Sweeney, Trumka, Chavez-Thompson), the Labor Party had not run into any opposition from the AFL-CIO, which was a big switch from the Lane Kirkland days, when LPA was openly red-baited and met with hostility. He also pointed out that at this point it is up to the Labor Party to organize and to show that it can offer a viable alternative and that we shouldn’t be looking to the AFL-CIO to do that work for us.

One person did ask what kind of process would be necessary to convince the AFL-CIO to build a labor party. However, none of the speakers answered the question, and I think they may not have understood it.

If union locals decide to hold similar debates, I suggest that the LP speaker should be prepared to talk about why the Labor Party is a realistic possibility (as opposed to most third party efforts) and what it is about the system that keeps us from being able to build any other type of working class party. Also, we should emphasize the idea that we are the only large third party that is class-based.

I hope this short report helps other chapters and local union affiliates to think through their own strategies and events. The debate was built through our own mailing list of about 250 people, through public service announcements (PSAs) to the local media, and through posting leaflets at the AFL-CIO headquarters, the AFGE and AFSCME headquarters, and at a few other unions, as well as sending it out on the Metro Labor Council’s fax newsletter.

Scheduling and finding a place to hold the event were major difficulties. We had originally wanted to do this before the elections, but had to wait till after to be able to get the speakers.