The domestic counterpart of Trump's illegal war against the Iranian people is an intensifying war on workers' living standards at home—through layoffs, austerity and the destruction of basic democratic rights. The union-busting attack on the National Institute of Health fellows' union is one expression of Trump's war against the "enemy within," that is the working class.
It is also part of the ongoing war against science, overseen by Trump's quack-in-chief Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has been systematically dismantling public health protections, including vaccinations, even as Covid-19 continues to spread through the population and there are new outbreaks of measles and other diseases.
I call on all UAW members and all workers to rally to the defense of the NIH workers and build rank-and-file committees at federal government and other workplaces to prepare collective action, including a general strike to defend the jobs and rights of all workers. The Trump administration has already gutted the collective bargaining rights of workers at the Veterans Administration and other government agencies as part of its plans to privatize federal agencies and purge the civil service of any worker not loyal to the fascist regime.
NIH workers cannot wait for the UAW bureaucracy to take action. If Fain and the UAW apparatus raise this issue at all it is only from the standpoint of defending their flow of dues money and institutional positions. The last thing the UAW bureaucracy wants is an all-out fight against Trump and his Democratic Party enablers because this would undermine the governmental support it receives in exchange for policing the working class.
But an all-out fight is exactly what is needed to defend our jobs, public health and our democratic rights. It is the only way to stop the ever-expanding war in the Middle East and the war against the working class at home.
