After Bernie Sanders’ 2020 primary loss, his fervent supporters regrouped under the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) banner, employing a tactic called “salting” to infiltrate companies and rally workers for unionization.
As socialism gains traction within the Democratic Party, the YDSA and unions are focusing on organizing workers to achieve collective ownership of key economic sectors. This partnership could ultimately jeopardize the interests of American workers.
In a new article in Real Clear Markets, Market Institute Senior Fellow Norm SIngleton contends the union-socialist agenda prioritizes political goals over improving blue-collar workers’ lives. To protect worker rights, advocates of free markets call for repealing laws forcing union membership or dues payment, emphasizing the importance of voluntary unions that truly represent worker interests and negotiate for mutual benefit.
He writes:
“Wondering where the Bernie Bros (and Sisters) went after Bernie Sanders lost the 2020 Democratic primary to Joe “I am not a socialist” Biden? Well, many of them, under the leadership of the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA), which enjoyed a renaissance of sorts, thanks to Sanders’ 2016 and 2020 Presidential campaigns, are trying to drag the American economy back to the days when union leaders like Jimmy Hoffa had the power to shut down large parts of it.
Their tool is “salting.” Salting is where a union organizer gets a job for a company posing as just an ordinary worker. But the salt’s true agenda is to infiltrate the company and sow division between workers and management, and also look for possible justification to file complaints for labor violations with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The goal is to turn the majority of the workers against their bosses so they support unionizing.
As Caitlyn, an ex-Bernie Sanders volunteer turned union organizer told In These Times, “the end of the Bernie Sanders Presidential campaign morphed into a summer salting project.”According to In These Times, the YDSA may have trained as many as two thousand young left-wing activists on how to salt. So, at a time when socialism has come back into vogue among significant parts of one of America’s major political parties, with Members of Congress referring to themselves as “democratic socialists” and at least one member of the Biden Administration—Federal Trade Commissioner Lina Khan—seeking to use antitrust laws to redefine the relationship between business, workers, consumers, and government, why would the DSA focus on union organizing?
The answer can be found online with a look at DSA’s website, which states that, “We want to collectively own the key economic drivers that dominate our lives, such as energy production and transportation.” In other words, they want to achieve the communist goal of ownership of the means of production. The difference is that, this time, control will be in the (nominally) private hands of the Teamsters and their comrades in the DSA. The DSA and the Teamsters will, for at least the next year and four months, be aided and abetted by President Biden’s administration. After that, if they are successful, it will not matter who controls Congress as power over the “…key economic drivers that control our lives” will lie in the hands of the Teamsters, other labor unions, and DSA comrades.
As Keith Williams, of the Center for Independent Employees, and Frank Ricci, labor fellow of the Yankee Institute, pointed out in Newsweek, the Teamster-DSA agenda prioritizes seizing and exercising economic and political power to implement a socialist agenda over improving the quality of life of blue-collar workers.
This is not in the interest of workers.”
Read more of the article at Real Clear Markets by clicking here.
