Shuvu Bhattarai, previously writing as Shuva Bhatta, has sided with the AFL-CIO bureaucracy supposedly by accident. He believed that he had discovered an independent union, but in fact, Starbucks Workers’ United affiliated with Workers United, a part of the SEIU, a major union historically associated with the AFL-CIO. The AFL-CIO and the SEIU breakaway faction, the New Unity Partnership, support the Democratic Party and reformist politics in general. The AFL-CIO also has a history of anti-communism, chasing out members of the Socialist and Communist parties. It has also participated in racial discrimination and even organized racist violence. To turn to these organizations means to abandon the struggle for socialism.

Bhattarai falsely believed, however, that the Starbucks Workers United was independent. What accounted for this false belief? Was it wishful thinking? Then Bhattarai should go back and analyze this situation with this failure in mind.

The original article would have us believe that the workers organized independently with the egalitarian financial assistance of the Workers United and SEIU union bureaucracy. In fact, as this important correction proves, the “independent union” actually agreed to turn over control of the organization to the historically imperialist, racist, and pro-Democrat trade union bureaucracy. This occurred without a vote, since the Starbucks Workers United union had not allowed a vote by the membership on whether they wanted to sacrifice control over their movement in exchange for whatever small favors they received from the bureaucracy. This story has immense importance as Starbucks, Amazon, and others fight workers’ efforts to improve their conditions. The “independent” ALU union of Amazon workers has also shown willingness to turn over control to the union bureaucracy and the Democrats. They have not promised any election among the workers or provided for any oppositional faction to oppose such steps towards bureaucratization and outright betrayal.

The #Democratic_Power_Faction demands public meetings between Jerry White, Shuvu Bhattarai, and Chris Smalls of the Amazon Labor Union! They need to discuss the real meaning of independence from the AFL-CIO, NUP, and Democratic Party, the importance of a general strike, and the historical centrality of workers’ committees to a revolution of the working class. Such a meeting would bring about a transformation in the efforts of the working class to defend their basic rights, from a disorganized and confused response to the predatory bureaucracy to a strong, revolutionary wave of actions based on socialist consciousness. Socialist consciousness is the consciousness of the working class of itself as the revolutionary class that must bring an end to capitalism and class division by overthrowing the old, imperialist governments of the capitalist ruling class. “Independent” unions that deny their membership a debate and vote on this crucial issue do not represent the working class but the interests of management, the corporations, and the oligarchy within the rising working class movement to improve their conditions.