As the socialist movement expands throughout the U.S., more and more workers are becoming radicalized. Liberation News recently spoke with one such worker, Noah Carmichael, the field representative for the Akron brick layer’s union, about de-industrialization in northern Ohio, the labor movement, and rebuilding socialism in the Trump era. The opinions expressed herein do not reflect the views of Bricklayers and Allied Crafts and should be understood solely as the personal opinions of Carmichael.
Liberation News: Could you talk a little bit about growing up in Akron?
Noah Carmichael: I grew up on the eastside of Akron, what they call “Goodyear Heights,” which is where the Goodyear facilities and some other factories were. On the east end of town was Goodyear and then closer to the south side of town was Firestone, Bridgestone, and they had a few others. But basically I grew up in the tail-end or the tailspin of that industry. This industry first relocated to the Southern states and then overseas.
Everybody was greatly impacted by the de-industrialization. Everyone I knew had an aunt, an uncle, a grandfather, a father, brother, somebody, their husband–that worked at one of those rubber plants or another factory or manufacturing place that was affiliated with them. And most of them had good Union jobs with decent pay and decent benefits.
LN: What changes have you noticed in the city?
NC: Within the city of Akron, especially where I grew up, what you noticed was first a shift towards the service economy and everybody kind of being afraid of what to do next. The good jobs became more scarce and you kind of had what you have now – a very service based economy. I think Summa Hospital is the largest employer in Akron right now. So, if you’re not in the medical field, you’re kind of scrambling to find a good paying job, a job you can raise a family on.
So the shift to the service economy is probably one of the biggest changes, and coming along with that I think a lot of working class distrust for so-called trade agreements. I don’t know that people understand them fully, but they understand how they were impacted. I think people tend to go back to NAFTA and its fallout, which was pretty devastating to formerly industrialized areas.
And if you read the paper you see they’re almost creating another class – a prisoner class – in this area anyway. The prison system is kind of booming. This opioid epidemic that turned into a heroin epidemic here was actually preceded by a methamphetamine epidemic. I remember Summit County as being one of the largest bases for methamphetamine manufacturing in the country. This is all following that de-industrialization.
LN: How do you think workers have understood these changes?
NC: I think that they were nervous in the beginning and understood that they were going to have to shift towards a service economy as those industrial jobs disappeared. I think there was an understanding of that. I think there’s just been, in general, nervousness ever since then. There are not a lot of people I know that feel secure in their job.
The trade agreements come up again and again. I think more and more working people distrust the two parties for supporting them, and I think rightfully so. I think people get the message that they are supposed to adapt. And some people have given up and turned to drugs and other things. However, as the resurgence of the socialist movement expands into more and more working class communities, hopelessness increasingly gives way to the hope that comes with collective struggle.
LN: How did you come to be involved in the labor movement?
NC: I always wanted to be involved in a union or at least [be] a worker in a union. I just understood the concept: people with money have a lot of rights and a lot of privileges and a lot of authority and the only way for working people to match that authority was to band together.
I started off working in a restaurant that was non-union, and then I moved into the construction industry because I wanted to get in a union. I worked non-union for about two years in the construction industry as a poured-wall laborer and a mason tender and a tile-setter helper, and the whole time I did those jobs I tried to get into a union. So that’s how I became a union member.
I became involved in the labor movement when I was in my early to mid-twenties. I got more serious about showing up to the meetings and trying to understand the organizing process. I got involved little by little: becoming a steward on projects and being appointed a steward from the union hall. This taught me the nuts and bolts of administering and leading the union.
And then I ran for office. I ran for Vice President when I was 27 or 28. I lost the first time I ran for office, but I stayed active and kept running for positions. I’ve stayed involved since then.
LN: What has being a labor leader taught you about the possibility for change?
NC: I think it’s opened up my eyes that not only leadership but rank-and-file has a broader responsibility. And it’s given me a broader perspective, certainly as far as what the inner workings of the union is and the relationship between labor and capital. So, I think its offered me a whole different institutional analysis.
I think it ties back to the membership, the rank-and-file. I’ve got a glimpse of how much power they actually have. The challenge for creating real change is to help the rank and file realize the potential of their collective power.
However, operating within the capitalist system as a trade union leader you are put in a position that forces you to hold back and believe that you can’t be combative every day because it could potentially hurt a lot of people’s lives. Socialism challenges workers to think beyond the limitations of trade unionism.
For example, there is no denying that the struggles over the contract between labor and management are extremely important for the immediate conditions of workers’ lives and therefore have to be approached seriously and diligently by labor leaders. People are making a living, and need some basic immediate needs met. At the same time it is equally true that not challenging the capitalist system as a whole, in the long run, is just as damaging for the working class in general. This is where the rubber hits the road, and what brought me to socialism as a labor leader.
LN: Do you think workers see any hope in Trump solving their problems?
NC: I can speak locally based on my experiences talking with both union and non-union workers. I think they did see hope at first, for sure. I see some backtracking now, and I see some people still hanging on to the “give him a chance” kind of thing.
I think there were some people that understood or believed that Trump’s campaign was a hustle, and there were some other people that thought that his message resonated with them. Trump was talking about infrastructure spending and bringing back U.S. manufacturing. Trump was even anti-interventionist at times but, as we all know, has been reined back in by the imperialist political establishment. This was most obvious when he threw nearly 60 cruise missiles into Syria, and the establishment began to speak more kindly of him.
Trump resonated with a lot of working people even if they don’t really believe that U.S. manufacturing is coming back. They still want a decent job, and the Clinton neoliberal agenda has been a central part of the problem. On top of that, everybody understands that the bridges and roads are falling apart and that there’s work to be done here.
We could also convert to green energy and create jobs that way, and Trump is clearly not moving in that direction. I think that part of his message resonated with some people, in that there is work to be done and they thought he could help them do it. I think that’s where they saw a lot of the hope, even if it was hope with not very much confidence.
The “Alt right” or neo-fascist-right are trying to recruit from this desperation by attaching themselves to Trump. Because the Trump agenda has already proven to be so anti-worker, socialists and the message of unity and anti-bigotry have a real potential to spread. I think there’s a vast amount of opportunity because a lot of people around here who voted for Obama twice, ended up voting for Trump.
LN: What do you think are the most effective ways for socialists to reach workers in our area?
NC: To engage with people without being condescending. I think it’s probably one of the largest problems that I see when you get into any political discussion and when you start to engage with people.
I try to apply a principle to myself in that: you can’t offer somebody a solution if they don’t see a problem. I think probably the first part of the conversation is to point out some of the contradictions within the way of life that we’re living here. I think that’s a good way to start those conversations.
Social media is also a good way to interact. There’s a lot of outreach on social media that you could get involved with. But I think talking with people that you know: friends, neighbors, or whoever. Working to peel the onion layers back little by little. That is the start.
In other countries, socialism isn’t necessarily an “alternative politic.” It’s part of their political system. But in this country, certainly when you try and introduce any kind of new political system or ideas I think you have to introduce it kind of slowly or gently for most people.
So, I think social media is a good way to go. I think young people are also a good base to try and reach. I think they are by-and-large disillusioned with the concept of “upward mobility” and the “American Dream.” I think they are very disillusioned with that.
You have a lot of younger people that were told if they went to college that they would be in good shape. They are not. And I don’t believe that they’re all “lazy millennials” – I think that’s nonsense. Reaching older workers and trades is also important. They’ve been bounced around for the last three or four national elections between two parties that I think a lot of them have basically determined have failed us.
LN: What do you think workers in Akron see as the most pressing issues in their lives?
NC: I think it’s probably the same as it’s been for a long time. Obviously, the most pressing is the ability to go to work every day with dignity and earn a decent wage. To be able to have a society that provides ample work for people, work that interests them, work that’s fruitful for the society – all of those things add value to people’s lives.
Another concern I think everybody shares is access to healthcare, obviously.
Also, having some kind of retirement. You see a lot of instability in these big retirement plans and pensions particularly because of the loss of membership and various other reasons. (market crashes, etc.) People don’t feel secure in their retirement. They don’t feel secure in Social Security. I think those are pretty obvious concerns.
I think most parents or most families want to be able to send their kids to college and take a vacation.
But it’s not just here in Akron. Appalachia is another place that’s been devastated by deindustrialization and the shift from the coal industry to natural gas. It’s basically been left behind and left out of the equation. So, the opportunities are there to talk with young people and to talk with these people that are displaced economically and politically.
The concerns for workers in Akron (access to good jobs, healthcare, education, retirement, some recreation or social life) are the basic concerns that everybody shares. I think that’s worldwide. It goes across gender, race, religion, nationality. I think that those are ideals that everybody can just pretty much agree on, and the best way to achieve them is through socialism.
LN: Is there anything you could say about how to educate young people about labor unions?
NC: Even in a working class area where I grew up, I think of all the history classes I ever took in public education, and we might have spent a few hours in a school year talking about labor history. Looking back now, it’s astounding because, like I said, I grew up in an area where it was all working class people. Everything was connected to those large rubber factories and the steel mills in Cleveland and Canton, and it was all heavily impacted by the labor movement. We did not learn history from the perspective of our own class.
My advice for anybody that does know labor history is to do everything that they can to dispel myths and to teach everybody that they come across. Whether they sit in a classroom and teach them or whether they’re just at a dinner party or at a friend’s house, they should educate people about what unions and the labor movement have done for people in the past, and why they are still under attack.
A lot of people don’t even realize that things like the eight-hour day are things workers fought for.
I hear this a lot: “Unions are irrelevant now.” This is exactly what management wants people to believe because unions give power to the masses. Whether it’s a bricklayer’s union, a burger-flipper’s union, a teacher’s union, a professor’s union – they give power to those groups, which takes power away from the top, the elite.
LN: What specifically brought you to socialism?
NC: Growing up working class probably had the biggest influence on me. Watching my parents and grandparents work as hard as they did showed me that the idea of meritocracy is not really how capitalism works. It is really about capitalists exploiting workers. I know a lot of hard working people that still struggle. I represent a lot of them in my union.
Once I began to study socialism, I realized that there are many scientific methods you can apply to social structures to ensure a more stable and humane existence for people. If you study Marx and Engels, you begin to understand that capitalism cannot be reformed.
The struggle is going to have to be reinvigorated and led by professional people, and largely by service employees, because you don’t have 300,000 auto workers anymore. You don’t have 200,000 rubber workers anymore. It’s just not there anymore. So, you don’t have that industrial mass base. We can’t afford to separate ourselves anymore.
