In 1980, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) was in heated negotiations with the U.S. federal government. The government, under Democrat Jimmy Carter, had led a wave of deregulation and privatization in the airline industry, and air traffic controllers were upset. So they made an unconventional strategic choice—they reached out to the Republicans.
“I pledge to you that my administration will work very closely with you to bring about a spirit of cooperation between the President and the air traffic controllers,” Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan wrote in a letter to PATCO. He promised to "take whatever steps are necessary to provide our air traffic controllers with the most modern equipment available, and to adjust staff levels and workdays so they are commensurate with achieving the maximum degree of public safety."
PATCO endorsed Reagan for president. The International Brotherhood of the Teamsters, one of the largest labour unions in the U.S., did so as well.
Observers commented that this might mark a break in the traditional alliance between organized labour and the left. Reagan, after all, had donned a Teamsters jacket in Flint, Michigan and spoken to a crowd of automotive workers about how Jimmy Carter was shipping jobs overseas, and a Reagan presidency would defend good unionized work. Was it the beginning of a new era of working-class conservatism?
Reagan won in a landslide in 1980. In 1981, PATCO members went on strike. Reagan fired every single striking worker—a total of 11,345 air traffic controllers—and legally decertified their union. It was a watershed moment that broke the back of U.S. labour and instilled a climate of fear among organized workers, laying the groundwork for decades of rollbacks of hard-won gains and unprecedented deindustrialization that hollowed out the American working class. The U.S. labour movement never recovered.
Same as the old boss
The idea of an ascendant “working class conservatism” is once again a hot topic among political observers. In the U.S., Donald Trump and running mate JD Vance are trying to make it their brand, with speeches at their party convention vowing to take on corporate elites and stand up for the American worker.
In Canada, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has been singing the same tune, speaking to trade unions about the injustices faced by working people in Canada.
Speaking to a room full of trades workers in April, Poilievre promised to “put an end to the abuse of the temporary foreign worker program”—to applause from the audience. “My government policy will be very simple. There will be no tax dollars to subsidize foreign workers. Our tax dollars are for our workers in this country, period,”
“When I’m prime minister,” Poilievre said elsewhere, “my daily obsession will be about what is good for the working-class people of this country,”
Fundamentally, such rhetoric is much more about dividing the working class—between citizens and non-citizens, Canadians and foreigners—than it is about supporting workers. But even just mentioning the desire to support Canadian workers represents a break with recent right-wing politics, which had focused on free markets, deregulation, anti-tax populism, and entrepreneurialism.
In that old vision, the small business owner—not the worker—was the main avatar for regular, salt-of-the-earth Canadians. Of course, those imaginary small business owners just happened to have the same interests as the large corporations who benefit the most from right-wing economic policy. Workers were an afterthought, one that right-wing politicians and their communications machines rarely discussed in public, other than periodic shots against unions.
No more, it seems. Right-wing political parties are making a concerted attempt, following the lead of Donald Trump, to appear to be in favour of the working man. Gone are the days when leading right-wingers met any mention of workers’ rights or social inequality with accusations of socialism—now those actors have seen that they can get a payoff by using populist, anti-elite language.
But really, that’s all it is—language. Despite Poilievre pontificating about elites, the board of his party is made up predominantly of corporate lobbyists, real estate agents, and anti-worker organizations. It also includes the director of a company that charters private jets for the super-wealthy.
Like Reagan before him, Poilievre (and Trump) are courting the votes of working people by making regular references to their struggles—from rising costs of living and economic uncertainty to increasing perceptions (if not realities) of violent crime. Like Reagan before them, these new right-wing leaders will immediately implement major legislative attacks on workers the moment they are in power and no longer need to court votes.
Of course, such attacks will look different today than they did during the Reagan era. Four decades of economic restructuring mean that it’s less feasible today to openly ship jobs overseas—the trade deals are already in place, there are no more frontiers to open. This new “pro-worker” orientation among right-wing parties is, in part, an acknowledgement of the fact that their previous economic policies are deeply unpopular, and campaigning on them is now a ticket to consistent electoral losses.
Rather than new trade deals and offshoring, we should brace for right-wing parties, once in power, to dismantle policies that protect workers and the environment at the expense of corporate profits. Workplace safety laws, environmental protection laws, and equity laws all impose costs on corporations in order to ensure that workers and the places they live are protected from being totally destroyed in the name of profit-making. Corporate interests will always come ahead of worker interests for the right wing.
The previous generation of business interests wanted to move jobs to low-cost and low-regulation zones in order to increase their profits. Now the strategy is to make the domestic environment low-cost and low-regulation—a race to the bottom.
Letting companies do whatever they want, without regard for social costs, is certainly one way to bring jobs back—bad jobs. Of course, it’s an absurd proposal—but that’s the promise of “working class conservatism” as it exists today. They’ll promise to bring back the jobs that left in the ’80s and ’90s, but, in reality, companies will pay workers minimum wage and dump toxic sludge in the river where your town gets its drinking water.
Don’t fall for the ruse
Sean O’Brien, president of the Teamsters, stood on stage at the Republican National Convention on July 15, 2024. Donald Trump, being anointed the Republican candidate, beamed a smile in the audience.
“It's an honor to be the first Teamster in our 121-year history to address the Republican national convention,” O’Brien said, during a speech that tackled corporate profiteering and demanded stronger labour laws. It would have been a good speech if it were delivered on a picket line.
The audience responded coldly to O’Brien’s speech—but the people in the room weren’t the audience that mattered, really. The Republicans, even more than the Conservatives in Canada, have spent significant resources trying to reframe their public image as a workers’ party—despite continuing to systematically push an anti-worker agenda. This was for the TV cameras.
And it worked. In the week since O’Brien’s speech, a lot of ink has been spilled and debates held about whether the “new” Republican party is suddenly pro-worker. Frankly, if you’re falling for this, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
Just like Reagan courting PATCO workers, Donald Trump puts a hard hat on in coal country, and Pierre Poilievre puts on a plaid shirt and rails against lobbyists and elites. But just like Reagan, this offer is a bait-and-switch scam. We are not undergoing a class realignment among the major parties—we are just seeing pro-boss politicians adapt their language to the growing popularity of the labour movement, without changing the substance of their programs.
Labour would do best by recognizing that for what it is, and acting accordingly.
