I’m sure they have very different personalities and personal politics. However, there is a long history of radicals taking official union positions and ending up die-hard reformists. Radicals really need to work on an analysis of union bureaucracy and structures.

What are the relations between union officials and rank and file workers? Are union officials still part of the working class? If not where not they fit in the class structures of capitalism? How much agency can a radical really have as a union official in a modern union? Why is a small, but growing, number of radicals taking up official positions in unions, yet we have not seen any increase in radicalism across the working class as a whole? Can union officials help build democracy or can it only came from rank and file members?

It’s a systemic issues and it requires a systemic analysis combined with a radical plan of action.

Stephen

PS. If Nick or anyone else has that plan I beg of you please share it with us.

PSS. I don't think Paul Tolich was ever radical (but other people were and ended up much like him).