Minnesota strike:
Standing up to a wartime crisis
Lessons for the labor movement
By Milt Neidenberg
They had no choice. On Oct. 1, a week before Pres. George W.
Bush ordered a full-scale war against the people of
Afghanistan, more than 28,000 Minnesota state employees
rejected the state's offer and walked off their jobs. With more
than half the state workers on strike, government services shut
down.
Even as the picket lines were being set up in St. Paul,
Duluth and around the state, even before the Pentagon bombing
had started, Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura and every business
leader, editorial writer, labor academic and anti-union hack
around the state began a coordinated witch hunt. Screaming
"unpatriotic," they condemned the strikers for walking out
during a national wartime crisis.
In no time, Governor Ventura ordered nearly 1,000 National
Guard members to scab in 120 state-run hospital care centers,
replacing social workers, psychologists, nurses' aides, food
workers and janitors. Sending in these troops offers no comfort
to those who need expert and professional care.
Once the bombing of Afghanistan began, these attacks from on
high, draped in patriotic fervor, were ratcheted up against the
Minnesota unions and their members. As of this writing, both
parties have agreed to begin mediation talks on Oct. 11.
The workers had been without a contract since June. They
agreed to a wage freeze in 1993 and have been struggling to
catch up ever since. For eight years, they have settled for
contracts that offered wages less than the inflation rate,
while at the same time the Minnesota state government handed
over huge surpluses to the wealthiest in tax rebates.
Now the workers are rightfully demanding decent compensation
in wages and benefits for the sacrifices they made during those
years. They have reached the breaking point.
The two unions involved are the Minnesota Association of
Professional Employees, representing about 10,500 members, and
the American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees, representing about 19,000. These unions rejected a
contract that once again offered wages less than the inflation
rate and demanded givebacks in their health plans.
AFSCME, representing the lower-paid work force, was offered
a one-time 3-percent raise over two years. The professional
association was offered 4 percent over the same period.
Will the mediation efforts provide the union with a measure
of economic justice?
Forewarned is forearmed
History has provided lessons of what the labor movement must
be prepared for during wartime.
An example of this was found in two recent articles, written
on Oct. 2 and Oct. 5 by New York Times labor reporter Steven
Greenhouse. He referred to a study by a professor of labor
relations at the University of Illinois on how Presidents Harry
Truman and Dwight Eisenhower attacked every strike as
unpatriotic during the McCarthyite Cold War witch-hunts in the
U.S. after World War II and the Korean War.
Why is Greenhouse going back half a century? He is conveying
a message to the AFL-CIO from a large section of Corporate
America meant to discourage labor struggles in this wartime
period. Workers must make the sacrifices, they say, not the
rich.
Greenhouse doesn't mention how many rank-and-file protests,
strikes and other forms of job actions took place during those
decades. But he does know full well that the top labor
officials at that time buckled under the pressure of the
McCarthy witch-hunts and the Korean War.
Those serious setbacks and losses suffered by the labor
movement then are still felt to this day. Today the national
commentators, the big-business media, the anti-union,
right-wing hacks and academic puppets want to turn back the
clock to that infamous period.
It's a class war
The class war waged by the owners of banking and industry
against the workers and oppressed began escalating here long
before the first bombs rained down on Afghanistan.
A biennial report from the Economic Policy Institute issued
in 1999 cited that the "poorest 20 percent of the nation's
working families experienced a drop in their share of the
nation's total household income."
This report was issued during a boom period, before the
current recession. Now these workers face an alarming rate of
unemployment without having accumulated any savings. Personal
bankruptcies and debt are at an all-time high.
What a contrast to the earnings of the bosses. The AFL-CIO
Executive Pay Watch quotes a Business Week annual survey
showing the average CEO of a major corporation made $12.4
million in 1999--that's 475 times more than an average
blue-collar worker.
The gap between rich and poor has widened even more
dramatically since then. J.P. Morgan/Chase, the global banking
giant, oversees $300 billion in assets belonging to 60,000
families worldwide, each with a net worth of $30 million or
more. (New York Times, Oct. 7)
But now that the war against Afghan istan has actually
begun, the Bush administration and the Democratic me-too-ers
are setting a campaign in motion that will intensify this class
warfare. It is nothing more than a terror attack and
declaration of war against the multinational working
class--organized and unorganized--and the millions who are now
unemployed and poor.
The Bush administration hopes that its bombing of
Afghanistan and patriotic frenzy will divert the workers and
oppressed here from the hardships they face in the class
war.
Can anyone deny that the U.S. military attack is also part
of their global war strategy to control property and wealth
abroad--wealth built upon the misery, hunger, poverty and
illness of billions of oppressed peoples of many nationalities
and religions?
President Bush, Congress, and corporate and banking tycoons
want to pacify the unions and their members so that they'll
accept the layoffs, unemployment and cutbacks--such as in
Social Security insurance and other benefits--as a result of
the war effort. In contrast, Wall Street will be receiving
$60-75 billion that Bush had added to the fiscal 2002 budget.
This massive giveaway to the corporations and banks, as well as
the calls for sacrifices by workers, must be the targets of
struggle by the labor movement.
The AFL-CIO, if it is to survive and grow, must also develop
a strategy of resistance and fightback to the
government-orchestrated war frenzy. Overcoming the call for
sacrifices in the name of patriotism and war will be a
monumental task.
The AFL-CIO has reached a crossroads imposed upon it by
these recent events. It must take a position independent from
its traditional political "allies" in Washington.
There is a rising movement of anti-war, anti-racist and
anti-globalization forces. It is a young movement that has
shown remarkable courage in recent protests and rallies. They
have taken the road to struggle, as shown by the tens of
thousands who protested in Washington, San Francisco, Chicago,
Los Angeles and other cities in the U.S. only a week before the
Pentagon bombing of Afghanistan.
It is necessary that the labor movement take this road and
join them.
As the courageous strike of more than 28,000 Minnesota state
workers led by AFSCME and the Association of Professional
Employees enters mediation, the workers are determined to get
economic and social justice in spite of the war frenzy. This is
a splendid and heroic example for the labor movement to
emulate.
Reprinted from the Oct. 18, 2001, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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Email: ww@workers.org
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