Which road forward for labor?
Published Jul 20, 2005 10:09 PM
The AFL-CIO leadership is gathering at a crucial moment for the
labor movement and the entire working class in this country. The attacks of
the bosses and the government are escalating on all fronts, from the destruction
of pensions, to mass layoffs, to take backs in health care, as well as
all-around union busting.
The debate in the labor movement over how to
turn the situation around and move on to the offensive is a welcome development.
There has been too little of it in the labor movement over the decades.
But the terms of the debate initiated by the Change to Win Coali tion
avoid the fundamental questions facing organized labor. Worse, Andrew Stern of
SEIU has repeatedly threatened to split from the AFL-CIO if his demands are not
met.
Change-to-Win made the debate revolve around issues of federation
structure and the allocation of funds. It is better to spend money on organizing
workers than to throw it down the drain paying for the campaigns of capitalist
politicians, the way the John Sweeney leadership shamelessly did in the last
election campaign. And no one can deny that centralizing the labor movement for
struggle has its advantages.
Begin with the rank-and-file
But
the keys to reviving the labor movement and expanding its numbers do not lie in
restructuring or reallocation of funds.
First and foremost, labor’s
future depends upon mobilizing its real core resource—the strength, energy
and enthusiasm of the millions of rank-and-file workers who are its heart and
soul. No advance can take place without this. And this is what the bosses fear
the most.
Former Teamsters president Ron Carey shook up the corporate
rulers in 1998 when he mobilized the ranks as he built unity between the
full-time, part-time and temporary workers. The UPS workers battled the scabs
and refused to be cowed by calls for a Taft-Hartley injunction.
With
organization, the solidarity of the higher-paid and the lower-paid workers and
militant struggle, the Teamsters won a stunning victory against the mighty UPS.
This triumph awakened hope and enthusiasm in the workers. But instead of
building upon the UPS victory to make it a turning point in the fightback, the
entire AFL-CIO leadership shamelessly put their tails between their legs and
watched as Carey was framed up and crucified by the capitalist government.
It is not surprising that neither the Stern group nor the Sweeney
leadership has made mobilizing the membership for class struggle a part of their
platform. In fact, the debate itself between these two camps has been largely
confined to the upper echelons of the labor movement. This top-down style has
left the ranks in the dark.
Fight for the whole working
class
The labor movement can grow by becoming a beacon of progress and
fighting for the needs of the entire working class and the oppressed communities
throughout the country. The words “labor” and “union”
must become identified not only with the fight for wages and benefits, but with
the fight for causes like national health care, affordable housing, immigrant
rights, the right of women to choose, turning the Pentagon budget into funding
for schools and clinics and day care centers, ending racism and police
brutality, defending the right to same-sex marriage and putting an end to the
occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
In order to grow, labor must reach
out to the millions of workers, women and men of all races, nationalities and
sexual identities, documented and undocumented. It must mobilize to meet their
needs and defend their rights against the bosses and the government. The union
movement must strive to change the reactionary political atmosphere which breeds
fear and timidity among the workers. Fighting for the class as a whole will
breed enthusiasm, hope and confidence and help pave the way to organize the
unorganized.
Oppose war and the big business
parties
This class-wide approach was raised on Oct. 17, 2004, with the
Million Worker March Movement. The MWM, organized by a bicoastal Black union
leadership, marched on Washington, D.C., to raise social and economic issues.
But they also took the historic step, in the midst of a presidential election
campaign, of demanding that labor be independent of the two capitalist parties
and that it oppose the occupation in Iraq.
The war budget is swallowing
the wealth and resources needed by the working class to survive on a daily
basis. The people of Iraq are suffering death and destruction while U.S.
soldiers are being killed and wounded, all for the colonial occupation sought by
anti-labor U.S. trans national corporations. The Demo cratic Party leadership,
despite all their complaints about Bush and Rumsfeld, are solidly for continuing
the occupation and the war—the only difference is they want more
troops.
Neither Change to Win nor the Sweeney leadership has opposed the
war. And both cling to the capitalist parties.
NED versus
international solidarity
In the era of globalization,
international class solidarity is more and more important as a practical matter.
Yet, the AFL-CIO leadership refuses to break with the National Endowment for
Democracy, which is a corporate and CIA front. The Stern leadership has been
silent on the issue. Right now NED is waging a subversive war against the Hugo
Chávez government in Venezuela. Chávez is fighting to raise the
standard of living and defend the rights of workers and peasants. He is opposed
by U.S. big business, led by U.S. oil companies.
Despite all these common
positions on fundamental issues, the Change to Win group is threatening a split.
To split the labor movement at a time of weakness, when the class enemy is
united and when the split will further weaken labor, is reckless.
Stern
makes a false analogy with the break of the CIO from the AFL in 1936. But that
split vastly strengthened the labor movement. The CIO was formed as a committee
inside the AFL in 1935. It grew under the pressure of hundreds of thousands of
industrial workers demanding organization who were being rejected by the
AFL’s narrow, aristocratic, craft leadership. It was a period of upsurge
and there were 1,000 sit-down strikes reported between 1935 and 1937. Much of
the crucial organizing was carried out by socialists and communists.
The
split was driven by the rank-and-file workers and it enabled the labor movement
to more than double in two years. When John L. Lewis led the CIO split from the
AFL, he was operating from a pre-existing position of strength based on the most
intense period of mass organizing in the history of U.S. labor.
The
present situation is a far cry from that.
Strengthen labor
from the ground up
If Stern and the Change to Win Coalition
want to revive the labor movement, they do not need to split to start things
going. These are unions with major resources. They can start by setting the
example. First bring in the rank-and-file. Start preparing a coordinated effort
in the class struggle against a corporate target.
Open up an appeal to
the entire working class. Organize a campaign for the millions of immigrant
workers, who need labor’s help and who could greatly strengthen the labor
movement. Find a way to show solidarity with the Millions More March this coming
October, which promises to be a massive outpouring of the Black community.
Use the resources already available to open up a political struggle
against the anti-working class Bush administration with a major march on
Washington—without handing the movement over to the Democratic Party.
The needs of the multinational working class are vast. It is under
pressure as U.S. capitalism spreads across the globe, seeking sweatshops, lower
wages and non-union work forces. The corporations are shipping their factories
and offices to every continent. They coordinate production and sales with the
means of communication and transpor tation brought about by the
scientific-technological revolution.
The working class is being organized
into a disciplined world-wide work force which cooperates in the process of
socially coordinated production under the direction of giant capitalist
monopolies.
The working class, in order to be truly independent of the
ruling class, must ultimately organize not just against the corporations, but to
get rid of the system of capitalist exploitation entirely under which these
corporations rule. The ultimate goal of those who want to organize labor for its
true emancipation must be to establish a system of social ownership operating
for human need, not for profit—that is, socialism.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
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