Showing posts with label union organizing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label union organizing. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

On The Wisconsin Recall Elections- The Limits of Parliamentary Tactics In Today's Class Struggle

Click on the headline to link to a news article concerning the recent Wisconsin recall elections in which those who advocated such a tactic were defeated.

Markin comment:
In the class struggle which is now raging more than somewhat in this country, a one-sided class struggle for the most part that we are not winning or even close to doing so, the militant labor movement has learned to use many forms of protest strategy and tactics. One such arena is the parliamentary struggle. But as the results here from the special recall election in Wisconsin show that is not always our most effective way to win what we need. Especially in this case where the fundamental labor right to have our own organizations for collective bargaining was at stake.

The attempt to try to defend that right, as has now happened in Wisconsin, by parliamentary means, has always struck me as somewhat utopian. Depending on the whims of an electorate, any electorate, where labor’s votes count for no more than a tea-partyite or those of any other political persuasion just did not make sense to me. Not these days. During the past winter when the Wisconsin organized working class was up in arms, both public and private, and with many in-state supporters as well as a groundswell of others nationally, there were calls for a general strike as a way to fight back. I raised that call in this space and others did in theirs as well. Who knows if that would have stopped this frontal attack on labor’s basic rights. What I do know is that it should have been tested under those circumstances. Yesterday’s defeats in Wisconsin only makes that more evident.

Victory To The Verizon Workers!- All Out In Support Of The Communcation Workers Of America (CWA) And International Brotherhood Of Electrical Workers (IBEW)!- Labor Needs A Victory Here Now!-Defend The Picket Lines At All Costs!

Click on the headline to link to the Communication Workers Of America website for the latest in their strike action against "fat cat" Verizon.

Markin comment:

The issues: wages, health care, conditions of work, pensions and out-sourcing a now familiar litany of things that used to be negotiated without much muse or fuse but now entail a "cold" civil war in the class struggle. We need a win here, especially after the last few years. Victory to the Verizon workers! All out in solidarity with the Verizon workers! In the Northeast walk the pickets lines in solidarity!

Saturday, May 28, 2011

The Latest From The “Jobs For Justice” Website-Excluded Workers Congress Convenes International Conference

Click on the headline to link to the Jobs For Justice website.

Excluded Workers Congress Convenes International Conference

By jwjnational, on May 20th, 2011

AFL-CIO President Trumka and Domestic Workers United sing partnership agreement.

On May 10-12 in New York, NY, the Excluded Workers Congress convened its first International Conference to strategize the way forward for workers in sectors unprotected by current US labor laws. With allies from throughout the world, including worker organizations from India and South Africa, the discussion focused on identifying pressure points in global capital where excluded workers could continue to build power. Annanya Bhattacharjee of the Asia Floor Wage campaign lifted up strategies that crossed national borders, lifting the floor for everyone. Pat Horn, of the South African organization StreetNet International, drew similarities between excluded workers in the US and the movement to promote the rights of street vendors in South Africa. And Ashim Roy of the New Trade Union Initiative in India, lifted up the need from stronger coordination across borders, and noted that many of the Indian guestworkers now organized within the National Guestworkers Alliance were members of NTUI back home in India.


Jobs with Justice delegation to the Excluded Worker Congress conference.
In keeping with tradition, the Congress was launched with a bang—with President Trumka joining the opening press conference to sign partnership agreements between the AFL-CIO and the National Domestic Workers Alliance and the National Guestworkers Alliance. These partnerships indicate the exciting and complex relationship between sectors of the Excluded Workers Congress and allies within the trade union movement—opening the door to improved collaboration, locally and nationally.

Specific strategy sessions were held around the primary campaigns of the Excluded Workers Congress—including the Power Act, which would protect guest workers from employer retaliation if they file a labor complaint, and the minimum wage.

The Excluded Workers Congress will convene again in the fall.

Tuesday, April 05, 2011

Notes From The Class-War- From The Pen Of Leon Trotsky- "Trade Unions In The Epoch Of Imperialist Decay"

Markin comment:

This late work (1940) by Leon Trotsky is required reading for today's trade union and pro-working class militants who need some background in why it is necessary for our working class trade unions to maintain their independence from the imperial state.

Leon Trotsky
Trade Unions in the Epoch
of Imperialist Decay
(1940)

First Published in English: Fourth International [New York], Vol.2 No.2, February 1941, pp.40-43.
Online Version: Marxists Internet Archive, 2003.
Transcribed/HTML Markup: David Walters in 2003.
Copyleft: Leon Trotsky Internet Archive www.marxists.org 2003. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(The manuscript of the following article was found in Trotsky’s desk. Obviously, it was by no means a completed article, but rather the rough notes for an article on the subject indicated by his title. He had been writing them shortly before his death. – The Editors of FI)



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There is one common feature in the development, or more correctly the degeneration, of modern trade union organizations in the entire world: it is their drawing closely to and growing together with the state power. This process is equally characteristic of the neutral, the Social-Democratic, the Communist and “anarchist” trade unions. This fact alone shows that the tendency towards “growing together” is intrinsic not in this or that doctrine as such but derives from social conditions common for all unions.

Monopoly capitalism does not rest on competition and free private initiative but on centralized command. The capitalist cliques at the head of mighty trusts, syndicates, banking consortiums, etcetera, view economic life from the very same heights as does state power; and they require at every step the collaboration of the latter. In their turn the trade unions in the most important branches of industry find themselves deprived of the possibility of profiting by the competition between the different enterprises. They have to confront a centralized capitalist adversary, intimately bound up with state power. Hence flows the need of the trade unions – insofar as they remain on reformist positions, ie., on positions of adapting themselves to private property – to adapt themselves to the capitalist state and to contend for its cooperation. In the eyes of the bureaucracy of the trade union movement the chief task lies in “freeing” the state from the embrace of capitalism, in weakening its dependence on trusts, in pulling it over to their side. This position is in complete harmony with the social position of the labor aristocracy and the labor bureaucracy, who fight for a crumb in the share of superprofits of imperialist capitalism. The labor bureaucrats do their level best in words and deeds to demonstrate to the “democratic” state how reliable and indispensable they are in peace-time and especially in time of war. By transforming the trade unions into organs of the state, fascism invents nothing new; it merely draws to their ultimate conclusion the tendencies inherent in imperialism.

Colonial and semi-colonial countries are under the sway not of native capitalism but of foreign imperialism. However, this does not weaken but on the contrary, strengthens the need of direct, daily, practical ties between the magnates of capitalism and the governments which are in essence subject to them – the governments of colonial or semi-colonial countries. Inasmuch as imperialist capitalism creates both in colonies and semi-colonies a stratum of labor aristocracy and bureaucracy, the latter requires the support of colonial and semicolonial governments, as protectors, patrons and, sometimes, as arbitrators. This constitutes the most important social basis for the Bonapartist and semi-Bonapartist character of governments in the colonies and in backward countries generally. This likewise constitutes the basis for the dependence of reformist unions upon the state.

In Mexico the trade unions have been transformed by law into semi-state institutions and have, in the nature of things, assumed a semi-totalitarian character. The stateization of the trade unions was, according to the conception of the legislators, introduced in the interests of the workers in order to assure them an influence upon the governmental and economic life. But insofar as foreign imperialist capitalism dominates the national state and insofar as it is able, with the assistance of internal reactionary forces, to overthrow the unstable democracy and replace it with outright fascist dictatorship, to that extent the legislation relating to the trade unions can easily become a weapon in the hands of imperialist dictatorship.



Slogans for Freeing the Unions
From the foregoing it seems, at first sight, easy to draw the conclusion that the trade unions cease to be trade unions in the imperialist epoch. They leave almost no room at all for workers’ democracy which, in the good old days, when free trade ruled on the economic arena, constituted the content of the inner life of labor organizations. In the absence of workers’ democracy there cannot be any free struggle for the influence over the trade union membership. And because of this, the chief arena of work for revolutionists within the trade unions disappears. Such a position, however, would be false to the core. We cannot select the arena and the conditions for our activity to suit our own likes and dislikes. It is infinitely more difficult to fight in a totalitarian or a semitotalitarian state for influence over the working masses than in a democracy. The very same thing likewise applies to trade unions whose fate reflects the change in the destiny of capitalist states. We cannot renounce the struggle for influence over workers in Germany merely because the totalitarian regime makes such work extremely difficult there. We cannot, in precisely the same way, renounce the struggle within the compulsory labor organizations created by Fascism. All the less so can we renounce internal systematic work in trade unions of totalitarian and semi-totalitarian type merely because they depend directly or indirectly on the workers’ state or because the bureaucracy deprives the revolutionists of the possibility of working freely within these trade unions. It is necessary to conduct a struggle under all those concrete conditions which have been created by the preceding developments, including therein the mistakes of the working class and the crimes of its leaders. In the fascist and semi-fascist countries it is impossible to carry on revolutionary work that is not underground, illegal, conspiratorial. Within the totalitarian and semi-totalitarian unions it is impossible or well-nigh impossible to carry on any except conspiratorial work. It is necessary to adapt ourselves to the concrete conditions existing in the trade unions of every given country in order to mobilize the masses not only against the bourgeoisie but also against the totalitarian regime within the trade unions themselves and against the leaders enforcing this regime. The primary slogan for this struggle is: complete and unconditional independence of the trade unions in relation to the capitalist state. This means a struggle to turn the trade unions into the organs of the broad exploited masses and not the organs of a labor aristocracy.

* * *
The second slogan is: trade union democracy. This second slogan flows directly from the first and presupposes for its realization the complete freedom of the trade unions from the imperialist or colonial state.

In other words, the trade unions in the present epoch cannot simply be the organs of democracy as they were in the epoch of free capitalism and they cannot any longer remain politically neutral, that is, limit themselves to serving the daily needs of the working class. They cannot any longer be anarchistic, i.e. ignore the decisive influence of the state on the life of peoples and classes. They can no longer be reformist, because the objective conditions leave no room for any serious and lasting reforms. The trade unions of our time can either serve as secondary instruments of imperialist capitalism for the subordination and disciplining of workers and for obstructing the revolution, or, on the contrary, the trade unions can become the instruments of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat.

* * *
The neutrality of the trade unions is completely and irretrievably a thing of the past, gone together with the free bourgeois democracy.

* * *
From what has been said it follows quite clearly that, in spite of the progressive degeneration of trade unions and their growing together with the imperialist state, the work within the trade unions not only does not lose any of its importance but remains as before and becomes in a certain sense even more important work than ever for every revolutionary party. The matter at issue is essentially the struggle for influence over the working class. Every organization, every party, every faction which permits itself an ultimatistic position in relation to the trade union, i.e., in essence turns its back upon the working class, merely because of displeasure with its organizations, every such organization is destined to perish. And it must be said it deserves to perish.

* * *
Inasmuch as the chief role in backward countries is not played by national but by foreign capitalism, the national bourgeoisie occupies, in the sense of its social position, a much more minor position than corresponds with the development of industry. Inasmuch as foreign capital does not import workers but proletarianizes the native population, the national proletariat soon begins playing the most important role in the life of the country. In these conditions the national government, to the extent that it tries to show resistance to foreign capital, is compelled to a greater or lesser degree to lean on the proletariat. On the other hand, the governments of those backward countries which consider inescapable or more profitable for themselves to march shoulder to shoulder with foreign capital, destroy the labor organizations and institute a more or less totalitarian regime. Thus, the feebleness of the national bourgeoisie, the absence of traditions of municipal self-government, the pressure of foreign capitalism and the relatively rapid growth of the proletariat, cut the ground from under any kind of stable democratic regime. The governments of backward, i.e., colonial and semi-colonial countries, by and large assume a Bonapartist or semi-Bonapartist character; and differ from one another in this, that some try to orient in a democratic direction, seeking support among workers and peasants, while others install a form close to military-police dictatorship. This likewise determines the fate of the trade unions. They either stand under the special patronage of the state or they are subjected to cruel persecution. Patronage on the part of the state is dictated by two tasks which confront it.. First, to draw the working class closer thus gaining a support for resistance against excessive pretensions on the part of imperialism; and, at the same time, to discipline the workers themselves by placing them under the control of a bureaucracy.

* * *
Monopoly Capitalism and the Unions
Monopoly capitalism is less and less willing to reconcile itself to the independence of trade unions. It demands of the reformist bureaucracy and the labor aristocracy who pick the crumbs from its banquet table, that they become transformed into its political police before the eyes of the working class. If that is not achieved, the labor bureaucracy is driven away and replaced by the fascists. Incidentally, all the efforts of the labor aristocracy in the service of imperialism cannot in the long run save them from destruction.

The intensification of class contradictions within each country, the intensification of antagonisms between one country and another, produce a situation in which imperialist capitalism can tolerate (i.e., up to a certain time) a reformist bureaucracy only if the latter serves directly as a petty but active stockholder of its imperialist enterprises, of its plans and programs within the country as well as on the world arena. Social-reformism must become transformed into social-imperialism in order to prolong its existence, but only prolong it, and nothing more. Because along this road there is no way out in general.

Does this mean that in the epoch of imperialism independent trade unions are generally impossible? It would be fundamentally incorrect to pose the question this way. Impossible are the independent or semi-independent reformist trade unions. Wholly possible are revolutionary trade unions which not only are not stockholders of imperialist policy but which set as their task the direct overthrow of the rule of capitalism. In the epoch of imperialist decay the trade unions can be really independent only to the extent that they are conscious of being, in action, the organs of proletarian revolution. In this sense, the program of transitional demands adopted by the last congress of the Fourth International is not only the program for the activity of the party but in its fundamental features it is the program for the activity of the trade unions.

(Translator’s note: At this point Trotsky left room on the page, to expound further the connection between trade union activity and the Transitional Program of the Fourth International. It is obvious that implied here is a very powerful argument in favor of military training under trade union control. The following idea is implied: Either the trade unions serve as the obedient recruiting sergeants for the imperialist army and imperialist war or they train workers for self-defense and revolution.)

The development of backward countries is characterized by its combined character. In other words, the last word of imperialist technology, economics, and politics is combined in these countries with traditional backwardness and primitiveness. This law can be observed in the most diverse spheres of the development of colonial and semi-colonial countries, including the sphere of the trade union movement. Imperialist capitalism operates here in its most cynical and naked form. It transports to virgin soil the most perfected methods of its tyrannical rule.

* * *
In the trade union movement throughout the world there is to be observed in the last period a swing to the right and the suppression of internal democracy. In England, the Minority Movement in the trade unions has been crushed (not without the assistance of Moscow); the leaders of the trade union movement are today, especially in the field of foreign policy, the obedient agents of the Conservative party. In France there was no room for an independent existence for Stalinist trade unions; they united with the so-called anarcho-syndicalist trade unions under the leadership of Jouhaux and as a result of this unification there was a general shift of the trade union movement not to the left but to the right. The leadership of the CGT is the most direct and open agency of French imperialist capitalism.

In the United States the trade union movement has passed through the most stormy history in recent years. The rise of the CIO is incontrovertible evidence of the revolutionary tendencies within the working masses. Indicative and noteworthy in the highest degree, however, is the fact that the new “leftist” trade union organization was no sooner founded than it fell into the steel embrace of the imperialist state. The struggle among the tops between the old federation and the new is reducible in large measure to the struggle for the sympathy and support of Roosevelt and his cabinet.

No less graphic, although in a different sense, is the picture of the development or the degeneration of the trade union movement in Spain. In the socialist trade unions all those leading elements which to any degree represented the independence of the trade union movement were pushed out. As regards the anarcho-syndicalist unions, they were transformed into the instrument of the bourgeois republicans; the anarcho-syndicalist leaders became conservative bourgeois ministers. The fact that this metamorphosis took place in conditions of civil war does not weaken its significance. War is the continuation of the self-same policies. It speeds up processes, exposes their basic features, destroys all that is rotten, false, equivocal and lays bare all that is essential. The shift of the trade unions to the right was due to the sharpening of class and international contradictions. The leaders of the trade union movement sensed or understood, or were given to understand, that now was no time to play the game of opposition. Every oppositional movement within the trade union movement, especially among the tops, threatens to provoke a stormy movement of the masses and to create difficulties for national imperialism. Hence flows the swing of the trade unions to the right, and the suppression of workers’ democracy within the unions. The basic feature, the swing towards the totalitarian regime, passes through the labor movement of the whole world.

We should also recall Holland, where the reformist and the trade union movement was not only a reliable prop of imperialist capitalism, but where the so-called anarcho-syndicalist organization also was actually under the control of the imperialist government. The secretary of this organization, Sneevliet, in spite of his Platonic sympathies for the Fourth International was as deputy in the Dutch Parliament most concerned lest the wrath of the government descend upon his trade union organization.

* * *
In the United States the Department of Labor with its leftist bureaucracy has as its task the subordination of the trade union movement to the democratic state and it must be said that this task has up to now been solved with some success.

* * *
The nationalization of railways and oil fields in Mexico has of course nothing in common with socialism. It is a measure of state capitalism in a backward country which in this way seeks to defend itself on the one hand against foreign imperialism and on the other against its own proletariat. The management of railways, oil fields, etcetera, through labor organizations has nothing in common with workers’ control over industry, for in the essence of the matter the management is effected through the labor bureaucracy which is independent of the workers, but in return, completely dependent on the bourgeois state. This measure on the part of the ruling class pursues the aim of disciplining the working class, making it more industrious in the service of the common interests of the state, which appear on the surface to merge with the interests of the working class itself. As a matter of fact, the whole task of the bourgeoisie consists in liquidating the trade unions as organs of the class struggle and substituting in their place the trade union bureaucracy as the organ of the leadership over the workers by the bourgeois state. In these conditions, the task of the revolutionary vanguard is to conduct a struggle for the complete independence of the trade unions and for the introduction of actual workers’ control over the present union bureaucracy, which has been turned into the administration of railways, oil enterprises and so on.

* * *
Events of the last period (before the war) have revealed with especial clarity that anarchism, which in point of theory is always only liberalism drawn to its extremes, was, in practice, peaceful propaganda within the democratic republic, the protection of which it required. If we leave aside individual terrorist acts, etcetera, anarchism, as a system of mass movement and politics, presented only propaganda material under the peaceful protection of the laws. In conditions of crisis the anarchists always did just the opposite of what they taught in peace times. This was pointed out by Marx himself in connection with the Paris Commune. And it was repeated on a far more colossal scale in the experience of the Spanish revolution.

* * *
Democratic unions in the old sense of the term, bodies where in the framework of one and the same mass organization different tendencies struggled more or less freely, can no longer exist. Just as it is impossible to bring back the bourgeois-democratic state, so it is impossible to bring back the old workers’ democracy. The fate of the one reflects the fate of the other. As a matter of fact, the independence of trade unions in the class sense, in their relations to the bourgeois state can, in the present conditions, be assured only by a completely revolutionary leadership, that is, the leadership of the Fourth International. This leadership, naturally, must and can be rational and assure the unions the maximum of democracy conceivable under the present concrete conditions. But without the political leadership of the Fourth International the independence of the trade unions is impossible.

From The Jobs For Justice Website- The April 4th Actions- A Report With Video From Boston

Click on the headline to link to a Jobs For Justice website post of the national actions on April 4, 2011 in defend of union rights.

Monday, April 04, 2011

From The Jobs For Justice Blog-April 4 Call to Action: We are One

April 4 Call to Action: We are One
By jwjnational, on March 25th, 2011

On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, where he had gone to stand with sanitation workers demanding their dream: the right to bargain collectively for a voice at work and a better life. The workers were trying to form a union with AFSCME.

On April 4, 2011, join union members, community activists, people of faith, students, youth, LGBTQ, civil rights, and immigrant rights allies to stand in solidarity with working people in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and dozens of other states where well-funded, right-wing corporate politicians are trying to take away the rights Dr. King gave his life for: the freedom to bargain, to vote, to afford a college education and justice for all workers, immigrant and native-born. It’s a day to show movement with actions, teach-ins, worksite discussions, vigils, faith events – a day to be creative, but clear: We are one.

Visit www.we-r-1.org to find a local event, or add your own event to the growing list of activities. Some ideas for action:

•Worksite actions. Recruit co-workers to carry out a worksite activity – wearing red shirts, ribbons, or stickers – and having a discussion about the attacks on working people at lunch break.
•Organize a teach-in or screening of “At the River I Stand”, which tells the story of the Memphis sanitation workers and Dr. King’s support of their struggle.
•Organize a mobilization or action that links current organizing or bargaining fights with the moment we are in.
•Organize a prayer vigil in front of a symbol that represents Dr. King’s vision of a better world.
•Organize discussions at churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples the weekend before April 4.
•Organize an action with students who are fighting budget battles around education and make link to attack on workers in the public sector.
•Change your Facebook & twitter profile image to the JwJ “We Are One” image
The www.we-r-1.org website has some resources to help you plan your events and check out Jobs with Justice resources including a guerilla theater script, talking points, a video discussion guide, and chants.

It’s time to come together to curb unchecked corporate power. Who will control our communities: working people or corporations?

In Dr. King’s words:

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

From The Jobs For Justice Website-Florida House Votes to End Pay Deductions for Public Workers’ Union Dues

Markin comment:

Although, as a matter of trade union independence from the state, the bourgeois state, trade union militants favor union dues being collected by our own agents, shop stewards, or other union personnel we oppose actions, as the one in Florida mentioned in this post (and elsewhere in Ohio and Wisconsin), by state legislatures and state executives to eliminate that “right” in order to further gut public workers union collective bargaining gains.
********

Florida House Votes to End Pay Deductions for Public Workers’ Union Dues
By jwjnational, on March 31st, 2011

On Friday, March 25th, the Florida Governor signed legislation into law that ties teacher’s salaries to test scores and removes tenure. On the same day, the Florida House passed legislation to make union dues deduction of public workers illegal.

Workers and students united in Orlando to say “Enough is Enough” to these attacks on working people. Protesters demanded the Speaker of the House Dean Cannon stop the scapegoating of workers and students. Rep. Cannon is following the Governor’s agenda of prioritizing corporate interests at the expense of middle class families dealing with the effects of economic crisis. Its time to find real solutions and sensible policies and not keep it as politics as usual.

The delegation loudly marched into Rep. Cannon’s office. A person dressed as the Notorious Governor Rick Scott left a huge box of money behind congratulating the Representative on blaming working people on behalf of their corporate cronies. People carried framed testimonials from a student, an unemployed worker, a professor, a parent and an immigrant advocate: we will not be framed for the state’s revenue shortfall!

Protests will continue to escalate throughout the legislative session. Coordinating groups include Central Florida Jobs with Justice, Central Florida AFL-CIO, and the Student Labor Action Project @UCF.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

From The Wisconsin War-Zone- The Lines Are Further Drawn- The Fight For A General Strike Of All Labor In Wisconsin Is Directly Posed-And Solidarity Actions By Those Outside The State- Wisconsin State AFL-CIO Get To It

Markin comment:

Over the past few week as the events concerning the fate of collective bargaining rights, the core of any union’s reason for existence, of Wisconsin’s public workers unions have unfolded I had joined the voices of those who have argued that passage of the ant-iunion legislation by the Republican Senate majority should trigger the call for a one day general strike of all Wisconsin as the start of a push back. Well that day has arrived and every pro-labor militant from Madison to Cairo (Illinois or Egypt, it matters not) should be joining their voices in that call, and agitating in their unions and other organization to carry it out. The lines could not be more clearly drawn, the survival of the Wisconsin public workers unions are at stake, the survival of all public workers unions are now at stake, and the survival of unionism in the United States as well. This is only the start of the right-wing onslaught. Let Wisconsin’s labor response make it the end. Fight for a one day general strike now!
******
Friday, March 04, 2011

On The Question Of General Strikes In Defense Of The Wisconsin Public Workers Unions- Don't Mourn, Organize- A Short Note

Click on the headline to link to a James P.Cannon Internet Archive online article about the lessons of the Minneapolis Teamsters strikes of 1934 mentioned in the post below.

Markin comment:

Recently, in the wake of the front-line struggle of the Wisconsin public workers unions (now heightened by the latest news that the Ohio Senate has also voted to curb collective bargaining rights in that state), I, along with others, have been agitating for a one day general strike by organized labor, unorganized, but desperately in need of being organized, workers, and other allies, in support of those efforts. I have also placed the propaganda of others, individuals and organizations, who are advocating this same general position in this space, and will continue to do so as I see it come up as I scan the leftist universe. Before I go on, just to make things clear on this issue, I would draw the reader’s attention to the distinction between propagandizing, the general task for communist organizers in this period pushing issues on behalf our communist future, and agitation which requires/requests some immediate action. The events in the public sector labor movement over the past several weeks, as they have rapidly unfolded, call for immediate action whether we can cause any motion on the issue or not.

That said, I would also note that I have framed my call to action in terms of posing the question of a general strike, the objective need for such action. That proposition is the axis of intervention for leftist and trade union militants today. And that is the rub. Of course, right this minute (and as the Ohio situation foretells maybe only this minute), any such one day general strike would, of necessity, have to be centered in Wisconsin, and the tactical choices would have to be made on the ground there ( how to make the strike effective, what unions to call in, what places to shut down, etc.). My original posting did not make a distinction on location(s)though, and I make none now, about whether such a strike would be localized or not. Certainly, given the centrally of the collective bargaining principle to the lifeblood of any union, and the drumbeat of other states like Ohio, it can hardly be precluded that it could not be a wider strike than just in Wisconsin.

And that is the rub, again. I am perfectly aware, after a lifetime of oppositional politics of one sort or another, that it is one thing to call for an action and another to have it heeded by some mass organization that can do something about it, or even have it taken for more than its propaganda value. And it is the somewhat fantastic quality of the proposition to many trade unionists that I have been running up against in my own efforts to present this demand. Now, as I have noted previously, in France this kind of strike is something of an art form, and other European working classes are catching on to the idea. Moreover, in the old days the anarchists, when they had some authority in the working class in places like Spain,thought nothing of calling such strikes. And some Marxists, like the martyred Rosa Luxemburg, saw the political general strike as the central strategic piece in the working class taking state power. However the low level of political consciousness here, or lack of it, or even of solid trade union consciousness, is what the substance of this note is about.

Although the Wisconsin public workers unions have galvanized segments of the American labor movement, particularly the organized sector (those who see what is coming down the road for them-or who have already been the subject of such victimizations in the roller coaster process of the de-industrialization of America) the hard fact is that it has been a very, very long time since this labor movement has seen a general strike. You have to go back to the 1930s and the Minneapolis Teamsters strikes of 1934, or to the San Francisco General Strike of that same year to even been able to provide an example to illustrate how it could take place in this country. That, my friends, is over seventy-five years ago, a long time in anybody’s political book and, more importantly, a couple of generations removed from the actual experience. Hell, it has been as far back as the period immediately after World War II since we have seen massive nation-wide industrial strikes. The closest situation that I can think of that would be widely remembered today, and that was also somewhat successful and well supported, was the UPS strike in the 1990s. All of this points to one conclusion, our class struggle skills are now rather rusty, and it shows.

How? Well, first look at the propaganda of various leftist and socialist groups. They, correctly, call for solidarity, for defense rallies and for more marches in support of the Wisconsin struggle. But I have seen relevantly little open advocacy for a one day general strike. That is damning. But here is the real kicker, the one that should give us all pause. The most recent Wisconsin support rally in Boston was attended by many trade union militants, many known (known to me from struggles over the years) leftist activists, and surprisingly, a significant segment of older, not currently active political ex-militants who either came out for old times sake, or understood that this is a do or die struggle and they wanted to help show their support. In short, a perfect audience before which a speaker could expect to get a favorable response on a call for a political general strike. And that call that day, was made not by me, and not by other socialists or communists, but by a militant from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a well-known union with plenty of militants in it. The response: a few claps in a crowd of over two thousand.

Time has been, is, and will be our enemy here as we struggle to win these pubic workers union fights. Why? Our sense of leftist legitimacy, our class struggle sense has so atrophied over the past several decades that people, political people, trade union political people and even leftist political people have lost their capacity to struggle to win. Still, the objective situation in Wisconsin, hell, in Boston and Columbus, requires that we continue to fight around a class struggle axis. And central to that fight- Fight for a one day general strike in support of the Wisconsin public workers unions!

Friday, March 11, 2011

From The Rag Blog-Poverty in America and theattack on public sector unions

Poverty in America and the
attack on public sector unions

want to ask a basic question that unifies religious, labor, and community organizations at the core. Why in this, the richest country in the world, are people poor?
By Anne Lewis / The Rag Blog / March 10, 2011

The labor movement has rarely won anything without the social movement, and the social movement has rarely won anything without the labor movement. One often cited example is Dr. King’s 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom initiated by A. Philip Randolph of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.

If you have any doubts about the necessity of a combined effort, watch this archival film of John L. Lewis when he testified before Congress in 1947 about health care and pensions for miners paid by the coal companies.

The resulting welfare fund, hard fought at the grassroots level by miners and their families, was the most comprehensive health care that I can think of. I know because I was covered under it from the mid seventies to the eighties when it was lost under Reagan.

We frequently marginalize each other -- social movement folks saying unions don’t matter anymore and condemning labor “bureaucrats” and union folks saying that social movement people don’t care about workers and have grandiose ideas of their own power. Some of us get downright schizophrenic dividing our lives into two segments. It’s time we stop this nonsense. We need to speak a common language.

I want to ask a basic question that unifies religious, labor, and community organizations at the core. Why in this, the richest country in the world, are people poor? Please think about how you might respond.

That same question was posed to a wide segment of people, rich and poor, in 2001. The NPR survey provides an analysis of public response to welfare reform (many of us called it deform) during the Clinton administration.

Here’s a table that asks whether it’s circumstances that create poverty or poor people themselves not doing enough. The percentages describe poverty level -- we know it’s set way too low. In 2001 200% of poverty for a family of four was $34,000.


Then NPR asked folks to name the most important cause of poverty in the United States.


Number one is “the poor quality of public schools.”

At about the same time, the Heritage Foundation decided to prove poverty in the United States wasn’t a problem after all. The Heritage Foundation survey is titled, “Understanding Poverty in America.” Here’s the starting point.

The next bar graph compares the living space of poor people in the United States favorably to that of the average European.


CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE.

Here are two more rational definitions of poverty:
Fundamentally, poverty is a denial of choices and opportunities, a violation of human dignity. It means lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in society. It means not having enough to feed and clothe a family, not having a school or clinic to go to, not having the land on which to grow one’s food or a job to earn one’s living, not having access to credit. It means insecurity, powerlessness and exclusion of individuals, households and communities. It means susceptibility to violence, and it often implies living in marginal or fragile environments, without access to clean water or sanitation. -- United Nations

To meet nutritional requirements, to escape avoidable disease, to be sheltered, to be clothed, to be able to travel, and to be educated. -- Amartya Sen
Better, right? We’re at least getting to the idea of living well and a more humane definition. Notably lacking is the mention of labor unions and collective action, although you could make the argument that the United Nations definition pushes us in that direction with language about effective participation, dignity, and jobs. The lack of worker organization isn’t mentioned in the NPR study. Neither is discrimination, race, ethnicity, or gender or environment or workers’ rights.

Would you have named lack of unionization or lousy labor law or something like that as an important reason why poverty exists in this country?

In July 2002, union members overall had a 20% higher hourly wage ($20.65 vs. $16.42). In blue-collar industry it was $18.88 vs. $12.95; in service occupations, $16.22 vs. $8.98. That’s not counting benefits. Those ratios have remained constant.

Currently nearly one in three public workers are union members compared with 6.9 percent of the workers in private-sector industries. These organized workers are under siege in Wisconsin, Puerto Rico, Indiana, Ohio, and here in Texas. Many work in public schools and universities. The occupation of the Wisconsin capitol started with 2,000 graduate teaching assistants and union members from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, on Feb. 14. The attack on these workers and on the work that they do is tightly connected -- and they are fighting back.

First, education is not, in and of itself, a cure for poverty. NPR poll aside, “Poor quality of public schools” is not the most important cause of poverty. We could go on and on about how good or bad our schools are, but lack of education is not the leading indicator of poverty.

As much as we’d like it to be so, there isn’t any substantial difference in the average wage of a high school graduate and a high school drop out. It’s considerably less than the boost from unionization. Remember unionization gave a worker at least a 20% boost in wages. A high school diploma gives a less than 15% boost.
The attack on teachers’ unions in this country has been absolutely barbaric and I believe it violates international standards of dignity and decency.
Unfortunately, the way we’ve been looking at education both at primary and secondary level is supply-side economics: improve the quality of workers through education and grow the quantity of quality workers-- all for the rich employers -- and they won’t be poor no more because the rich will take care of them. Well it doesn’t work that way any more than tax breaks for the rich have created an economy that benefits all of us.

All this talk about creating a competitive workforce for the global economy and endless debates about whether our public schools and universities do or don’t meet the demands of the marketplace is a bunch of hooey. But most folks believe this nonsense. Me too. When I think about our teen-age son’s future, I immediately think: will he finish high school; will his grades and SAT scores be high enough to get into a good college; what’s a high ranked college we can afford... and so on.

Even though I know darn well that there would be much better ways to go about making sure that our child has a good future -- make sure that his nutrition is good, introduce him to cultural expression, work to strengthen our community with public transportation, public space, libraries, and museums, fight for the rights of public school workers and quality public schools, and fight for the rights of all workers, especially their right to organize.

The attack on teachers’ unions in this country has been absolutely barbaric and I believe it violates international standards of dignity and decency. I also believe there are large elements of sexism involved here. 70% of public school teachers are women overall. In Texas about 82% of elementary and middle school teachers are female. At UT, about 80% of full professors are male and about 60% of lecturers are female.

Working conditions for teachers are really lousy. Think about being the only adult in front of a class of 20 eight-year-olds and having to pee. Forced overtime -- hours worked without pay are unbelievable -- and pay isn’t so great. Wisconsin teachers average about $40,000 a year. Lecturers in my department, which is unusually well paid, start at $6,500 a class and are only allowed two classes a semester and two semesters a year. That’s $26,000 a year for what works out to be full time work with an unpaid leave over the summer.


Still image from archival film of John Lewis testifying before Congress in 1947.

In 2002, No Child Left Behind began a new attack in the name of school reform by devaluing teachers in the name of accountability. It was really insidious. It told teachers what to say in their classrooms (teachers in low performance schools are scripted like actors these days); used corporate standardized tests to tell teachers what to teach; it bought curriculum prescribed by corporations (yes folks like Pearson Education, Houghlin Mifflin, and The Pet Goat publisher McGraw Hill use the language of illness as though kids are sick and they’re doctors); and emphasized charter schools and privatization as salvation. And it’s not just the Republicans. Think of Arne Duncan and the Race to the Top.

Now I would agree that our public schools have failed Latino and African American and working class children. That’s one of the reasons that so many parents fought for integration. We know that separate is not equal. Now we have further segregation of the schools in a system based on and currently exhibiting apartheid.

I don’t think the language is too extreme. A very interesting study explores the role of the Koch brothers of Wisconsin fame in defeating the Wake County, North Carolina, socio-economic integration plan. That plan was a model of quality education for all children for the country. The Kochs poured money into the school board race, cast the plan as communistic, and put in a new school board. They won and the children and teachers of Wake County lost big.

Then we have “Waiting for Superman,” which I watched at the Alamo Drafthouse South with a “progressive” Austin audience who giggled at those lazy teachers, cried and then rejoiced with the poor little black child who won a school lottery, and really dug the idea that the problem with the public school system was teacher tenure and their union. I resorted to drink.

Here’s a cartoon from Saving Our Schools from Superman that sums up the movie.



Saving our schools from Superman

At UT, our buildings are plastered with plaques that reveal the connections between the corporate world and higher education. We have the Accenture Endowed Excellence Fund; the Arthur Anderson and Co. Centennial Professorship; Austin Smiles Endowed Fellowship in Speech Pathology; Bank of America Centennial Professorship in Petroleum Engineering; Enstar Chair for Free Enterprise; La Quinta Motor Inns, Inc. Centennial Professorship in Nursing; the BP Exploration Classroom Endowment; Conoco Phillips Faculty Fellowship in Law; and so on.

We have a University President whose three legislative priorities are:
no disproportionate cuts (I guess it’s okay to cut education as long as we also let folks die on the streets);
support for the Texas Competitive Knowledge Fund (dollar match for external research support);
and a new engineering building.
We have a legislature and a state governor that doen't believe in public services at all -- not education, not health care -- not for children, not for the disabled, not for the elderly. They’re cutting off college scholarships and denying the rights of immigrants as well as working class students an education.

That’s the external world. The internal one at the University of Texas, Austin is that the budget crunch is used as an excuse to do what the higher-ups have wanted to do all along. Raise tuitions and cut programs that serve students and lay off lecturers, graduate students, and staff (we’re down to once a month office cleanings). Do away with the Identity Studies Centers that we fought to bring to the University -- African American, Asian, Mexican American, women, and gender. Forget undergraduate education and turn us into an elite research institution.
We need to join every progressive force in this country into a movement that will finally put an end to the systemic destruction of educational opportunity and workers’ rights.
Before I summarize this rant, I wanted you to see a scene from an interview I did with the Director of Public Affairs, Martin Fox, at the National Right to Work Committee. That’s one of the main organizations that the Koch brothers fund and hang out with.

The clip is from a documentary I made in the context of the Pittston coal strike, which was about health care for retired and disabled miners and widows. “Justice in the Coalfields” is about the contradictions between individual and collective rights and what justice means.

The clip begins with a map of right to work states -- you’ll be hearing a lot about that in the next few months. It ends with Bradley McKenzie who led a student walkout in support of the miners. He became a non-union coal miner because there were no union jobs, but his ideas express solidarity at its core. In between is Martin Fox who handled press communications for the Committee at the time.

Martin Fox was a proud member of the National Rifle Association. I know this because I watched him get in his car, with a customized license plate that read “GETAGUN.” Martin Fox is now President of the National Pro Life Alliance and a priest. He holds forth on unions on his blog.

Who has the power to challenge these obscene thugs who have taken over our country? Who wants to challenge them?

Well we do. The “we” is organized labor -- public worker unions. Really, we’re not providing state “services.” We’re providing public necessities. We’re helping the social movement create a vision of a more decent world that includes the working class. And when we collectively fight for ourselves to have decent pay and decent working conditions and democratic control in the work place, we’re not in contradiction with the public good. We’re supporting it.

There are a lot of us. The Texas State Employees Union TSEU-CWA local 1686 has 12,000 members in Texas. We have large numbers of women and African Americans and Latinos. Discrimination has been slightly less in the public sector and these workers are more likely to join a union because of a history of struggle. AFT has 57,000 members in Texas and TSTA has 65,000 members. And there are state workers organized by AFSCME and other unions.

Those of us in the labor movement and those of us in the social movement have got to get to know each other. We need to practice democracy together and work together. We need to join every progressive force in this country into a movement that will finally put an end to the systemic destruction of educational opportunity and workers’ rights.

There’s a great line at the end of a Committees of Correspondence statement on Wisconsin:
And to the workers of Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio: our heartfelt thanks -- may your occupation of the statehouses foretell the day when you become the governors.
[Anne Lewis is an independent filmmaker associated with Appalshop, senior lecturer at UT-Austin, and member of TSEU-CWA Local 6186 and NABET-CWA. She is the associate director of Harlan County, U.S.A and the producer/director of Fast Food Women, To Save the Land and People, Morristown: in the air and sun, and a number of other social issue and cultural documentaries. Her website is annelewis.org.]

The Rag Blog

Posted by thorne dreyer at 8:15 AM

Thursday, March 10, 2011

From The Wisconsin War-Zone- The Lines Are Further Drawn- The Fight For A General Strike Of All Labor In Wisconsin Is Directly Posed-And Solidarity Actions By Those Outside The State- Wisconsin State AFL-CIO Get To It

Click on the headline to link to an AP report on the latest turn of events in the struggle by Wisconsin public workers unions to retain their collective bargaining rights against a right-wing directed onslaught to eliminate them.

Markin comment:

Over the past few week as the events concerning the fate of collective bargaining rights, the core of any union’s reason for existence, of Wisconsin’s public workers unions have unfolded I had joined the voices of those who have argued that passage of the ant-iunion legislation by the Republican Senate majority should trigger the call for a one day general strike of all Wisconsin as the start of a push back. Well that day has arrived and every pro-labor militant from Madison to Cairo (Illinois or Egypt, it matters not) should be joining their voices in that call, and agitating in their unions and other organization to carry it out. The lines could not be more clearly drawn, the survival of the Wisconsin public workers unions are at stake, the survival of all public workers unions are now at stake, and the survival of unionism in the United States as well. This is only the start of the right-wing onslaught. Let Wisconsin’s labor response make it the end. Fight for a one day general strike now!
******
Friday, March 04, 2011

On The Question Of General Strikes In Defense Of The Wisconsin Public Workers Unions- Don't Mourn, Organize- A Short Note

Click on the headline to link to a James P.Cannon Internet Archive online article about the lessons of the Minneapolis Teamsters strikes of 1934 mentioned in the post below.

Markin comment:

Recently, in the wake of the front-line struggle of the Wisconsin public workers unions (now heightened by the latest news that the Ohio Senate has also voted to curb collective bargaining rights in that state), I, along with others, have been agitating for a one day general strike by organized labor, unorganized, but desperately in need of being organized, workers, and other allies, in support of those efforts. I have also placed the propaganda of others, individuals and organizations, who are advocating this same general position in this space, and will continue to do so as I see it come up as I scan the leftist universe. Before I go on, just to make things clear on this issue, I would draw the reader’s attention to the distinction between propagandizing, the general task for communist organizers in this period pushing issues on behalf our communist future, and agitation which requires/requests some immediate action. The events in the public sector labor movement over the past several weeks, as they have rapidly unfolded, call for immediate action whether we can cause any motion on the issue or not.

That said, I would also note that I have framed my call to action in terms of posing the question of a general strike, the objective need for such action. That proposition is the axis of intervention for leftist and trade union militants today. And that is the rub. Of course, right this minute (and as the Ohio situation foretells maybe only this minute), any such one day general strike would, of necessity, have to be centered in Wisconsin, and the tactical choices would have to be made on the ground there ( how to make the strike effective, what unions to call in, what places to shut down, etc.). My original posting did not make a distinction on location(s)though, and I make none now, about whether such a strike would be localized or not. Certainly, given the centrally of the collective bargaining principle to the lifeblood of any union, and the drumbeat of other states like Ohio, it can hardly be precluded that it could not be a wider strike than just in Wisconsin.

And that is the rub, again. I am perfectly aware, after a lifetime of oppositional politics of one sort or another, that it is one thing to call for an action and another to have it heeded by some mass organization that can do something about it, or even have it taken for more than its propaganda value. And it is the somewhat fantastic quality of the proposition to many trade unionists that I have been running up against in my own efforts to present this demand. Now, as I have noted previously, in France this kind of strike is something of an art form, and other European working classes are catching on to the idea. Moreover, in the old days the anarchists, when they had some authority in the working class in places like Spain,thought nothing of calling such strikes. And some Marxists, like the martyred Rosa Luxemburg, saw the political general strike as the central strategic piece in the working class taking state power. However the low level of political consciousness here, or lack of it, or even of solid trade union consciousness, is what the substance of this note is about.

Although the Wisconsin public workers unions have galvanized segments of the American labor movement, particularly the organized sector (those who see what is coming down the road for them-or who have already been the subject of such victimizations in the roller coaster process of the de-industrialization of America) the hard fact is that it has been a very, very long time since this labor movement has seen a general strike. You have to go back to the 1930s and the Minneapolis Teamsters strikes of 1934, or to the San Francisco General Strike of that same year to even been able to provide an example to illustrate how it could take place in this country. That, my friends, is over seventy-five years ago, a long time in anybody’s political book and, more importantly, a couple of generations removed from the actual experience. Hell, it has been as far back as the period immediately after World War II since we have seen massive nation-wide industrial strikes. The closest situation that I can think of that would be widely remembered today, and that was also somewhat successful and well supported, was the UPS strike in the 1990s. All of this points to one conclusion, our class struggle skills are now rather rusty, and it shows.

How? Well, first look at the propaganda of various leftist and socialist groups. They, correctly, call for solidarity, for defense rallies and for more marches in support of the Wisconsin struggle. But I have seen relevantly little open advocacy for a one day general strike. That is damning. But here is the real kicker, the one that should give us all pause. The most recent Wisconsin support rally in Boston was attended by many trade union militants, many known (known to me from struggles over the years) leftist activists, and surprisingly, a significant segment of older, not currently active political ex-militants who either came out for old times sake, or understood that this is a do or die struggle and they wanted to help show their support. In short, a perfect audience before which a speaker could expect to get a favorable response on a call for a political general strike. And that call that day, was made not by me, and not by other socialists or communists, but by a militant from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a well-known union with plenty of militants in it. The response: a few claps in a crowd of over two thousand.

Time has been, is, and will be our enemy here as we struggle to win these pubic workers union fights. Why? Our sense of leftist legitimacy, our class struggle sense has so atrophied over the past several decades that people, political people, trade union political people and even leftist political people have lost their capacity to struggle to win. Still, the objective situation in Wisconsin, hell, in Boston and Columbus, requires that we continue to fight around a class struggle axis. And central to that fight- Fight for a one day general strike in support of the Wisconsin public workers unions!

Friday, March 04, 2011

From The Wisconsin War-Zone- The First Trickle Of Labor Support For A General Strike- A Resolution From The Letter Carriers Union Branch 214-San Francisco

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the San Francisco General Strike of 1934 as background for this post.

Markin comment:

As I mentioned in today's other posting concerning the proposal for a one day general strike in support of the Wisconsin public workers unions I am placing material in this space of others, individuals and organizations, who are committed to that same general proposition. That this trickling of support that has started comes out of San Francisco (although not from the well-known militant dockerworkers' unions yet), a historic area of labor militancy is telling. Forward!

Resolution of Letter Carriers Union Branch 214
Adopted unanimously March 2, 2011 in San Francisco, California

Support the Initiative for a General Strike in Wisconsin – and Prepare for Nationally-Coordinated Solidarity Job Actions

Whereas, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker’s Koch brothers-funded and Wall Street-inspired attempt to destroy Wisconsin’s public workers’ unions is the highly strategic opening battle in a war to destroy both the public and private sector of the U.S. labor movement; and

Whereas, resistance that the workers and students have mounted to the union-busting attack has in a short time breathed new life into the workers' movement in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and across the country; and

Whereas, there must be no illusions about the determination of the
forces committed to crushing labor that are behind Gov. Walker, and
much more must be done if Wisconsin workers and all workers are to
prevail in this most critical battle facing working people in generations; and

Whereas, Gov. Scott Walker and the billionaires behind him must know in no uncertain terms that if they persist in their outrageous efforts to destroy the labor movement, that they will bring upon themselves the kind of massive, popular uprising of workers' power that this country hasn’t seen since the 1930s; and

Whereas, if the people of Egypt were ready to put their very lives on the line in their fight for freedom, then certainly the labor movement in the U.S. must be ready to demonstrate that it is prepared to put it all on the line in defense of the very elementary right of workers to have a union, and in defense of the right of the labor movement to survive; and

Whereas, the South Central Federation of Labor of Wisconsin (AFL-CIO) voted on Feb. 21, 2011 to “endorse a general strike” if the union busting bill is passed by the Wisconsin legislature and signed into law. The motion ordered that strike preparations begin immediately, asking the Education Committee to “immediately begin educating affiliates and members on the organization and function of a general strike.”

Therefore be it Resolved, that Golden Gate Branch 214 of the Letter Carriers Union calls upon organized labor everywhere and at every level to officially support the initiative of Wisconsin's South Central Federation of Labor to endorse a general strike if the union busting bill is passed; and

Be it further Resolved, that we call on organized labor to commit all
concrete solidarity support necessary to ensure the success of a general strike; and

Be it further Resolved, that we call on organized labor to approve, and prepare to initiate nationally-coordinated job actions in solidarity with a general strike in Wisconsin; and

Be it finally Resolved, that this resolution be submitted to Bay Area labor councils, California State Association of Letter Carriers, the NALC, and California Labor Federation, with which we are affiliated, for concurrence and action.

Resolution adopted unanimously 03/02/2011 in San Francisco, California, by the membership meeting of Golden Gate Branch 214 of the National Association of Letter Carriers, representing some 2,300 Postal Service letter carriers in the San Francisco Bay Area.

###


Madison Area AFL CIO Votes to Prepare For General Strike

By Mike Elk, Feb. 22, 2011

This evening in a press release from IBEW Local 2304 President Dave Pokilinski, I received word that the 45,000 member Southern Central Federation of Labor, the local chapter of the AFL-CIO for the Madison and Southern Central Wisconsin area, has voted to make preparations for a general strike.

The press release reads as follows:

Around 10:50PM Wisconsin Time on February 21st the South Central Federation of Labor endorsed the following motions:

Motion 1: The SCFL endorses a general strike, possibly for the day [Governor Scott] Walker signs his “budget repair bill”, and requests the Education Committee immediately begin educating affiliates and members on the organization and function of a general strike.

Motion 2: The SCFL goes on record as opposing all provisions contained in Walker’s “budget repair bill”, including but not limited to, curtailed bargaining rights and reduced wages, benefits, pensions, funding for public education, changes to medical assistance programs, and politicization of state government agencies.

Friday, February 25, 2011

All out In Solidarity With Wisconsin's (and other states' soon to be under fire) Public Workers Unions'- Mass State House Rally- Saturday February 26, 2011

Wisconsin Solidarity
Sunday, February 20, 2011
The video uploaded is in processing.
We're sorry there has been an error.

50-State Mobilization to Save the American Dream
Saturday February 26, 2011
12-1 PM
In front of the Massachusetts State House
24 Beacon St.
Boston, MA 02108

Calling all students, teachers, union members, workers, patriots, public servants, unemployed folks, progressives, and people of conscience:




In Wisconsin and around our country, the American Dream is under fierce attack. Instead of creating jobs, Republicans are giving tax breaks to corporations and the very rich, and then cutting funding for education, police, emergency response and vital human services. The right to organize is on the chopping block. The American Dream is slipping out of reach for more and more Americans, and we have to fight back.

We call for emergency rallies in front of every statehouse this Saturday at noon to stand in solidarity with the people of Wisconsin. Demand an end to the attacks on workers' rights and public services across the country. Demand investment, to create decent jobs for the millions of people who desperately want to work. And demand that the rich and powerful pay their fair share.

We are all Wisconsin.
We are all Americans.

Endorsing organizations include: Massachusetts Jobs with Justice, AFL-CIO, SEIU, PCCC, Color of Change, CREDO Action, Democracy for America, Campaign for Community Change, National People's Action, TrueMajority, US Action, Progressive Majority, Courage Campaign, and Van Jones

Thursday, February 24, 2011

The Latest From The Wisconsin Public Workers Unions' Struggle-Wis. troopers sent to find Democrats, no one home- Hands Off The Democratic Legislators!

Markin comment:

The story below tells the tale in the headline. Last week when the Wisconsin struggle first broke out I mentioned that we might need to send workers' defense guards to the Wisconsin borders to insure that the legislators are not "kidnapped" back into the state. I might not be so far off on that one after all. As I also said in that post we are living in strange time indeed when I am worrying, in the year 2011, about the safety and fate of Democratic legislators. So be it. Victory to the Wisconsin Public Workers Unions!

******
Wis. troopers sent to find Democrats, no one home
By TODD RICHMOND and SCOTT BAUER, AP
3 hours ago

Loading... Share No Thanks Must Read?Thank YouYes 185
Teamsters President James Hoffa speaks at a rally in the state Capitol in Ma...
Share |
Email Story Discuss Print
MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin state troopers were dispatched Thursday to try to find at least one of the 14 Senate Democrats who have been on the run for eight days to delay a vote on Republican Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to strip collective bargaining rights from nearly all public employees.

Meanwhile, the state Assembly appeared close to voting on the union rights bill after two days of filibustering the measure with a blizzard of amendments. Democrats reached an early morning deal after 43 hours of debate to limit the number of remaining amendments and time spent on each.

Troopers went to multiple homes Thursday morning hoping to find at least one of the 14 Democrats, some of whom were rumored to have made short trips home to pick up clothes and other necessities before again fleeing the state. But they came up empty handed, Senate Sergeant at Arms Ted Blazel said.

"Every night we hear about some that are coming back home," said Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, who hoped sending the move to send the troopers would pressure Democrats to return.

But Democratic Sen. Jon Erpenbach, who was in the Chicago area, said all 14 senators remained outside of Wisconsin and would not return until Walker was willing to compromise.

"It's not so much the Democrats holding things up, it's really a matter of Gov. Walker holding things up," Erpenbach said.

Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie issued a statement praising the Assembly for nearing a vote and renewing his call for Senate Democrats to come back.

Thousands of people have protested the bill for nine straight days, with hundreds spending the night on the Capitol's hard marble floor as the debate was broadcast on monitors in the rotunda. Many still were sleeping when the deal to only debate 38 more amendments, for no more than 10 minutes each, was announced shortly after 6 a.m. The timing of the agreement means the vote could come as soon as noon Thursday.

"We will strongly make our points, but understand you are limiting the voice of the public as you do this," said Democratic state Rep. Mark Pocan of Madison. "You can't dictate democracy. You are limiting the people's voice with this agreement this morning."

Democrats, who are in the minority, don't have the votes to stop the bill once the vote occurs.

Passage of the bill in the Assembly would be a major victory for Republicans and Walker, but the measure still must clear the Senate. Democrats there left town last week rather than vote on the bill, which has stymied efforts there to take it up.

The battle over labor rights has been heating up across the country, as new Republican majorities tackle budget woes in several states. The GOP efforts have sparked huge protests from unions and their supporters and led Democrats in Wisconsin and Indiana to flee their states to block measures.

Republicans in Ohio offered a small concession Wednesday, saying they would support allowing unionized state workers to collectively bargain on wages — but not for benefits, sick time, vacation or other conditions. Wisconsin's proposal also would allow most public workers to collectively bargain only for wages.

In Ohio, Republican Senate President Tom Niehaus denied protests have dented the GOP's resolve, saying lawmakers decided to make the change after listening to hours of testimony. He said he still believes the bill's core purpose — reining in spending by allowing governments more flexibility in dealing with their workers — is intact.

Senate Democratic Leader Capri Cafaro called the changes "window dressing." She said the entire bill should be scrapped.

"We can't grow Ohio's economy by destroying jobs and attacking the middle class," Cafaro said. "Public employees in Ohio didn't cause our budget problems and they shouldn't be blamed for something that's not their fault."

Wisconsin Democrats have echoed Cafaro for days, but Walker has refused to waver.

Walker reiterated Wednesday that public workers must make concessions to avoid thousands of government layoffs as the state grapples with a $137 million shortfall in its current budget and a projected $3.6 billion hole in the next two-year budget.

The marathon session in the Assembly was grand political theater, with exhausted lawmakers limping around the chamber, rubbing their eyes and yawning as Wednesday night dragged on.

Around midnight, Rep. Dean Kaufert, R-Neenah, accused Democrats of putting on a show for the protesters. Democrats leapt up and started shouting.

"I'm sorry if democracy is a little inconvenient and you had to stay up two nights in a row," Pocan said. "Is this inconvenient? Hell, yeah! It's inconvenient. But we're going to be heard!"

The Ohio and Wisconsin bills both would strip public workers at all levels of their right to collectively bargain benefits, sick time, vacations and other work conditions. Wisconsin's measure exempts local police, firefighters and the State Patrol and still lets workers collectively bargain their wages as long as they are below inflation. It also would require public workers to pay more toward their pensions and health insurance. Ohio's bill, until Wednesday, would have barred negotiations on wages.

Ohio's measure sits in a Senate committee. No vote has been scheduled on the plan, but thousands of protesters have gathered at the Statehouse to demonstrate, just as in Wisconsin.

In Indiana, Democrats successfully killed a Republican bill that would have prohibited union membership from being a condition of employment by leaving the state on Tuesday. They remained in Illinois in hopes of derailing other parts of Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels' agenda, including restrictions on teacher collective bargaining.

And in Oklahoma, a Republican-controlled state House committee on Wednesday narrowly approved legislation to repeal collective bargaining rights for municipal workers in that state's 13 largest cities.

___

Associated Press writers Ryan J. Foley in Madison and Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.

The Assembly deal was announced shortly after 6 a.m. while the troopers were sent after the Democrats at 7 a.m.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Massachusetts is Wisconsin Public Employee Unions Country- Boston, Massachusetts State House Rally, Tuesday February 22, 2011,4:00-6:00PM –The Lines Are Draw-All Out In Support Of The Wisconsin Public Employee Unions-Hands Off All Our Public Employee Unions!

Click on the headline to link to an announcement of a labor-centered rally at the Massachusetts State House on Tuesday February 22, 2011 in support of the beleaguered Wisconsin State Public Employee Unions.

Markin comment:

Sometimes politics, our working class-oriented politics, is a no-brainer. This occasion is one of those times. The lines are drawn very visibly now with the yahoos of the Tea Party movement entering the fray. “Which side are you on?” is the question of the hour. All out in support of the Wisconsin Public Employee Unions!
*******
Repost from American Left History


Friday, February 18, 2011


Victory To The Wisconsin Public Workers Unions!- Hands Off The Unions! -Hands Off The Democratic Legislators

Markin comment:

I suppose we all knew that it would come to this. Probably the last serious bastion of organized labor-the public employees unions are starting to face the onslaught of governmental attempts to break those collective bargaining agreements, crying budgetary crisis- the heart of any union operation. With the demise of the industrial unions (representing less than ten percent cent of the workforce in the wake of the deindustrialization of America) the public employee union became the obvious target in the bosses' relentless struggle to break any collective working agreements. Wisconsin, as all sides agree, is the tip of the iceberg and will be closely watched by other states (and the federal government).

On the question of the Democratic legislators who have left the state (at least as of today, February 18, 2011), to avoid voting on the proposals. While it is unusual for those of us who consider themselves communist labor militants to demand hands off for this crowd under normal circumstances in this case we are duty-bound to defend their action. Stay the hell out of Wisconsin until this blows over. A good idea would be to put workers on the borders to make sure the State Police don't try to force them back. Okay. Strange times that we live in, strange indeed.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Massachusetts is Wisconsin Public Employee Unions Country- Boston, Massachusetts State House Rally, Tuesday February 22, 2011,4:00-6:00PM –The Lines Are Draw-All Out In Support Of The Wisconsin Public Employee Unions-Hands Off All Our Public Employee Unions!

Click on the headline to link to an announcement of a labor rally at the Massachusetts State House on Tuesday February 22, 2011 in support of the beleaguered Wisconsin State Public Employee Unions.

Markin comment:

Sometimes politics, our working class-oriented politics, is a no-brainer. This occasion is one of those times. The lines are drawn very visibly now with the yahoos of the Tea Party movement entering the fray. “Which side are you on?” is the question of the hour. All out in support of the Wisconsin Public Employee Unions!
*******
Repost from American Left History


Friday, February 18, 2011


Victory To The Wisconsin Public Workers Unions!- Hands Off The Unions! -Hands Off The Democratic Legislators

Markin comment:

I suppose we all knew that it would come to this. Probably the last serious bastion of organized labor-the public employees unions are starting to face the onslaught of governmental attempts to break those collective bargaining agreements, crying budgetary crisis- the heart of any union operation. With the demise of the industrial unions (representing less than ten percent cent of the workforce in the wake of the deindustrialization of America) the public employee union became the obvious target in the bosses' relentless struggle to break any collective working agreements. Wisconsin, as all sides agree, is the tip of the iceberg and will be closely watched by other states (and the federal government).

On the question of the Democratic legislators who have left the state (at least as of today, February 18, 2011), to avoid voting on the proposals. While it is unusual for those of us who consider themselves communist labor militants to demand hands off for this crowd under normal circumstances in this case we are duty-bound to defend their action. Stay the hell out of Wisconsin until this blows over. A good idea would be to put workers on the borders to make sure the State Police don't try to force them back. Okay. Strange times that we live in, strange indeed.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Massachusetts is Wisconsin Public Employee Unions Country- Boston, Massachusetts State House Rally, Tuesday February 22, 2011,4:00-6:00PM –The Lines Are Draw-All Out In Support Of The Wisconsin Public Employee Unions-Hands Off All Our Public Employee Unions!

Click on the headline to link to an announcement of a labor-centered rally at the Massachusetts State House on Tuesday February 22, 2011 in support of the beleaguered Wisconsin State Public Employee Unions.

Markin comment:

Sometimes politics, our working class-oriented politics, is a no-brainer. This occasion is one of those times. The lines are drawn very visibly now with the yahoos of the Tea Party movement entering the fray. “Which side are you on?” is the question of the hour. All out in support of the Wisconsin Public Employee Unions!
*******
Repost from American Left History


Friday, February 18, 2011


Victory To The Wisconsin Public Workers Unions!- Hands Off The Unions! -Hands Off The Democratic Legislators

Markin comment:

I suppose we all knew that it would come to this. Probably the last serious bastion of organized labor-the public employees unions are starting to face the onslaught of governmental attempts to break those collective bargaining agreements, crying budgetary crisis- the heart of any union operation. With the demise of the industrial unions (representing less than ten percent cent of the workforce in the wake of the deindustrialization of America) the public employee union became the obvious target in the bosses' relentless struggle to break any collective working agreements. Wisconsin, as all sides agree, is the tip of the iceberg and will be closely watched by other states (and the federal government).

On the question of the Democratic legislators who have left the state (at least as of today, February 18, 2011), to avoid voting on the proposals. While it is unusual for those of us who consider themselves communist labor militants to demand hands off for this crowd under normal circumstances in this case we are duty-bound to defend their action. Stay the hell out of Wisconsin until this blows over. A good idea would be to put workers on the borders to make sure the State Police don't try to force them back. Okay. Strange times that we live in, strange indeed.

Friday, November 19, 2010

From "The Workers Press"- On Union Organizing

Thursday, November 11, 2010

You know what's disgusting? Union-Busting!

My fiance stumbled upon something this week when asked by her supervisor at work to check the company email for a pending order. The owner of the business where she is employed - who knows Julie's political association and my history working with unions and helping organized membership in St. Louis' SD MNEA SEEA - has been receiving email offers to attend an online "webinar" course on how to identify and squash union organizing drives in the workplace.

This is nothing new, of course, as the bosses have been keeping each other up to speed on the best tactics to counteract workplace unionism since the beginning of the organized Labor Movement. The link to this particular training course, however, reveals a network dedicated to the purpose of busting workers unions and allowing management to maintain and tighten their dictatorship over the average worker and thereby increase exploitation of labor.






This is just one more concrete example of why legislation like The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is absolutely ESSENTIAL reform legislation, one which workers and their unions ought not compromise on, under any circumstance. Also, ongoing oppression of workers and ever shrinking workers' unions in the private sector and the continued reliance of Organized Labor upon the "democratic" Party for struggle on the political front further necessitate that Labor break cleanly away from the Dems and found a party of our own, truly of, for, and by the vast Working Class majority; a mass Party of Labor. Only thus can we build the sort of grassroots, local campaigns to build a mass basis for a strong national campaign for legislation like EFCA and to fight uncompromisingly for the REAL interests of America's Working Class majority.

The link to this "webinar" is posted below. I think I just found my next project, investigating and exposing the networks employers and management use to prevent workers from organizing and establishing even the faintest hint of workplace democracy or collective bargaining.

Here is the link:

http://www.businessmanagementdaily.com/glp/34507/index.html?campaigncode=268BWN
Posted by PaulJosephPoposky at 1:17 PM Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Google Buzz

Friday, September 10, 2010

*Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!:An Introduction For 2010

Click On Title To Link To Site With Information About The Book Used In This Commentary. This Link Is Placed Here By The Writer Merely For Informational Purposes To Assist Those Who Wish To Get A Copy Of The Book.

Markin comment: This is a repost of a review from Labor Day, September 2009. It bears repeating.

Every Month Is Labor History Month

Book Review

Labor’s Untold Story, Richard O. Boyer and Herbert Morais, United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers Of America (UE), New York, 1976,


As I have often noted this space is dedicated to the struggles of the American (and international) working class and their allies. Part of understanding those struggles is to know where we have been in order to have a better grasp of where we need to head in order to create a more just, socially-inclined world. In my travels over the past few years I have noted, even among those who proclaim themselves progressives, radicals, and revolutionaries, a woeful, and in some cases willful, lack of knowledge about the history and traditions of the American labor movement. In order to help rectify that lack I will, occasionally, post entries relating to various events, places and personalities that have helped form what was a very militant if, frustratingly, apolitical(if not purely anti-political, especially against its left-wing)labor history.

In order to provide a starting point for these snapshots in time I am using what I think is a very useful book, Labor’s Untold Story, Richard O. Boyer and Herbert Morais, United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers Of America (UE), New York, 1976, that I can recommend to all those militants interested in getting at least a first taste of what the once mighty organized American labor movement was all about. For those unfamiliar with labor history the UE, cited here as the publisher, was a left-wing union that was split by the main labor federations (AFL and CIO) during the “red scare” of the 1950’s for being “under Communist influence” and refusing to expel its Communist Party supporters. The other organization created at the time was the International Brotherhood Of Electrical Workers (IBEW). The history of that split, and its timing, that caused a wasteful break in the struggle for a single industry-wide union that had been the goal of all thoughtful labor militants will, of course, be the subject of one of these entries at a later date.

That UE imprimatur, for this writer at least, is something of a plus but you know upfront already that this is a pro-labor history so I will not belabor the point. That said, this 400 page book is chock full of events, large and small, complete with very helpful footnotes giving greater detail (mercifully placed at the bottom of the page where the subject is mentioned), that helped turned the American labor movement from an atomized, motley group of conflicting racial, ethnic and political tendencies in the last part of the 19th century to something like a very powerful and somewhat self-confident organized force by the 1940’s. After that period there is a long term decline that, for the book, ends with the period of the “red scare” noted above, and for the rest of us continues until this day.

Here you will learn about the embryonic stages of the modern labor movement after the American Civil War with its urgent industrial demands to provide goods for a pent-up, war-ravaged market and creation of a transportation and information system adequate to meet those needs. Needless to say labor received short shrift in the bargain, especially at first before it was even minimally organized. The story here it should be made clear, the story anytime labor is the subject of discourse, is organized labor. The atomized working class, one pitted against the other by the bosses, as a whole minus this organization did not exist as a historical force. That, my friends, is a great lesson for today as well.

As such, it important to note the establishment in the 1870s of the National Labor Union and its offshoots, later the Knights of Labor and the role of its class collaborationist leaders. Also noted is the fight in the coal mines of the East and the legendary saga of the Irish “Molly McGuires” in Pennsylvania, our first well-know labor martyrs. Then the fight moves west to the lead, copper, silver and gold mines. That push west could only mean a look at the establishment of the Western Federation of Miners, the emergence of the paragon of an American labor leader, "Big Bill" Haywood, his frame-up for murder in 1905 and the subsequent rise of the Industrial Workers of The World. Wobblies (IWW). Along the way there had been various attempts to form a workers party, the most promising, if amorphous, being the Tom Watson-led Populist Party in 1892 before the somewhat more class-based Socialist Party took hold.

Of course no political study of the American working class is complete without a big tip of the hat to the tireless work of Eugene V. Debs, his labor organizing, and his various presidential campaigns up through 1920. While today Debs’ efforts have to be seen in a different light by the fact that our attitude toward labor militants running for executive offices in the capitalist state and his ‘soft’ attitude on the question of the political organization of the working class with an undifferentiated party of the whole class have changed, he stands head and shoulders above most of the other political labor leaders of the day, especially that early renegade from Marxism, Samuel Gompers.

The first “red scare” (immediately after World War I) and its effect on the formation of the first American communist organizations responding to the creation of the first workers state in Russia( and of the subsequrny establishment of the internationally-oriented Communist International), the quiescent of the American labor movement in the 1920s (a position not unlike the state of the American working class today), the rise of the organized labor movement into a mass industrial organization in response to the ups and downs of the Great Depression, the ‘labor peace’ hiatus of World War II, the labor upsurge in the immediate post-World War II period and the “night of the long knives” of the anti-communist “red scare” of the 1950s brings the story up to the time of first publication of the book. As to be expected of a book that pre-dates the rise of the black civil right movement, the women’s liberation movement, and the struggle for gay and lesbian rights there is much less about the role of race, gender and sexual preference in this history of the American labor movement. Not to worry, the black, feminist, and gender scholars have been hard at work rectifying those omissions. And I have been busy reviewing that work elsewhere in this space. But here is your start.

A Short Note On The Pro-Stalinist Perspective Of "Labor's Untold Story"

Commentary

Okay, okay before I get ripped apart for being some kind of Pollyanna in my review of today’s book Labor’s Untold Story let me make a preemptive strike. I am, painfully, aware, that, at least back in the days when such things counted, the United Electrical Workers union (UE) was dominated by supporters of the Stalinist American Communist Party. The reason that I am painfully aware of this fact was that, back in that same day, I organized the unorganized under the auspices of that union. On more than one occasion various middle level figures in that union took me up short every time I tried to “step on the toes” (that is a quote from a real conversation, by the way) of some member of their vaunted “anti-monopolist” coalition. That coalition, my friends, was (and, is, for any unrepentant Stalinist still around) code for various politicos associated with the American Democratic Party. That, I hope, will tell the tale.

Notwithstanding that experience, I still think that Labor’s Untold Story is a very good secondary source for trying to link together the various pieces of our common American labor history. The period before World War I, that is, the period before the creation of the American Communist Party and its subsequent Stalinization, is fairly honestly covered since there is no particular political reason not to do so. The authors begin their “soft-soap” when we get to the 1920s and the Lafollette presidential campaign of 1924 and then really get up a head of steam when discussing the role of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the labor struggles of the 1930s in the interest of the Popular Front (read: the 1930s version of that “anti-monopolist” coalition mentioned above) up until about 1939.

Then, please do not forget, the authors make the ‘turn’ in the party-line during the short period of the Hitler-Stalin Pact in 1939 when there was nothing that a good right-wing American First Committee member could not have applauded. Of course, once the Soviet Union was invaded the authors went all out in their version of defense of that country (a correct position) when World War II heated up by supporting wholesale the “no strike” pledge and assorted other anti-labor actions (incorrect positions). Then when the Cold War descended in the aftermath of the war and the “red scare” hit the unions big time they cried foul when the capitalists circled the wagons against the Soviet Union and its supporters. Yes, I knew all that well before I re-read the book and wrote the review. Still this is one of the few books which gives you, in one place, virtually every important labor issue from the post-Civil War period to the 1960s (when the book ends). Be forewarned then, and get this little book and learn about our common labor history.

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-"The Jute Mill Song"

Click on the title to link a YouTube film clip of Karen Casey performing The Jute Mill Song.

In this series, presented under the headline Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here. Markin.

***********


The Jute Mill Song
(Mary Brookbank)


O, dear me, the mill is running fast
And we poor shifters canna get nae rest
Shifting bobbins coarse and fine
They fairly make you work for your ten and nine

O, dear me, I wish this day were done
Running up and doon the Pass is nae fun
Shiftin', piecin', spinning warp, weft and twine
To feed and clothe ma bairnie offa ten and nine

O, dear me, the world is ill-divided
Them that works the hardest are the least provided
But I maun bide contented, dark days or fine
There's no much pleasure living offa ten and nine

Recorded by MacColl- Steam Whistle Ballads, Redpath- Ballad Book,
Golden Ring- Day 1
Copyright TRO Essex Music Ltd.