From The American Left History Blog Archives (2007)
- On American Political Discourse
Markin comment:
In the period 2006-2008 I, in
vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American
presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed
election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the
event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious,
in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who
really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the
Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world
politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially
the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois
commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things
to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies,
the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for
a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some
of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on.
************ORGANIZE THE COAL MINERS!
COMMENTARY
DON’T MOURN,
ORGANIZE!
In my recent Labor Scorecard 2007 commentary (see September
2007 archives) and elsewhere I have noted that a key to the revitalization of
the American labor movement is the organization of Wal-Mart and the South two
giant tasks that would go a long way to a return of labor militancy. In short,
organize the unorganized. Those tasks are still central to recovery, however,
the recent mine disaster at the Crandall Canyon Mines in Utah and last year’s disaster at Sago, West Virginia
have brought to mind how precarious conditions are in the mines. And that is
not even to speak of the seemingly daily disasters in the Chinese mines and
elsewhere. Tunneling underground is just not a safe operation under any
circumstances. Impelled by the profit motive, as Crandall Canyon
so graphically demonstrated, it can be nothing short of industrial murder I
have also read a recent article on the state of unionization in the American automobile
industry which was at one time almost totally unionized. The most dramatic
statistic that I gathered from that article was that while there are almost as
many auto workers as there were at the height of the unions today only one
third of that work force is unionized. Thus, an expansion of organization of
these previously militant unions is on the agenda today.
Historically some of the most dramatic labor battles in America
involved the United Mine Workers and other miners’ unions. One need only think
of the “Molly McGuires” in the Pennsylvania coal fields, the names Ludlow, Butte, Coeur d’Alene, the Western
Federation of Miners led by the legendary “Big” Bill Haywood and of other
lesser class struggle led by him and the International Workers of the World
(IWW, Wobblies). The names roll off the tongue in endless succession. More recently one remembers the great battles
in the Eastern mines, especially West
Virginia , up to the 1970’s. If one location epitomized
theses long struggles one need only mention one name Harlan, famous in story
and song, in the hills of Kentucky to
know militant miners knew how to fight
(as well as the built-in limitations to success, as well). My father, before he
escaped the coal fields by joining the Marines in World War II and thereafter settling
in Boston, ‘worked the coal’ as a boy around Hazard, Kentucky, another
legendary mining town. He had many a story to tell about those experiences and
it is a measure of how bad it was that he happily went into the service in
order to escape that life. One lesson that he imparted to me and one that
offers us hope is the tradition, honored more in the breech that the observance
now, of the miners-Picket lines mean don’t cross. Every militant needs to have
that slogan etched in his or her brain.
That said, today’s coal economics do not make the task any
easier than in earlier times. Coal production has had a very stormy and topsy-turvy
history and unemployment and abandonment of worked-over mines is only part of
the story. Recently, with the increased price of other fossil fuels, mainly
oil, however the coal ‘clean or dirty’ has become more valuable. Thus, old
unsafe mines and other formerly forgotten fields are being worked today by the
same old greedy capitalist investors that we all remember from the ‘age of the
robber barons’. Moreover the location of the fields in remote areas and,
frankly, the parochialism and localism of the workforce make organizing as
difficult as it always has been. Add to
the mix, as noticeable in Crandall
Canyon , the waves of
immigrants swarming to the fields in search of desperately needed work and
there is a handful. Yes, those are all problems to be confronted but the most
serious problem is the lack of interest of today’s leadership of the Mine
Workers and of the AFL-CIO to make this fight. And that is where the fight has
to begin.
Lest I be accused of the dreaded sin of ‘dual unionism’ let
me make clear that this fight to reorganize the miners has to begin with the
current organized union structures as a matter of common sense. Tackling the
individual disparate owners piecemeal with local unions is not the way forward.
Yes, we want one big industry-wide, nation-wide (or for that matter,
world-wide) union. What we do not want to do is rely on the good graces of
governmental agencies, in this case, the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
As the results of Crandall
Canyon demonstrate
reliance on this toothless (for labor) agency is a sure sign of defeat before
we start.
Furthermore, a central demand beyond the tradition ones of
union recognition, wages and working conditions is the absolute necessity to
fight for a workers safety committee with the union that would prohibit work in
unsafe mines and address other mine safety issues. Let us be clear this is not
some tripartite (labor, capitalist, government) committee but a union one. If
one wants to know what the embryonic stages of workers control of production under
capitalism but before socialism that should be our model. It is a life and
death struggle. All trade union militants should be demanding that instead of
using your hard earned dues to elect one or another of the bourgeois candidates
in 2008 that those dues go to organizing the mines. That, my friends, is the
beginning of labor wisdom now. Don’t mourn, Organize!