Markin comment on this series:
One of the declared purposes of this space is to draw the lessons of our left-wing past here in America and internationally, especially from the pro-communist wing. To that end I have made commentaries and provided archival works in order to help draw those lessons for today’s left-wing activists to learn, or at least ponder over. More importantly, for the long haul, to help educate today’s youth in the struggle for our common communist future. That is no small task or easy task given the differences of generations; differences of political milieus worked in; differences of social structure to work around; and, increasingly more important, the differences in appreciation of technological advances, and their uses.
There is no question that back in my youth I could have used, desperately used, many of the archival materials available today. When I developed political consciousness very early on, albeit liberal political consciousness, I could have used this material as I knew, I knew deep inside my heart and mind, that a junior Cold War liberal of the American For Democratic Action (ADA) stripe was not the end of my leftward political trajectory. More importantly, I could have used a socialist or communist youth organization to help me articulate the doubts I had about the virtues of liberal capitalism and be recruited to a more left-wing world view. As it was I spent far too long in the throes of the left-liberal/soft social-democratic milieu where I was dying politically. A group like the Young Communist League (W.E.B. Dubois Clubs in those days), the Young People’s Socialist League, or the Young Socialist Alliance representing the youth organizations of the American Communist Party, American Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S.) respectively would have saved much wasted time and energy. I knew they were around but not in my area.
The archival material to be used in this series is weighted heavily toward the youth movements of the early American Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S). For more recent material I have relied on material from the Spartacus Youth Clubs, the youth group of the Spartacist League (U.S.), both because they are more readily available to me and because, and this should give cause for pause, there are not many other non-CP, non-SWP youth groups around. As I gather more material from other youth sources I will place them in this series.
Finally I would like to finish up with the preamble to the Spartacist Youth Club’s
What We Fight For statement of purpose:
"The Spartacus Youth Clubs intervene into social struggles armed with the revolutionary internationalist program of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. We work to mobilize youth in struggle as partisans of the working class, championing the liberation of black people, women and all the oppressed. The SYCs fight to win youth to the perspective of building the Leninist vanguard party that will lead the working class in socialist revolution, laying the basis for a world free of capitalist exploitation and imperialist slaughter."
This seems to me be somewhere in the right direction for what a Bolshevik youth group should be doing these days; a proving ground to become professional revolutionaries with enough wiggle room to learn from their mistakes, and successes. More later.
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From Socialist Alternative
A Fighting Program for Teamsters
Part 1
Millions of workers, in unions and unorganized, have followed the struggle and victory of the reform movement in the Teamsters. The election of Ron Carey as International President and the election of the reform slate to 16 to 19 executive board positions represents a turning point in the history of the Teamsters Union. The task in front of Teamsters now is to turn this powerful union into an instrument that can defend wages and conditions for its members and help transform the entire labor movement.
The election result represented the crystallization of anger of rank and file Teamsters at the erosion of living standards, benefits and working conditions. It was also a rejection of the Old Guard and their policies: the multi-salaried bureaucrats, the corruption, the trampling on the rights of workers in locals, the wholesale misspending of members' pension funds, the sweetheart deals with the bosses, the rejection of all attempts of the rank and file to have a say in the union.
Some important steps toward rebuilding the trust of members in their union have been taken. The private jets have been sold, and Carey has cut his own pay and benefits. He has replaced a layer of Old Guard officials with new full-time officials who are paid only one salary and who do not have ties with the past methods. He has joined workers on the picket lines, at plant gates, and at their barns - something unheard of in recent years. As a result, Northwest flight attendants decided to stay with the Teamsters. Also, the demands by management for major concessions in the car-haulers contract were defeated in part through mobilizing Teamsters to picket Ryder corporation. In this contract, the first steps were taken in the struggle against double-breasting. The victory of the reform movement has also inspired clerical workers at Boeing to approach the Teamsters to organize.
Workers and opposition movements who seek to change their leadership in other unions have been inspired by the victory of the Teamsters. This year has seen the rise of the New Directions Movement opposition in the UAW. In the Carpenters' union there was the first contested leadership election in recent memory and oppositions have developed in CWA, SEIU and several other unions. This is a process of growing realization among workers that in order to defend jobs and wages they need to transform their unions. This process will gather strength and speed in the coming period.
Rank and File Must Transform the Teamsters
The anger of workers and their opposition to concessions and the methods of the Old Guard crystallized around the Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU). It grew in support and strength as discontent with the old leadership developed. It was the existence of TDU that enabled Carey to be successful in his campaign for President. TDU's 10,000 members were instrumental in combating the bureaucracy's mobilization around the campaigns of the Old-Guard candidates and giving an organized expression to the anger of rank and file Teamsters.
The task of transforming the Teamsters has only begun. Most of the Locals, Joint Councils and Policy Committees of the regional Conferences are still under the control of the Old Guard. The bulk of the members' dues goes not to the International, but instead to these local and regional bodies. These bodies must be reclaimed by the rank and file if they are to be effective in fighting the employers. Already there has been an upsurge in new reform campaigns at the local level. The task of rank and file Teamsters is to challenge these leaders by organizing in TDU, and elect members and programs that will defend living standards.
The new leadership of the Teamsters has immediately been confronted with the employers' offensive. Management has pushed to cut wages and benefits, introduce two-tier contracts and cut pensions and health benefits. At the same time, it has pushed to replace the union drivers with non-union ones. In this situation, the union needs to change its strategy and tactics. The failed policies of the 1970s and 1980s must join the Old Guard on the scrap heap.
Teamsters must oppose government intervention in the affairs of the union. The government is horrified at the prospect of a democratic and militant Teamsters union giving a new direction to the labor movement. Under the consent decree signed by the Old Guard leadership and the government takeover of the union, an independent review board was to be set up with one member to be appointed by the Justice Department, one by the union and the third member to be chosen by the other two members. But, in August the government arbitrarily decided to appoint the third member: William Webster, ex-leader of the CIA and FBI giving the government a two to one majority on this body! Teamsters should note that William Webster is a member of the Board of Directors of Anheuser-Busch, a major employer with whom the union has a contract.
A federal judge has also extended and expanded the government's right to interfere in the affairs of the union, including its right to attend any meeting and spend union dues - and the right for each investigator to charge the union $385 an hour to do so. This shows that the government plans to meddle even more in the workings of the union and throw up obstacles and delaying tactics. Despite the claims of "protecting democracy," the smashing of the PACTO union, the ordering of railroad workers back to work and the strengthening of anti-union laws are reminders that the government - and both political parties - are completely committed to weakening unions and defending the interests of the employers.
The reform movement is under threat from the employers, the government and the Old Guard. Despite Carey's good reputation as a fighter for the rank and file of the union, enormous pressure is being placed on him and other reformers in the union as big business seeks to stifle and crush the development of a strong, militant Teamsters union. The history of the union movement is full of examples of leaders who came into office as fighters, but who cracked under the pressure of the employers. The reason for this is that they had no program or strategy to deal with the problems their members faced. The leadership should mobilize the rank and file to strengthen the union. This can only be done on the basis of a fighting program that can galvanize the members and transform the union from top to bottom and prepare for the battles that lie ahead. This is the decisive task facing TDU and the new leadership of the International; otherwise, they also will be faced with that danger.
1990s - A Period of Crisis
The conditions facing Teamsters and other workers are the most serious in over 50 years. Capitalism is in a period of deepening crisis. This is reflected in the decay of the infrastructure, the huge level of indebtedness and the length of the 1990-92 recession. Living standards have been cut by 19% since 1973, according to the AFL-CIO News. Since George Bush came to power, the economy has grown at its slowest rate under any president since the 1930s. The decline in the US economy over the last 40 years can be seen in the figures below.
Average Annual Rate of Growth of Gross Domestic Product:
1960-73 4.0% per year
1973-79 2.4%
1979-90 2.6%
Average Annual Productivity Growth:
1960-73 2.2% per year
1973-89 0.0%
1979-90 0.8%
The decline in the rate of growth in gross national product (GNP) shows how the rate of growth of the economy has slowed since the 1960s. The decline in the annual rate of growth in productivity shows how big business has not invested in new plants and new technology to compete with its rivals. The fact that there was hardly any improvement in these figures between 1979 and 1990 shows how weak the boom of the 1980s was. The situation in the 1990s, with much slower growth than in the 1980s, will make the economic situation even worse.
At present, all the major countries of the world are facing a deepening crisis of capitalism. The economies of Japan and Germany, which have been major engines of growth in the last couple of years, are mired in crises with a slowing rate of growth and the threat of recession. The world economic upswing of the 1950s and 1960s is decisively over, leading to a period of declining production, bankruptcies, plant closures and layoffs.
Management has adapted to these new conditions by directly attacking workers' wages and the unions. From the time attacks were made on the building trades in the 1970s, during Chryslers' threatened bankruptcy in 1979, and the firing of the air traffic controllers with the smashing of PACTO in 1981, management has gone on the offensive. Concessions were forced through. Two-tier contracts were introduced, benefits were cut and union-busting companies were hired to help employers weaken unions and to set up non-union operations. All this was organized with the support of their two political parties, the Republicans and Democrats, and backed up by the courts and government agencies.
Deregulation
One of the main weapons big business used was deregulation of trucking, alongside deregulation of other industries. Deregulation of trucking, which was signed into law by President Carter, was supposed to create more competition and more efficiency. Senator Edward Kennedy, a ranking Democrat who campaigned vigorously for the bill, and who masquerades as a friend of labor, called the Motor Carrier Act "a significant victory" in the "ongoing battle to ... reform and reduce needless federal government regulation of business ... It means less government and interference in industry ... and more freedom for individual firms to conduct their business in the way they think best. It'll mean new opportunities, new jobs."
It certainly allowed business to operate "in the way they think best." It led to a proliferation of non-union unregulated companies entering the market to take work away from union companies, which joined existing non-union trucking companies like Federal Express. Also, it has created "new jobs" - non-union, low-paid jobs with no job security and working conditions that are intolerable. While these jobs were created, they in no way compensate for the 150,000 union jobs that were lost. Of the 30 largest trucking companies that existed before deregulation, only 10 now survive. Many of the remaining union companies have made deep inroads into wages and benefits by introducing two-tier contracts that divide the workforce in preparation for lowering all wages in the future.
While in the initial stages deregulation increased competition, the overall direction has been the opposite. There has been an increase in monopolization with the big companies using their advantage to demand cuts in wages and drive out competitors. Before deregulation, the three largest trucking companies accounted for one-third of the revenues of the top 25 companies. Today, the top three - Roadway Express, Consolidated Freightways and Yellow Freight, Inc. - account for one half of all the revenues of the top 25 companies. The big three have undercut other companies by offering only 70% of the full wage and discounts of up to 60% in targeted areas.
A Brookings Institute survey estimated in 1990 the total "savings" from deregulation of trucking and rail freight at $20 billion dollars a year. This is what workers in these industries had to pay in the 1980s for deregulation.
Now workers face a further threat from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Once again, workers are being told it will create hobs and "increase productivity." However, it will open up US roads to Mexican trucking companies who pay workers in Mexico a fraction of those in the US - often $7 dollars a day. 85% of all trade between Mexico and the United States is carried by truck. NAFTA would allow Mexican truck companies to operate in the US without the need for CDLs and without safety regulations workers have forced companies to accept in the US and Canada. It shows the clear intent of big business to drive wages and conditions down to the level of those paid in Mexico. The way forward for Teamsters is not to campaign to bar Mexican workers from the US. This will only weaken the union's position, by dividing us from our brothers and sisters in Mexico and weaken our ability to link up with workers and unions in Mexico. It must be remembered that the Teamsters are an international union, representing workers in the US and Canada. The only way to protect wages in the next period is for the Teamsters to launch an organizing drive and link up with unions in Mexico to help raise their wages up to the level of Teamsters in the US and Canada.
Unions Must Lead Struggle to Defend Wages and Conditions
This offensive of the employers was only successful because the leaders of the Teamsters and their unions failed to fight to defend their members. The United Auto Workers gave concessions and the AFL-CIO didn't organize a national work stoppage to defend the air traffic controllers' strike.
When employers said concessions were necessary, the union leaders accepted this at face value and repeated it to their members. But once concessions are given, management only comes back for more. Now management routinely organizes strikebreakers to replace striking workers, and the big business courts back them up. The unions have only been weakened by the leadership's policy of accepting concessions. The labor leadership must launch a campaign to explain to workers how the rich and big business have taken 90% of all the income growth in the 1980s, and how it is time for workers to get their share. This means preparing for a serious struggle. This can only be done by mobilizing members around demands that will inspire them to move into struggle and can gain support from other workers.
In the 1990s, Teamsters will face the greatest attacks on their living standards since the 1930s. US capitalism is now in a long-term decline and forced to attack living standards. At the same time, rank and file Teamsters are now in the best situation in their history to build a strong and fighting union. The mobilization of the rank and file leading to the defeat of the old Guard has given Teamsters a chance to make a fundamental break with the methods of the past. To seize this opportunity, it is necessary to learn the lessons of the Teamsters' tremendous history, especially in the 1930s.
******
Fighting Program for Teamsters
Part 2
Militant Traditions of the Teamsters Union
The Teamsters Union was built through the struggle of the working Teamsters to organize against the terror of their employers. Through the bloody Teamsters strike in Chicago in 1905, the union began to develop. As was the case in all the unions, it was only by sacrifice, dedication and the vision of working people demanding their say at work, as well as the running of society, that the unions were built. On almost every occasion, the figures who built the unions were militant workers. Often they were socialists who understood that only by challenging big business' control of society would workers be able to make any real and lasting gains. It was people such as Eugene Debs (who twice won nearly one million votes as the presidential candidate of the Socialist Party and who built the National Railway Union) and Big Bill Haywood (who was the leader of the Industrial Workers of the World - the Wobblies - and who led the Western Federation of Miners) who built the unions and laid the foundation for the modern labor movement.
However, during the 1920s and 1930s, the unions were under the control of leaders who refused to organize any workers other than skilled ones, and who put their relations with management before those with their members. In many ways, their outlook was similar to that of the Teamsters over the last 15 years. The 1929 stock market crash and the subsequent Great Depression of the 1930s exposed the strategies of these leaders. Cuts in wages were accepted, attacks on workers were not fought and the movement was in retreat.
Minneapolis Teamsters Win Victories
In this situation, a new leadership arose in Minneapolis in Teamsters' Local 574. This leadership transformed the situation of the Teamsters and other workers in Minneapolis and then built the over-the-road organizing drive that laid the foundations for the strength of the modern Teamsters of today. It is by examining the methods and strategies they used that Teamsters can see how the union can be rebuilt in this present period of recession, stagnation and attacks by the bosses.
The Minneapolis Teamsters developed an alternative strategy to build the union. Starting with an organizing victory for coal and yard workers and drivers through a swift strike in early 1934, they then mounted an organizing drive among truck drivers in the city. Through audacious organizing drives around a clear program of demands, they transformed the situation in the local from between 100 and 200 members in 1933 to over 7,000 by the middle of 1934. Due to the support they won from rank and file Teamsters, they soon emerged as the dominant force in the local and prepared for a major struggle to win recognition for Local 574 from the trucking companies in Minneapolis.
The strategy of this campaign was to develop a clear program that dealt with the needs of the workers. This was worked out in discussions with the workers involved. Their demands meant a fundamental change in the conditions of workers and inspired them to rally around the union. These demands were agreed in mass meetings of the union. The members then elected a committee of 100 rank-and-filers to prepare for a serious struggle to win these demands.
Along with demands on wages and working conditions, nine key demands were codified by the new Teamsters leadership in Minneapolis into the "Model Contract" and are printed in the adjacent box.
Minneapolis Teamsters Model Contract Demands:
1. Contracts with employers to be limited to a term of one year.
2. Demands concerning wages and working conditions to be decided in consultation with the union members involved in each particular case.
3. Premium pay to be received for overtime, with the added provision that there be no overtime until all employees on the job worked their full quota of regular hours.
4. If the workweek should be reduced by legislative act, rates of pay to be increased in the proportion necessary to guarantee that there would be no reduction in total week pay.
5. Disputes over seniority standing to be settled by the union. The employer to have no voice in the matter.
6. Back pay owed to workers because of contract violations by the employer to be computed at two times the regular wage rate.
7. Formal recognition to be required from the employer of the unions right to operate a shop steward system.
8. The Union to retain the right to strike over employer violations of the working agreement.
9. No boss to order his employees to go through a picket line of a striking union.
Farrell Dobbs, who soon emerged as the leading figure in Local 574, explained this "Model Contract" in the following way: "None of these provisions represented mere bargaining points to be used for horse-trading in negotiations with employers. Each and every one constituted a matter of basic policy. All were enforced according to actual practice. As staff director, it was my job to see that this was the case."
The principal organizers of these struggles were Ray Dunne, Micky Dunne, Grant Dunne, and Carl Skoglund. Soon, new leaders developed out of the struggle, including individuals such as Farrell Dobbs, Harry DeBoer and Lack Maloney. These leaders were socialists and committed supporters of the ideas or Karl Marx and Leon Trotsky, co-leader of the 1917 Russian Revolution when the working class came to power for the first time in history. It was Trotsky and his supporters internationally that first fought against the Stalinist bureaucracy that developed in the Soviet Union.
The socialist leadership of the Minneapolis Teamsters saw that through unity, workers could be the most powerful force in the city. This power could stop production, gain support from other workers and unions, and reach out to the unemployed and small farmers. In other works, they made the struggle of the members the struggle of all workers across the city of Minneapolis. Workers in the city saw that a victory for Teamsters Local 574 would be a victory for all labor, and a defeat for all employers.
In the face of this upsurge in union militancy, the employers, who were organized in the misnamed Citizens Alliance, pulled together their forces to defeat this threat to their profits and their right to run Minneapolis in their own interests. By utilizing the Minneapolis newspapers, the judges and the two major political parties, they mounted a campaign of slander against the union, including vicious red-baiting. At the same time, they mobilized the police to attempt to defeat the mass strikes that developed.
In the face of these threats, the socialist leadership of the Minneapolis Teamsters relied on the power of a class-conscious and well-informed, organized working class. An essential part of this was the role played by The Organizer, the first daily strike newspaper in the US. This kept all workers in the city informed and involved. It also clarified the role of the big-business press, the two major political parties, the judges and the courts, and how they all defended the bosses. It clarified that by relying on its own strength and by being conscious of its enemies, the working class was the most powerful force in society when organized around a class-conscious leadership.
The leadership in Minneapolis also put forward a program to win support from the unemployed. This included building an unemployed section of the union, which fought to improve the conditions of the unemployed. This turned potential scabs into some of the best fighters for the union and was an essential weapon in defeating the employers' attempt to recruit thugs and strikebreakers.
1934 Strikes Turn Around Situation in Minneapolis
The decisive strikes in the spring and summer of 1934 were only successful because they mobilized Teamsters and other workers and the unemployed in the city. Faced with employers who refused to negotiate, and who claimed poverty, the socialist Teamster leadership prepared for a serious battle. A headquarters was rented, a rank-and-file committee of 100 was elected to take over the day-to-day running of the strike, a women's auxiliary made up of wives and girlfriends was organized, and kitchens were set up to feed over 4,000 and provide all workers who were involved with a meal.
As a result, members and workers across the city of Minneapolis were prepared for a major struggle. At short notice, mass picket lines, sometimes with thousands of Teamsters and other workers, were organized to stop all movement of trucks and shut down the operations of the employers. Workers from all trades came to help, including farmers who distributed food and nurses and doctors who donated time in the union hospital established in the headquarters. The union received copies of letters from secretaries who sent copies of the bosses' plans to the union.
Farrell Dobbs explains in the Book Teamster Rebellion the enthusiasm that developed around the important strike of May 1934:
"Assembling the mass forces for such extensive picketing proved to be no problem at all. As soon as the strike was called, new members poured into Local 574 from all sections of the trucking industry. In no time at all, the union almost doubled its mid-April strength, reaching a figure of nearly 6,000. The union's approach to the unemployed workers brought spectacular results. Hundreds upon hundreds of jobless poured into the strike headquarters, volunteering their services; they fought like tigers in the battles that followed. Together with women and men from other unions, they came to the strike headquarters at the end of their day's work, ready to help in whatever way they could. Deep in the night they would finally stretch out wherever they found a place to get a little sleep before returning to their jobs. A significant number of college students pitched in to help the union. All in all, pickets were on hand by the thousands."
In the two major strikes of 1934, the strategy was to win a decent contract for all truck drivers and warehouse workers in the city. To achieve this, it was necessary to stop every truck from moving. Cruising pickets were dispatched to challenge any truck that moved and ensure that it was prevented from continuing. Workers were organized across the city at public phones to watch for any movement of trucks and call the union, which would quickly dispatch a truckload of strikers to the scene. The Citizens Alliance response was to write out injunctions to prevent picketing. Unlike today's union leadership, the Minneapolis strike leaders refused to obey these injunctions. When this happened, the police were dispatched to the scene. However, the police found themselves outnumbered on the picket lines which often involved thousands of workers. By using these innovative tactics, the union managed to stop all trucks from moving.
Faced with the failure of their regular methods of strikebreaking by using the city police, both uniformed and plain-clothed, the Citizens Alliance resorted to recruiting special deputies to beef up the police. They saw that the only way they might win was to use force. Specially organized deputies assaulted workers with riot gear and bullets.
In response, workers outnumbered and outlasted the police on the picket lines. On a number of occasions, well-organized strikers armed with baseball bats showed the cops and deputies that they could defeat them on the streets. Appalled at the murderous actions of the employers, Teamsters found that atrocities committed by the forces of "law and order" only hardened their resolve to win their struggle, and allowed them to win support from wider layers of workers and the population.
The final attempt of the bosses to win the strike in the summer of 1934 was to dispatch the National Guard, put the union leaders in a stockade, and attempt to use traitorous local union leaders to sell out the strike. However, rank-and-file leaders came forward to continue to lead the strike and to ensure that there was no sell-out. In the end, the employers were forced to capitulate and accept the major demands of the union, which won representation for all employees in 62 firms, including all the major companies and gained large wage increases for the workers.
After the successful May 1934 strike, management refused to accept the agreed settlement, precipitating the seven-week strike of July and August 1934, which was necessary to force employers to accept the agreements. Following that, the socialists were elected to the leadership of Local 574, with Farrell Dobbs elected as Secretary-Treasurer. The local then won increased wages for workers and established new traditions of union solidarity, which transformed the situation for labor in the city. Their methods of mobilizing for a struggle were often sufficient to force employers to settle. Those who did not soon learned how powerful organized labor can be.
During these struggle, the leaders of Local 574 also had to deal with attacks from Teamster International leader Daniel Tobin. In 1935, Tobin attempted to crush this socialist leadership by expelling Local 574 from the Teamsters International and built a new paper Local 500 in its place. However, the socialist leadership of Local 574 fought back and led a movement for reinstatement into the International. When it was clear that Tobin's strategy had failed to break the ranks from their militant leadership, the militants were reinstated into the Teamsters International as a newly merged Local 544 in August 1936. The militant socialists were soon elected to its leadership in a stronger position than ever.
Minneapolis Teamsters Enforce the Contract
The Minneapolis Teamsters did not only win good contracts. They also didn't hesitate to enforce them. An essential tactic used by Farrell Dobbs and other leaders of Local 574 in Minneapolis was the demand for the right to strike during a contract. This included the company having to pay double if they broke contract rules! If a number of grievances built up, the union would demand they be resolved or the company would be struck. Companies soon learned to respect the union when they found their businesses closed down. If there were any questions about seniority, the union decided this issue - the union had the final decision. This method was swift and effective and did not involve dependence on expensive lawyers. Also, it kept the rank and file in control of the grievance procedure and kept the power of the union where it was strongest - on the shop floor, not in lawyers' offices.
In their struggles, the socialist Teamster leadership in Minneapolis immediately had to face the problem of the intervention of the City Council, the Mayor and the Governor. In most cities, these officials are members of the Democratic or Republican Parties. Their approach to labor is to use the laws to defend the right of the employer to hire strikebreakers, to restrict effective picketing, and to call arbitrators when labor seems to be getting too powerful.
The attitude of Dobbs and the Minneapolis Teamsters was to put no trust in capitalist politicians, but instead to expose their links to business and demand that workers must put their own representatives into power. In Minneapolis at the time, they supported candidates of the Farmer-Labor Party, but overall they supported the creation of a Labor Party as the only way that workers could win any serious, lasting gains. They argues that big business puts its own class interests forward at all times and has two political parties to defend them. Labor had to draw similar conclusions in order to defend the interests of the working class.
Through these methods and struggles, the wages and working conditions of Teamster members were transformed. For example, a wholesale grocery driver in 1933 was earning around $15 a week for an average 54-hour workweek, with no extra pay for overtime. That came out to about 28 cents an hour. After the victorious strikes in 1934, a driver was earning 52 cents an hour! Three years later, that worker was on 70 to 75 cents an hour and his workweek was down to 48 hours. In some areas, workers won pay raises of up to 64% as a result of the over-the-road organizing drive. These gains should be held up as an example of the kind of gains that could be won by unions today if they followed similar strategies.
Local 574 saw that the only way union leaders and business agents could represent their members was if they lived a lifestyle similar to that of their members. Farrell Dobbs explains their policy: "On the question of staff wages, the union leadership junked the outrageous bureaucratic practice of conniving to draw salaries comparable to those received by corporation executives. Staff pay was supposed to be $26 a week, the going wage for truck drivers at the time; as new wage increases were won for the workers, the staff would then get a similar raise." Thus, all business agents and union officials were paid no more than the average wage of the workers they represented. Often it was much less. As Dobbs explains, "In this, as in every other respect, there was only one class of citizenship in the local; it was shared equally by elected officers, full-time organizers and rank-and-file members." This ensured that only people who were willing to put the interests of the movement first came forward as business agents. Also, it ensured that their outlook did not get elevated above that of the members.
It should be noted that the Minneapolis leadership refused to use the term "business agents," so as not to identify the union with a business. Instead, they called them "organizers." Also, they instituted a policy that if a worker became an organizer, then his seniority was maintained. This ensured that he was not separated from the workforce and could always return to a regular job at a later date.
On grievances, organizers were expected to fight for their members. When face to face with management, they were expected to always argue as strongly as possible for the concerns of their members, and not to horse-trade or give up workers' rights to management. It was only later, at the union hall, that the situation would be assessed as to the best way the problem could be resolved.
Minneapolis Teamsters Increase Their Influence
Between 1934 and 1940 the socialist leadership of Local 574 and then Local 544 won victory after victory. Local 544 became the most powerful union in the city. This power was extended to the Minneapolis Teamster Joint Council. This allowed them to initiate their plans to launch the over-the-road organizing drive. Before then, the Teamsters union was essentially a grouping of colonial empires that were governed by the rules of the local in that area. Now all drivers were to be organized in 11 states in the Midwest around a similar contract. This strategy again used the method of organizing the members around demands that would change their lives. The North Central District Drivers Council was organized by the Minneapolis Teamsters under the leadership of Farrell Dobbs. It soon represented the most powerful Teamster locals in the region and organized all drivers in the region under one contract. The first area contract signed in 1938 represented 175 Teamster locals, 1,700 companies and 125,000 workers - the largest contract ever signed to date by Teamsters. The 1939 Agreement covered 350 union locals in 12 states (2,500 companies) and covered close to 200,000 workers. It forged a new direction for the Teamsters union.
Through this organizing drive and the signing of the first area contract, the foundation was laid for the establishment of the Teamsters as a powerful industrial and international union. The membership of the Teamsters exploded from 75,000 in 1993 to 420,000 in 1939. Some of the major problems facing Teamsters today were turned around by the militant tactics used in this organizing drive, which drew on the lessons learned in Minneapolis. For example, today Teamsters face a proliferation of owner-operator drivers who have been convinced that they can improve their lives by buying their own truck. Very often this results in worse conditions. The Minneapolis Teamsters developed a clear strategy towards these drivers. They demanded that the company include these workers in the union contract. The company was to pay all the cost of running the rig, and the driver would be paid either at a rate per hour or per mile. This won these drivers to the union and increased the power of the Teamsters.
Lessons for Today
The lessons to be learned from the struggles of Teamsters and the working class under the socialist leadership of the Teamsters in Minneapolis is clear. A program of demands must be drawn up that deals with the problems of all workers. Through such a program, Teamsters and other workers can be mobilized into a powerful force. By clarifying the role of the press, the two political parties, the courts and the police as allied to the employers, workers can then move into struggle with a clear understanding that their task is to rely on spreading support among the widest possible layer of workers and involving them in struggle. In this way, big business is faced with an escalating movement of the working class, which threatens to challenge its power in society. This will force management to the bargaining table and increase the consciousness, cohesion and power of the working class in its struggle to build a Labor Party and move toward the socialist transformation of society.
Through this program and strategy, the working class of Minneapolis was mobilized into a fighting force, which then could strengthen each group of workers when their own contracts came up. Minneapolis was transformed from a non-union city, under the control of the employers' organizations, into probably the strongest and most organized union city in the US.
Despite all the obstacles thrown at the union by employers, the un ion was able to win a contract and win important improvements in wages and conditions by using skillful tactics, by giving a clear explanation to workers of the issues involved, and by involving the membership at every turn of events. Through articles in the strike newspaper The Organizer, daily mass meetings of the union,, the involvement of workers from other unions and the involvement of all members in running the strike, the tables were turned on management.
This upsurge of the Teamsters in Minneapolis beginning in 1934 was one of the three militant strikes that won important victories and inspired the huge upsurge of labor in the mid-1930s. The tactics of mass picket lines began to be adopted by the newly emerged Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO). This process culminated in 1937 with the successful 44-day sit-down strike at General Motors, which forced the biggest and most powerful company in the country to accept the right of United Auto Workers to represent all autoworkers at the company. The power of the rank and file was shown to be decisive in the massive organizing drives that developed at this time. Huge gains were won during these militant struggles of the 1930s, and the situation of workers was transformed.
Union Leadership Contains Militancy
However, a leadership did not develop in the unions to take forward these new, successful tactics of the 1930s, with the exception of the Minneapolis Teamsters. Instead, the old leaders looked to contain these struggles whenever possible and return union methods to those of the past. In this they were aided by big business, which began to create many government agencies and bargaining bodies as well as legislation. The tactic of big business was to take the struggle off the streets, where it was successful, and into the courts and arbitration bodies, which are dominated by big business. Unfortunately, the union leaders cooperated in this.
At this time, big business and the government launched a campaign of terror against socialists and union militants. This was repeated by many union leaders. Red-baiting and terror was used to intimidate and victimize activists who looked to maintain the best traditions of struggles of the '30s.
A vicious campaign of slander, red-baiting and distortion was launched by the Teamster International leadership and President Roosevelt against the Minneapolis Teamsters in 1941. Local 544 was put into receivership and the socialist leaders removed from their positions. At the same time, the government charged the leaders with sedition and "threatening to overthrow the government." Farrell Dobbs, Carl Skoglund, Ray Dunne and Harry DeBoer and other leaders were jailed under the infamous Smith Act. In this way, the Teamsters International leadership and the government used repressive legislation passed in preparation for US entry into World War II to remove this leadership which had written some of the most heroic chapters in the struggle of workers in the US. It is an important warning to Teamsters today about the role of the government and the state toward union militants.
Having gained enormous power as a result of the terrific rise of membership - achieved by the over-the-road organizing drives - the international leadership of Tobin and Beck moved to throttle the upsurge of rank-and-file militancy in the Teamsters. Their methods were the methods of "business unionism." Beck's contempt for ordinary workers was shown in his 1949 statement (before he was elected president in 1952): "I'm paid $25,000 to run this union... Unions are big business. Why should truck drivers and bottle washers be allowed to make big decisions affecting union policy? Would any corporation allow it?"
In this situation, the rights of the rank and file were restricted and orders were issued from the top. Locals were restricted and put into trusteeship if they challenged Beck's leadership. In spite of Beck, the union continued to grow in membership. He failed to win decent improvements in wages and working conditions even in the West (which was his base), and he failed to achieve uniform contracts as had been achieved by the Minneapolis Teamsters in the Mid-West.
The Role of Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa was never formally on the North Central District Drivers Council that won uniform contracts for members. He emerged as an energetic organizer in Detroit and saw how Dobbs's strategy and methods had been successful. Observing some of the lessons of the Minneapolis Teamsters and the over-the-road organizing drives, he saw the huge power a uniform regional contract gave to workers and the union. He moved to organize the South and then the West into uniform regional contracts. This led to major gains for Teamsters and his becoming International President of the union in 1958. Under Hoffa, Teamsters emerged as one of the best-paid workers in the country, with improvements in wages and conditions. The signing of the first National Master Freight Agreement (NMFA) in 1964 was an enormous gain for rank-and-file Teamsters, and was mostly due to the struggle put up by the Minneapolis Teamsters.
At the same time as Hoffa won big gains for Teamsters, he concentrated power at the top of the union and weakened the involvement of the rank and file. His methods were to strike deals with the companies, using threats and at times organizing swift, well-organized strikes, to force employers to buckle under. Hoffa dealt ruthlessly with any rank and file workers or union activists who crossed his path. He also had dealings with the Mafia. This further created secrecy at the top of the union and introduced the Mafia into the Teamsters. It also gave a weapon of big business in its drive to weaken the union.
Despite his continual accumulation of power at the top and the increasingly luxurious and extravagant lifestyle of the Teamster leadership, Hoffa did understand the power of the strike method, and extracted major concessions through his use of secondary picketing, negotiating similar contract dates, and using open-ended grievance procedures. The grievance procedure established in the original 1938 over-the-road agreement, did not allow for automatic arbitration and Hoffa could strike by watching the methods of Dobbs and the Minneapolis Teamsters.
Anti-Union Legislation
However, the union movement was faced with increased anti-union legislation. Starting with the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, big business sought to force the unions into a legal straightjacket. The provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act, especially Section 14b, restricted the right to secondary picketing, opened the union to injunctions and lawsuits, and built up official channels through which big business sought to weaken labor's powers. The Taft-Hartley Act was put through by a majority of Democrats and Republicans. Despite threats of mass actions against this legislation, both the AFL and the CIO foiled to mobilize workers and allowed this legislation to become law without a major challenge.
The response of Hoffa, from the time he became International President, was to attempt to find a way around the Taft-Hartley Act and subsequent anti-union legislation like the Landrum-Griffin Act of 1959, by depending more on using clauses in contracts guaranteeing the right to strike. Ever mindful of the threat of further anti-union legislation, he attempted to keep struggles to a minimum and especially avoided calling a national strike, which might have provoked big business and the federal government to bring its weight down on the Teamsters. His failure to confront the anti-union laws and to educate the membership as had been done by the socialist leadership in Minneapolis left the members open to the attacks of the 1970s and 1980s. It was the heritage of the struggles of the 1930s, along with the economic upswing of the US and world capitalism, that allowed Hoffa's limited strategy to make some gains at that time.
Big business launched an offensive to weaken the powerful Teamsters Union by attempting to convict Hoffa for corruption. Big business wanted to weaken the National Master Freight Agreement (NMFA) and it was no accident that the Kennedys intensified their "investigation" of Hoffa immediately after the National Master Freight Agreement was signed. Almost all goods in the US were carried by trucks. If the Teamsters could be weakened, then all employers would be able to make higher profits. Eventually, Hoffa was put in jail in 1967, and power in the union passed to Fitzsimmons. Fitzsimmons and the other leaders of the Teamsters favored complete capitulation to the employers and came under the thumb of the Mafia. They adopted a conciliatory attitude to management.
These events occurred during the 1950s and 1960s, a period of economic upswing for capitalism. Production raced ahead, based on the dominant position of the US at the end of World War II. Management was seeing profits increase. During this period, gains could often be won by workers without having to resort to the militant strikes of the 1930s. The union leaders were able to point to their methods of one-to-one negotiation with management as all that was necessary to improve conditions for their members.
The union leaders deliberately buried all the traditions of the 1930s which they considered "outdated" and "disruptive" and discouraged workers from participating in the day-to-day life of the union. What the labor leaders did not understand and did not warn the workers about was that the postwar upswing of the economy was only a brief respite in the history of US capitalism. On the basis of capitalism it was inevitable that the upswing would break down into a period of deepening crisis.
Militancy Won Reforms
Important lessons for today can be learned by looking at the overall process of the 1930s through the 1950s. An explosive upsurge of labor in the mid-1930s built new powerful industrial unions and won major gains for workers. This movement then attempted to extend its power onto the political front by moving toward a labor party but that was blocked by the majority of the tops of the labor leadership. During and after World War II, the Roosevelt Administration and big business tried to break the unions, but failed. Faced with this situation, big business moved on the political front to weaken the power of the unions by getting its two major parties to pass the Taft-Hartley Act.
Since the labor leadership failed to challenge the law by mobilizing the industrial power of workers as well as failing to build a Labor Party, the labor movement saw a steady erosion of its legal rights and an increase of anti-union legislation. However, it was only when President Reagan moved to break PACTO that the employers dared return to the open-shop, union-busting measures they use today. This was again accepted without a serious challenge from the leadership of the union movement.
The unions are suffering the consequences of this today when attempts to organize effective picket lines are slapped down with injunctions and courts. The only way for labor to overcome these laws is to expose their class nature and launch a campaign to openly challenge injunctions and court actions. Part of this process should include the building of a political Party of Labor, based on the trade unions, to send workers' representatives to Congress against the hired hands of big business: the Democrats and Republicans.
When the postwar upswing came to an end with the 1974-75 recession, big business moved to drive down the living standards for workers in order to preserve their profits. The assault on living standards started under Democratic President Jimmy Carter with the deregulation of trucking and other industries. It was intensified under Reagan, and then Bush. Open union-busting came onto the agenda, and across the country labor found itself on the retreat.
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A Fighting Program for Teamsters
Part 3
Attacks on Teamsters
For Teamsters, the period of the last 15 years has been a continuous assault on wages, job security, benefits and conditions: wage freezes; wage cuts; the introduction of two-tier contracts, probationary periods and productivity deals; wholesale introduction of double-breasting and all that goes with it; the erosion of the 8-hour day; and the demand for co-payments for health benefits are just some of the cuts they have faced.
The offensive of the employers was only successful because the past corrupt Teamsters' leadership followed a policy of cooperating with management rather than fighting for the interests of the rank and file. Practically all the gains of the past were given up by the Old Guard leadership with hardly a struggle. At the same time, rather than organize new members, the Teamster leadership orchestrated raids on other unions, and signed contracts that hurt other workers. The pension funds of the union were plundered as bribes and corruption became the method of the union to gain favors.
The number of workers covered by the National Master Freight Agreement declined from 500,000 in the 1970s to about 200,000- today. The membership of the union fell from 2.2 million in 1978 to approximately 1.5 million at the present time. This reflected the total inability of the Old Guard leadership to deal with the conditions of the 1980s and '90s. At the same time, their corruption has allowed the big-business press to smear hard-working Teamsters with images of the mob and gangsters and invited government interference in the affairs of the union.
Opposition Grows
In this situation, opposition to the policies of the leadership developed. Rank-and-file Teamsters led a wildcat strike against Fitzsimmons' attempts to negotiate concessions in the 1970 National Master Freight Agreement. As a result of this strike, a significant wage gain was won. It was out of this strike that the union's first short-lived national rank-and-file movement began.
In 1976, Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) was formed. This gave rank-and-file Teamsters an organization to coordinate their struggles against concessionary contracts and to make their union more accountable to its members. TDU had been created at this time because of its members. TDU had been created at this time because of the fear of members that the national leadership would sell them out in the 1976 Master Freight Agreement negotiations. The pressure of TDU was instrumental in forcing Fitzsimmons to call the first national Teamster strike in 1976. This led to most concessions being defeated. TDU was strengthened by merging with the other major national Teamster reform group, PROD, in 1979.
A major victory was won in 1983 when Presser's attempt to put a concessionary rider on the National Master Freight Contract was defeated. The rider would have created a two-tier system, threatening a wage cut between 18% and 35%. The consequences would have been devastating. An eruption of anger from the rank and file alongside an all-out campaign by TDU led to its rejection by 94,086 votes t o13,082. It was a stunning defeat for the Teamsters Leadership and gave the reform movement a sense of its power. Members saw that the leadership was losing its grip on the union and prepared the way for the growth of the opposition movement in the union.
In August 1987, 53% of members rejected the UPS contract, and in May 1988, 64% of freight workers rejected their contract. Despite this, the union declared these contracts passed due to the two-thirds rule. As a result of the anger of workers at this ruling and a court action started by Ron Carey, the leadership was forced to change the rules to allow a 50% vote for the ratification of all future contracts. However, Teamsters should be warned that if less than 50% of workers fail to vote during a ratification vote, then the two-thirds rule still applies. This is one of the many changes that must be made at the next Teamsters' Convention. In a further defeat for the leadership, in July 1988, 72% of car haulers rejected their contract.
At the same time, members went on to the picket lines to defend their living standards. One of the most important strikes was the heroic struggle by cannery workers in Watsonville, California, where management attempted to reduce their low wages from $6.66 to $4.25 an hour. This militant strike was organized mainly by Latina women. After being out on strike for one and a half years, these workers managed to keep their jobs and gain a raise in wages. This strike drew support from workers across the country. With the threat of the North American Free Trade Agreement on the horizon, Teamsters should note that many of these Watsonville workers now face the loss of their jobs as their employers have plans to move production to Mexico.
The government sought to take advantage of the weakened situation in the Teamsters union by filing a lawsuit to take control of the running of the union. However, the rank and file opposed the government takeover of the union and, instead, raised the demand for the right to clean out their corrupt leaders themselves. The TDU built pressure for direct elections of the International President and Executive Board leadership of the union as a way for workers to solve their own problems. The incumbent Executive Board, fearful that they would go to jail, signed a consent decree with the government. Under this agreement, the government dropped its lawsuit against the union and accepted direct election of national leadership by the rank and file. At the same time, the government was given the power to oversee the operations of the future and showing the results of legal entanglements with the government in the labor movement.
The anger of members at the Old Guard and their failed policies led to the sweeping victory of the Ron Carey/TDU slate in the election of 1992. It is a sign of the mistaken view of big business that their attempts to throttle the most powerful union in the US and to smear all unions, has resulted in the election of a reform slate to the leadership of the union. It shows how big business has nothing but contempt for working people and their abilities to organize and struggle to change their conditions. The Teamsters Union now has the potential to organize a movement to give a new direction to labor nationally. The continued intervention of the government in the union has been left as a further legacy of the misrule of the Old Guard.
Now that the Old Guard has been swept aside by the rank and file at the top, but only at the top, it is necessary to prepare the entire union to confront the coming crisis of the 1990s. To do this, it is essential that the leadership of the union develops a fighting program and campaign for this program among the members and against the employers.
The Need for a Fighting Program
Rejection of concessions must be the starting point. But workers cannot be effectively mobilized into struggle just on demands against concessions. As in Minneapolis, workers will respond enthusiastically to a series of demands that will boldly confront the major problems they face. These demands should address the needs of all Teamsters as well as the concerns of other workers - organized or unorganized - so they can be rallied around the labor movement:
• A minimum wage of at least $10 an hour. For a 20% increase in pay on all contracts and full, uncapped COLA. This would raise the wages of the lowest-paid members to a level that would provide a basic standard of living and would compensate workers for the loss of earnings over the last period. This would get an enthusiastic response from members and be a beacon to workers across the country.
• A 32-hour workweek with no loss of pay. This would undoubtedly help to guarantee full employment for all Teamster members without a cut in wages. Also, it would be a clear signal to unemployed workers that the union is fighting for jobs for all workers.
• The right to strike for violation of the contract to be included in all contracts. This is the only way the union can effectively pressure management to accept and abide by all the provisions of the contract, and it puts the day-to-day enforcement of contracts in the hands of the rank and file. This will also avoid costly legal fees and third party interventions.
• No employer to have the right to order his employees to go through a picket line of a striking union to be included in all contracts as has been provided for in the NMFA. This was one of the key demands in Minneapolis contracts and was extended through the over-the-road drive, and is essential to building up the power of the Teamsters and building solidarity with other unions and workers. Drivers should have the right to turn trucks around at a picket line. Management or scabs should not be allowed to unload trucks or drive them through picket lines.
• Restore the practice of pattern bargaining on a national and regional level. All employers who employ workers in similar line of employment to have to conform to area agreements. This will prevent employers from chiseling away at our wages and benefits by signing separate deals and by getting workers to compete against each other.
• All employees must be paid for all time spent in the service of the employer. No stand-by or dead-time practices should be allowed. This demand was accepted by employers as early as the September 1938 Over-the-Road Motor Freight Agreement.
• Free nationalized health care. Only this can guarantee that members are not gouged by the for-profit health industry. Neither Teamsters nor other workers have any security under the present system, because workers who lose their jobs or have to take work in other industries have no fallback.
• Free on-site childcare. The Teamsters are organizing more and more woman workers. For working families, childcare, along with a year's paid family leave is a key demand. They cannot work and look after the children, and they cannot afford not to work. The present cost of childcare is prohibitive for most families.
• Fight all attempts by the employers to divide workers. This means taking a clear stand against racism or sexual discrimination.
• All union officials should be on the same wage scale as the average wage of the members they represent. This will ensure that the leaders understand the members' concerns and will fight for their interests.
• Organize the Unorganized! There are millions of truck drivers, warehouse workers and other workers looking to get the protection of the Teamsters. Carey has taken some important steps forward. This can lead to an explosive growth of the Teamsters in the next period. In order to accomplish this, a general mobilization of the rank and file is necessary.
• Repeal all anti-union legislation, including the Taft-Hartley Act. These laws were created by big business to cripple the unions. Both the Democrats and Republicans are responsible for this legislation.
• Companies who declare themselves unable to pay decent wages or who claim bankruptcy should open their books and show their profits. All the books of account of the company should be opened for inspection by the union. This principle was established as early as 1939 in the over-the-road organizing drive. Those companies who refuse to pay, or threaten to move or shut down should be taken into public ownership under workers' democratic control and management to save jobs.
• All-out opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement. According to the AFL-CIO, over 500,000 union jobs will be lost if this agreement becomes law.
• A massive program of public works to rebuild the infrastructure and provide housing, health and environmental cleanup. Private industry is offering no prospect for full employment in the coming period.
• Drive the government out of the Teamsters! No cooperation with the Review Board established by the consent decree signed by the Old Guard and the government. This body is now stacked 2-1 by government appointees! The union should refuse to cooperate in any way with the Review Board. The government's aim is to weaken the Teamsters and all other unions, to smear organized labor, to discourage workers from joining unions, and to set a precedent for agents of the government to take over other unions. Rank-and-file Teamsters do not need any lessons from government on how to eliminate corruption or on how to ruin their union!
• Break from supporting candidates of the Democratic and Republican parties. Instead, the Teamsters should campaign for the AFL-CIO to call a Conference of Labor to build a Labor Party.
Such a program would get enormous support from Teamsters and other workers to fight for improvements in conditions. It would mean exposing the overall attack on workers and how this is rooted in the deepening economic crisis of capitalism.
Challenge for International Leadership
An important challenge now faces the new Teamsters leadership. The replacement of the Old Guard at the top of the union is an important step forward. However, many good fighters have come forward in the past, but have been derailed because they accepted the limits that capitalism puts on the demands of workers. These leaders have not failed because of personal weaknesses, but because they have accepted capitalism and restricted the demands of workers.
The days of economic upswing of the 1950s and 1960s, when lasting reforms could be granted by the system, have ended. Now we face the 1990s and a deepening crisis of capitalism in the US and on a world scale. In this period, big business wants to take back the gains workers have won in the past. This creates a dilemma for the leaders of the labor movement. Either they accept the limits of the system, or they need to challenge the domination of society by the 500 corporations who control 70-75% of production and constitute the ruling class. This means clarifying the role of the press the courts, the police and the two big major political parties as having been established to defend the interests of this unelected minority who are the real "owners" of America. Unless Ron Carey and the new leadership clarify these issues, and draw the necessary conclusions, they will be forced to restrict the demands of Teamsters. This will mean accepting concessionary contracts and the derailing of the reform movement.
It was the clear understanding of the nature of capitalism that enabled the socialist leadership of the Teamsters in Minneapolis to prepare workers for the necessary battles, to marshal the necessary forces, and to defeat the forces that big business threw across their path.
Farrell Dobbs explained their position in this way:
"Local 574's leadership flatly repudiated the bankrupt line of the class collaborationists. There can be no such thing as an equitable class peace, the membership were taught. The law of the jungle prevails under capitalism. If the workers don't fight as a class to defend their interests, the bosses will gouge them. Reflecting these concepts, the preamble to the new by-laws adopted by the local stated:
'The working class whose life depends on the sale of labor and the employing class who live upon the labor of others, confront each other on the industrial field contending for the wealth created by those who toil. The drive of profit dominates the bosses' life. Low wages, long hours, the speed-up are weapons in the hands of the employer under the wage system. Striving always for a greater share of the wealth created by his labor, the worker must depend upon his organized strength. A militant policy backed up by united action must be opposed to the program of the boss.
'It is the natural right of all labor to own and enjoy the wealth created by it. Organized by industry and prepared for a grueling daily struggle is the only way in which lasting gains can be won by workers as a class.'"
The Teamster Leadership's strategy must include the demand that all jobs be protected and that businesses who claim they cannot pay will have their books inspected by the union and their members. The union must be prepared to say that the owners of trucking companies and other industries have shown themselves incapable of running their industries in the interests of society and workers. It must point to the long hours, low wages and wrecked family lives of those workers who do have jobs as unacceptable.
The Teamster leadership must be prepared to call for public ownership of the trucking industry, and other key industries, under workers' democratic control and management. It is only by taking the top 500 corporations into public ownership and a socialist plan of production being implemented that jobs, wages and working conditions can be defended in the coming period.
Teamsters for a Democratic Union
Since its inception, TDU, along with individuals like Ron Carey, has played the leading role in fighting for democratic reforms and fighting against the Old Guard. At the same time, it has led campaigns to oppose concessionary contracts and other decisions that adversely affect the members. TDU must intensify this struggle, and especially target locals with Old Guard leadership for reform. Also, new challenges have been placed in front of TDU. For example, TDU must give support to Carey in fighting the Webster appointment, as part of the struggle to end the government's intervention in the union. In the stormy period of the 1990s that is opening up, TDU should develop a fighting program similar to that explained above to give leadership to the rank and file in order to defend the living standards and interests of all Teamsters.
In the past years, TDU has provided leadership on a number of issues including one person-one vote in the union, and ousting corrupt officials. Teamsters should recognize the role TDE has played in this. Now, however, rank-and-file Teamsters and TDU face much bigger problems. As workers get activated around the need for reform, they will be looking for answers on all the issues they face. TDU will have to provide answers to these problems to keep these members involved. This can only be done through a fighting program. The leadership of TDU should now develop such a program to solve these problems, and then campaign among the ranks to commit the leadership of the unions to such a program.
Most of the problems Teamsters face today, such as government interference in the union, can only be solved by breaking from supporting the Democrats and the Republicans and beginning to launch a Labor Party. Farrell Dobbs, leader of the Minneapolis Teamsters and the original over-the-road drive, explained this issue in relation to government attacks against Hoffa in the 1960s:
"He [Hoffa] has been unable to rise above peanut politics with the Democrats and Republicans office holders. The limitation has been very costly to Teamsters. Restrictive laws passed by the capitalist politicians have weakened the Teamsters' inherent power to defend their class interests. A nine-year vendetta has been waged against them by the capitalist government, under both Democratic and Republican administrations. To politically class-conscious workers the answer to these attacks is self-evident. The Teamsters should take the lead in breaking with capitalist politics and launching an independent Labor Party. Their perspective should be to build a class political movement oriented towards the workers taking governmental power away from the capitalists."
The leadership of TDU needs to include the demand for a Labor Party in its goals and principles. Through utilizing a page from the Convoy Dispatch, Teamsters could learn how support is growing for a labor party and how they can become involved in building such a party. Teamsters in the US could then follow the steps taken by Canadian sisters and brothers, whose unions have built a labor party, the New Democratic Party (NDP).
Up until now, the main efforts of TDU have been directed to making changes at the top leadership level of the union. The election of Carey/TDU now means the struggle must be intensified on the local level. Those locals with Old Guard leadership must be targeted for reform. The Old Guard are still entrenched at the Joint Councils and Conference level of the Teamsters. These bodies also must be captured by the reform movement.
On the local level, the leadership of TDU must establish new traditions for the role of union officials and business agents. As reformers take over union goals, business agents must either transform their way of working or else be replaced by those who will. Just as management defends its own interests, the BAs must defend the interests of the workers against management. Shop stewards need to be elected regularly by the membership and linked into a strong shop steward system. TDU must also campaign for the principle that when workers are slapped down with grievances, the company and the union should treat them as innocent until, or if, the company can prove them guilty. Only in this way can trust and support be built up among members so they will come forward to reclaim their union.
TDU must fight to include demands in local contracts built around the already-mentioned nine-point "Model Contract" of the Minneapolis Teamsters, and which was the basis for the original over-the-road contract. The principles behind these demands show a way to rebuild the Teamsters. Most particularly, the principle of the right to strike over grievances during a contract must be restored, and included in all the contracts. This is the only way to stop the employers piling up grievances and bogging down the union in arbitration, and weakening the ability of the union to defend the contract. Ron Carey attempted, but failed, to include this demand in the recent car haulers contract, but it must be included in all future contracts. This program will put power back into the hands of the rank and file, and make the Teamsters a fighting union.
In the next period, many honest fighting Teamsters will come forward as reform candidates. However, without understanding the seriousness of the situation they face, they will not be able to mobilize the rank and file, who alone can give the power to defeat concessions. In this situation, workers can suffer defeats and the reform movement can be derailed. It must be remembered that many of the Old Guard who have taken the union away from the members started, themselves, as workers who wanted to build the union. Without a correct understanding of the problems and how they could be overcome, they were forced to accept concessionary contracts. Also, because they sought to isolate the union from the struggles of workers and youth outside the workplace, they found themselves supporting the wider demands of big business, which are attacks on workers. Very soon they were defending concessionary contracts against the rank and file who opposed them. This led them to use the union structures against workers and to try to hide the real state of affairs from the members.
More and more Teamsters will be moving forward into struggle against the attacks of the employers. They will be looking for a fighting leadership to organize their struggles. By adopting a bold program and campaigning among the members, TDU can make these workers conscious of their power and the role that the labor movement can play in transforming society. It is essential that TSU re-establish the fighting traditions set forth by the socialist leadership of the Teamsters in Minneapolis and as was continued in the original over-the-road organization drive. It is only then that the present assault of management can be defeated.
Building the Union in the 1990s
The working class, and especially organized labor is the force that can turn around the present situation. Such was the threat that big business saw from a national rail strike in 1991 that both political parties managed to pass legislation against the railroad union, and wake the President to sign it, in less than 17 hours! They knew that major sections of industry would come to a halt in days if workers were allowed to continue their strike.
However, the labor leaders do not see the potential power of the unions. In fact, at present the labor leaders have started to draw pessimistic conclusions. Following the recent strikes at Eastern, Greyhound and now Caterpillar, they have begun to conclude that strikes cannot be won. These are wrong conclusions. The correct conclusion is that isolated strikes organized as they are at present are not sufficient to defeat the employers in this period.
The solution is to clarify the necessary program and strategy of labor, and then build the solidarity and support behind the struggle of workers. Throwing workers on the streets with no mobilization, no program, and no perspective for victory just does not work. In the recent Caterpillar strike, the task of the union should have been to take the offensive through a clear program of demands and then to occupy the plant. As in the successful sit-down strikes of the '30s, this would put employers on the defensive as they are unable to operate their plant with strikebreakers, and it would have put workers in control of the struggle. In this way, the union could have rallied thousands of workers to support such a strategy. Not only could Caterpillar workers have won a victory, but such a victory would have shown a way forward to workers across the country. Around the time the Caterpillar strike ended, the uprising in South Central Los Angeles took place. Had the UAW taken the strategy proposed here, it would have united the struggle of its members with the struggle of youth and workers against racism and poverty. In this way, a generalized fight back throughout America could have developed under the leadership of the unions.
Along with this strategy, it is essential to confront the array of legal hurdles and roadblocks that the employers and big business throw down across the path of labor. It must be remembered that when the labor movement began, it was illegal to form a union or go on strike. The labor movement must throw down a challenge to injunctions put out by bosses' courts. All Teamsters and other workers must be told that the union does not accept these injunctions and laws that are created by the bosses purely to protect their profits. Any threat of lawsuits or fines must be met with a continued escalation and spreading of the action until such threats are removed.
The example of Teamsters Local 211 in Pittsburgh shows a way forward for all workers. In response to demands by the Pittsburgh Press to lay off 450 out of 600 union workers and fire the thousands of mainly teenagers who deliver the paper, the union appealed for support from the public. This put the union in a strong position when on July 27 management attempted to operate the presses and distribute the paper using scabs. Thousands of Teamsters and other workers blocked the distribution of the paper. They defied the injunction passed by the courts. This drew support from the AFL-CIO unions in Pittsburgh, who threatened to call a general strike if the paper was still produced. This built a huge feeling of solidarity and forced management within two days to back down from its attempt to replace workers with scabs, at the time of this writing, these workers were still on the picket line on strike.
This action by Teamsters and other workers in Pittsburgh shows that when mobilized, the labor movement is the most powerful force in society. The working class today is much larger as a proportion of society than in the 1930s. Union membership, while reduced in the past decade, is still much greater in proportion and in absolute terms than it was before the great leap forward in the 1930s. The New York Times (4/19/92) quoted what it called a prominent economist: "American trade unionism is slowly being limited in influence by changes which destroy the basis on which it was erected. The changes, occupational and technological, which checked the advance of unionism in the last decade are likely to continue in the same direction."
This sounds familiar because it is part of the employers' constant refrain of the recent years. The only problem is that this statement was made in 1932! Two years later, the general strikes in Minneapolis, San Francisco and the mass strike in Toledo exploded, resulting in a fivefold increase in union membership in the following ten years.
The lesson to be learned from the past two decades is that the policies of the union leaders in general have been a disaster. The balance of forces is in favor of the working class - workers are prepared to fight. What is needed is a program and a strategy to meet the challenge of the new period that has opened up.
The Teamsters can play a major role in forging a new direction for working people across the country. The fear, insecurity, falling living standards and the pain of day-to-day life that shatters the lives of workers, the youth and the unemployed can be ended. The country can be rebuilt on new foundations not based on individual greed or profit. Through socialist policies that benefit the majority of society, the vast resources of this country can be utilized to tackle the problems workers face. This can be achieved on the basis of the top 500 monopolies being taken into public ownership and under democratic workers' control and management. On the basis of a Labor Party with a socialist program and a fighting trade union movement, the working class in America will be able to look forward to the creation of a new humane society.
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A Fighting Program for Teamsters
Annotated Bibliography
Teamster Rebellion by Farrell Dobbs, Pathfinder Press. This book, along with Teamster Power are essential reading for all Teamsters who want to see how the Minneapolis Teamsters built Local 574 in 1934 through mass strikes.
Teamster Power by Farrell Dobbs, Pathfinder Press. Every Teamster should read this book. It documents the strong trade union principles upon which the Minneapolis Teamsters built Local 574 and then 544, and how they organized the over-the-road organizing drive.
Teamster Politics by Farrell Dobbs, Pathfinder Press. It describes how the Minneapolis Teamsters continued their struggle to build the union through 1939.
Teamster Bureaucracy by Farrell Dobbs, Pathfinder Press. It describes how the Minneapolis Teamsters fought to defend the union against attacks from the union leadership and the government.
Labor's Giant Step by Art Preis, Pathfinder Press. This excellent book documents the explosive rise of the Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO) in the 1930s and how it changed history. It also clearly documents the role of the Democratic Party as an enemy of labor, as well as the rank and file struggles to build a Labor Party.
Rank and File Rebellion by Dan LaBotz, Verso. It documents the rise of union opposition in the Teamsters and the history of TDU. Despite its lack of a program, the book demonstrates the continual sacrifice of the rank and file to change the union and the role of TDU in organizing this opposition in the last two decades.
The Autobiography of Big Bill Haywood, International Publishers. This book documents the life of Big Bill Haywood as leader of the Western Federation of Miners and the Industrial Workers of the World.
Strike! by Jeremy Brecher, South End Press. The book describes the explosive history of the struggles of American labor. Despite its anarcho-syndicalist slant, it documents the enormous power of the rank and file.
Hoffa and the Teamsters by Ralph and Estelle James, D. Van Nostrand Company. This book, which is out of print, gives the best description of Jimmy Hoffa and the role he played in the Teamsters. It can be found in many public libraries.
The Living Thoughts of Karl Marx by Leon Trotsky. This pamphlet, which is out of print, gives a crushing refutation of the arguments that capitalism has solved its problems and argues for a socialist solution.
Facing the Challenge of the '90s, a Labor Militant Publication by Sean Herron. This pamphlet describes the enormous crisis facing US and world capitalism. It shows the enormous potential power of the labor movement and draws the perspective and program necessary for labor to meet the challenges of the next decade.
