In Honor Of The King Of The Folk-Singing Hard-Living Hobos The Late Utah Phillips -From The Archives- *For The Late Rosalie Sorrels- Another Rosalie Sorrels Potpourri-Idaho, Cafe Lena, Childhood Dreams and Such

*For The Late Rosalie Sorrels- Another Rosalie Sorrels Potpourri-Idaho, Cafe Lena, Childhood Dreams and Such

CD Review

Walking, Talking, Singing Storytelling-The Old Traditions

What Does It Mean To Love, Rosalie Sorrels, Green Linnet, 1994

The first paragraph here has been used in reviewing other Rosalie Sorrels CDs in this space.

“My first association of the name Rosalie Sorrels with folk music came, many years ago now, from hearing the recently departed folk singer/storyteller/ songwriter and unrepentant Wobblie (IWW) Utah Phillips mention his long time friendship with her going back before he became known as a folksinger. I also recall that combination of Sorrels and Phillips as he performed his classic “Starlight On The Rails” and Rosalie his also classic “If I Could Be The Rain” on a PBS documentary honoring the Café Lena in Saratoga, New York, a place that I am also very familiar with for many personal and musical reasons. Of note here: it should be remembered that Rosalie saved, literally, many of the compositions that Utah left helter-skelter around the country in his “bumming” days.”

I am on something of a Rosalie Sorrels streak after getting, as a Christmas gift, a copy of “Strangers In Another Country”, her heart-felt tribute to her recently deceased long time friend and old working class warrior Utah Phillips. Thus, in the interest of completeness as this is the ‘last’ Rosalie Sorrels CD in my possession to be reviewed I will make some a couple of comments. I need not mention Rosalie’s singing and storytelling abilities. Those are, as always, a given. I have noted elsewhere that Rosalie and the old curmudgeon Phillips did more than their fate share of work in order to keep these traditions alive. Old Utah handled the more overtly political phase and Rosalie, for lack of a better expression, the political side as it intersected the personal phase.

That informal division of labor is on full display on this CD as Rosalie sings and tells stories of her childhood, her children’s childhoods, stories of other family members and some wisdom that you can take or leave, but at least consider. Fair enough. Of course this reviewer, as a man who loves the oceans, got hooked by this woman of the Rocky Mountain West, by her snippets of stories on a child’s eye view of that first ocean experience (“I have watched and respected the solitude of a child”). So I had to listen to the rest. And so we hear about waltzing with bears, apples and pears, cats and scats, broken tokens and a few other of her observations about growing up to be sane in a seemingly irrational world. And not doing to badly by it as well. Not Rosalie’s most interesting work but worth a listen.

In Honor Of The King Of The Folk-Singing Hard-Living Hobos The Late Utah Phillips -From The Archives- *Labor's Untold Story-From The Pages Of History- What A Militant Trade Union Should Look Like-The Western Federation Of Miners.

Click on title to link to Wikipedia's entry for the Western Federation of Miners. For those who do not know that is "Big Bill" Haywood's old union. Also of heroic IWW labor organizer Vincent St.John. And a central organization in the creation of the Industrial Workers Of The World (IWW, Wobblies). Without swooning this is what a labor union should look like in putting its face to the capitalist opponents.

Every Month Is Labor History Month

This Commentary is part of a series under the following general title: Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!

As a first run through, and in some cases until I can get enough other sources in order to make a decent presentation, I will start with short entries on each topic that I will eventually go into greater detail about. Or, better yet, take my suggested topic and run with it yourself.

*Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History-The Eight Hour Day Leagues In 21st (Oops) 19th Century America

Click On Title To Link To Wikipedia's Entry For The Eight Hour Day Leagues.

This Commentary is part of a series under the following general title: Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!

As a first run through, and in some cases until I can get enough other sources in order to make a decent presentation, I will start with short entries on each topic that I will eventually go into greater detail about. Or, better yet, take my suggested topic and run with it yourself.

In Honor Of The King Of The Folk-Singing Hard-Living Hobos The Late Utah Phillips -From The Archives- ***Big Bill Haywood-Working Class Warrior

Big Bill Haywood-Working Class Warrior

Book Review

Big Bill Haywood, Melvyn Dubofsky, Manchester University Press, Manchester England, 1987

If you are sitting around today wondering, as I occasionally do, what a modern day radical labor leader should look like then one need go no further than to observe the career, warts and all, of the legendary Bill Haywood. To previous generations of radicals that name would draw an automatic response. Today’s radicals, and others interested in social solutions to the pressing problems that have been bestowed on us by the continuation of the capitalist mode of production, may not be familiar with the man and his program for working class power. Professor Dubofsky’s little biographical sketch is thus just the cure for those who need a primer on this hero of the working class.

The good professor goes into some detail, despite limited accessablity, about Haywood’s early life out in the Western United States in the late 19th century. Those hard scrabble experiences made a huge imprint on the young Haywood as he tramped from mining camp to mining camp and tried to make ends mean, any way he could. Haywood, moreover, is the perfect example of the fact that working class political consciousness is not innate but gained through the hard experiences of life under the capitalist system. Thus, Haywood moved from itinerant miner to become a leading member of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) and moved leftward along the political spectrum along the way. Not a small part in that was due to his trial on trumped up charges in Idaho for murder as part of a labor crack down against the WFM by the mine owners and their political allies there.

As virtually all working class militants did at the turn of the 20th century, Big Bill became involved with the early American socialist movement and followed the lead of the sainted Eugene V. Debs. As part of the ferment of labor agitation during this period the organization that Haywood is most closely associated with was formed-The Industrial Workers of the World (hereafter IWW, also known as Wobblies). This organization- part union, part political party- was the most radical expression (far more radical than the rather tepid socialist organizations) of the American labor movement in the period before World War I.

The bulk of Professor Dubofsky’s book centers, as it should, on Haywood’s exploits as a leader of the IWW. Big Bill’s ups and downs mirrored the ups and downs of the organization. The professor goes into the various labor fights that Haywood led highlighted by the great 1912 Lawrence strike (of bread and roses fame), the various free speech fights but also the draconian Wilsonian policy toward the IWW after America declared war in 1917. That governmental policy essentially crushed the IWW as a mass working class organization. Moreover, as a leader Haywood personally felt the full wrath of the capitalist government. Facing extended jail time Haywood eventually fled to the young Soviet republic where he died in lonely exile in 1928.

The professor adequately tackles the problem of the political and moral consequences of that escape to Russia for the IWW and to his still imprisoned comrades so I will not address it here. However, there are two points noted by Dubofsky that warrant comment. First, he notes that Big Bill was a first rate organizer in both the WFM and the IWW. Those of us who are Marxists sometimes tend to place more emphasis of the fact that labor leaders need to be “tribunes of the people” that we sometimes neglect the important “trade union secretary” part of the formula. Haywood seems to have had it all. Secondly, Haywood’s and the IWW’s experience with government repression during World War I, repeated in the “Red Scare” experience of the 1950’s against Communists and then later against the Black Panthers in the 1960’s should be etched into the brain of every militant today. When the deal goes down the capitalists and their hangers-on will do anything to keep their system. Anything. That said, read this Haywood primer. It is an important contribution to the study of American labor history.

The100thAnniversaryYearOfTheBolshevik-LedOctoberRevolution-Lessons- *Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History-The Knights Of Labor And The Struggle For Labor Unification In 19th Century America

Click On Title To Link To Wikipedia's Entry For The Knights Of Labor.

Every Month Is Labor History Month

This Commentary is part of a series under the following general title: Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!

As a first run through, and in some cases until I can get enough other sources in order to make a decent presentation, I will start with short entries on each topic that I will eventually go into greater detail about. Or, better yet, take my suggested topic and run with it yourself.

*Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History-The "Molly Mcguires" And The 19th Century Irish -American Struggle For Trade Unions

Click On Title To Link To A Wikipedia Entry For The Molly Maguires. Note, as always, with these entries on this site there can be problems with facts and political perspective.

Every Month Is Labor History Month.

This commentary is part of a series under the following general title: Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!

As a first run through, and in some cases until I can get enough other sources in order to make a decent presentation, I will start with short entries on each topic that I will eventually go into greater detail about. Or, better yet, take my suggested topic and run with it yourself.

From The Pages Of "Workers Vanguard"-"New York City-Labor: Organize Wal-Mart!"-And Teamsters Organize Those Trucks

Markin comment:

Labor militants-Forget about funding Democratic party campaigns! Forget about pats on the back (really stabs in the back)from Obama! Organize Wal-Mart and raise plenty of dough to do it. And for starters, Teamsters organize those several thousand Wal-Mart trucks that almost endlessly clog up the highways with goods. If you need instruction just go back to your roots in the 1930s when the Trostkyists and other militants organized the over-the-road drivers.
********
Workers Vanguard No. 981
27 May 2011
NYC

Labor: Organize Wal-Mart!

Anti-union colossus Wal-Mart wants to boldly go where it has never gone before: New York City. In response, a coalition led by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and including small business owners, bourgeois politicians, community groups and churches is beseeching the Democrat-led City Council to stop the “invasion” with zoning law changes and other legal obstacles. The interests of the working class and poor are not served by agitating over which capitalist retail chain distributes wares in what market. Instead, labor needs to seize the opportunity of the corporate behemoth’s arrival in one of the most heavily unionized cities in the U.S. and finally begin an aggressive campaign to organize Wal-Mart!

Everyone has heard horror stories about this giant retailer, which, originating in Arkansas, brought the racist, anti-union “open shop” of the Southern bourgeoisie with it as it moved into the rest of the country and a large chunk of the world. (It is currently making a bid to buy South African retailer Massmart.) Off-the-clock overtime, employees locked in overnight, violation of child labor laws, flagrant discrimination against women, racist hiring practices—the list of Wal-Mart crimes grows by the day.

These iniquities, however, do not particularly distinguish Wal-Mart from Home Depot, Target, the German grocer Aldi or, for that matter, small independent grocers. Whatever the difference in scale, each is a capitalist enterprise whose profit is based on the exploitation of labor. Squeezing workers dry is what they do.

The average wage for a full-time Wal-Mart worker in the U.S. in 2008 was $10.86 per hour. Many of the workers who might be able to afford the company’s lousy health plan leave Wal-Mart, which is notorious for its high turnover rate, before they are eligible for the program. Wal-Mart’s poverty-level wages have the effect of driving down wages and working conditions for all workers.

Wal-Mart, the largest company in the world, is angling for a space in the Gateway II shopping center in Brooklyn’s East New York ghetto as its entry point into the New York market. Following a well-tested playbook, the company is counting on being positively received by residents, whose access to a variety of goods and lower prices—much less a decent supermarket—is very limited. Unemployment is 13.9 percent in East New York, almost 5 percent higher than the city average, and Wal-Mart is promising jobs to area residents. At the same time, it is appealing to the beleaguered NYC construction trade unions by pledging to build its stores with union labor—before slamming the door on unions once they open.

In the few instances in which local workers have succeeded in organizing a Wal-Mart department or an entire store, the company has picked up its marbles and gone elsewhere. When meat cutters in the Supercenter in Jacksonville, Texas, won union representation, Wal-Mart disbanded its butcher shops nationwide and switched to pre-packaged meats. When workers at the store in Jonquière, Quebec, voted to join the UFCW, the first such success in North America, Wal-Mart closed the store.

In China, a deformed workers state, workers at all Wal-Mart stores are organized by the Stalinist bureaucracy’s trade-union federation. This is doubly ironic. The pro-capitalist labor tops at unions like the UFCW and its Retail, Wholesale and Department store affiliate, who are heading up the “Walmart Free NYC” coalition, have barely lifted a finger to organize the retailer in the U.S. But they sure do blow hard with anti-Communist China-bashing and “America first” protectionist poison (see “Labor: Organize Wal-Mart!” WV No. 851, 8 July 2005).

By focusing on blocking new Wal-Mart stores, in more than one city the labor bureaucracy has found itself opposed by sections of the black and minority population looking for cheaper commodities. But there is a way for the unions to fight for their own interests as well as those of the ghetto and barrio poor: undertaking a massive and combative union organizing drive. Unionizing Wal-Mart will require the kind of hard class struggle that built the country’s CIO unions in the 1930s—mass pickets, occupations and strike action. This militant perspective is utterly counterposed to the “corporate” and “community” campaigns the current labor leadership favors.

What better place to kick off such a drive than New York City, historically a labor stronghold in a state with the highest union membership rate in the country at over 24 percent. Today NYC labor is under attack by a capitalist class that is chalking up one victory after another in its relentless drive to cripple the unions if not destroy them outright. Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council to which “Walmart Free NYC” appeals are busy bashing the teachers and other city workers. A bare-knuckles campaign to organize Wal-Mart combined with vigorous defense of the public employee and construction workers unions now under attack would go a long way to turn this around. Success in the UFCW’s current drive to organize Target stores in the NYC area would be a good start.

Our goal is not just to see WalWal-Mart should be harnessed by a centrally planned economy under workers rule. To this end, there must be a struggle to break the multiracial working class from the capitalist Democratic Party and to build a workers party that fights for a workers government!

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!

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
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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

A Cold “Civil War” Is Brewing In The Land - In Solidarity With The Wisconsin Public Workers’ Unions Struggle- Reflections On Boston’s Labor Support Rally

Click on the headline to link to a Boston Indymedia entry for the rally held at the Massachusetts State House in Boston in support of the Wisconsin Public Workers’ Unions’ struggle to save collective bargaining on Tuesday February 22, 2011,

Markin comment:

Sometimes a rally, like many other events, is just a rally. For example, after a while the various anti-war rallies, their speakers, and their purposes (lately Iraq, Afghanistan, or both) have tended to be pro forma events, necessary but very much on a well-trodden subject that we leftist militants are not gaining ground on among the masses that we are trying to influence. On Tuesday February 22, 2011, at a rally held in front of the Massachusetts State House in Boston in support of the beleaguered and battling Wisconsin public workers unions, however, there was a refreshing and positive change.

On that day, on short notice, several hundred spirited union workers, public and private, and their supporters rallied on behalf of their brothers and sisters in Wisconsin. Of course, the now obligatory anti-union, anti-immigrant, anti-anti Tea Party movement sent a small force to suck up some bourgeois media attention (and got it out of all proportion to their numbers under some quaint theory of even-handed impartiality). I do not know, or remember, the names of every union that was represented but it was a cross-section of the labor movement in the Boston area, and the representatives were serious in their commitment and understanding that the class struggle, hell, the class war has just heated up several degrees even if they would not have been able to articulate it that way. Clearly understood though was that the lines were now drawn by this vanguard militant segment of the local labor movement.

Needless to say, lacking serious class-struggle traditions in this generation (and part of the last) there were many workers, young and old, in the crowd who had illusions in the good offices of the government, especially in the good offices of the Democratic Party occupants of that government. That was reflected in the speakers’ list chock full of Democratic Party office-holders, from Congressmen to locals, who had even the most attenuated relationship to the local labor movement, including no friend of labor Governor Deval Patrick fresh from a recent electoral win in heavily liberal Massachusetts. These illusions will, of necessity, begin to shake themselves out a bit as the class struggle gets even hotter but for today there is a militant base on which to draw around the struggle to preserve our unions, preserve the heart of a union, the collective-bargaining process (and, needless to say as well, the right to strike).

To give dramatic symbolism to the day’s efforts and to underline what is at stake, as well as highlight that cold “civil war” warning in the headline to today’s entry let me finish with this little observation seen in front of the State House. The Tea Party contingent set up their small operation, unknowingly I am sure, across Beacon Street in front of the now-famous Saint-Gaudens sculpture depicting the black soldiers of the Massachusetts 54th Volunteer Regiment (led by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw)that did great service to the Union cause down in the South during the American Civil War, and who had the privilege of entering defeated and captured Charleston, South Carolina in 1865 to the words of “John Brown’s Body.” In order to counteract the effect of the heckling by the Tea Party advocates some young, stalwart craft union workers got up behind that cohort and used the sculpture as a standing ground to do their pro-union sloganeering work. While they also may not have known what the frieze represented as we head to the observance of the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the American Civil War that scene should give one pause for reflection.

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.

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

From The International Bolshevik Tendency Website -Democrats, Cops and Screws: Agents of the Oppressors-Democrats, Cops and Screws-Lock Up Mehserle—Throw Away the Key!

Democrats, Cops and Screws: Agents of the Oppressors
Lock Up Mehserle—Throw Away the Key!

Since the murder of Oscar Grant by BART cop Johannes Mehserle on New Year's Day 2009, thousands of people have mobilized to demand "Justice for Oscar Grant" and oppose attempts to let Mehserle walk free after his conviction on the far lesser charge of "involuntary manslaughter."

Involuntary manslaughter usually carries a sentence of two to four years, but if a gun was used, the judge can add three to ten years to the sentence. Mehserle is a dangerous racist killer who should be locked up for life, but 14 years would be a lot better than what Judge Robert Perry, who conducted his trial, is probably intending to give him. Perry was responsible for the official cover-up of the LAPD Ramparts scandal in which more than 70 police officers were implicated for planting evidence, framing innocent people andtaking pay-offs from drug dealers while organizing robberies, beatings and shootings. Tony Pirone and Marysol Domenici, two other BART cops who were complicit in Grant's murder and withheld information during Mehserle's trial, also deserve long stretches in prison.

Outrage at this murder has come from many places, so it is no surprise that there are different ideas about how to take the struggle forward. We have to start by recognizing that responsibility for this crime goes beyond Mehserle, the BART police and the BART board. Oscar Grant's murder was a product of the routine functioning of the American social system and particularly the racist administration of "criminal justice." Responsibility for Oscar Grant's death is therefore shared by all those who materially support and perpetuate the system, including many of the local politicians who made a show of protesting Mehserle's crime.

While many innocent people like Oscar Grant have been killed by cops, no police officer has ever been jailed for murder in the State of California. The popularity of the slogan "I am Oscar Grant" reflects widespread awareness of the profound injustice of this racist system. There is no way justice for Oscar Grant can be achieved by reliance on institutions that exist to maintain and defend the status quo—or on those who run them.

To suppress the growing social tensions resulting from the decline of American capitalism over the last 30 years, ruling-class politicians (Democrat as well as Republican) have ramped up state repression and vastly expanded the police and prison system. In California between 1988 and 2008 the number of prison guards increased at four times the rate of other state agencies. In the 2009-2011 City of Oakland budget, the police department eats up an incredible 43 percent of the general fund, compared to a measly 2 percent for community development and human services. An Oakland cop's salary averages an astounding $162,000 a year.

It is obvious to tens of millions of working-class Americans that capitalism is unable to provide meaningful employment or meet the most elementary needs of the population for housing, health care and education. And in this racist system people of color and youth are always the hardest hit. Today the official unemployment rate for blacks stands at 15.6 percent (compared to 8.6 percent for whites) while more than 40 percent of black youth are unemployed. As the economy pushes more and more workers downwards and jobs dry up, the prison population is rising.

All of the Democratics running for election this November in Oakland are tied to law enforcement one way or another. Indeed, the majority of them are directly funded by the police and prison guards. Democratic Assemblyman Don Perata, a frontrunner in Oakland's mayoral race, has accepted $409,000 from the Prison Guards' Union since 2009 and has made it clear that he intends to increase the police budget. Jerry Brown, the Democratic candidate for governor, helped push through the "Police Officer's Bill of Rights" in the 1980s during his first term. This was cited by Mehserle to avoid speaking to BART internal affairs investigators following the murder. Not only has Brown been endorsed by organizations representing cops and screws, he has accepted $825,000 from them for campaign ads.

Oakland Councilmembers Jean Quan and Rebecca Kaplan are striking more critical poses with calls for increased community "oversight" of the police. But "community control" of the cops will never amount to more than a symbolic gesture, and neither Quan nor Kaplan have any serious intention of trying to rein in the police. Rather than openly talking about the reality of systemic racism, or the need to punish killer cops, they recycle fairy tales about police "serving and protecting" all members of the public equally. This is the kind of pledge of allegiance to the status quo that anyone who wants to pursue a career as a Democratic politician has to make.

Councilmember Desley Brooks, who has been closely associated with the Oscar Grant movement and was one of the main speakers for the "Mothers Taking a Stand" event in September, told protesters commemorating the first anniversary of Oscar's murder outside the Fruitvale BART station that "justice might not look like what you expect!" This amounted to a not-so-veiled appeal for trusting the BART board (which had provided the stage and sound equipment for the event) and accepting the decision engineered by a "justice" system that first moved the trial to Los Angeles and then put together a jury without even a single black on it.

Brooks, along with Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson, Minister Keith Muhammad of the Nation of Islam and various other black clergy, co-signed an "Open Letter" prior to the demonstration at 14th and Broadway on 8 July, the day the verdict was announced, calling on citizens to "shut down outside agitators." This statement provided political cover for the cops to carry out the mostly random arrests of more than 80 people, including Oakland School Board member Jumoke Hinton Hodge.

No Democratic politician will tell the simple truth that any sort of real "Justice for Oscar Grant" can only be won outside a racist justice system which has long validated state-sanctioned murder. To be a member of the Democratic Party is to be a cog in a political machine committed to the maintenance of a social order based on the exploitation of the working class and the special oppression of black and brown workers who are segregated at the bottom of the economic pyramid. The role of the Democrats is to keep the lid on potential mass struggle by promoting the illusion that electoral politics—organized on the principle that every dollar is equal— can offer an avenue for ordinary people to achieve real change. Reliance on the Democrats will undermine any possibility of winning "Justice for Oscar Grant."

The police, as the front-line defenders of social inequality and capitalist privilege, are the natural enemies of workers and the oppressed. Blacks, other minorities and "illegal" immigrants face continuous intimidation, harassment and violence from cops and other agents of the state. Defenders of capitalism like to portray the police as neutral enforcers of "the law," but everyone knows that laws are written by politicians who are bought and paid for by big business. The role of cops during major labor disputes throughout American history has been to escort scabs, bust picket lines and even, in some cases, murder strikers. In the 1934 West Coast Maritime Strike that founded the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) the police killed seven people coast-wide, including Howard Sperry and Nicholas Bordoise in San Francisco.

In 2003, Oakland police fired wooden bullets and tear gas without warning at ILWU members and anti-war protesters at the Port of Oakland. It later came out that the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center had been intercepting dockers' emails prior to the protest. A few weeks ago, under the guise of "national security," the FBI raided anti-war activists in Minneapolis, Chicago, Michigan and North Carolina, absurdly claiming that supporters of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization and the Arab-American Action Network are "terrorists" because they solidarize with the Colombian FARC guerrillas and the Palestinians.

The bureaucratic leadership of the labor movement eagerly welcomes the affiliation of police "unions." The International Union of Police Associations has belonged to the AFL-CIO since 1979. In a 12 May 2009 letter to the Labor Council, the president of the San Francisco Police Officers' Assocation, reported that in the previous year his organization had donated $25,000 "to the labor community and members of the San Francisco Labor Council for everything ranging from golf tournaments to installation dinners."

The ILWU's San Francisco Local 10 Constitution stipulates that no cop can be admitted to the union. This is a policy that should be adopted by every self-respecting union: cops out of the labor movement! Local 10's initiative in launching today'sport shutdown and labor-community rally to demand justice for Oscar Grant provides a glimpse of the enormous impact a militant, politically-conscious labor movement could have in waging the struggle against racism and all other forms of social oppression.

Whatever sentence Mehserle gets on 5 November, it won't be enough to pay for his crime. Effective struggle against the racist social order that permits such outrages starts by breaking with the Democratic political agents who administer it, as well as the armed thugs who "serve and protect" it. A labor movement led by people tied to the ruling class will never be able to launch a serious struggle to advance the interests of its members, much less other victims of capitalist injustice.

In the end, the only way to secure justice for Oscar Grant and the thousands of others murdered by racist cops over the years is by breaking up the existing police force and all the rest of the capitalist apparatus of repression. This requires a social revolution to expropriate the ruling elites and establish a collectively-run, democratically-planned economy in which all important decisions are made, not by a tiny handful of ultra-wealthy individuals, but by workers' councils organized on the principle that those who labor should rule. The International Bolshevik Tendency is committed to the struggle to build a party capable of leading such a revolution and opening the way to establishing an egalitarian, socialist regime in every country on the planet.

Cops out of the the labor movement!
Break with the Democrats—
Build a revolutionary workers' party!

*From The Archives Of The Socialist Workers Party (America)- Some Notes on Workers’ Education

Click on the headline to link to the article described in the title.

Marxism, no less than other political traditions, and perhaps more than most, places great emphasis on roots, the building blocks of current society and its political organizations. Nowhere is the notion of roots more prevalent in the Marxist movement that in the tracing of organizational and political links back to the founders, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the Communist Manifesto, and the Communist League. A recent example of that linkage in this space was when I argued in this space that, for those who stand in the Trotskyist tradition, one must examine closely the fate of Marx’s First International, the generic socialist Second International, Lenin and Trotsky’s Bolshevik Revolution-inspired Communist International, and Trotsky’s revolutionary successor, the Fourth International before one looks elsewhere for a centralized international working class organization that codifies the principle –“workers of the world unite.”

On the national terrain in the Trotskyist movement, and here I am speaking of America where the Marxist roots are much more attenuated than elsewhere, we look to Daniel DeLeon’s Socialist Labor League, Deb’s Socialist Party( mainly its left-wing, not its socialism for dentists wing), the Wobblies (IWW, Industrial Workers Of The World), the early Bolshevik-influenced Communist Party and the various formations that made up the organization under review, the James P. Cannon-led Socialist Workers Party, the section that Leon Trotsky’s relied on most while he was alive. Beyond that there are several directions to go in but these are the bedrock of revolutionary Marxist continuity, at least through the 1960s. If I am asked, and I have been, this is the material that I suggest young militants should start of studying to learn about our common political forbears. And that premise underlines the point of the entries that will posted under this headline in further exploration of the early days, “the dog days” of the Socialist Workers Party.

Note: I can just now almost hear some very nice and proper socialists (descendents of those socialism for dentist-types) just now, screaming in the night, yelling what about Max Shachtman (and, I presume, his henchman, Albert Glotzer, as well) and his various organizational formations starting with the Workers party when he split from the Socialist Workers Party in 1940? Well, what about old Max and his “third camp” tradition? I said the Trotskyist tradition not the State Department socialist tradition. If you want to trace Marxist continuity that way, go to it. That, in any case, is not my sense of continuity, although old Max knew how to “speak” Marxism early in his career under Jim Cannon’s prodding. Moreover at the name Max Shachtman I can hear some moaning, some serious moaning about blackguards and turncoats, from the revolutionary pantheon by Messrs. Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. I rest my case.

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*From The Archives Of The Socialist Workers Party (America)- Some Lessons of the Toledo Strike

Click on the headline to link to the article described in the title.

Marxism, no less than other political traditions, and perhaps more than most, places great emphasis on roots, the building blocks of current society and its political organizations. Nowhere is the notion of roots more prevalent in the Marxist movement that in the tracing of organizational and political links back to the founders, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the Communist Manifesto, and the Communist League. A recent example of that linkage in this space was when I argued in this space that, for those who stand in the Trotskyist tradition, one must examine closely the fate of Marx’s First International, the generic socialist Second International, Lenin and Trotsky’s Bolshevik Revolution-inspired Communist International, and Trotsky’s revolutionary successor, the Fourth International before one looks elsewhere for a centralized international working class organization that codifies the principle –“workers of the world unite.”

On the national terrain in the Trotskyist movement, and here I am speaking of America where the Marxist roots are much more attenuated than elsewhere, we look to Daniel DeLeon’s Socialist Labor League, Deb’s Socialist Party( mainly its left-wing, not its socialism for dentists wing), the Wobblies (IWW, Industrial Workers Of The World), the early Bolshevik-influenced Communist Party and the various formations that made up the organization under review, the James P. Cannon-led Socialist Workers Party, the section that Leon Trotsky’s relied on most while he was alive. Beyond that there are several directions to go in but these are the bedrock of revolutionary Marxist continuity, at least through the 1960s. If I am asked, and I have been, this is the material that I suggest young militants should start of studying to learn about our common political forbears. And that premise underlines the point of the entries that will posted under this headline in further exploration of the early days, “the dog days” of the Socialist Workers Party.

Note: I can just now almost hear some very nice and proper socialists (descendents of those socialism for dentist-types) just now, screaming in the night, yelling what about Max Shachtman (and, I presume, his henchman, Albert Glotzer, as well) and his various organizational formations starting with the Workers party when he split from the Socialist Workers Party in 1940? Well, what about old Max and his “third camp” tradition? I said the Trotskyist tradition not the State Department socialist tradition. If you want to trace Marxist continuity that way, go to it. That, in any case, is not my sense of continuity, although old Max knew how to “speak” Marxism early in his career under Jim Cannon’s prodding. Moreover at the name Max Shachtman I can hear some moaning, some serious moaning about blackguards and turncoats, from the revolutionary pantheon by Messrs. Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. I rest my case.

********************

*The Latest On The Shaw Supermarket Warehouse Workers Strike (Massachusetts)-Victory To The Shaw Workers!

Click on the headline to link to a "Boston IndyMedia" post on the latest on the Shaw Supermarket Warehouse Workers Strike (Massachusetts)-Victory To The Shaw Workers!

Markin comment:

After fourteen weeks of company stonewalling I suppose every tactic, including working through third parties, should be tried. But considering the issue, the pressing one , of health care benefits, shouldn't the union be thinking about calling all Shaw workers out in support of their brothers and sisters. This issue isn't going to go away and a victory here is desperately needed.

From The Pages Of "Workers Vanguard" -On The West Virginia Coal Mine Diaster - A Guest Commentary

Click on the headline to link to a "Workers Vanguard" article, dated April 23, 2010 concerning the recent West Virginia coal mine disaster.

Markin comment:

The headline of the "Workers Vanguard" article said it all. And I say, mourn, then organize like hell.

*Films to While Away The Class Struggle By-"The Cartel"- A Guest Review

Click on the title to link to a "Boston Sunday Globe" article, dated April 25, 2010, reviewing "The Cartel", a film about teachers unions and their effect on public education from an essentially anti-union perspective.

Recently I have begun to post entries under the headline- “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”-that will include progressive and labor-oriented songs that might be of general interest to the radical public. I have decided to do the same for some films that may perk that same interest under the title in this entry’s headline. In the future I expect to do the same for books under a similar heading.-Markin


Markin comment:

One would think that with a title like "The Cartel" we would be treated to an expose of the greedy, profit-hungry underside of the international capitalist order and its nefarious doings. Or of some murky South American drug operation gone bust. No, the cartel in question is the organized teachers movement in America, also known as teachers unions. Apparently, according to the producer of this documentary, our fellow unionists are the root cause (although to be 'fair' he tacks on administrators as well) of the demise of public education in this country. Also, apparently, rather than have a stable and dedicated workforce to solve the very real problems of the public education system we are to bow down to 'virtues' of selective, elite charter schools, or better, something like Volunteers For America where young, unemployed college graduates go out and give the best two years, or so, of their lives to teaching, burn out, and then go back to graduate or professional schools in order to get real dough. That said, under the old political principle "know thy enemy" go out and watch this thing. Defend Public Education! Defend Teachers Unions! No More Central Falls!

*Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits- Honor The Tolpuddle Martyrs

Click on the title to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for the English Tolpuddle Martyrs.

Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices.

Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.

Labor's Untold Story-Labor's World War II "No Strike" Pledge

Click on title to link to Wikipedia's entry for World War II on the homefront (America) thta contains some information about labor. More,much more on this subject later.

Every Month Is Labor History Month

This Commentary is part of a series under the following general title: Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!

As a first run through, and in some cases until I can get enough other sources in order to make a decent presentation, I will start with short entries on each topic that I will eventually go into greater detail about. Or, better yet, take my suggested topic and run with it yourself.