LABOR TRENDS It Could Be a New Day
>From the general strikes in Puerto Rico and in the New York City
construction industry, to the longest strike at General Motors in nearly 30
years, a new level of militancy and, more importantly, class awareness
appears to be developing within the American labor movement.
These protests reflect a confluence of two inter-related trends: pent-up anger in response to falling real wages and the economic changes and insecurity wrought by the last two decades of economic restructuring, and a new sense of confidence derived from a tight labor market and growing economy.
The protests reveal a change in the nature of worker protest. They are not strikes brought on by a simple bargaining impasse. In each case, they are strikes with a broader class dimension.
NW Construction. All union construction workers protested the state's use of non-union contractors in a first-ofits-kind general strike. The protest was directed toward saving union jobs, not toward winning an increase in wages or benefits and was not tied to any particular bargaining dispute. It was a protest against the destruction of middleclass living standards.
* General Motors. The G.M. strike, the longest since 1970, has evolved into a strike against downsizing, subcontracting, and the export of jobs. It is a strike to stop GM from fully implementing its corporate strategy of cutbacks and speedup.
* Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rican general strike was directed against the government's privatization policy. It was a strike to preserve the phone company as a public asset and has won broad backing.
In 1997, only 29 strikes involving 1,000 workers or more took place - the lowest number on record. It is unlikely that 1998 will register a large overall increase. But in the recovery from a long period of defensive struggle, what is important in the short term is not the number of strikes but the nature of the strikes that do take place. And, in that sense, the strikes of 1998 could mark a long-awaited turning point in the balance between labor and capital.