-----Original Message----- From: Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>Nonetheless, red purges did cause not only major losses of experienced
>organizers and expulsion of left-led unions but also a chilling
ideological
>effect on the entire labor movement and politics beyond it. Mike Davis
says
>that the failure to organize the South is an effect of the repression of
>the entire Left (not just the CPUSA). Wouldn't you agree?
Of course. What I disagree with is a simple "the bastard moderates sold us out" version of history. It removes agency and a strategic view of what could have been done better by the Left. There will always be a reasonable pragmatic faction that will argue for sacrificing long-term power for short-term gains. THe question is how to strategically organize to make the leftwing long-term argument of worker power more attractive than the pragmatic moderate alternative.
This is not a question of moderate corruption or sell-out of the workers; it is a matter of strategic debate where we have to respect the appeal of moderates like Reuther to the working class. Reuther was rightly seen as a principled labor leader who had a different analysis from the Left and, in a generation long short-term, seemed to deliver a hell of a lot of benefits to the workers who elected him.
As Flint is shut down, the Left can offer a belated I-told-you-so, but the question is how to keep the left credible at all times so that its analysis is credible compared to such short-term worker gains bargained by moderates.
I would compare Reuther to the pragmatic Japanese unions that replaced the incredibly militant Communist-led unions of the immediate postwar period. Those enterprise unions did not win just through "sell-outs" but through sharp bargaining where they traded certain kinds of power in exchange for lifetime employment guarantees that were truly impressive. Halberstam's THE RECKONING has a very good narrative of this process in the Japanese auto plants.
>My original post (to which Charles replied) was about a quite impressive
>potential power that organized labor still possesses if it is willing to
>use strikes at strategic plants in order to affect the issues beyond the
>immediate working conditions of the plants. In other words, if unions
were
>to use strikes and boycotts prohibited by Taft-Hartley, they could help
>pro-union activists in unorganized shops.
There are a few problems with this view of how to save the union movement. While it would be nice to see that kind of solidarity, that kind of conception of power in the union movement privileges those workers in such strategic industries to the detriment of concern for those without such a position. This once played out in the privileging of craft workers over "unskilled" industrial workers, more recently in the privileging of manufacturing workers over what was seen as more ephemeral service work.
And of course, it is hard enough to get such privileged workers to exert their power on their own behalf. Expecting them on a constant basis to extend that power on behalf of others is a recipe for trying the patience of their own members and that of a public that can easily be alienated if such solidarity is implemented clumsily.
As for ignoring Taft-Hartley, I would be the first to agree that systematically breaking the law is a requirement for long-term union success. But to think that can be done casually is just wrong-headed given the very real sanctions the state can level against workers and their unions. Yes, if militancy can be taken to a high enough level, the state itself can be forced to back down, but that is a level of brinkmanship that has to be used sparingly (the Pittston coal strike was a wonderful and successful example of this in the late 80s). Promises to avoid such brinksmanship is exactly what kept folks like Reuther in power when they could deliver solid benefits within a more contained level of mobilization.
What is needed is not a dependence on a small number of strategic union pressure points (however lovely it is to see a few thousand Flint workers bringing GM temporarily to its knees) but a broader campaign to mobilize solidarity both within union ranks and in broader society. The strike is only one tool and is most effective when combined with strategic pressures on corporate dealmaking (corporate campaigns) and boycotts by worker consumers. In modern societies, workers are not just employees but also investors and consumers. Most have only modest power in any of these roles but the aggregation of those powers in broad solidarity are the longterm key to power.
When janitors in Silicon Valley were organized a few years ago, SEIU's Justice for Janitor campaign won by using every tool possible, from civil disobediance in the streets to threats of global boycotts to appeals for support from yuppie programmers. It is hard to point to any one tactic that led to that success since it was specifically the combination of tactics that made the difference - as is true with most new organizing campaigns at this point in history.
--Nathan Newman