At 11:39 AM 6/28/98 -0700, you wrote:
>At 01:41 PM 6/28/98 -0400, Doug Henwood wrote:
>>Michael Eisenscher posted an AP story to his own mailing list about savage
>>fighting within the Teamsters. Here's the lead:
>>
>>>Teamsters Have Internal Strife
>>>
>>>By Kevin Galvin
>>>Associated Press Writer
>>>Saturday, June 27, 1998; 12:44 p.m. EDT
>>>
>>>WASHINGTON (AP) -- As doubts grow about the
>>>upcoming Teamsters election, acting union president Tom
>>>Sever has raised tensions with political rivals by
>>>dismantling the union department responsible for
>>>reaching out to members.
>>
>>This is looking rather bad. With Hoffa quite likely to win the Teamster
>>presidency, and with Sandra Feldman quite likely to bring the teachers back
>>into the AFL-CIO, and with Richard Trumka constantly rumored to be on the
>>verge of indictment, are the days of the "New Voice" leadership numbered?
>>Or, even if Sweeney stays, is he likely to retreat from everything decent
>>he's done so far and become 100% hack? The firing of Richard Bensinger as
>>organizing director, and the continuing influence of the old cold warriors
>>in the international department, are not happy signs. Am I being too gloomy?
>>
>>Doug
>
>
>Doug:
>
>Correction - Sandra Feldman heads the AFT, which is already in the AFL-CIO.
>AFT is negotiating terms of a merger with NEA, which is not. The combined
>unions would become the nation's largest and would have substantial clout
>within the inner circles of Federation decision-making. But Feldman is not
>someone who is universally accepted by folks in the NEA as the inevitable
>leader of a newly combined union. Even if she is, she will have to answer
>to NEA forces that are not steeped in the Shankerist Cold War thinking that
>Feldman is.
>
>The Sever actions, however, are worthy of great concern, especially when
>taken against the backdrop of everything else that is going on at the
>Federation and in the IBT. If ever there was a need for a nationally
>coordinated r&f movement of union members in which the left could play some
>discernable role, it certainly is now. The absence of such a movement is
>glaring evidence on how fractured, weak, and ineffective the left has been
>within labor and without.
>
>M.E.
>
>
Rich Gibson
Director of International Social Studies
Wayne State University
College of Education
Detroit MI 48202
http://www.pipeline.com/~rgibson/index.html http://www.pipeline.com/~rgibson/meap.html
Life travels upward in spirals.
Those who take pains to search the shadows
of the past below us, then, can better judge the
tiny arc up which they climb,
more surely guess the dim
curves of the future above them.