Maybe I;m doing what Mike said, circling the wagons, but as fara s I can tell the UAW is doing a pretty good job with the strike. It will be a disaster if it's broken, but I'll note that the UAW has beat the Big Three on several occasons over the last few years by strioking strategic facilities. GM is stopped dead. Maybe youd'd like the union to issue a call for armed revolution, but as far as unions truggles go, it's doing prettyw ell here.
I hate to sound like a Spart, but unions are doomed unless they
> >practice a class-struggle unionism,
Well you do. Sound like a Spart, that is. What do you mean by class struggle unionism? It's a fancy phrase, but what's the content?
which is the exact opposite of the
> >UAW's jointness (i.e., class-collaborationist) strategy.
Well, there's Saturn. But it's a sui generis arrangement. For the rest, the UAW holds to pretty traditional antagonistic unionism.
Does the UAW
> >leadership really believe that auto executives view them as partners? Or
> >are they just using that as a public excuse while they hide out and cash
> >their fat paychecks?
Or maybe they drink the blood of proletarian babies. Sheesh. I dislike the union bureaucracy as much as the next unionist, but while the honest ones--like Yokich--are short-sighted or the most paert and tend to identify their interests with those of the membership, they are not creatures of evil. There are union bosses or would be bosses who are creatures of evil. You know of whom I speak. But not in the UAW.
>
> Ok, I probably wouldn't go to a union group and use the phrases "class
> struggle unionism" and "class collaborationism." But I'd talk about the
> concepts, wouldn't you?
You think workers are afraid of the word "class"? No. But the union militants do carea bout their unions and don't have a lot of patience with left wing ignoramuses remote from the practical struggle and blind to the extreme fragibility and difficulty of getting and keeping a union. Your "labor bosses with fat paychecks" sounds to them like right wing attacks on unionism at all. It's rather different when the militants or someone like Kim Moody says it. Maybe you better stick to Wall Street, Doug, or pay some dues in the labor movement before you weigh in with talk that can't help and can hurt.
I'd want to talk about the fat paychecks and the
> lack of democracy too.
All true, but maybe you betterstart by talking about how necesasry unions are and what they have us.
> back to working in a cubicle or on the line. I would also talk about a
> vision of the future, about the sustainability of the car,
Oh, great, that'll sell in Flint just fine.
about labor's
> strategy against capital, and maybe even the nature of work. Really,
> Michael, what else is there to say?
Reallya good deal. Go read Kim Moody's new book and his last one, just for starters, and get imnvolved in the labor movement so you learn hwo to talk the talk instead of sounding like a radical chic journalist from the upper East side.
--jks