Sorry I'm being irriatble. Stresses of moving and studying for the bar exam. It's not that the broad outlines of what Doug is saying are untrue--American unionism is in sad shape, class collaborationist, myopic, and fairly undemocratic. This goes for my own UAW as well, although it's better than some. Rather the problem,a part from small though importsnt inaccuracies--the UAW, for example, has dealt the big Three some sharp raps of late by careful timing of strikes in strategic plants, nothing so biga s the Teamster victory (do people remember _that_?, before the troubles?)--as with the lack of balance and realism and the tone.
Unions are the main organizations of the organized working class, and they are precious. The obstacles to unionism in thi country are terrifyingly high--for a complete disaster map of the legal obstacles, read a treatise on recent labor law. Under these legal circumstances and the material conditions of globalization as wella s the institutional pressures for business unionism--Moody's term for class collaborationism--we have weak unions with frightened leaders. At best.
The unions need democratization, rank and file militancy, and a less cozy relationship with the bosses. But there's no point in condemning them for not being the unions socialists would like. The IWW, which has all the right perspectives, is largely a nostalgic gesture, of no social weight. We have to start where we are, and global condemnations don't help. Nor will they appeal to militant workers, like those in New Directions and the TDU. Those workers know more about featherbedding and bureaucracy than any of us, but they want to save and not damn their unions.
> >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?
>
> You know, like unions represent the organized interest of the working
> class, which is in a rather long-term battle with something called capital,
> and that the bosses' and stockholders' profits come from the workers'
> labor.
So you want the unions to come out and adopt Marxism as a their political economy? So would I, but it's not likely.
If you think that way, you are not likely to cut "jointness" deals,
> or enter into jointness joint ventures with your employer.
As I said, Saturn was a one-time deal. Reasonable leftists can differ on worker participation schemes--I am pulled two ways, one with a class struggle bias against and another with a worker control bias for. I guess it depends on the scheme.
> decades now, as have the NYC municipal workers (though not their unions, of
> course), the other NYC workers betrayed by the muni unions lack of
> solidarity, and organized labor in general.
But the Transit Workers dissidents very nearly won the last local elections--it was close. Maybe next time.
The New Voice at the AFL-CIO is
> about to go silent, because of structural problems larger than any of the
> personalities inhabiting them.
Quite right. It's partly because of this that blaming the unions for the problems of labor law, globailization, and so forth is not helpful.
>
> Did you hear John Sweeney talking about what a good guy Al Gore is the
> other day?
I too would like to see a real Labor Party. We should fight the unions' subordination to the DP. But blame the DP, not the unions.
>
> >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.
>
> Upper West Side, please
Well, I hada 50% chance of being right.
. If you're going to fulminate, get your fact
> straight. Read Moody's first, and I'm now reading his second. Mike Davis'
> Prisoners of the American dream, too. Those books taught me a lot about why
> American unions are so fucked, in fact.
Quite. But theirs is an internal critique by people who have paid their dues.
--jks