Identity politics

Dhlazare Dhlazare at aol.com
Mon May 25 09:20:20 PDT 1998


I

First, unions are not a good in themselves; they can help rationalize

terminatons, they can unionize workers only to legitimize arbitrary

workplace hierarchies (as Herbert Hill has argued for years); they can

limit workers' initiative and lock them into conservative agreements. But

then *THe Nation* should have given a column to someone like Peter

Rachleff who has a deep grasp of the theoretical and practical

complexities of unionization.

>> Wrong. Unions are good in themselves. They represent preliminary efforts at workers' self-govt. Therefore, even when they adopt wrong positions -- legitimize arbirtrary workplace hierarchies, rationalize terminations, etc. -- they provide arenas in which workers can debate and change such policies. Without such arenas, the debate cannot even begin.

Dan Lazare



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