Labor and the IMF

Max Sawicky sawicky at epinet.org
Wed Oct 7 08:23:27 PDT 1998



>Pretty much. The "changes" at the AFL-CIO are largely cosmetic. . . . >

One criterion to judge which I think is useful is where money goes. More money has gone to organizing. Part of the problem here is that most of the resources of the labor movement are not controlled by the Federation. They reside in the individual unions and their locals. You can't just order these folks to spend less on servicing their present members and more on organizing. Some persuasion is required. Therefore the criticism of the federation or leadership is to a significant extent a criticism of workers for not being what we think they should be.

The main rap I've heard against the use of organizing money is mentioned in this post. The organizing is professionalized rather than coming from the ranks. There again, if one expects rank-and-file workers to go out organizing on their own time, no small selling job is necessary. If one hires them as professional organizers, one thins the ranks of one's own locals of those who I presume would be among the more committed members. There is a possible downside there, in light of continual threats of decertification.


> A few concessions to women and people of color, a "renewed focus on
organizing," and a program to encourage little shits like me to become professional organizers at the expense of rank-and-file workers (Kim Moody cites a study in the July-August '97 Monthly Review which proved that organizing is more successful when done by actual workers rather than by professional organizers, but the AFL keeps pushing the Organizing Insitute and Union Summer as a panacea for organized labor's ills).>

I wonder how this study was able to determine cause versus effect. It is reasonable to expect that a more committed group of workers will generate more self-organization, so we could be getting the "DUH" result that "organizing is successful" when the workers are more receptive. The real question is whether the federation or the internationals can inculcate such success from outside, and if so, how.

If the answers were easy, somebody would have thought of them by now.

MBS Local 70, IFPTE



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