> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Johannes Schneider
> Nathan wrote:
>> On another hand, though, public employees strikes do have a problematic
>> class nature, since increasing transit worker wages often lead to
>> increasing fares on a mostly working class ridership - ie. decreasing
income for
>> other workers.
> This could be said for any product, that is bought by the working
> class (or a product that is needed in the production process ). Judging
from this
> logic only strikes in 'luxury' industries have a 'class nature'.
> Nathan, is this just a tactical issue (tougher to defend) or a principal
one
> (problematic class nature)?
The costs of wage increases in strikes in the private sector do not get passed on completely to consumers; a portion (larger or smaller depending on the competitiveness of the industry) comes out of profits. So even though worker/consumers pay a portion of the costs of the wage increases, a strike in the public sector is a net transfer of wealth from the capitalist class to the working class. As long as the labor movement is braodbased, this means that mutual support for strikes across the economy leads to a net increase in wealth for workers viv a vis capitalists.
Where unions act in largely cartelized industries and wage increases are passed on almost toto to worker-consumers, this does raise serious issues of a "labor aristocracy" increasing its wealth not at the expense of the capitalist class but at the expense of the unorganized working class. These kind of struggles approach the problem of public sector strikes where struggles end up being evaluated more on individual terms for their progressive versus reactionary nature.
A key part of this understanding is that unions not seeking organizing across all industries and all workers do threaten to be seen as enemies of unorganized workers, who while appreciated the gains made at the expense of capitalists will also recognized that the "net" gains are not working to the benefit of those unorganized workers. "Organize the unorganized" is a critical part of making unionism a progressive force, rather than one that can act at the expense of poorer, unorganized workers.
In the public sector, a key part of understanding the class nature of the strike is to understand the class character of the taxes funding the program. Unfortunately, many local and state functions are funded by reactionary regressive tax systems based on sales taxes and property taxes (paid by workers in higher rent payments) or as with transit workers, from head tax fees - the most regressive tax possible. This is one reason why tax reform is a critical struggle for progressives, since great tax equity also makes public sector union struggles more of struggle against rich taxpayers rather than against their fellow workers.
This problematic nature of public sector strikes has led to anti-union theory in the Communinist states as well as hostility in many countries with nationalized industries. In the third world, unions in those sectors often are a privileged sector whose strikes come at the expense of consumers of public services, not at the expense of the capitalist class in those countries. Of course, the anti-union hostility in the Communist sectors was based as well on destroying an independent center of political opposition.
This last point does emphasize why unionism is always a good thing in the public sector as well as the private sector, aside from evaluating the progressive nature of individual strikes. Whatever the economic transfers involved, unionism increases the political self-organization of the working class and thereby allows greater ability to push for broad social change to the benefit of the working class as a whole.
>From this analysis, it is clear that while public sector unions need to
struggle in individual strikes, a great focus on their work has to be
towards tax reform and an equitable funding system for public services that
does not come at the expense of the rest of the working class. Some public
sector unions do that (and have been major supporters of groups like
Citizens for Tax Justice) but others too easily fall into advocating more
sales tax (or transit fee) burdens on working class voters as a solution to
their wage issues.
My own experience was as an executive board member of the Association of Grad Student Employees at UC-Berkeley (affiliated with UAW) during the early 90s when massive cuts in funding were hitting the university. A lot of folks, supported by UAW staff, wanted to continue a narrow workers rights focus, while another faction including myself saw a need to focus extensive energy on alliances with our "consumers" (undergrads) to both preserve education quality while fighting for increased taxes on the wealthy to pay for university funding instead of the massive tuition increases then being imposed.
We were able to form a coalition across campuses and with K-12 teachers unions to fight for such a program and, to our pleasant surprise, were able to enact new revenue sources, including a new increased state income taxes on the wealthiest 2% of taxpayers in order to forestall more cuts and increase financial aid for students. Along with other factors, this helped create alliances that meant when the union went on strike the following year, undergrads were phenomenally supportive in not crossing the picket lines for weeks. (Other problems in that strike led to a range of failures, although the union has finally won recognition this year and is bargaining with the University - although I've received emails detailing more narrow economic focus at the expense of a broader social agenda.)
Now, none of this is to argue that specific public employees may not be so undercompensated that a strike for higher wages in their case is a clear fight for justice. A paradigm example of that kind of struggle is the AFSCME garbage workers strike in Memphis in 1968 (where Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered). That struggle, by asserting the right to decent compensation for those workers, raised both economic and racial demands for justice that had far larger meaning in society.
But the overall point is that any degree of socialization of production, where worker-citizens become in part the owners of the enterprise in question, does raise new and hard issues in evaluating worker-management struggles where working class interests exist on both sides.
-- Nathan Newman