Justin Schwartz wrote:
>Doug, please. The old Teamsters were run by the mob. So are the
>Laborers. Carey's Teamsters were not, except in locals where the old
>guard was entrenchedl. He _did_ break the law, but it wasn't very
>awful as these things go--it didn't touch what Milken did, for
>example, whom you have been defending--and therwe is no doubt that
>if Carey hadn't won the UPS strike, he would not have been a target.
-I'm relieved that the lawbreaking of a reformist union leader was not -as serious as that of a demonized investment banker. -Doug
Doug, I sense some sarcasm in your sentence, but the answer is of course it's not as serious. Bourgeois capitalism makes it impossible for unions in general to succeed by obeying the law, so lawbreaking is not only unavoidable by union leaders but is often to be applauded. The only problem with such lawbreaking is when it serves self-enrichment rather than the empowerment of the union membership and the mass movement.
That's what makes Carey's actions so ambiguous- they were self-aggrandizing as every violation of union democracy must be, yet they were arguably done to keep the union out of the hands of the old guard who had violated that democracy even more thoroughly in the past and might do so again. It was a mistake for Carey and company to do what they did, most thoroughly because as Leo notes, their real failure had been their failure to institutionalize a much deeper democracy throughout the union.
I've talked over the years to a number of insiders to the reform movement, both grassroots leaders and insiders at the marble palace and what was clear was that Carey in the end did fear dependance on the rank-and-file movements and preferred these freelance consultants and imported staff from places like the United Mine Workers. Now, some of this was due to frankly the flakiness of some of the TDU supporters- as one Carey supporter who had her criticisms said to me, half the TDU folks were the solidest folks you could imagine and half were often flaky whiners who drove others away from the reform movement. Whether those proportions are a fair assessment of the TDU folks, it was that perception that opened the way for Ansara and the consultants to be allowed to try to save the election through back channels.
It was no doubt a combination of Carey's conservatism and TDU's rigidity at points that led to the degree of estrangement that led to this endgame, but whatever the proportion of blame, I still find the language used by Doug or others comparing it to actual mobster unionists or to Milken to be disgusting, reactionary rhetoric. We are about to see a full-out assault by the GOP Presidency on the labor movement and you are sitting there giving rhetorical support to that assault.
Remind me not to share a foxhole with you.
-- Nathan Newman