To me, that's a good thing, a way to get OCAW leaders to learn about the LP. But some people think dues checkoff was the end of the union movement in this country. Whatever.
>What's more, integration of the two types of members, chapter and
>endorsing union, looks difficult on a practical level: there are
>large areas of the country where the four relatively small unions
>exist not at all, or barely. (The BMWE is all over the country, but
>rather invisible in local labor movements. ILWU is West Coast.)
>
>Add to this the fact that many chapters are not particularly
>habitable for non-leftists, and you have a problem.
>
[etc.]
I think Jane has some valid points here and as it has turned out, the chapters in large cities have been utterly unable to overcome a basic problem with starting any serious labor-based party in the U.S., and that is that several small leftist parties--I could list them but I won't--use the LP meetings as the ground for their own longstanding turf and political battles.
I have no problem with them fighting out some obscure (but key!) point of political history, but PLEASE take it outside. What they've done is hijack chapter meetings and make them unendurable for genuinely interested Labor Party members.
These sectarians are generally the ones screaming about lack of democracy. IMHO it's not lack of democracy they're worried about, most of them are democratic centralists, it's lack of ability to use the LP as their platform for whatever political jag they're on.
><http://solidarity.igc.org/lpa.htm#B> *****
>
>Now, WSWS put it more harshly in 1998:
>
>***** The delegates included 149 international union officers and
>other leading officials from the six endorsing unions--the Oil
>Chemical and Atomic Workers (OCAW), United Electrical Workers,
>Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, California Nurses
>Association, American Federation of Government Employees, and United
>Mine Workers.
>
>The leaders of these unions controlled 100 votes apiece. Another 600
>delegates, wielding 1,138 votes, were the heads of central labor
>councils and union locals, including many from the same six unions.
>These lower-level officers voted in block with their international
>officers, giving the high-level bureaucrats control of the majority
>of votes, and veto power over every decision.
If one thinks that the leadership of what are arguably the most progressive unions in the U.S. are essentially a bunch of union bureaucrats (and local presidents their 'cronies') then it unsurprisingly follows that creating a Labor Party out of the union movement in the U.S. is not a good idea. I differ.
>In contrast, each Labor Party chapter (which must have a minimum of
>50 members to be recognized) [WRONG] was given between one and three votes.
>In other words, each top union bureaucrat had roughly 1,250 times the
>voting power of the average member of a local chapter.
Since they were each representing, roughly, 1,250 union members. Actually, I don't know how they got this number. The point is, when you represent a bunch of people, you get a bunch of votes. Funny how that works.
>The convention rules were designed to suppress democratic discussion.
>No resolution could be introduced from the floor unless it was first
>approved by a two-thirds vote of the delegates. One of the first
>votes was to reject an amendment that would have allowed resolutions
>to be brought from the floor if seconded by another delegate. At one
>point the chair of the constitution committee admitted that dozens of
>resolutions submitted in advance of the convention by members and
>chapters had been summarily rejected by the leadership.
Yeah, a committee took all the resolutions submitted in advance, condensed them, and submitted them back to the body. Thank god not all of them were debated on the floor. Ever run a meeting of, say, 1,400? The 1998 convention was well-chaired and not heavy-handed, in my view. I've been to all of them.
>There was virtually no opposition from the assembled delegates. The
>one time a delegate attempted to raise issues outside of the confines
>of the official resolutions, the chair ruled the speaker out of order
>and cut off his microphone. Whenever the platform wanted to end
>discussion, it called on its cronies positioned around the
>microphones to move the issue to a vote.
No opposition? There was a huge fight about electoral policy.
>The rights of Labor Party members in the local chapters, which are
>largely populated by members of middle class "left" organizations,
>were further curtailed by a decision to raise the minimum number of
>members required to form a chapter from 50 to 250. While this was
>done under the pretext of encouraging recruitment, it will have the
>effect of reducing most of the chapters to the status of "organizing
>committees" and stripping them of their minimal voting rights. Some
>90 percent of the 39 existing chapters fall short of the new
>membership requirement.
Yeah, another form was created, in which 20 members form a local organizing committee. That's how we formed ours. When an organizing committee gets 250 members, they become a chapter. LOCs get votes based on their membership just like chapters. It's convenient how they leave out and distort these little details--not that they have an agenda or anything.
>Chapter delegates complained that the national leadership was already
>withholding the names of people who sent in membership applications
>from the local chapters where the applicants lived. In some cases,
>even when all the requirements for charters had been met, the
>national leadership refused to grant them because they feared
>opposition.
They needed to substantiate that charge. One person complained to me recently he wanted to start a chapter but they 'wouldn't give him a charter.'
Concerned, I questioned him further on it, encouraging him to give it another try. Finally he conceded that the problem was they couldn't find a union local in their area to endorse it, which is the other requirement (besides 20 members and an organizing plan.)
><http://www.wsws.org/news/1998/dec1998/lp-d04.shtml> *****
>
>Cf. "Rules for Delegate Selection and Voting Allocation,"
><http://www.thelaborparty.org/c_rules.html>.
>
>Given the voting allocation, the only way you can reasonably hope to
>have an impact on the LP is to first climb up to the top of an
>international union, be it one that is already affiliated with the LP
>or one that you seek to have affiliate with it. If you are not a top
>labor official, you had better organize a gigantic LP chapter with
>more than 10,000 members in good standing.
Why would an individual at large member expect to have the same say as a delegate elected to go to the convention to represent a local of, say, 5,000 people? I don't know what national organizations you belong to, but unless they're pretty damn small some sort of delegated voting is a normal democratic mechanism, not a nefarious plot to seize power. In fact, it protects from minority takeovers at conventions.
>It doesn't make sense at
>all to join the LP as an individual at-large member ("Labor Party
>members who are not delegates of an affiliating or endorsing Union or
>Labor Party chapter/local organizing committee shall have the
>opportunity to participate as an at-large delegate. The Convention
>shall establish an At-Large Caucus which shall be allocated one vote
>for every 50 at-large members in attendance or major fraction
>thereof," <http://www.thelaborparty.org/c_rules.html>).
At most union conventions a member can't just walk in off the street and speak, introduce a resolution, or make a motion. I joined as an at-large member before the founding convention in '96, attended, and spoke on the floor and in caucus meetings. (There were 1,600 delegates.)
>I've found it, and here it is, in case anyone else is interested in
>the subject: <http://www.thelaborparty.org/a_electo.html>. The
>hurdle is too high, in my opinion. First of all, "A national
>committee of the Labor Party will review all applications for Labor
>Party electoral campaigns," with an ability to block any local
>initiative that does not meet its approval.
You added that last part. What it actually says is "A national committee of the Labor Party will review all applications for Labor Party electoral campaigns. In reviewing each application, the committee will use the criteria to assess whether a credible campaign can be run. An electoral effort will not be blocked based on any single item (in A,B,C) not being met if there are sufficient strengths in other areas to overcome particular shortcomings." You also left out, "the criteria are designed to ensure that LP candidates can run credible campaigns to win office." No candidates getting 3% of the vote, in other words.
>Aside from the problem
>of veto power at the top -- the top basically controlled by the
>leaders of affiliated international unions, C2 is unreasonable, as
>LP-endorsing union members may not exist where LP chapters do and
>vice versa.
No, each chapter or local organizing committee must have an endorsing local. Endorsing locals do exist where there is no chapter.
>C3 presents a circular problem: you want to run an
>electoral campaign so as to increase members, but you are not allowed
>to run one unless you already have a significant number of members.
Bullshit. If you can't get people to join without running a candidate, it's not much of a party.
>And C5 -- unspecified sums of cash in hand included -- is difficult
>to meet if the national committee sets a high level of requirement.
It'd be kind of dumb to specify, since conditions of running for county commission or running for Senate would be different.
>See below:
>
>***** C. Campaign Resources
>1. Sufficient election volunteers to cover precincts.
>2. Endorsing unions represent a significant portion of area union
>membership, sufficient to ensure that LP candidate will be seen as
>the labor candidate.
>3. A significant number of LP members in the district, sufficient to
>indicate that we can persuade district residents.
>4. Credible candidate, able to articulate LP program.
>5. Campaign financing plan, including cash in hand.
>6. Campaign committee reflecting the demographics of the district.
>7. Campaign manager prepared to carry out the campaign.
>8. Campaign plan that includes tactics and goals for growth of the party.
>9. Endorsements or support from local community organizations. Local
>party structures and State parties should notify the national Labor
>Party at least one year in advance, when possible, when planning to
>run candidates. <http://www.thelaborparty.org/a_electo.html> *****
>
>It seems that the national committee has all the decision-making
>powers while giving no specific commitment in turn to devote
>resources raised from the endorsing international unions to an
>electoral campaign, if one ever gets approved by it.
So, say you were building a new party, would you want locals to just run a candidate under the name of the new party without a campaign plan and without approval from the national body? I mean, it's consistent if you're into Green-like decentralization, but then you get things like this guy running against Wellstone. I'm not so excited about everyone's ability to do their own thing at the expense of the whole.
>Most likely,
>there will be no electoral campaign unless and until the leaders of
>the endorsing unions decide it's time to run one.
In what sense would it be a 'labor' party if the unions involved didn't have the primary say?
>And here's the
>problem: "All of the unions that endorsed the Labor Party campaigned
>vigorously for Clinton and the congressional Democrats in 1996 and
>1998" (@ <http://www.wsws.org/news/1998/dec1998/lp-d04.shtml>).
Make that ALL U.S. unions endorsed & campaigned for Clinton, except maybe one or two that endorsed Dole, I can't think of any, though. (UE endorsed Nader this last go round, and didn't give the dems money in '96, I'm pretty sure.) I'm not sure what this proves, other than that we have shitty alternatives.
>The more vigorously the endorsing unions campaign for the Democrats in
>the meantime, the more difficult it will be for the LP to make any
>electoral headway if it ever decides to enter into electoral politics
>as a party.
Why does this follow? You could as easily say the more vigorously they campaign the more jilted they will feel. As I noted before, my experience is it's easier to convince people we need an LP under Dems. than it is under Repubs.
Jenny Brown