>> [lbo-talk] LA Grocery Strike: Where Was the Left?
>> mike larkin mike_larkin2001 at yahoo.com, Fri Feb 27 23:55:18 PST 2004
>>
>> from a post on Left Hook by a michael schwartz. I was wondering about
>> this myself. I posted stuff about it here and elsewhere, and no one
>> seemed to give a fuck. No wonder they (we) lost.
>> "It broke my heart to see how uninvolved the left was in this strike.
>> When I go to a Mumia demonstration of 200 people every left group is
>> there. When 59,000 workers are mobolized on 500 picket lines
>> throughout Southern California the left is nowhere to be seen. Has it
>> really come to this? In the 1930s the left was synonymous with the
>> working class. I know we're small today, I know we can't dictate what
>> happens in these struggles. But I met workers in this fight who are
>> true fighters. Tens of thousands of them stuck it out for 140 fucking
>> days!!!!! It was the longest strike in Southern California since World
>> War Two. We always talk about how one day the workers will stand up
>> and fight. Then...when it actually happens we act like it's a story
>> that belongs on the last page of the paper. Workers throughout
>> Southern California were tlaking about this strike and I know workers
>> elsewhere were as well."
>
>
> Solidarity comrades were involved in support for the California grocery
> workers' strike, but Solidarity members don't announce their presence as
> a "left group" of supporters distinct from other supporters, so few
> would know their presence by looking at rallies and picket lines.
I seem to recall posting a bunch of articles about the strike on Infoshop News. One of the volunteers for Infoshop is a striking worker involved in the strike. He kept me up-to-date about the strike and I urged him to write something about the strike for Infoshop News.
So perhaps this rant above doesn't apply to us anarchists, who followed the strike closely and did what we could given our limited resources.
My criticism of the strike is why it didn't do mroe to fuck up the stores with those 59,000 workers? If Wal-Mart is the big problem, why weren't these workers doing civil disobedience at all the Wal-mart stores? What kind of morons were responsible for the strike strategy?
Chuck0