I will grant you that plant occupations by the rank and file and/or a take over of the company management is the one of only two or three conceivable solutions that doesn't screw the workers. But that isn't about to happen.(Do you think the management/owners would allow worker participation or control? Or that the political leadership in Michigan or DC would be deaf to the pleas of the companies? Do you think the union leadership is willing to lead or fight in that direction? Do you think the rank and file is prepared to do that? ).
As to the political strategy the UAW tops are most likely to favor, the best that can happen, bailouts or subsidies [to company owners] are likely to come at the expense of workers, with more outsourcing of jobs, cutting of wages and benefits and the slower death of US owned Auto than would otherwise be the case. (A similar strategy was tried in the late 70s with Chrysler, resulting in a round of give backs, downsizing, the UAW Prez on the Chrysler Board and it did not deliver the goods - save US Auto as we have known it.
Yes, what in the short term appears to be Gomperism is the only alternative that offers any promise - which means defending, holding what can be saved and, in the process, buildinig a new kind of union. A more militant, and more democratic, labor union and labor movement would potentially have the muscle to eventually win back - both in the work place and in the larger society- much of what was lost.
Not a good scenario? I agree, but it is not the fault of the rank and file or their supporters. The facts we face now are the consequences of choices made years, decades and generations ago (primarily) in the Boardrooms of the Big Three and (to a lesser extent) in the President's office at Solidarity House in the late 40s/early 50s. SR
-------------- Original message -------------- From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
>
> I don't get your position. The workers should just stand back and let
> GM & F go under, or outsource them out of jobs? It simply will not to
> to make militant noises with no strategy other than a Gompersian
> "more!" Or Gompersism for an age of diminished expectations: "the same!"
>
> Doug
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
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