[lbo-talk] Re: union bureaucracy [was: A highly critical take on Fitch]

Jim Devine jdevine03 at gmail.com
Wed Mar 15 09:24:57 PST 2006


I wrote: >>The problem is that the trade union leadership can use its limited power to try to keep the ranks out of "their" business, to limit union democracy, to run the show in a top-down manner. This demobilizes the rank and file, except for the limited time period around strikes or lock-outs. This causes the gap between the leaders and the ranks to widen. It also hurts the ability of the rank-and-file workers to build common ground among their diverse opinions.


>> In the end, it weakens the power of the leadership itself, since
that power arises from the sense and practice of solidarity by the ranks. If the ranks stop caring about union affairs (because they have no effect on them anyway), then all of the union official's power arises from the legal system and his or her alliance with management (or with other officials). This makes the organization much, much less effective as a labor union.


>>It should not be forgotten that many union officials are liberals or
even socialists when it comes to political opinions. That is, they often have more "progressive" opinions than do the ranks when it comes to issues outside of the union. But at the same time, the structural pressures on them as officials causes them to be conservative when it comes to issues inside the union. <<

On 3/14/06, Marvin Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca> wrote:
>I largely agree with this, although I think there is still a tendency
on the left to draw too sharp a distinction between the consciousness of the leadership and the consciousness of the base. Even there is an inherent tendency towards conservatism by those who lead organizations, if there were a real separation between a membership presumed to be more incipiently militant and the leaders of these organizations, you would see this reflected in much more turmoil within the unions, more frequent leadership challenges and changes, more frequent rejections of tentative agreements - and, especially, a more sharply defined division between a left and right wing, as you had in the period before WWI and again in the 30s and through WWII.. <

three comments:

(1) some of the "incipiently militant" rank-and-file simply stop being involved with the union, treating it the way most people treat a lot of political organizations these days (e.g., Greenpeace?) these days, as an organization we donate to and hope that it spends our money well. Apathy rules, as people conclude "well, it's better to have a union than to not have one, but there's no point in getting involved."

(2) there are a lot of differences amongst the rank and file, which prevent the turnover you predict. The leadership's policies vis-a-vis the ranks encourage this to persist.

(3) some rank-and-file militancy is self-destructive (e.g., sabotage or joining some sort of neo-Nazi group). -- Jim Devine / "There can be no real individual freedom in the presence of economic insecurity." -- Chester Bowles

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