Can someone remind me again why unions are so vital to leftist politics? As far as I can tell, really existing unions are actually retreating from politics, toward the national interest and away from any sort of working-class mutual aid. I know this is not a new development, but after the UAW deal, it seems like it might really be useful to evaluate the left's undying faith in the anachronistic political form called the union. ***************
It's a power thing, dude. Workers exert more power when they're oganized than when they remain powerless individuals. Heck, the Chamber of Commerce doesn't always get what it wants either--life's a struggle in class society. Agreed though as to how un-classconscious the workers' unions are at present. And that's not just because the "heads" are essentially bureaucrats. It also has to do with the lack of education, agitation and organization amongst the proles by the class conscious proles themselves. The attempt to "lead" the objects...I mean masses...has a deleterious effect on the class consciousness of the actually existing subjects.
Or in the words of Ralph Chaplin:
When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run, There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun; Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one, But the union makes us strong. CHORUS: Solidarity forever, Solidarity forever, Solidarity forever, For the union makes us strong. Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite, Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might? Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight? For the union makes us strong. It is we who plowed the prairies; built the cities where they trade; Dug the mines and built the workshops, endless miles of railroad laid; Now we stand outcast and starving midst the wonders we have made; But the union makes us strong. All the world that's owned by idle drones is ours and ours alone. We have laid the wide foundations; built it skyward stone by stone. It is ours, not to slave in, but to master and to own. While the union makes us strong. They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn, But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn. We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn That the union makes us strong. In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold, Greater than the might of armies, magnified a thousand-fold. We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old For the union makes us strong.
That's my take, Mike B)
Macht kaputt, was euch kaputt macht! http://www.iww.org/culture/official/preamble.shtml
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