Wojtek:
> The bottom line is that union organizing in the US
is
> extremely difficult - this country is not a fertile
> ground for this type of collective action. Blaming
> union leadership for a failure to gain new members
is
> like blaiming them for a failure to squeeze blood
out
> of a turnip. It seems that in such a deeply
> pro-business society, corporate unionism a la SEIU
is
> the only form of unionism that has a chance of
> survival.
I know I sound like a broken record to you, but union membership is also on the decline in Germany:
http://www.zeit.de/2003/36/Gewerkschaft
The most exciting recent victory was when the GDL managed to force the Deutsche Bahn to give it the right to represent locomotive engineers exclusively, thus a small craft union again proving more militant than the sell-out unions GDBA and Transnet, which like most DGB unions are just glorified insurance companies.
However, the trend is overall not very encouraging, at least not so long as Germany remains split along an East/West divide. The failed strike of the IG Metall in the East German metal industry in 2003 for the 35-hour week was rather discouraging.
So I agree with Marvin and Carrol that we are talking about global economic trends at work, and it really makes no sense to attribute trade union failure to some particularities of national character. The large Fordist industrial trade unions might just be an obsolete form of organization in the Post-Fordist era.
I am beginning to have doubts anyway as to whether the point of production should be such a central focus for communists. Do not misunderstand me; I think everyone doing any job should fight to defend their own material interests. But I think it is mistaken to assume that "class consciousness" necessarily arises as a byproduct of wage and hours struggles.
I am far more inclined to say that immigration struggles and the fight for open borders should be a central priority. Capital is already transnational.
Labor will continue to be crushed until it becomes truly transnational, and I do not simply mean solidarity declarations and conferences between trade union functionaries across borders.
____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ