[lbo-talk] Soros and Volcker: Collapse surpassing Great Depression

Marv Gandall marvgandall at videotron.ca
Mon Feb 23 05:20:03 PST 2009


Charles Brown wrote:


> Also, there was severe anti-Communism, anti-Sovietism,
> Cold War in US society in general
> and Reuther, Meany , et al. executing these
> in the labor unions.
>
> Charles
>
> ^^^^^
> Shane Taylor
> Marv Gandall wrote:
>
>> I can't agree that the reason why why there is no repeat of CIO
>> organization is because of Hart-Taftley and other anti-union
>> legislation.
>
>
> Tom Geoghegan, a sharp labor lawyer, makes the case in _which Side Are You
> On?_. He emphasizes not only the Wagner Act, but the now overlooked
> Norris-La Guardia Act of 1932, which he viewed as essential to backing the
> federal courts out of labor disputes (now long since undermined, by
> judicial fiat as well as by the legislature). Among the list of now
> crippled means he lists secondary strikes at "neutral" employers, mass
> picketings, as well as those sit-down strikes.
>
> Admittedly, Geoghegan concern is with successful organization, not just
> general militancy. What's so great about the latter if it is crushed and
> forgotten in a few years?
>
> We should never overplay structural differences in the economy to the
> exclusion of the ease of firing union-inclined workers. The low cost to
> the employer of firing such workers is central to this story.
>
> The defensive crouch is deeply ideological. For nearly two generations,
> labor's freedom has been invoked to gut the means of its exercise. Little
> wonder that Ron Paul is mistaken as a solution rather than a sociopath.
=================================== It's true that The US labour movement was profoundly distorted by the racist and imperialist national context in which it developed, and that labour rights won in the 30's were severely eroded. But you had the same decline in union density and militancy in all of the advanced capitalist countries - reflected in the disappearance or transformation of the old socialist and communist parties throughout - which would suggest that the structural factors I identified, rather than ideological or legal ones, were the more decisive.

This doesn't mean that it is idle to trace the histories of anti-labour legislation and efforts to repress and isolate radical working class leaders, only to recognize that these factors have ALWAYS been present. What has unfortunately changed has been the capacity of the organized working class to effectively challenge this repression over the past half century...



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