>Cesar Chavez was recruited by an East LA organization that
>Alinsky started.
That didn't turn out so well though did it?
Michael Yates sent this here earlier this year:
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20090511/007513.html
I recently wrote a review for the LBO website of Randy Shaw's book, Beyond the Fields.
Shaw argues that the importance of the United Farm Workers and Cesar Chavez lies not in
its abysmal current membership numbers but in its legacy of militant tactics and its training of cadre
who have gone on to do great things. I strongly disagreed with this in my review. Shaw and several others
responded strongly and negatively to my review. However, daily events keep on
making Shaw look rather foolish. Shaw says, for example, that many SEIU leaders are UFW
alumni. Given what SEIU has been doing, even hiring a notorious security firm to wreak havoc on Sal
Roselli's breakaway union (the original having been put into trusteeship under sordid circumstances),
this is some legacy. Shaw also says that the political machine the UFW built is another legacy, as
former UFW staff have gone on to use what they learned in the union to very good effect elsewhere.
One UFW luminary, Marshall Ganz, who was a remarkable organizer, went on to help many progressives get
elected to public office. Shaw uses, as one example, the election of Nancy Pelosi. I said in my review that this
wasn't much of a legacy. Pelosi is a hack, trained by another hack, John Murtha. Now we see Pelosi scrambling to
disassociate herself from the Bush administration's torture. I think we all know that Pelosi knew or should have known
about this and done something about it. But like most Dems, she was gutless. What a legacy! And Ganz teaches now at the
Kennedy School, which I am sure is a real hotbed of radical activity. I have been a radical
nearly all of my adult life, and I can tell you that I would not teach at such a place. Nor would I campaign
for Nancy Pelosi.
An addendum: last night on Denver talk radio, the subject was the closing of all the care dealerships. Every
caller blamed the unions! Anti-labor sentiments are incredibly strong in the U.S. The shame is that the UFW, the SEIU, and almost any union
you care to name, have done little to engage in ideological education of the members and the larger society.
This is the long shadow cast by Walter Reuther, Cesar Chavez, and today, Andy Stern, and the rest of the anticommunist liberals
in organized labor.
Michael Yates