On 2011-08-22, at 12:33 PM, Charles Turner wrote:
> On Aug 22, 2011, at 11:33 AM, Marv Gandall wrote:
>
>> The problem is not a lack of political will or political organization; it's the lack of a militant working class movement with a revolutionary socialist following as once existed to sustain these.
>
> I had the impression that, to the extent the terrain of the workplace has shifted from the classic industrial shop floor, working class organizing has been made more difficult.
There's no doubt about it. Working conditions were harsher, and large concentrations of industrial workers in factories and mines and their surrounding neighbourhoods were more apt to develop a collective sense of grievance and of their own power to shut down production. By contrast, in the service economy, working conditions are better, workplaces smaller and more decentralized, workers more geographically dispersed, turnover more frequent, and part-time and casual employment more common, all of which makes organizing more difficult. But nurses, teachers, journalists, government employees, and others influenced by the example of industrial unions were still able to form their own organizations and engage in militant strikes when demand for their services was rising rapidly.
> Are there successful strategies (or accounts of failed attempts) for organizing people isolated in their cubicles, or grouped in small firms of 25-50?
When I was an organizer, unions targeted large employers and were loath to commit resources to organizing small shops, but they generally did so when approached by the workers and sometimes by agreement with a single employer or an employers' association. This is still the case, although the incidence of organizing is obviously lower in an economy which is stagnant or contracting than one which was expanding. To the extent unions still represent workers, all the major ones still have a presence in workplaces of 25-50 employees as well as much larger ones.
> To take the Communist Horizon video as an example, likely many of the audience earn a precarious living as Web monkeys at the various financial, media and advertising corps in NYC. They're already predisposed to some sort of political thinking. How to organize them?
The fact that they earn a "precarious" living can't be underestimated. It's a deterrent to collective action. Also, the unions they see today are being forced into concessions, even after game attempts to struggle, as at Verizon and in Wisconsin. As the old saw goes, "no one needs to pay dues to a union to go backwards, they can do it all by themselves." Nor are there any longer international political struggles of a left-wing character on the same scale as there were in the decades punctuated by the two world wars, or even during the 60's and 70's, to inspire today's generation of workers and students. Hopes of reform vested in the Democrats and social democratic parties are repeatedly dashed, promoting further political passivity and cynicism.
This is not to say that I am other than supportive of those who are trying to organize despite these obstacles. Social explosions can erupt suddenly and in unexpected ways. What I object to are (idealist) calls to form organizations or project political programs which clearly do not conform to the prevailing relationship of forces or the current consciousness of working people, calls which are often accompanied by facile criticism, for their modest accomplishments in difficult circumstances, of those already organizing in different milieus.