Some other comments which I’ll intersperse:
> On May 5, 2016, at 2:54 PM, Marv Gandall <marvgand2 at gmail.com> wrote:
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> This view of the state of the contemporary working class and trade unionism might be of interest and elicit some comment. We discussed the subject at last week’s meeting of our Jacobin group in Victoria, British Columbia.
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> We based our discussion on Charlie Post’s article in Jacobin, “We’re all precarious now” - a response to the British academic Guy Standing and others who maintain that younger unemployed and underemployed workers, indigenous peoples, single mothers, and other low-income groups constitute a new class, the “precariat”, with interests apart from those of the unionized workforce.
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> https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/04/precarious-labor-strategies-union-precariat-standing/
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> Some of our conclusions:
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> 1. We agreed with Post that the condition of the working class under capitalism, except during the mid-20th century expansion of the welfare state, has always been precarious.
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> 2. We noted that the concept of the precariat as a a distinct class had been appropriated by employers and governments who are trying to pit younger unorganized workers against unionized ones by blaming collective agreements for the lack of hiring by business. The gutting of trade union rights and wage levels, disguised as “labour market reform” has been the centrepiece of the neoliberal austerity agenda.
Point 2. doesn’t go back far enough — though the interviewers did. The Taft-Hartley Act, passed over President Truman’s veto in 1947 really crippled union power and set the stage for crushing unions in the Red Scare of the McCarthy era which followed. The FBI (and CIA, according to Les Leopold) really went after unions. All decline after Taft-Hartley.
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> 3. We don’t accept the view that the precarious living standards of the current generation of young workers is owing to strong unions wanting to protect their privileged position against the unorganized. Quite the opposite: they’re the result of the decline of the once powerful international socialist and trade union movement.
Point 3. Yes, reject that claim.
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> 4. We traced the decline to the revolution in communications and transportation technology which coincided with the opening of vast new zones of exploitation following the collapse of the USSR and the economic transformation of China.
Point 4. I agree with Charlie’s (Charles Andrews on Pen-l, not Charlie Post) remark that this is both loose and inaccurate. The post-WWII automation was already eating jobs and of course still is. The effect in the early years went mostly unnoticed because of the advent of Keynesian demand management (through armament spending) under the Kennedy/Johnson regimes and the Vietnam war. But productivity gains are both relentless and generally unnoticed in eliminating jobs.
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> 5. These developments promoted job-killing automation at home and the outsourcing of production and services abroad, affecting all sectors and layers of the working class. Large reserve armies of unemployed, part-time, and temporary workers have been created in advanced capitalist economies where full-time, secure employment was once the norm.
Point 5 is worded a little off. “job-killing automation at home” had been going on full blast since the 1890s, gathering speed in the early 20th century and didn’t need the collapse of the USSR and transformation in China to be promoted. And I would change, near the very end of # 5 the word “once” to “briefly". In the early 20th century most work wasn’t full-time and not secure. The 1920s and 1930s weren’t either. The beginning of WWII 1940-1941 opened a new era of a norm of good working conditions until it petered out around the 1970s.
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> 6. The crisis of trade unionism has to be seen in the context of several structural factors: a) job insecurity, which makes workers more hesitant to organize and strike; b) a predominantly service economy, where the workforce is more fragmented and dispersed and difficult to organize than the large, highly concentrated industrial workplaces of the past; and c) the predominance in the labour movement of public sector unions, which lack the industrial unions’ power to shut down production, and risk losing public support when they disrupt essential services.
Pont 6. Agree with your statement. I would stress, and hope to persuade others to stress, that labor is a commodity, and almost the only commodity not under control of its vendors one way or another. Even soybeans and corn, commodities, have the annual (flawed) Farm Bill to keep supply commensurate with demand. Labor is a commodity and in a market economy like the USA there is no hope of success for people selling commodities.
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> 7. The crisis has been reflected in a very low incidence of strike action, union organizing, and other traditional forms of militancy. It was noted that class consciousness results from workers’ participation in strikes and other forms of collective action, but that most contemporary union struggles are defensive ones which typically end in concessions. These outcomes have greatly reduced the appeal of trade unions for the mass of unorganized workers, though reactionary labour laws are at least equally to blame for the decline in union density.
Point 7. Agree, but wouldn’t blame “reactionary labour laws”, seeing those not as a cause but a result of the reserve army always growing.
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> 8. There was strong criticism of the conservative trade union leadership and bureaucracy for having contributed to the weakening of the unions through their focus on lobbying governments and the public shaming of employers. These are complementary tactics but no substitute for strengthening union power in the workplace through sustained education, organization, and mobilization of the ranks.
Point 8. I would add the Taft-Hartley Act and the FBI to the list of contributors.
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> 9. We agreed with Post and the militant wing of the trade union movement that union leaders and their members have to be prepared to defy the labour boards and the law when necessary. The institutionalized systems of collective bargaining imposed by the state have obscured the fact that the historic gains of unions were mainly won through sit-ins, walkouts, mass picketing, and other forms of illegal industrial action.
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> 10. We detected the first stirrings of a revival of trade unionism in the recent mass campaigns for a $15 minimum wage, a pickup of organizing in the retail sector, the Verizon strike, and the wholly unexpected support for pro-union, self-described socialist politicians like Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders. We attributed this in large part to a historic change in material conditions; the current generation of young workers, many of them with post-secondary education, is the first since the 30’s Depression to face the prospect of declining rather than improving living standards.
Point 10. I agree with Charles Andrews comment on Point 10. But though Charlie’s dating is more accurate it took us a long while to realize what was happening after 1975 or so, so perhaps your remark that the current generation of young workers is the first to face this is correct.
Glad your group got this discussion rolling. Thanks.
Gene
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