Socialist Action /May 2001
Youngstown Labor Acivists' Open Letter
By CHARLES WALKER
Some well-known left-wing labor activists from
Youngstown, Ohio, writing in the journal IMPACT,* have addressed a "fraternal,"
yet critical, open letter to other labor activists and militants.
The writers rhetorically ask, "Has the strategy
of electing new top leaders produced the results for which we hope? Can
this strategy ever be expected to lead to a decisive break with the existing
system? Isn't what we have been doing just a warmed over Social Democratic
strategy that the 20th century again and again proved to be a blind alley?"
Obviously, they believe that the strategy of seeking
to replace the top leaders of various national unions (Mine, Steel, Auto,
Teamsters) has not paid off. Just as obviously, their test of success is
far different from the test applied by that section of the labor reform
movement that is not anti-capitalist; that is to say those unionists not
yet not seeking a "decisive break with the existing system."
The veteran activists-who include Staughton Lynd,
Peter Brophy, and Peter Rachleff-also assert that history demonstrates that
"national" trade unions are "inherently opposed to the self-activity
of rank-and-file workers."
They ask, "Why is it that national trade unions
will never be able to play a leading role in our movement to get rid of
capitalism and substitute something better for it?"
"Because," they have concluded after
decades of union experiences, "national trade unions are irrevocably
linked to capitalism. They will inevitably find ways to make their peace
with profit-making corporations. They will always stop short of fundamental
social transformation."
While not "denying" the need for union
electoral politics and collective bargaining campaigns, the critics believe
that there is still another path to take:
"The other path takes its inspiration from
the astonishing recreation from below throughout the past 130 years of ad
hoc central labor bodies."
As examples, they cite the Paris Commune, the Russian
soviets, the 1920s Italian factory committees, solidarity unions in San
Francisco and Minneapolis during the Depression, and more recent formations
in Hungary, Poland, and France.
"These were all horizontal gatherings of all
kinds of workers in a given locality, who then formed regional and national
networks with counterpart bodies elsewhere. Local unions can provide continuity
between the moments when such ad hoc bodies come out of the ground like
mushrooms. Indeed, local unions have the potential to be important building
blocks and organizing centers for more spontaneous formations."
More than just union reformers, the letter writers
not only advocate the organizing of "local labor centers," they
also advocate building a "new society locally, from below."
In my view the starting place for figuring out
how anti-capitalists in the labor movement should proceed at this time is
recognizing how profoundly demobilized the union ranks are and how profoundly
bureaucratized the U.S. labor movement is at both the national and local
levels.
If the local union leaderships were in any significant
number or for any significant period of time qualitatively different from
the national union leaderships, the number of fights between the two levels
of leaderships over contract battles and attempted trusteeships would provide
plentiful opportunities for the ranks to test out proposals formulated by
anti-capitalist trade unionists, as happened most notably in the 1934 Minneapolis
Teamster experience.
As it is, local unions at this time present only
an occasional opportunity for anti-capitalist unionists. However, I agree
that local unions are likely to play a valuable role for rank and filers
during times of general labor upsurge. That was the case during the events
that led to the 1934 Teamster strikes.
During a workers' upsurge, all sorts of things
become possible-especially when individual spontaneity becomes a collective,
organized force. Then sit-down strikers scorn the bosses' private property
rights, strike-breaking cops are met with force, court orders are defied,
and workers win real rights and make real gains.
Within the limitations of the U.S. labor movement's
profound demobilization and bureaucratization, what should anti-capitalist
unionists do while anticipating a general upsurge by workers that will make
so many things possible? Clearly, our tasks overlap with, but are not identical
with the tasks of those unionists who merely seek a better deal from the
bosses and realize that even to get that they have to take on the bureaucratic
business unionism mentality that dominates union leaderships on all levels.
In brief, our primary task is to organize ourselves
so that we're able to spread efficiently and systematically our anti-capitalist
views and class-struggle action proposals to all who will listen. In other
words, we should seek to build a left-wing within the labor movement. Certainly,
we should find ready listeners within the established reform caucuses and
groups, provided we have the necessary critical mass to establish credibility.
But first we must take the step that must proceed
all others. That is the organization of today's anti-capitalists within
the labor movement around a plan to consolidate our numbers. That means
formulating an action program that recognizes the varying experiences, lessons,
and views that are compatible with a common effort. In that way, we could
set about preparing now the ground for a class-struggle left wing to emerge
from workers' next spontaneous attempt to take a giant step.
The letter appears in the April issue of IMPACT,
a publication of the Workers' Solidarity Club of Youngstown, Ohio. Correspondence
and submissions can be sent to IMPACT, P.O. Box 2125, Youngstown, Ohio,
44504.
Socialist Action /May 2001 |