Re: trade unions and the left

[Godenas@xxxxxxx]

Robert Perrone, I fear, is another example of that element on the left which
has lost the core of its creed, yet goes on repeating formulas which have
lost their credibility.  For a hundred years or more, the hopes of the Left
have been pinned on the workers as the revolutionary class of the future.
 Yet, wherever in the capitalist world revolution has momentarily loomed on
the horizon--in Germany in 1919, in Britain in 1926, in France in 1968--the
workers hastened to turn their backs on it.  Today, when the
"proletariat"--meaning as Marx meant by the term, the organized workers in
industry--is in steep and irreversible decline, one would hope that a
re-thinking would be in order.
I stand by what I said in my earlier post--that a sclerotic and corrupt trade
union movement, breeding a culture of privilege, autocracy, and conservatism
within every fiber of its organization, betrays a congenital inability to
reform itself.  I, as a trade union member, do not fear the impetus of refrom
coming from the outside (i.e. from a mass movement of workers and the poor
representing a new dynamic  outside the AFL-CIO)substituting for an obstinate
bureaucracy and a weak and divided membership with no real stomach for
change.
I see all of this happening as part of a larger shift away from the
traditional institutions of our society (the beginnings of which we are
already seeing); the courts, the schools, our political institutions, etc.
You point to the SEIU as an example of a rejuvenated union movement embracing
more women. blacks, etc.  Believing that more blacks or women in the trade
union leadership is going to significantly change the nature of what has
historically been a wholly owned subsidiary of capitalism calls for an
optimism that I do not possess.  Sweeney, Trumka, Chavez, et al represent a
retreat on behalf of the leadership in the face of impending disaster for
workers in this country, as do the Chapter 11-style mergers of ACTWU, IAM,
etc.  It does not basically alter the general trend, I'm afraid; that will
only come from without, and, I suspect, with the bitter opposition of those
who now hold office.
                                       Louis Godena


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