re: trade unions and the left

[Jeffrey Booth <booth2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Robert,
        This is a great post:  one of the best I've read on the list for
awhile.  (Is anyone else about to lose their lunch when the next post
about "Analytical Marxism" appears?)
        Anyway, I would just add that in my experience, unionized
workplaces are the most fertile ground for discussing and organizing
marxism.  Lenin, Trotsky or someone once said that:  "unions are schools
for class struggle" or something like that.  Especially when there is a
strike, I've seen workers consciousness change drastically.  So, for a
marxist to turn away from the union movement is to undercut one of the
main organizational foundations for a marxist movement:  the organized
working class.
        
        I hope you post more about your experiences in the labor movement.

                                In Solidarity,
                                                Jeff Booth


On Tue, 16 Jan 1996, Robert Perrone wrote:

> Louis Godenas,
>    Let's agree to end any questioning of whether either of us is a
> marxist or not. My starting point is that this debate is being waged
> among people who are marxists, who want to make a revolution in this
> country; let's see this as a disagreement between comrades.
>    Let's also agree to look for points of unity in each position. For
> example, I think we both agree that the top leadership of the trade
> union movement, at least, is politically and ideologically corrupt,
> that this strata of the working class plays the role of spokespersons
> of the bourgeiosie in the workers movement. I will agree that unions
> are a means to an end, and that, as you said in your post of Jan. 15,
> "history will determine if our unions still have a role to play." I
> will also agree that they "will perish to make room for new forms,"
> which is from that same post. We may differ on what the end is, and
> the timing of when they will perish, however. Perhaps you can add
> other points of unity.
>    What seems to be separating us is, and correct me if I am
> misstating your position, your belief that the trade unions in this
> country have outlived their usefullness, that they are "corrupt" from
> top to bottom. I detect some wavering in this position, however, in
> your post of Jan. 16, when you wrote, "Anyone in the trade union leadership,
> whether in top positions or merely expecting to be so, are there
> because they have...gone along with this agenda [greasing the skids
> for rank and file people like you] throughout their entire careers."
> Does that mean people in intermediate leadership, like a president of
> a local union, has not yet been corrupted? Then perhaps we agree on
> something else.
>    Louis, I arrived at my position on the role of the trade union
> leadership and the trade unions after study and over a quarter
> century of experience in the trade unions. I have organized workers
> into unions, from both inside and outside of the unions. I have
> organized rank and file caucuses as a rank and filer and as an
> outsider. I have been an elected local leader. I have suffered from
> the treachery of the trade union bureaucracy that we both condemn. I
> have been expelled from the same union on three different occasions
> for organizing rank and file caucuses (ILGWU, 1975-79), and I have
> been fired with the colloboration of that same bureaucracy. Yet I
> continue to believe that unions, at least for the foreseeable future,
> represent the basic institutions of the working class, whether the
> person works in an office or factory. Unions can be the place where
> working people learn about democracy, and I do not mean bourgeios
> democracy. People learn about how their actions can have an impact on
> their working lives. I have seen rank and file movements take over
> the leadership of local unions.
>   It appears to me that what you are seeking is some pure
> organization of workers untainted by corrupt bourgeios ideas. I do
> not believe this will happen, even under socialism. As long as
> unions, or what ever you plan to call the basic institution of
> working people, are open to all workers, there will exist
> anti-working class ideas that may even gain adherents among the rank
> and file.
>    I believe you mentioned, in a previous post, community organizations
> as some kind of model for replacing the unions. I don't know what
> type of community organizations you have belonged to, but I can
> assure you, based on my experience as a member of community-based
> organizations, from tenants unions in housing projects in ELA and in
> graduate student housing on a UC campus, from community based defense
> committees, to what was at one time the largest community
> organization in ELA (UNO), in terms of the clash of opposing ideas,
> some of which were down right anti-working class, they are no different
> from the unions.
>    In my opinion, with correct leadership, unions can be
> organizations which take up political struggles in addition to
> economic ones. Now is not the time for marxists to abandon these
> organizations to the labor bureaucrats. At a time when the working
> class must strengthen itself to battle the capitalist jugernaut,
> anything that serves to further weaken these working class
> organizations is objectively lending aid to the capitalists.
>
> Robert Perrone
>
>
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