unions vs. the working class struggles

[neil <74742.1651@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Robert and Zodiac,

What profound and enlightening  "arguments" you guys put forward to whitewash
the treachery of the unions against the workers cause in this epoch! AFL-CIO
President John "Put 'em in receivership if they rebel' Sweeney is is looking for
a few good brown-nosers with" left" credentials! Go for it guys!
Lets see, we have the agent-baiting drivel and  oh, yes that  oh so serious
attempt of zodiac to refute the historical and factual points about the track
record of  bourg. trade unionism during this epoch with his infantile and bogus
"12 point" plan
he conjures up. Now that reply will get workers ears! Oooooh clever!

You honest fellows  need to stop with the junior  hack  smokescreens and get
serious with dealing with the actual unions track record, especially over the
last two decades.
>From PATCO, to Phelps Dodge, from GM-Flint, Hormel, from Pittston to AT Massey
mines, through GM-Van nuys  to  the Decatur, IL to recent  workers courageous
and valourous fights at Staley and Caterpillar and Firestone, it is a consistent
tandem of the corp. bosses economic power, their political power with the state
and their
reliable trojan horse  in the trade union apparatuses  that has driven the
workers to defeat after defeat , degradation and dispair. The AFL-CIO  is a
willing accomplice in all of this , and must in fact be, given its integration
into the state and loyality to maintenance of capitalist property relations and
hostility to real spread of working class fight outside the bounds of craft
unionism and bourgeois legality.

At Caterpillar, the workers voted 81% to recject concessions and firings and
continue the struggle, the unions said NO , just get back to work and for the
others fired --get ready to rent a U-haul.

At Staley, the  union UPIU 7837 made a  deal with the bosses and the state.
This resulting in mass concessions and sackings of workers and open corporatism.
At a union meeting in January the UPIU  union called the cops on their own
members when the fired memebr victims tried to get into the hall to unite with
other workers to continue their heroic fight.

Don't you scoundrels try to give me your lying  crap about "petty -bourgeois"
forces  I allegedly represent. I have been in 4' reform' semi-corporatist
bourgeois unions . I have seen the sickening trojan horse nature of the faker
run carrerist outfits.. I have seen other militants and leftists, anarchists and
communists stifled , suppressed and  even finked on to the state authority  by
the unions. I have seen other fighters for the class, bloodied up red by not
only cops and guards but by union thugs as well.
It is high time for honest scathing critique of ALL social institutions a la
Marx and Engels  revolutionary method demands, a this means no sacred cows, it
includes bourgeois trade unions too.

 Many Others on the list that have not taken leave of their wits, have
partisanship to the waged working class know I speak the truth in the essentials
though we differ over the details.

I'm not interesed in just scoring debate points, this will not help the class
regroup in the coming class battles.,The need for open marxist intervention and
ties to the actualiy of the fellow  workers in  class combat, the need for
workers to form NEW political and industrial groups based on their class
interests is urgent.

We can either critically and honestly face reality and oppose the distortons of
Lenin's --and  even Trotsky's method, by the wooden  bible thumping by the
Robert M../Zodiac, erstwhile apologists for pro-capitalist unionism and defeat,
or we can continue to delude ourselves that everything for workers will be
solved by "great men' or that it's only the issue of  'the crisis of leadership"
What "materialism!" These problems cannot begin to get proper attention untill
the the working class regains its confidence to struggle against capital on its
own class terrain, and  finds organization and political  savvy to spread and
extend the existing struggles and builds a new class movement as well. In this
we will have the daunting tasks of taking on the capitalists, their political
state, and the trickery of the union apparatuses....and their  'Left"
apologists.

I am sending separately more info. on the unions "work" in recent class battles
in the US for the record..

There was a great mass march of 6,000 or 7,000 mostly  proles  here in LA
yesterday to oppose the the campaign of anti-immigrant  worker terror by the
state and reaction. A few unions, independents , (mainly opressed nationalities)
had small conitngents., and  they were militant and spirited. I wonder where the
other 99% of  unions here were? Hmmmm, probably bashing the Japanese and the
Mexicans and other "foreigners" as the cause of the workers problems, per their
usual.. Lets see,  "workers organizations "who help  persecute other workers but
will not lay a finger on the capitalist bosses right to exploit and rob !! . Gee
sounds like something Robert M. and Zodiac can apologize for!  But  that is the
politics the unions have to take up when they defend capitalism and are in bed
with the bosses!

NC
LAWV
Box 57483
Los Angeles, CA. 90057 USA









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