Re: Labour parties

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Bob Gould:
> Lund also advanced the proposition that some workers in the airline industry
> breaking away from the machinists' union (IAM) to join a separate, smaller
> organisation of higher paid workers, might also have some progressive
> content. I don't want to overstate this in relation to Caroline Lund, as she
> is someone who went into industry during the US SWP's turn to industry, who
> has hung on in a car plant, doggedly engaging in political activity and even
> producing her own small industry bulletin. Her views warrant attention for
> this reason, even if they're wrong, which in my view they are. I also got
> the impression in the session that she was engaged in some intellectual
> probing on the basis of her experiences, and that her propositions were work
> in progress, so to speak. For all these reasons I don't want "verbal"
> Caroline Lund and if she reads this post on Marxmail, I'd be grateful to her
> if she would expand her views on the US trade union movement further, for
> discussion.

Actually I got a note from Caroline just last week inquiring about the
source of the quote from Morris Stein: "we are monopolists in the field of
politics". She and Barry Shepherd do not have time to participate directly
in Marxmail, but are forwarded posts by another former leader of the SWP
who reads the archives.

On the question of the trade union movement in the USA itself. I do think
that fresh thinking is required, even at the expense of making mistakes.
About five years ago, there was a lot of enthusiasm over John Sweeny's
election. One of the first things he did was appoint African-American and
open Marxist Bill Fletcher to run the AFL-CIO education department. This
was a way of nodding to the organized left that they were free to operate
in the union movement once again. But this promising beginning led nowhere.
Union membership has dropped off and the AFL-CIO has not dropped a lot of
its imperialist foreign policy outlook, even if anti-Communism of the
George Meany sort is not prominently featured.

Sooner or later, the pressure of objective events (war, unemployment, etc.)
might shake up the labor movement but for the time being there is not much
inspiration to be derived from the official movement and its leadership.


Louis Proyect
www.marxmail.org


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