[Marxism] Was there ever a movement of "the 'white' U.S. working class"?

[dave.walters@xxxxxxxxxxx]

A rambling response to Joaquin's comments . 

But first, nit-picking time: Joe Hill was a Swede, born and raised, so not even 
'first generation'. So, not 
an "American" in any sense. Spoke, and sung, English with a heavy Swedish 
accent :). 

I would reply to this post in a general way with some comparisons. In S. Africa 
there was a "white 
labor movement", distinct from the black one, labled as such, seen as such. 
Consiousness even 
among "socialists" was divided between the "working class" in general and the 
"white" one in particular. 
I remember a peice in Revolutionary History about S. African Trotskyist Frank 
Glass, better known 
for being fluent in Cantonese and organizing among Chinese workers in the 20s 
and 30s. In this essay
, while he was organizing unions, he decided at some poin to "organize among 
white workers". 
Absolutly no context was given but I can only imagine the divisions among the 
class there.

I don't believe, not from my reading of labor history, was there ever a "white 
workers movement" 
as such. While some unions (like the railroad brothehoods) organized 
specifically to keep out blacks, 
and the advent of all-white unions, as such, there never really was such a 
thing.

In the Socialist Party, there was an attempt to define the SP as a "white 
workers party", lead in part 
by the notoriously racist Kate Richards O?Hare and exlemplified in the grossly 
name essay of 
her's "nigger equality":
 http://marx.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1912/0325-ohare-niggerequality.pdf. 

It was, of course designed to appeal to the non-immigrant southern native born 
white workers steeped 
in the height of Jim Crow segration.

Closer to the hypothesis that Joaquin posited on the list: In 1947 or 1948, CP 
leader Foster wrote 
an essay that describes, positively, the "coming together" of the US working 
class in to a "True" 
working class, one where all the past ethnic divisions were blurred by the 
class struggles of the 30s 
and 40s, the manifestation of which was the CIO. He sees the immigrant 
divisions of the past as 
having been a hinderance to the coming into it's own of a true American working 
class.

I don't know of any single essay or book that tells this story. Maybe it needs 
to be written. World of Our Fathers by Irving Howe explains in exacting detail 
every facet of the NY Jewish Working Class in the terms that Joaquin is looking 
for. But that's Jews, not Italians, not Hungarians or Irish. The "unified" 
story of this has to be written I suppose.

One of the things I know, I grew up with, were the ethnic job trusts that even 
AFTER I joined the 
YSA in 1973 I kind of simply accepted (along with wanting to see this broken 
down via 
Afirmative Action where it was raised) socially: Italians had sanitation, the 
Irish had the police, the Jews had education 
and everyone else tried to squeeze in the cracks. Even in private industry, 
such as longshore, the 
Brooklyn docks were mostly Italian, Manhatten's West Side docks were Irish. 
Same with the construction trades. This STILL exists and was expected by the 
white ethnic job trusts to last forever. 
I certainly never questioned that when, in 1976, my dad, who was well liked as 
a trade unionist, 
but in the Directors Guild at CBS, got me a summer job working building sets on 
West 57th Street. 
The stage hands union, IATSE, allowed this because of support pops did for some 
beefs they had. 
But, getting an actual "A" card was out of the question, I wasn't Sicilian. OK. 
Not a problem. Life 
went on. I just *accepted* this as the state of nature. Duh.

Rambling finished,

David________________________________________________
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