[PEN-L:11952] Re: UPS/IBT provocateur

[Louis N Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 24 Aug 1997 jlgulick@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Would the left be content with a world in which the package
> carrying working class could afford to purchase and consume the
> mail order catalogue goods they deliver, in the private splendor
> of their tract homes with a sport utility vehicle in every garage
> ? Somebody on Pen-L commented that the victory proved that
> globalization is a ruse and that popular pressures can still force
> capital to pass on productivity gains in the form of higher wages,
> more stable employment, better fringes, and so on. Maybe so
> (depending on sectors, firms, etc.) but this argument assumes that
> the rejection of Keynesianism, social market economy, etc., is
> strictly pragmatic, not political. I prefer Michael Perelman's
> observation a few months ago that multiplying social democratic
> capitalist patterns of work/community & standard of living &
> production and consumption linkages is neither materially possible
> or existentially desirable over the long-run.
>

The victory of the UPS strikers is no different from any economic strike.
It does not challenge the underlying assumptions of the capitalist system.
The reason a victory was important, however, is that it serves as an
inspiration for all of labor and its allies. A victory for UPS would have
strenghtened the hand of corporate American which has not only an
anti-union agenda but an anti-environmental agenda as well.

Looking back historically at the capitalist offensive which was launched
during the Carter administration, it is clear that not only was an attack
on wages and working conditions necessary, but an attack on occupational
safety and the environment as well. The same corporations that sought to
apply downward pressure on wages sought to relax restrictions against
water and air pollution. The perfect symbol for this two-fold attack is
NAFTA, which is anti-labor and anti-environment.

The question of how society is organized is important but it can not be
separated from the general relationship of forces in the class struggle.
Victories for the capitalist class tend to force the left to accept a
weakened voice. This is what explains the popularity of market socialism
in some sectors in recent years.

Victories for the working class, on the other hand, tend to give us
confidence that an alternative to the capitalist system is possible. When
the CIO was at its most powerful during the 1930s, the grass-roots
movement that accompanied it foreshadowed a world in which the working
class could govern society.

The NY Times article I just posted which deals with the organizing
strategy of the Teamsters union mentions that they updated their Web Page
every day. I have a vision of a labor movement that is in command of such
technology. It was such a labor movement that Karl Marx had in mind when
he considered the possibility of a dictatorship of the proletariat, words
that in their context mean nothing but the working class ruling society.

Who knows what will happen next with the labor movement. The only hope I
would have for the Greens is that they would look to the UPS strikers as
potential allies. The willingness of full-time workers to stand up for
part-time workers is a sign that people can think in terms of the greater
good. What better hope for ecologist-minded socialists is there than this
taking place?

Louis Proyect