[PEN-L:11957] Re: UPS/IBT provocateur

[John Lawrence Gulick <jlgulick@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hey Louis,

Thanks for your remarks. Insightful per usual. I tried to qualify my comments
by saying in no way did I mean to belittle the significance of the IBT
victory for the defense of the material interests of the U.S. working
class. I was just thinking out loud, hoping that the main political
lesson that is drawn from this success is not, "U.S. working class gets to
claim its distributive share of the great post-1991 economic expansion."
Indeed the display of solidarity in the ranks that you mention was quite
inspiring. Still, at some point, I would like to see unions become cells in
a broader ecological socialist campaign fought on many levels by many
entities.  To the extent it's going on now it's mainly about, as you mention,
preserving and enhancing workplace safety rules, certain leaders (like OACW's
Bob Wages) trying to mobilize members to support transitions to non-toxic
(but still capitalist) production, etc. But, yeah, you gotta start somewhere.

Incidentally, in the latest Counterpunch an article reveals that the
AFL-CIO's got three times as much $$$ dedicated to a _single_ real estate
project as it has in its new, improved, expanded organizing budget. So
top-tier AFL-CIO hacks (in cahoots with the more conservative elements of
the S.F. building trades ?) are directly contributing to out-of-control
gentrification of S.F. and denying the popular classes the "right to the
city".

John Gulick

P.S. That article you downloaded by NYT's Uchitelle a few weeks back was
practically Marxist, although obviously it didn't indulge Marxist jargon.
The ballyhooed expansion will come to a close if labor is motivated to get
too uppity after UPS success. First time I've seen in a long time the idea
of "cost-push crisis" directly attributed to a winning labor struggle, as
opposed to a generic tight labor market.

 On Mon, 25 Aug 1997, Louis N Proyect wrote:

> 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
>
>