PEN-L message, Re: Trade Unions

>This, however, is the utmost Trades Unions, as at present organised, can hope to obtain, and that by constant struggle only, by an immense waste of strength and money; and then the fluctuations of trade, once every ten years at least, break down for the moment what has been conquered, and the fight has to be fought over again. It is a vicious circle from which there is no issue. The working class remains what it was, and what our Chartist forefathers were not afraid to call it, a class of wages slaves. Is this to be the final result of all this labour, self-sacrifice, and suffering? Is this to remain for ever the highest aim of British workmen? Or is the working class of this country at last to attempt breaking through this vicious circle, and to find an issue out of it in a movement for the ABOLITION OF THE WAGES SYSTEM ALTOGETHER?<

Comment

Brilliant! I came to the writings of Marx by way of Engels as a teen and have a lifetime of bias in his favor . . . although Marx was the genius by all accounts.

During our lifetime . . . the past 50 years . . . the trade unions in America were pressured not simply under the "iron fist of capital" but under the impact of the Freedom Movement of the African American people as expressed amongst and as (this "As" is important because "we" are the voice . . . as leaders of not simply the African American but the unskilled sector of labor) the unskilled sector and sections of the working class.

Trade Union are always under the pressure of capital by definition but I would hardly characterized life in America . . . for trade unionis . . . between 1944 and 1976/78 as an "iron fist."

"We" - the generation of which we are part of in the historic industrial section of the American Union . . . that is white, black, Mexican and second generation Arab workers . . . have a distinct story to tell and this includes our trade union experience.

Engels describe the limitations of trade unions . . . as they are attached to and reveal the cycles of reproduction . . . booms and busts . . . although it is still popular to point to Lenin as the architect of the doctrine of taking Marxist/communist consciousness to the working class and its organized sector in the proposition "ABOLITION OF THE WAGES SYSTEM ALTOGETHER."

In auto the boom/bust cycle ran on a 4 year circle and up until roughly 1993 and trying to sustain any militancy after the downturn of 1979/80 . . . was virtually impossible because the more radicalized younger workers were continually dumped into the streets. When the first mass hiring renewed in the auto industry . . . 1993 . . . I had 21 years seniority and was among the youngest workers in the plant. I had to have 25 years seniority before qualifying to receive vacation time of during June, July or August!

During the Chrysler Bailout by the Carter administration it was actually the government itself that forced the harsh concession on the autoworkers and rejected the agreement worked out between the company and the union. On this basis the Canadian autoworkers broke with the UAW . . . because they stated clearly they were not subject to American Congressional or legislative policy. An incredible wave of American chauvinism swept through union . . . which was later directed towards the imperial Japanese autoworkers and the next target will be the autoworkers in China . . . although everyone knows China's accelerated industrial and post industrial development is at the hands of international capital lead by American imperialism.

We are in for a rough ride. In the last period the trade union movement was subject to a political and social movement outside itself but interpenetrating it in the form of the African American Liberation Movement. It seems to me that the next wave of external political and social pressure is going to come from the most poverty stricken workers absolutely outside the union movement and lacking the cohesive bond that pins the worker to capital as its most importance element. The initial tendency within the trade union movement as a whole is going to be a distinct shift to ideological and real fascism on the basis of the union bureaucracy . . . although many members already gravitate towards and embrace fascist ideology.

The more economically stable sections of the working class intuitive understand that there stability is linked to the brutal exploitation and oppression of the worlds people by American imperialism. Fortunately this does not include the absolute majority of the American working class and the new proletariat.

Here is the line of march for communists.

Melvin P.