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Concept paper: Theses toward the development of left labor strategy

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Preface: The following is what used to be termed a “struggle paper,” i.e., a paper presented as an argument for a position. It is not presented as a final position, however. It is, instead, inspired by the content of the February Left Strategies web discussion on the labor movement. This paper does not try to present the ideal tactics or all elements of strategy. It does, however, attempt to identify–for purposes of discussion–issues and concepts for consideration in the development of a full-blown left labor strategy. Feedback is welcomed.

(1)The era of neo-liberal globalization has unsettled the labor/capital relationship in the capitalist world, particularly in the advanced capitalist world. It has brought to an end the period of the Welfare State and has replaced it with an all-out war of capital against labor. To put it another way, it has introduced into the global North much of what has been transpiring in the global South since the days of colonialism.

(2)Within global capitalism there are some major changes that have been underway. The dominant forces are represented by what Egyptian theorist Samir Amin has entitled the “Triad,” that is, the USA, European Union and Japan. The principal enforcement arm of the Triad is that of the USA, sometimes acting in concert with other imperial powers. The Triad finds itself sometimes at odds with and other times in sync with the countries associated with the so-called BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China). Yet even where there is contention, it does not match that which was a major feature of the international picture in the first half of the 20th century when the world was divided into distinct empires based in Europe, Japan and the United States.

(3)There are indications of the development of a transnational capitalist class, but such a class, though at this point largely limited regionally, has no state apparatus through which it is operating. There is, however, an immense level of cooperation between and among the global capitalist classes, particularly with regard to their relationship to global labor and efforts at limiting national sovereignty. [Note: By “national sovereignty” we are not referencing independence struggles of the past, but rather efforts by existing independent nation-states to actually operate outside of a neo-colonial and neo-liberal framework.]

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(4)There have been major shifts in the nature of work and the nature of the working class over the last 40+ years. This has been the result of several factors, including, new technologies, global migration patterns, and the ideology and practices that accompanies neo-liberalism. With the breakdown of the Welfare State, there has also been the slow but steady demise of “eternal employment” within the global North, whereby a worker could assume that a job existed for all or most of their life. Companies have cut workforces to a core segment and the process of “contingent labor” has been introduced. This has meant that the periphery of most workforces are part-time, temporary and contract labor which largely corresponds to the notion of “just-in-time” production. It has also meant the growth of the structurally unemployed and a proletarianization of many professions.

(5)An additional feature of work and the working class has been the forcing down or back to the worker the various tasks and responsibilities that had, hitherto, been handled by the State or by full-time labor in the private sector (e.g., bank tellers). By way of example, people are expected to pump their own fuel, package their own groceries, etc., usually at their own expense or with the possibility of minor contributions from the State (or minor reductions in certain costs when it comes to the private sector).

(6)The reorganization of work has been accompanied by and frequently carried out through an attack on organized labor. In the USA organized labor was completely unprepared for this assault, largely because it believed that through purging the Left in the 1940s, that they had secured a place at the table of mainstream society. That turned out to be a fallacy.

(7)As the living standard has declined and organized labor has been attacked, the political Right has worked to enhance right-wing populism as an expression of popular discontent aimed, however, at segments of the working class and/or specific ethnic groups and women. Right-wing populism has come to be associated with acceptance of the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor/working class/etc., all of which acts as a racial code in order to neutralize white opposition to the assault on the Welfare State.

(8)In the absence of a coherent, visionary and 21st century approach to strategy, tactics and organization on the part of organized Labor, different forms of organization have emerged in various segments of the working class. This has especially included the advent of worker centers and what is sometimes referenced as “alt-labor” among immigrants and other excluded or marginalized sectors of the working class.

(9)The pauperization of much of the working class has resulted in fights around survival. This can include housing, jobs, healthcare, education, etc., which means that the targets of such struggles—when led by progressives—are frequently the State.[1] Yet, as the State cries ‘poor’, i.e., that it is out of money, much of the population has found itself believing that their demands cannot be met by the State. This has resulted in various responses, some of which are very reactionary, e.g., crime, some very individual focused, e.g., informal economy, and some collective, e.g., mass struggle, cooperatives. It has also presented a major strategic and organizational challenge to organized labor which, while having historically placed various demands on the State, has rarely found itself at odds with the State (on fundamentals).

(10)The net result of this situation is that progressive and left organizing within the working class finds itself operating on two separate, though related, battlefields. There are community-based struggles that range from efforts against the State to various self-help (cooperative) efforts. In those struggles there is a survival or social service side that must be considered, reminiscent of the “survival programs” that the Black Panther Party promoted in the late 1960s/early 1970s [e.g., free breakfast programs; sickle cell testing]. There are dangers and opportunities associated with this work. Survival programs can become an end in themselves, rather than a means to both service and reach a broad, popular base. On the other hand, as seen in the work of groups such as Sinn Fein (in Northern Ireland), such programs can be a component of the actual base-building that the Left needs to conduct, e.g., the anti-heroin efforts led by Sinn Fein in Dublin in the late 1980s.

(11)The other battlefield is in the context of the world of work. Work, however, is not to be understood as only formal and full-time. It includes those efforts, both formal and informal, to survive and in which individuals sell their labor power. In some cases, individuals may be offering services for compensation through the informal sector in order to survive. As a result, such individuals may not see themselves as workers but may, instead, see themselves as aspiring petty bourgeois. In other cases, they may see themselves as simply trying to survive. Nevertheless, the struggle in the world of work revolves largely around the struggle with the employer, whether that employer is the State or the employer is a private or semi-private entity. In this environment different forms of organization have emerged over time and will continue to do so. This includes traditional trade unions, but also workers associations. Where, as a result of neo-liberal policies, workers have been ‘transitioned’ into the status of ‘contractors,’ they may not legally have the right to unionize, but–as demonstrated by the NY Taxi Workers Alliance–they can form de facto unions that, in many respects, can operate much like a union even if they are not permitted to engage in collective bargaining.

(12)The structure of worker organization follows (a) function, (b) the nature of the industry, (c) ideological orientation and objectives. In other words, there is not one or other structure of worker organization that is ‘ideal.’ Rather, the structure must be determined by a combination of an assessment of the actual situation as well as a clarification of the goals of the organization of that specific sector of workers. It is in this latter sense that ideology is very important. The nature of the industry, it should be added, can have a profound impact on the consciousness of workers. If a set of workers have an identity as nurses, for instance, that may override the fact that they exist in a larger healthcare industry. This identity, therefore, becomes a site for ideological struggle, including the specific resolution of the objective of said organizing.

(13)Community-based workers struggles are as legitimate as any other form of worker struggles. They may be directly aimed at the State, but they can also be aimed at private capital (or both). In community struggles, however, class identity may be submerged by neighborhood, racial/ethnic, or gender identity. This means that a specific population engaged in struggles that are objectively worker struggles against capital (or against the capital-dominated State) may not see themselves as being involved in a “worker’s struggle” since the prevailing definition of “worker struggles” are those struggles that relate directly to employment. This is a challenge for the Left, a challenge frequently ignored.

(14)The right to collective bargaining is under severe attack throughout the capitalist world, but particularly in the USA. Any suggestion that workers should turn away from collective bargaining because it is lost, is misplaced. The challenge is that the forms of collective bargaining must change, recognizing that certain sectors of the workforce are not legally permitted to engage in such efforts. Thus, collective bargaining may have to take more informal channels. The fast food strikes, for instance, regardless of certain conceptual weaknesses, are an intriguing way to engage in city-wide ‘bargaining’ that goes beyond any one particular employer. In other words, city-wide standards can be established. The Taxi Workers in NYC have worked to build up a framework along such lines.

(15)In the South, and increasingly everything south of the Canadian border, workers have been falling victim to attacks on collective bargaining and the right to organization in the public sector. Responding to these attacks must be centered first and foremost on the essential need for a public sector in a civilized society, followed by the right of workers to have collective bargaining in the public sector. The message of organized workers in the public sector must be a message that focuses on saving and changing the public sector in order to serve the public. When the unions are seen as champions of pro-people reforms in the public sector, they will tend to gain popular support (e.g., the Chicago Teacher’s strike).

(16)The entire process of organizing has encountered significant challenges over the last twenty years. The atomization of life along with the growth of electronic communications processes has led to more indirect interaction between human beings. This tendency is toxic and anti-social. Nevertheless it has meant that it is often difficult to have face to face meetings and difficult to encourage 1:1 organizing and activism. Ironically the political Right seems to be far better at this than the progressives and Left. That said, the process of organizing must appeal to what Gapasin and others reference as “cultures of solidarity.” There must be efforts to build community. This is true whether one is organizing workers in communities or workplaces. Labor organizations need to create cultural wings (note: actually re-create since this was frequently done in the past), reading groups, sports clubs, food cooperatives and other means for human beings to see one another and interact. It is in this process that creative tactics for mobilization and pressure will more than likely arise from among the workers themselves. Labor organizations need to be learning centers, i.e., they need to be loci of education where workers share their knowledge and gain new knowledge. They need to also be centers for the learning of democracy. Democracy is not only the formality of elected leadership but the process of making decisions and building power.

(17)Outside of the labor organizations themselves, building power involves the creation of strategic alliances that share a common goal in power. Organized labor in the USA has largely accepted that it is not only on the defensive but must remain on the defensive. This is a sure way to enter oblivion. Instead, a theory of the counter-offensive must be advanced. This necessitates the creation of a new ‘identity’ for the oppressed and disenfranchised, and taking the lead in the work towards such an identity is a critical task for the political Left. We must recognize that in building this ‘new identity,’ not all segments of the oppressed will accept this direction. There will be tugs and pulls towards narrow self-interest and other reactionary approaches.

(18)A discussion of labor is not complete without examining the question of the unemployed and underemployed. Changes in the process of work, with technology and neo-liberal reorganization, has meant that there has been an uneven but actual growth in the structural unemployed. This references the ‘redundant’ sections of the workforce. Entire cities fall into this category, e.g., East St. Louis, and segments of cities and counties. In the major cities, however, we are witnessing a racial and class cleansing. Thus, sections of cities that were at one point ‘reserved’ for the poor are now being cleansed and the poor are being driven to outer regions. While there has been some work among the unemployed and underemployed over the years, e.g., the work of the Philadelphia Unemployed Project, and more recently, some organizations associated with the Right to the City Alliance, organized labor has all but abandoned the unemployed and underemployed, except most recently with some of the retail organizing (e.g., UFCW’s work around Walmart and the SEIU work around fast food). There are some creative efforts among the unemployed in Northeast Indiana, but this is the exception that proves the rule. It has been very difficult to gain foundation support for unemployed/underemployed organizing. This sector is largely written off an impossible to organize. Yet the key to organizing the unemployed is a combi

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