Markin comment:
SUPPORT THE BOYCOTT- ORGANIZE WAL-MART
This writer several years ago received news that the Massachusetts Federation of Teachers (MFT) has voted to support the Wal-Mart boycott. Thus, the MFT joins a growing number of other unions nationally and internationally in support of such a measure. Every militant is obliged to and must support this boycott as a first step in the struggle against this greedy mega-corporation. To list the egregious labor practices of this corporation is like reading pages from the history relating the sweatshop conditions of the American labor movement at the turn of the 19th century. Whatever piddling savings one might receive by shopping at Wal-Mart is negated by the degradation of its labor force. It is high time to move on this outfit and move hard.
Whatever the practical effect of the boycott may be it can only be seen as a first step in the ultimate union organization of Wal-Mart. A boycott is not enough! A consumer boycott, as has been shown repeatedly by past practices, is only as effective as the diffuse shopping public is aware of it. In general effect, little or not at all. The leadership of the American labor movement (now centered in the AFL-CIO and Change to Win Coalition) has chiefly used to the tactic of boycotts to avoid the hard struggle to unionize the workforce. In the final analysis only organization in the field will bring unionization.
To organize Wal-Mart means to have the will to organize Wal-Mart. It is necessary to go all out to win once the decision has been made to organize this monster along industrial lines, like the automobile and steel industries in the 1930’s. Previous local efforts (such as in Quebec and Texas) to organize particular stores have shown that this strategy (or lack of strategy) has been a failure. Wal-Mart is just too big and powerful to be taken on piecemeal. This writer has seen estimates that the number of field organizers necessary to effectively organize Wal-Mart is at least 3000. Call on the rest of the organized labor movement to fund and sent out that number en masse. The time is now.
Those even slightly familiar with the Wal-Mart operation know that the corporation has a fleet of at least 7000 trucks to transport and deliver goods to its various locations. This should make every militant salivate at the prospect of organizing that fleet. Militants must support the call for the Teamsters International Union to organize the fleet. Know this, if the trucks, the key to the distribution process are organized that is a very powerful argument in the workers favor if a showdown with other parts of the Wal-Mart workforce is necessary. This writer suggests that labor militants read Teamster Rebellion and Teamster Power by Farrell Dobbs; a central organizer of the successful Teamster union drives in Minneapolis and later over the road drivers in the 1930’s. (These books have been reviewed elsewhere in this blog.) One thing is clear from those books, if it took practically a civil war then to bring the relatively loosely organized trucking company bosses to their knees in the 1930’s it will be 1000 times harder to do so against this monolithic giant. But the victory will be sweeter.
Mentioned above was the need to fund field organizers and other support staff. And plenty of them. Unlike the 1930’s the organized labor movement has no lack of funds for such an operation today. However what is necessary is the political will to organize. Instead of using funds to support bourgeois candidates, mainly Democratic Party so-called ‘friends of labor’, through COPE and other PAC’s for minimal or no returns use the funds to organize Wal-Mart (and the South while we are at it). That is the real way to use union money. SUPPORT THE CALL TO ORGANIZE WAL-MART NOW! NO MONEY FOR POLITICANS-FUND THE ORGANIZING DRIVE AT WAL-MART! BRING MOTIONS TO YOUR UNION CALLING FOR SUPPORT OF THE WAL-MART BOYCOTT! BRING MOTIONS TO SUPPORT AN ORGANIZING DRIVE OF WAL-MART!
Showing posts with label organize the unorganized. Show all posts
Showing posts with label organize the unorganized. Show all posts
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Saturday, January 7, 2012
When The Class-War Was Red Hot- Farrell Dobbs’ “Teamsters Rebellion” (The 1934 Minneapolis Truckers Strikes For Union Recognition) - A Book Review
Click on the headline to link to a James P. Cannon Internet Archive for an online copy of his important Lessons of the Minneapolis Strikes.
Book Review
Teamster Rebellion, Farrell Dobbs, Pathfinder Press, New York, 1974
No question over the past several years (really decades but it is just more public and in our face now) the American working class has taken it on the chin, taken it on the chin big time. What with job losses (and jobs not coming back), paying for bank bail-outs, home foreclosures, effective tax increases (since the rich refuse to pay we pay), mountains of consumer debt, and student loan debt as a lure for the kids there is little to glow about in harsh light of the American Dream. In short, it is not secret that the working class has faced, is facing and, apparently, will continue to face an erosion of its material well-being for the foreseeable future something not seen by most people since the 1930s Great Depression, the time of our grandparents (or, ouch, great-grandparents).
That is this condition will continue unless we take some lessons from those very 1930s and struggle, struggle as a class against the imperial capitalist monster that seems to have all the card decks stacked against us. And that is where the late labor leader (and, for a time, revolutionary socialist) Farrell Dobb’s little book on his (and his comrades) experiences in organizing the truckers of Minneapolis, Teamster’s Rebellion, can help inspire new generations of working people, organized, unorganized, unemployed, homeless, houseless, and just plain desperate, to get out from under. Specific conditions may be different just now from what they were in Dobbs’ 1934 Minneapolis but after re-reading this little organizing gem there was something very, very current about what our forebears faced down there and then.
I write this little review with a special purpose, a purpose driven by the rise of the Occupy movement, in mind. Although the Occupy movement is right now as I write going through some growing pains there are some disturbing trends that I have witnessed since its inception. The main trend for my purposes here includes a rather standoffish attitude toward the working-class, especially the organized working-class, as central to the struggle for a more equitable society rather than as just another numbered victim of American imperialism’s relentless assault on, well, if not the ninety-nine percent then some large percentage of the population. And that is where the lessons of the 1934 Teamster’s strikes comes in as a helpful antidote to that notion. As well as very helpful guide to what Occupy already does fairly well-organize auxiliary aspects of the class struggle like kitchens, libraries, speakers’ bureaus and the like.
A few highlights will illustrate my point. Minneapolis was a notorious anti-labor commercial town (flour, copper, farm goods, etc.) for generations leading up to the 1930s. It had a well-organized, ruthless, and, when necessary, armed business-centered Citizen’s Alliance that mostly kept out the unions for generations. Therefore a central demand, yes a front and center in your face demand, of the working-class there was for independent union recognition by the bosses (they recognized only their own “company” unions, or better, dealt with each individual worker separately). That was the first order of business for those militants, including the leading revolutionary militants (mainly Trotskyists in this situation but others as well). Along with that desire was the idea that those allies (inside workers who loaded the trucks, etc.) of the truckers should also be organized in one industry-wide union rather than the old craft union idea of separate unions for each category of worker (in short, to break the old “divide and conquer” strategy of the bosses and comfort zone of the labor skates).
Now this scenario may not immediately strike any current Occupy sympathizer as particularly germane for today’s struggles but that view would be short-sighted. For what Minneapolis (and the other main class battles of the 1930s in places like San Francisco, Toledo, Flint, and Detroit) demonstrates is the social power of the working class to hit the economic royalists (the name coined for the one- per centers of that day) to shut the capitalist down where it hurts- in their pocketbooks and property. The bosses will let us rant all day, will gladly take (and throw away) all our petitions, will let us use their parks (up to a point as we have found out), and curse them to eternity as long as we don’t touch the two “p’s.” And that is why it is profoundly mistaken to assume that the working class is only along for the ride like everybody else in Occupy. The various recent West Coast port actions is a somewhat skewed way (the longshoremen refused to cross the community picket lines rather than directly shut the ports themselves but the effect was the same-ports shutdown for a period) demonstrate that same proposition.
Beyond that central premise that is bed-rock to understand this book is filled with all kinds of information that is also important to know for any major show-down struggle with the bosses. Such class-war actions have to be carefully planned using every resource available (not just some happenstance thing put together at a whim, or less). So reading about the soup kitchens, the hospital, the make-shift garages (to transport roving pickets, a necessity in the many-sited trucking industry), provisions for entertainment, and a labor daily newspaper to counteract the bourgeois biases of the press sounded awfully familiar to me, and should to you. Some parts Occupy has got right, got right right from the start.
What, disturbingly, has not been right or has been some what blurred today is a clear understanding of the relationship between the bosses and their state (the cops, National Guard, mayors, governors, courts, prisons, etc.) and we the risen people. The militants (beyond the hard “reds”) in Minneapolis probably had some illusions in those institutions starting out, although probably less than those today, a few generations removed from those hard class battles. They soon “learned” about the cops in their three-stage (three separate strike actions from February to August 1934) fight. Learned about cops mostly at the wrong end of a night-stick (or tear-gas grenade) in the famous “Battle of Deputies’ Run”. About the courts and their rough, very rough “justice.” About the militia and who it serves. About the lying bourgeois newspapers and their scare tactics. About who were, and were not, the so-called “friends of labor” from Roosevelt on down. And even about the treachery of the labor skates, particularly the head of the very Teamster Union they were trying to join, Daniel Tobin.
What they also learned though, and we can learn as well, is that through combining together in solidarity in large numbers, through being politically clear-headed, through keeping independent of the main political parties, and most of all having the determination to fight for what you want you can win sometimes in this wicked old world. Read this little book and see if you agree.
Book Review
Teamster Rebellion, Farrell Dobbs, Pathfinder Press, New York, 1974
No question over the past several years (really decades but it is just more public and in our face now) the American working class has taken it on the chin, taken it on the chin big time. What with job losses (and jobs not coming back), paying for bank bail-outs, home foreclosures, effective tax increases (since the rich refuse to pay we pay), mountains of consumer debt, and student loan debt as a lure for the kids there is little to glow about in harsh light of the American Dream. In short, it is not secret that the working class has faced, is facing and, apparently, will continue to face an erosion of its material well-being for the foreseeable future something not seen by most people since the 1930s Great Depression, the time of our grandparents (or, ouch, great-grandparents).
That is this condition will continue unless we take some lessons from those very 1930s and struggle, struggle as a class against the imperial capitalist monster that seems to have all the card decks stacked against us. And that is where the late labor leader (and, for a time, revolutionary socialist) Farrell Dobb’s little book on his (and his comrades) experiences in organizing the truckers of Minneapolis, Teamster’s Rebellion, can help inspire new generations of working people, organized, unorganized, unemployed, homeless, houseless, and just plain desperate, to get out from under. Specific conditions may be different just now from what they were in Dobbs’ 1934 Minneapolis but after re-reading this little organizing gem there was something very, very current about what our forebears faced down there and then.
I write this little review with a special purpose, a purpose driven by the rise of the Occupy movement, in mind. Although the Occupy movement is right now as I write going through some growing pains there are some disturbing trends that I have witnessed since its inception. The main trend for my purposes here includes a rather standoffish attitude toward the working-class, especially the organized working-class, as central to the struggle for a more equitable society rather than as just another numbered victim of American imperialism’s relentless assault on, well, if not the ninety-nine percent then some large percentage of the population. And that is where the lessons of the 1934 Teamster’s strikes comes in as a helpful antidote to that notion. As well as very helpful guide to what Occupy already does fairly well-organize auxiliary aspects of the class struggle like kitchens, libraries, speakers’ bureaus and the like.
A few highlights will illustrate my point. Minneapolis was a notorious anti-labor commercial town (flour, copper, farm goods, etc.) for generations leading up to the 1930s. It had a well-organized, ruthless, and, when necessary, armed business-centered Citizen’s Alliance that mostly kept out the unions for generations. Therefore a central demand, yes a front and center in your face demand, of the working-class there was for independent union recognition by the bosses (they recognized only their own “company” unions, or better, dealt with each individual worker separately). That was the first order of business for those militants, including the leading revolutionary militants (mainly Trotskyists in this situation but others as well). Along with that desire was the idea that those allies (inside workers who loaded the trucks, etc.) of the truckers should also be organized in one industry-wide union rather than the old craft union idea of separate unions for each category of worker (in short, to break the old “divide and conquer” strategy of the bosses and comfort zone of the labor skates).
Now this scenario may not immediately strike any current Occupy sympathizer as particularly germane for today’s struggles but that view would be short-sighted. For what Minneapolis (and the other main class battles of the 1930s in places like San Francisco, Toledo, Flint, and Detroit) demonstrates is the social power of the working class to hit the economic royalists (the name coined for the one- per centers of that day) to shut the capitalist down where it hurts- in their pocketbooks and property. The bosses will let us rant all day, will gladly take (and throw away) all our petitions, will let us use their parks (up to a point as we have found out), and curse them to eternity as long as we don’t touch the two “p’s.” And that is why it is profoundly mistaken to assume that the working class is only along for the ride like everybody else in Occupy. The various recent West Coast port actions is a somewhat skewed way (the longshoremen refused to cross the community picket lines rather than directly shut the ports themselves but the effect was the same-ports shutdown for a period) demonstrate that same proposition.
Beyond that central premise that is bed-rock to understand this book is filled with all kinds of information that is also important to know for any major show-down struggle with the bosses. Such class-war actions have to be carefully planned using every resource available (not just some happenstance thing put together at a whim, or less). So reading about the soup kitchens, the hospital, the make-shift garages (to transport roving pickets, a necessity in the many-sited trucking industry), provisions for entertainment, and a labor daily newspaper to counteract the bourgeois biases of the press sounded awfully familiar to me, and should to you. Some parts Occupy has got right, got right right from the start.
What, disturbingly, has not been right or has been some what blurred today is a clear understanding of the relationship between the bosses and their state (the cops, National Guard, mayors, governors, courts, prisons, etc.) and we the risen people. The militants (beyond the hard “reds”) in Minneapolis probably had some illusions in those institutions starting out, although probably less than those today, a few generations removed from those hard class battles. They soon “learned” about the cops in their three-stage (three separate strike actions from February to August 1934) fight. Learned about cops mostly at the wrong end of a night-stick (or tear-gas grenade) in the famous “Battle of Deputies’ Run”. About the courts and their rough, very rough “justice.” About the militia and who it serves. About the lying bourgeois newspapers and their scare tactics. About who were, and were not, the so-called “friends of labor” from Roosevelt on down. And even about the treachery of the labor skates, particularly the head of the very Teamster Union they were trying to join, Daniel Tobin.
What they also learned though, and we can learn as well, is that through combining together in solidarity in large numbers, through being politically clear-headed, through keeping independent of the main political parties, and most of all having the determination to fight for what you want you can win sometimes in this wicked old world. Read this little book and see if you agree.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
The Latest From The "West Coast Port Shut Down" Website-This Is Class War, We Say No More!- Defend The Oakland Commune!- Defend The Longshoremen’s Unions!- Take The Offensive-Shut Down The West Coast Ports On December 12th!- Shut Down The Gulf, East Coast And Great Lakes Ports In Solidarity!-ILWU won't join Occupy Oakland's attempts to shut down West Coast ports
Click on the headline to link to the West Coast Port Shutdown website.
Markin comment:
This Is Class War, We Say No More!- Defend The Oakland Commune!- Defend The Longshoremen’s Unions!- Take The Offensive-Shut Down The West Coast Ports On December 12th!- Shut Down The Gulf, East Coast And Great Lakes Ports In Solidarity!
********
ILWU won't join Occupy Oakland's attempts to shut down West Coast ports
By Erik Olson / The Daily News The Daily News Online | Posted: Thursday, November 24, 2011 8:15 pm | (7) Comments
Facing hefty fines for illegal picketing, union longshore leaders this week rejected a call from Occupy Oakland protesters to shut down West Coast ports Dec. 12 in support of the union's dispute with the owners of the new EGT grain terminal at the Port of Longview.
Occupy Oakland protesters announced Tuesday on their website that their general assembly had passed a resolution calling for a "mass mobilization" of various Occupy movements on the coast to shut down all commercial activity at all ports.
Robert McEllarth, president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, said the union appreciates the support but hasn't authorized the shutdown.
"Only ILWU members or their elected representatives can authorize job actions on behalf of the union, and any decisions made by groups outside of the union's democratic process do not hold water, regardless of the intent." McEllrath said in a written statement.
An email asking whether Occupy Oakland would continue the shutdown without ILWU support was not immediately returned.
Dan Coffman, president of ILWU's Longview Local 21, spoke at an Occupy Oakland rally. Without calling for a shutdown, Coffman thanked protesters for their support.
"You cannot believe what you people have done for my people, who have been on the picket line for six months now," Coffman said in video posted on YouTube.
The ILWU and Local 21 has been fighting for the past nine months to work inside the EGT grain terminal, which opened this fall. Union officials say EGT's contract with the Port of Longview requires the company to hire longshore union labor for 25 to 35 jobs. EGT instead hired unionized operating engineers and maintains it's not bound by contract to deal only with the ILWU.
A federal judge sided with the ILWU and sent the case to a labor arbitrator, who is expected to hear the case in December. In the meantime, the judge fined the ILWU about $315,000 for illegal picketing, including blocking incoming grain trains Sept. 7 and 21 and vandalism occuring during an early-morning raid on the terminal Sept. 8.
Among the dozens of Occupy protests that have risen nationwide, the Occupy Oakland movement has been one of the most aggressive, shutting down the Port of Oakland Nov. 2.
According to the Journal of Commerce, which tracks the marine industry, protesters would need to position dozens or even hundreds of people at port entrances to present a safety threat to dock workers who attempted to report to work.
An arbritrator appointed by the ILWU and waterfront employers ruled that protesters had created an unsafe work environment for longshoremen during their Port of Oakland protest, according to the Journal.
Read more: http://tdn.com/news/local/ilwu-won-t-join-occupy-oakland-s-attempts-to-shut/article_1d1bf7e6-1631-11e1-8eff-001cc4c002e0.html#ixzz1f2SuvyPz
Markin comment:
This Is Class War, We Say No More!- Defend The Oakland Commune!- Defend The Longshoremen’s Unions!- Take The Offensive-Shut Down The West Coast Ports On December 12th!- Shut Down The Gulf, East Coast And Great Lakes Ports In Solidarity!
********
ILWU won't join Occupy Oakland's attempts to shut down West Coast ports
By Erik Olson / The Daily News The Daily News Online | Posted: Thursday, November 24, 2011 8:15 pm | (7) Comments
Facing hefty fines for illegal picketing, union longshore leaders this week rejected a call from Occupy Oakland protesters to shut down West Coast ports Dec. 12 in support of the union's dispute with the owners of the new EGT grain terminal at the Port of Longview.
Occupy Oakland protesters announced Tuesday on their website that their general assembly had passed a resolution calling for a "mass mobilization" of various Occupy movements on the coast to shut down all commercial activity at all ports.
Robert McEllarth, president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, said the union appreciates the support but hasn't authorized the shutdown.
"Only ILWU members or their elected representatives can authorize job actions on behalf of the union, and any decisions made by groups outside of the union's democratic process do not hold water, regardless of the intent." McEllrath said in a written statement.
An email asking whether Occupy Oakland would continue the shutdown without ILWU support was not immediately returned.
Dan Coffman, president of ILWU's Longview Local 21, spoke at an Occupy Oakland rally. Without calling for a shutdown, Coffman thanked protesters for their support.
"You cannot believe what you people have done for my people, who have been on the picket line for six months now," Coffman said in video posted on YouTube.
The ILWU and Local 21 has been fighting for the past nine months to work inside the EGT grain terminal, which opened this fall. Union officials say EGT's contract with the Port of Longview requires the company to hire longshore union labor for 25 to 35 jobs. EGT instead hired unionized operating engineers and maintains it's not bound by contract to deal only with the ILWU.
A federal judge sided with the ILWU and sent the case to a labor arbitrator, who is expected to hear the case in December. In the meantime, the judge fined the ILWU about $315,000 for illegal picketing, including blocking incoming grain trains Sept. 7 and 21 and vandalism occuring during an early-morning raid on the terminal Sept. 8.
Among the dozens of Occupy protests that have risen nationwide, the Occupy Oakland movement has been one of the most aggressive, shutting down the Port of Oakland Nov. 2.
According to the Journal of Commerce, which tracks the marine industry, protesters would need to position dozens or even hundreds of people at port entrances to present a safety threat to dock workers who attempted to report to work.
An arbritrator appointed by the ILWU and waterfront employers ruled that protesters had created an unsafe work environment for longshoremen during their Port of Oakland protest, according to the Journal.
Read more: http://tdn.com/news/local/ilwu-won-t-join-occupy-oakland-s-attempts-to-shut/article_1d1bf7e6-1631-11e1-8eff-001cc4c002e0.html#ixzz1f2SuvyPz
From The "Histroy Is A Weapon" Website- On The 75th Anniversary Of The Great GM Auto Sit-Down Strikes-Genora (Johnson) Dollinger Remembers the 1936-37 General Motors Sit-Down Strike
Click on the headline to link to a Histroy Is A Weapon Website- On The 75th Anniversary Of The Great GM Auto Sit-Down Strikes-Genora (Johnson) Dollinger Remembers the 1936-37 General Motors Sit-Down Strike
Monday, November 28, 2011
From The "Socialist Alternative" Website-"75th Anniversary of 1936 Auto Sit Down Strikes — When Workers Shut Down GM"
75th Anniversary of 1936 Auto Sit Down Strikes — When Workers Shut Down GM
Jul 25, 2011
By John Gallup, Seattle, WA
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the 44-day GM sit-down strike. This organized the largest automaker in the world and established the United Auto Workers (UAW) as one of the most powerful unions in the U.S. The impressive gains they won in the 1930s led auto jobs to be seen as the symbol of good union jobs with high wages and solid benefits.
With mass unemployment returning, remembering how the UAW was originally built can help workers understand how they can organize against the bosses’ attacks and win today.
The Depression
Workers in the early 1930s faced brutal conditions. Union membership had been cut in half since 1920 as employers laid-off tens of thousands of workers and slashed the wages of those lucky enough to keep their jobs by 65%. Mass production workers (auto, steel, textiles, etc.) worked long hours for poverty wages with no benefits, had no control over their working conditions, and had no union to fight for their interests.
If a worker stuck his neck out to challenge an employer, he could be fired at will and easily replaced from the army of 16 million unemployed workers.
Workers not only had to fight against the bosses’ dictatorship in the factory, but they also had to organize around the existing union leaders. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was the only labor federation at the time. Their failed policy of craft unionism divided workers into multiple unions based on job classification, each with a separate contract with the employer even if they worked side by side on the same assembly line.
The AFL was proving unable to defend the gains of the past let alone organize new workers. Craft unionism was a strategy of “organizing for permanent disorganization” as workers were conditioned to look after their own sectional interests, and locals selfishly competed over dues-paying members.
Despite the obstacles, rank and file workers in the auto plants were fighting back. At their head were Communists, Socialists, and other class-conscious militants who understood that the power of the workers in the auto plants lay in their ability to organize as a class. They fought for industrial unions where all workers in a factory were organized side by side into the same union regardless of job classification.
In many auto plants the rank and file organized new federated locals as a way to maneuver around the craft unions. These were industrially organized locals that presented their existence to the AFL as an accomplished fact, and affiliated directly to the federation’s executive to prevent being split up among rival craft unions. The AFL leadership was willing to recognize the federated locals for a time, though they saw them primarily as holding tanks of workers to be divided later.
Fighting Back
As the initial shock of the Depression wore off, auto workers began to reverse the tide. The election of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the passage of the National Recovery Act in 1933, with its article 7a supposedly giving workers the right to organize, boosted their struggle. While article 7a didn’t actually give workers anything they hadn’t had before, it had a substantial psychological effect that increased workers’ confidence, and a wave of strikes spread across the nation’s auto plants.
Despite the courageous efforts of the auto workers, most of these strikes ended in defeat. The courts issued employer-friendly injunctions against pickets set up by strikers, while the police and National Guard escorted scabs into the factories to keep the bosses’ profits flowing. Without stopping the scabs, the auto workers had no leverage.
But in 1934, auto workers in Toledo scored a victory in the class struggle that inspired workers nationwide.
The Toledo workers were led by socialists who defied the courts and stood up to the police and National Guard. They were determined to stop scabbing even if they had to break the law and fight the state to do it. Organizations of the unemployed were brought onto the side of the union and strengthened picket lines in defiance of court injunctions. By relying on their own organized strength, and though bitter struggle, they organized 19 auto plants in a series of strike victories.
The Struggle for the UAW
At the same time, worker activists across the country were agitating for an international auto union. This movement took shape around a series of rank and file conferences where delegates from auto plants nationwide gathered. The resolutions coming out of these conferences called for an international union along industrial lines, democratically controlled by the rank and file, as well as a detailed plan for a general strike of workers in the auto industry.
Finally under pressure from below, the AFL called the founding convention of the UAW in August 1935.
The position of rank and file activists in the UAW was strengthened when splits opened up in the AFL leadership over the question of industrial vs. craft unionism, and the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) was formed.
By this time the character of auto locals across the country had drastically changed from just a few years before. These locals had been tempered in the heat of brutal industrial battles, and more militant figures had been pushed into leadership positions. The locals that had survived the last period were those that had overcome every obstacle in their path including ruthless bosses, company spies, employer-friendly courts and police, and back-stabbing politicians and union bureaucrats.
By the end of 1935 auto locals were notching up victories one after another. Workers at a plant would democratically work out a series of demands and elect a strike committee representing the entire factory. They would present their demands to the bosses with a deadline, and if the demands weren’t met, they struck with determination and militancy. Many victories were won in this manner.
In May 1936 the UAW held its second convention. Democratically elected leaders replaced the old guard bureaucrats, and the convention adopted a progressive platform including a call for a national labor party and no discrimination against women, blacks, or communists.
A month later the UAW joined the new industrial union federation, the CIO, and was the most democratic, rank and file-controlled union in the country. Auto workers were ready to take on the industry giants, and GM was their first target. They wasted no time.
Sit-Down!
In 1936 workers developed a powerful new tactic in their battles against the bosses: the sit-down strike. Instead of massing pickets outside factories and fighting to keep scabs out, sit-downers occupied the plant itself, defended it like a fortress, and made certain the bosses wouldn’t make a dime until their demands were met. The tactic proved decisive.
In November 1936 workers at Fisher #1 in Flint, Michigan spontaneously sat down over speedups. Next Fisher Body workers in Atlanta and Kansas City sat down to defend co-workers who were fired for wearing union buttons. In December, fed up with stalling, 7,000 workers at Cleveland’s Fisher Body struck with 1,000 sitting down in the plant. They demanded a national contract with GM.
In the following days the sit-down spread to Fisher #1 and #2 in Flint after workers saw crucial dies being transferred out of the plants as the bosses tried to lessen the impact a strike would have. Within three weeks 15 other GM plants were shut down. These strikes were completely rank and file led with no pre-approval from the UAW leadership.
In January, the UAW officially recognized the strike and presented 8 demands to GM including union recognition with a closed shop (meaning all workers at the factory would be in the union), a 30-hour work week and 6-hour day, union control of production line rates, and the reinstatement of all fired unionists.
GM’s counter attack began with court injunctions ordering strikers out of the plants, which the strikers defied. Next came attempts to freeze and starve out the strikers by turning off the heat to the plants (this was Flint in January) and forming barricades through which food could not be passed.
But women organized into the Women’s Emergency Brigade and other workers on the outside successfully broke through police lines bringing food to the sit-downers. The police tried to retake the plants with teargas and guns but were repelled as workers hurled heavy bolts at them and blasted them with fire hoses.
As the strike dragged on, pressure was mounting on the strikers. New injunctions were issued against the sit-downers, and FDR openly talked about calling in the National Guard to break the strike.
Decisive action needed to be taken, so the strike organizers decided to spread the battle and attempt to occupy Chevy #4 which was a key engine producer for GM. The plan was carried out with military precision which involved a decoy occupation of Chevy #9 and even the deception of most of the strike committee to foil company spies!
The plan was an absolute success and GM folded, signing a contract with the UAW on February 11 giving them full recognition and reinstating all fired unionists. The victory ignited an explosion of sit-downs across many trades, with all workers looking to the UAW and the Flint sit-downers for assistance and inspiration. This led to a massive surge in unionization in industry after industry, as workers won real improvements in wages and working conditions.
The UAW conquered the seemingly invincible GM by showing the bosses who really has the power in society, the working class. By bringing the capitalists’ profits to a halt and relying on their own organized strength to stand up to all the forces allied against them, auto workers laid down a tradition of fighting unionism and workers’ power that we need to draw on today.
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Comments? Suggestions for improving our web page? Please email info@SocialistAlternative.org
Jul 25, 2011
By John Gallup, Seattle, WA
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the 44-day GM sit-down strike. This organized the largest automaker in the world and established the United Auto Workers (UAW) as one of the most powerful unions in the U.S. The impressive gains they won in the 1930s led auto jobs to be seen as the symbol of good union jobs with high wages and solid benefits.
With mass unemployment returning, remembering how the UAW was originally built can help workers understand how they can organize against the bosses’ attacks and win today.
The Depression
Workers in the early 1930s faced brutal conditions. Union membership had been cut in half since 1920 as employers laid-off tens of thousands of workers and slashed the wages of those lucky enough to keep their jobs by 65%. Mass production workers (auto, steel, textiles, etc.) worked long hours for poverty wages with no benefits, had no control over their working conditions, and had no union to fight for their interests.
If a worker stuck his neck out to challenge an employer, he could be fired at will and easily replaced from the army of 16 million unemployed workers.
Workers not only had to fight against the bosses’ dictatorship in the factory, but they also had to organize around the existing union leaders. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was the only labor federation at the time. Their failed policy of craft unionism divided workers into multiple unions based on job classification, each with a separate contract with the employer even if they worked side by side on the same assembly line.
The AFL was proving unable to defend the gains of the past let alone organize new workers. Craft unionism was a strategy of “organizing for permanent disorganization” as workers were conditioned to look after their own sectional interests, and locals selfishly competed over dues-paying members.
Despite the obstacles, rank and file workers in the auto plants were fighting back. At their head were Communists, Socialists, and other class-conscious militants who understood that the power of the workers in the auto plants lay in their ability to organize as a class. They fought for industrial unions where all workers in a factory were organized side by side into the same union regardless of job classification.
In many auto plants the rank and file organized new federated locals as a way to maneuver around the craft unions. These were industrially organized locals that presented their existence to the AFL as an accomplished fact, and affiliated directly to the federation’s executive to prevent being split up among rival craft unions. The AFL leadership was willing to recognize the federated locals for a time, though they saw them primarily as holding tanks of workers to be divided later.
Fighting Back
As the initial shock of the Depression wore off, auto workers began to reverse the tide. The election of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the passage of the National Recovery Act in 1933, with its article 7a supposedly giving workers the right to organize, boosted their struggle. While article 7a didn’t actually give workers anything they hadn’t had before, it had a substantial psychological effect that increased workers’ confidence, and a wave of strikes spread across the nation’s auto plants.
Despite the courageous efforts of the auto workers, most of these strikes ended in defeat. The courts issued employer-friendly injunctions against pickets set up by strikers, while the police and National Guard escorted scabs into the factories to keep the bosses’ profits flowing. Without stopping the scabs, the auto workers had no leverage.
But in 1934, auto workers in Toledo scored a victory in the class struggle that inspired workers nationwide.
The Toledo workers were led by socialists who defied the courts and stood up to the police and National Guard. They were determined to stop scabbing even if they had to break the law and fight the state to do it. Organizations of the unemployed were brought onto the side of the union and strengthened picket lines in defiance of court injunctions. By relying on their own organized strength, and though bitter struggle, they organized 19 auto plants in a series of strike victories.
The Struggle for the UAW
At the same time, worker activists across the country were agitating for an international auto union. This movement took shape around a series of rank and file conferences where delegates from auto plants nationwide gathered. The resolutions coming out of these conferences called for an international union along industrial lines, democratically controlled by the rank and file, as well as a detailed plan for a general strike of workers in the auto industry.
Finally under pressure from below, the AFL called the founding convention of the UAW in August 1935.
The position of rank and file activists in the UAW was strengthened when splits opened up in the AFL leadership over the question of industrial vs. craft unionism, and the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) was formed.
By this time the character of auto locals across the country had drastically changed from just a few years before. These locals had been tempered in the heat of brutal industrial battles, and more militant figures had been pushed into leadership positions. The locals that had survived the last period were those that had overcome every obstacle in their path including ruthless bosses, company spies, employer-friendly courts and police, and back-stabbing politicians and union bureaucrats.
By the end of 1935 auto locals were notching up victories one after another. Workers at a plant would democratically work out a series of demands and elect a strike committee representing the entire factory. They would present their demands to the bosses with a deadline, and if the demands weren’t met, they struck with determination and militancy. Many victories were won in this manner.
In May 1936 the UAW held its second convention. Democratically elected leaders replaced the old guard bureaucrats, and the convention adopted a progressive platform including a call for a national labor party and no discrimination against women, blacks, or communists.
A month later the UAW joined the new industrial union federation, the CIO, and was the most democratic, rank and file-controlled union in the country. Auto workers were ready to take on the industry giants, and GM was their first target. They wasted no time.
Sit-Down!
In 1936 workers developed a powerful new tactic in their battles against the bosses: the sit-down strike. Instead of massing pickets outside factories and fighting to keep scabs out, sit-downers occupied the plant itself, defended it like a fortress, and made certain the bosses wouldn’t make a dime until their demands were met. The tactic proved decisive.
In November 1936 workers at Fisher #1 in Flint, Michigan spontaneously sat down over speedups. Next Fisher Body workers in Atlanta and Kansas City sat down to defend co-workers who were fired for wearing union buttons. In December, fed up with stalling, 7,000 workers at Cleveland’s Fisher Body struck with 1,000 sitting down in the plant. They demanded a national contract with GM.
In the following days the sit-down spread to Fisher #1 and #2 in Flint after workers saw crucial dies being transferred out of the plants as the bosses tried to lessen the impact a strike would have. Within three weeks 15 other GM plants were shut down. These strikes were completely rank and file led with no pre-approval from the UAW leadership.
In January, the UAW officially recognized the strike and presented 8 demands to GM including union recognition with a closed shop (meaning all workers at the factory would be in the union), a 30-hour work week and 6-hour day, union control of production line rates, and the reinstatement of all fired unionists.
GM’s counter attack began with court injunctions ordering strikers out of the plants, which the strikers defied. Next came attempts to freeze and starve out the strikers by turning off the heat to the plants (this was Flint in January) and forming barricades through which food could not be passed.
But women organized into the Women’s Emergency Brigade and other workers on the outside successfully broke through police lines bringing food to the sit-downers. The police tried to retake the plants with teargas and guns but were repelled as workers hurled heavy bolts at them and blasted them with fire hoses.
As the strike dragged on, pressure was mounting on the strikers. New injunctions were issued against the sit-downers, and FDR openly talked about calling in the National Guard to break the strike.
Decisive action needed to be taken, so the strike organizers decided to spread the battle and attempt to occupy Chevy #4 which was a key engine producer for GM. The plan was carried out with military precision which involved a decoy occupation of Chevy #9 and even the deception of most of the strike committee to foil company spies!
The plan was an absolute success and GM folded, signing a contract with the UAW on February 11 giving them full recognition and reinstating all fired unionists. The victory ignited an explosion of sit-downs across many trades, with all workers looking to the UAW and the Flint sit-downers for assistance and inspiration. This led to a massive surge in unionization in industry after industry, as workers won real improvements in wages and working conditions.
The UAW conquered the seemingly invincible GM by showing the bosses who really has the power in society, the working class. By bringing the capitalists’ profits to a halt and relying on their own organized strength to stand up to all the forces allied against them, auto workers laid down a tradition of fighting unionism and workers’ power that we need to draw on today.
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Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Victory To The Harvard Workers! All Out In Support! Picket Lines Mean Don't Cross!
Click on the headline to link to Sunday Boston Globe article, dated November 13, 2011, for information about the strike vote by Harvard custodians and other support staff.
Markin comment:
Victory to the Harvard workers by contract settlement or, if necessary by strike.
Markin comment:
Victory to the Harvard workers by contract settlement or, if necessary by strike.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Victory To The Harvard Workers! All Out In Support! Picket Lines Mean Don't Cross!
Click on the headline to link to Sunday Boston Globe article, dated November 13, 2011, for information about the strike vote by Harvard custodians and other support staff.
Markin comment:
Victory to the Harvard workers by contract settlement or, if necessary by strike.
Markin comment:
Victory to the Harvard workers by contract settlement or, if necessary by strike.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Victory To The Harvard Workers! All Out In Support! Picket Lines Mean Don't Cross!
Click on the headline to link to Sunday Boston Globe article, dated November 13, 2011, for information about the strike vote by Harvard custodians and other support staff.
Markin comment:
Victory to the Harvard workers by contract settlement or, if necessary by strike.
Markin comment:
Victory to the Harvard workers by contract settlement or, if necessary by strike.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
The Class Struggle Heats Up, A Victory For Our Side For Once-Public unions win in Ohio referendum on Gov. John Kasich restrictions on bargaining
Post by Peter Callaghan / The News Tribune on Nov. 8, 2011 at 6:47 pm | November 8, 2011 6:47 pm
This from the Associated Press:
COLUMBUS, Ohio The state’s new collective bargaining law was defeated Tuesday after an expensive union-backed campaign that pitted firefighters, police officers and teachers against the Republican establishment.
In a political blow to GOP Gov. John Kasich, voters handily rejected the law, which would have limited the bargaining abilities of 350,000 unionized public workers.
Labor and business interests poured more than $30 million into the nationally watched campaign, and turnout was high for an off-year election.
The law hadn’t taken effect yet. Tuesday’s result means the state’s current union rules will stand, at least until the GOP-controlled Legislature determines its next move. Republican House Speaker William Batchelder predicted last week that the more palatable elements of the collective bargaining bill Ñ such as higher minimum contributions on worker health insurance and pensions Ñ are likely to be revisited after the dust settles.
Kasich and fellow supporters promoted the law as a means for local governments to save money and keep workers. Their effort was supported by the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business-Ohio, farmers and others.
We Are Ohio, the largely union-funded opponent coalition, painted the issue as a threat to public safety and middle-class workers, spending millions of dollars on TV ads filled with images of firefighters, police officers, teachers and nurses.
Celebrities came out on both sides of the campaign, with former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and singer Pat Boone urging voters to retain the law and former astronaut and U.S. Sen. John Glenn and the Rev. Jesse Jackson urging them to scrap it.
Labor and business interests poured more than $30 million into the nationally watched campaign, with the law’s opponents far outspending and outnumbering its defenders.
Opponents reported raising $24 million as of mid-October, compared to about $8 million raised by the committee supporting the law, Building a Better Ohio.
Tuesday’s result in the closely divided swing state was expected to resonate from statehouses to the White House ahead of the 2012 presidential election.
Ohio’s bill went further than a similar one in Wisconsin by including police officers and firefighters, and it was considered by many observers to be a barometer of the national mood on the political conundrum of the day: What’s the appropriate size and role of government, and who should pay for it?
Kasich has vowed not to give up his fight for streamlining government despite the loss.
For opponents of the law, its defeat is anticipated to energize the labor movement, which largely supports Democrats, ahead of President Barack Obama’s re-election effort.
*********
Markin comment:
After last week’s Oakland General Strike and the closing down of the Port of Oakland I thought we were on the offensive, finally. And I was not wrong. The Ohio referendum vote was a sweet victory to put the breaks on this “in your face” right-wing slide that we having been dealing with for a long time. While, in the final analysis, hard struggles, hard street struggles, still lie ahead we will take our victories, small or large, wherever we can. I don’t think that the bourgeoisie is ready to make reservations to some island and let us take over yet but I would think that some of the more far-sighted elements might be checking their frequent-flyer miles status. Nor am I so intoxicated by Ohio that I would raise the propaganda slogan to build workers councils now. But I will raise right here, well in advance of the 2012 bourgeois electoral fist-fight, the need to fight for a workers party that fights for a workers government. And I am not wrong on that.
This from the Associated Press:
COLUMBUS, Ohio The state’s new collective bargaining law was defeated Tuesday after an expensive union-backed campaign that pitted firefighters, police officers and teachers against the Republican establishment.
In a political blow to GOP Gov. John Kasich, voters handily rejected the law, which would have limited the bargaining abilities of 350,000 unionized public workers.
Labor and business interests poured more than $30 million into the nationally watched campaign, and turnout was high for an off-year election.
The law hadn’t taken effect yet. Tuesday’s result means the state’s current union rules will stand, at least until the GOP-controlled Legislature determines its next move. Republican House Speaker William Batchelder predicted last week that the more palatable elements of the collective bargaining bill Ñ such as higher minimum contributions on worker health insurance and pensions Ñ are likely to be revisited after the dust settles.
Kasich and fellow supporters promoted the law as a means for local governments to save money and keep workers. Their effort was supported by the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business-Ohio, farmers and others.
We Are Ohio, the largely union-funded opponent coalition, painted the issue as a threat to public safety and middle-class workers, spending millions of dollars on TV ads filled with images of firefighters, police officers, teachers and nurses.
Celebrities came out on both sides of the campaign, with former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and singer Pat Boone urging voters to retain the law and former astronaut and U.S. Sen. John Glenn and the Rev. Jesse Jackson urging them to scrap it.
Labor and business interests poured more than $30 million into the nationally watched campaign, with the law’s opponents far outspending and outnumbering its defenders.
Opponents reported raising $24 million as of mid-October, compared to about $8 million raised by the committee supporting the law, Building a Better Ohio.
Tuesday’s result in the closely divided swing state was expected to resonate from statehouses to the White House ahead of the 2012 presidential election.
Ohio’s bill went further than a similar one in Wisconsin by including police officers and firefighters, and it was considered by many observers to be a barometer of the national mood on the political conundrum of the day: What’s the appropriate size and role of government, and who should pay for it?
Kasich has vowed not to give up his fight for streamlining government despite the loss.
For opponents of the law, its defeat is anticipated to energize the labor movement, which largely supports Democrats, ahead of President Barack Obama’s re-election effort.
*********
Markin comment:
After last week’s Oakland General Strike and the closing down of the Port of Oakland I thought we were on the offensive, finally. And I was not wrong. The Ohio referendum vote was a sweet victory to put the breaks on this “in your face” right-wing slide that we having been dealing with for a long time. While, in the final analysis, hard struggles, hard street struggles, still lie ahead we will take our victories, small or large, wherever we can. I don’t think that the bourgeoisie is ready to make reservations to some island and let us take over yet but I would think that some of the more far-sighted elements might be checking their frequent-flyer miles status. Nor am I so intoxicated by Ohio that I would raise the propaganda slogan to build workers councils now. But I will raise right here, well in advance of the 2012 bourgeois electoral fist-fight, the need to fight for a workers party that fights for a workers government. And I am not wrong on that.
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