A SOLIDARITY WORKING PAPER $1

By Kim Moody

Building a Socialist Movement in the U.S.

SOLIDARITY .. www.solidarity-us.org·info@solidarity ... us.org Labor Donated

A Solidarity Publication

Originally published in 2000.

Kim Moody is a long-time socialist activist, journalist, educator and a founding member of Solidarity. Kim Moody co-founded Labor Notes (www.labornotes.org) in 1979 and until recently taught politics at Brooklyn College and labor studies at Cornell University. He is the author of An Injury toA" and Workers in a Lean World, and most recently, U.S. Labor in Trouble and Transition: T he Failure of Reform from

Above, the Promise of Revival from Below. He is currently a research fellow at the University of Hertfordshire, lives in London and is a member of the National Union of Journalists.

SOLIDARITY is a revolutionary socialist, feminist and anti-racist organization with branches and members throughout the United States.

If you want to know more about Solidarity and our work in the labor movement, please email info@solidarity-us.org or call 313-841-0160. You can also visit our website at www.solidarity-us.org.

Against the Current is an analytic journal for the broad revolutionary left, sponsored by Solidarity. If you'd like to subscribe to Against the Current, you can fill out the form on the back of this pamphlet. To browse articles online, go to www.solidarity-us.org/atc.

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Labor Donated

THE RANK AND FILE STRATEGY By Kim Moody

Illtr()cillc:ti()I1 ••••••••••.•••......•..................••••••••.•.•••.....••••......•••••••.........•••...•••• :!

The Setting: Why the Unions? .................................................................. 3

The Deep Roots of Working Class Self-Activity ........................................ 5

The Roots of IIComl11on Sense': ....... .......................................................... 7

Accumulation, Class Formation and Consciousness in the U.S ................. 9

The Rise of Bureaucracy and Business Unionism .................................. 10

Business Unionism's Defeat of the Socialists ......................................... 14

The First Experiment in Ranl< and File Strategy ...........•.......................... 15

The Lesson of Transitional Politics .......................................................... 17

Permeation & The Highjacking of the CIO ............................................... 18

Modern Business Unionism & The Problem of Consciousness . ............... 22

Fragmented Ranl< and File Rebellion ....................................................... 24

The Ranl< & File Perspective: A Contemporary Synthesis ....................... 25

The Roots of a New Revolt ................ . .................................................. ... 25

Internal Union Dynamics ....................... .................................................. 28

The Tasks of Socialists in Today's Resistance and Rebellion ................... 30

N-()tE!!; .............•..........•.....•............•.•..••..•........•••........................................ 3:!

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Introduction: The Problem

America , it has been sa id, is the exception . It is the on ly developed industri a l nation where no mass socia l ist movement took root i n the working c lass in the twentieth century. To be sure there have been times of mass upheaval and even the growth of sizable left organ izations with a signifi cant working c lass membership. In the years before World War One and i n the 1 930s, Socia l ist, Communist, Trotskyist, and a n a rcho-syndica list organ izations had some impact on the deve lopment of organ ized labor and even on U.S. po l itics. But, then, un l ike their European counte rparts, they would shrink to be margina l ized as pol itica l re l ics or sects .

Some scho lars saw the problem as one of "American exceptiona l ism." The Un ited States, it was argued, had too much upward mobil ity, too much avai lable fa rm l and, too regular a turnover as old ethn ic groups worked their way up i nto the "Great American Midd le Class." Whi le these theories a lways had l imited powers of explanation, much of the period of economic expansion that fo l lowed World War Two lent them cred ibi l ity. Not on ly d id the so-ca l led midd le c lass grow and prosper, but even much of the trad itiona l industria l working c l ass ach ieved a l iving standard n ever before ach ieved by blue co l l a r or even most white co l lar workers a nywhere in the world . African Americans, Latinos, and othe r people of color were largely exc luded from this u pward march to prosperity, wh ich is one reason why the enormous movements of B lack and Lati no peoples exploded in the 1 950s and 1 960s. For the majority of white working c lass people and those people of color l u cky or forcefu l enough to break into the un ion ized bl ue co l lar workforce in those yea rs, the "American D ream" seemed with in reach .

Today, the upwa rd mobil ity theories lo�k as outmoded and irre levant as a "Dick and Jane" first grade reader with its a l l -white, tranqu i l world . On ly the top twenty percent of U .S . fami l ies have seen a nyth ing l ike upward mobi l ity in terms of income. For the vast majority, today's forced march is down hi l l a l l the way. For African Americans, Latinos, and s ing le women it is more l ike a free fa l l . The proportion of poor people i s on the rise . The gap between the ri ch a nd the rest has grown to obscene and h igh ly visible levels. Even the wages of· un ionized workers in the big corporations a re lower in rea l terms than they were in the 1 970s.

There is no more "American exception," no more "Ame rican D ream." There is no more upward mobi l ity for the vast majority. A h igh ly internationa l ized capita l ism is d ragg ing most of us down, here and abroad . The c risis of capital ist "g loba l ization" was never more evident. And a l l across the world, we see g rowing resistance to the power of cap ita l and its neo libera l po l itic a l a l l ies . Even in the U .S., there a re s igns of revita l ization a n d renewed m il itancy in organ ized labor. This is n ot just a matter of more strikes l i ke those at U PS ( 1 997), G enera l Motors ( 1 994-98) and US West ( 1 998), although, as we sha l l see, they represent someth ing very important. We a lso see more and more attempts by rank and file union members to make their un ions more democratic and more effective in fighting today's h igh ly agg ressive employers and in organiz ing the unorgan ized . At the same time we see the beginn ings of c lass independence in the pol itica l sphere, with the formation of the Labor Party by severa l nationa l and scores of loca l unions in 1 996.

Yet at no time s ince the 1 950s has the iso lation of soc ia l ists from the working c lass bee n greater. Socia l ist organ izations in the U.S., inc lud ing Sol ida rity, remain smal l and large ly popu lated by people with an educated middle c lass background. Many socia l ist g roups' connection with the working c lass is l imited to support work for various strikes. The gap between the socia l ist organ izations and the active sections of the working c lass who a re the organizers of m u c h of the resistance to the employers and rebel l ions within the un ions is too great. The gap has many fa cets: some arise from different c lass orig ins, others from the habit of defeat on the left and the procl ivity for symbol ic actions and campaigns that flows from it. Most of the gap, however, is one of consciousness. The l eft with its high ly theorized, often mora l istic po l itics, and the worker activists with an un-theorized pragmatic outlook a re often l ike tra ins passing in the n ight. This can be true even where left g roups or ind ividua ls work with in the unions.

The Rank and File Strategy attempts to bridge that gap . We ca l l this the Rank & File Strategy because it is based on the very real g rowth of rank and fi l e a ctivity and rebel l ion that occurs in periods of i ntensifi ed c lass strugg le . The theory beh ind the strategy te l l s us that the confl ict i nherent in capital ist socia l re lations of production becomes more i ntense under cond itions of i nc reased competition a n d c risis. The experience of th is confl ict, the real ity of intensified exploitation,

contradicts o lder imbedded conservative ideas. The old ideas are not so much a c lear pro-capita l ist ideo logy as a mixture of contrad ictory ideas and sentiments he ld by most peop le i n our society. With in the working class rud imenta ry democratic and col lectivist ideas coexist with and sometimes combat both socia l ly conservative ideas (from racism to cyn ic ism and fee l ings of powerlessness) and a general acceptance of th ings as they are.

The task of soc ia l ists in th is situation is not simply to offer an a lternative ideology, a tota l exp lanation of the world, but to draw out the c lass consciousness that makes such bigger ideas real istic . The notion of a transitiona l set of ideas is key to this strategy. The socia l ist ana lysis of cap ita l ism and what ca pita l ism is doing to workers today relates d i rectly to the da i ly experiences of more and more working class people. But the fa ctthatthe vast majority of working people lack even a consistently c lass-conscious way of looking at the world makes it diffi cu lt for socia lism to get a hea ring . The gap ing l ack in the U.S. at this time is the lack of a sea of c lass-conscious workers for socia l ist ideas and organ izations to swim in . How do we he lp create that sea (with a l l due respectto Mothe r Nature)? Socia l ists can bui ld transitiona l organ izations and strugg les that he lp to ra ise the c lass-consciousness of activist workers, in order to en la rge the layer of workers in the c lass who a re open to socia l ist ideas. The existence of a strong current of active, c lass-conscious workers is a precond ition for the development of a strong current of socia l ist workers-an d a socia l ist pa rty. We need to be, at the same time, bring ing our socia l ist ideas d irectly to workers who a re a l ready ready to hear them, and a lso help ing to c reate the struggles that produce more such workers.

Such strugg les and such organizations a re expressions of worker se lf-activity and se lf-interest. But capita l ism attempts to demobi l ize and d isempower workers; our experience is that it often takes people tra ined i n organ ization, with a commitment and perspective of worker org a n ization-that is, socia l ists-to take the lead in pu l l ing ongoing organization together.

Transitiona l organ izations inc lude rank and file reform movements a nd caucuses rooted in the workplace and the un ions . The best known example is Teamsters for a Democratic Union, but there a re many others, Community based worker organ izations, sometimes ca l led workers centers, that organize on a class basis

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usua l ly in spec ifi c racial o r ethnic communities are also transitiona l worker organ izations. Some examples of these are The Latino Workers Center in N ew York, the B lack Workers For Justice in North Carol ina, and the Xicano D eve lopment Center in D etroit. At a s l ightly h igher l evel a re organ izations that cut across union, industry, rac ia l , and gender l ines a nd give a c lass­wide perspective to the da i ly workp lace and union experience . This inc ludes organizations a nd projects l ike Jobs with Justice, Labor Notes, loca l c ross-union support committees, or more politica l organ izations such as local l iving wage campaigns or the new Labor Party.

This pamphlet wil l exp la in why such organ izations and rank and file rebel l ion in general a re the result of rea l soc ia l forces. It is this soc ia l real ity that makes rank and fi l e rebell ion key to a successful strategy for bu ild ing a revolutionary socia l ist workers movement i n the U.S.

This strategy starts with the experience , struggles, and consciousness of workers as they a re today, but offers a bridge to a deeper c lass consciousness and socia l ist politics.

Most of al l , it is a strategy for end ing the isolation of socia l ists and socia l ist organ izations from the day-to­day strugg les and experiences ofthe organ ized sections of the working c l ass. It is not a panacea, a q uick fix, nor guaranteed of success . . The strategy does not assume that socia l ist consciousness flows a utomatica lly from "economic" strugg les. If it did, no strategy would be necessary. Those looking for a way out of the d i lemma of socia l ism's isolation from its natural base a re urged to join the discussion this pamphlet a ims to provoke.

The Setting: Why the Unions?

The Rank and Fi le Strategy for soc ia l ism i n the Un ited States focuses on the unions and the workp lace. Th is is not because these a re the on ly p laces where consciousness is formed or strugg les conducted. We are wel l aware of the many community-based campa igns, organizations, and strugg les by working c lass people. I ndeed, some of these p lay a rol e i n the Rank and Fi le Strategy. We a lso understand that one's i dentity or consciousness i n this soc iety is shaped by many forces i n many d ifferent setti ngs. C lass consciousness never exists a lone; i t is accompanied by the consciousness of other oppressions, such as that of race or gender, or the ir mirror images in the relative

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a dvantages of "whiteness."

Indeed, part of the transitiona l approach involves projecting a labor movementthatis more thanth e unions. We see the working class movement as composed of a variety of orga nizations, each with a d istinct role to p lay i n creating the sort of d iverse, c lass-based movement that points toward a new society. Socia l ism, of course, wil l not be based primari ly on union organization, but o n a range of democrati c organ izations and structures that bring all the exp loited and oppressed to power. The movement we bui ld today wil l in some degree prefigure the goals o f t he futu re. The unions take a c e ntra l rol e in our conception of a broad working c lass m ovement by virtue of the ir size and their p lace at the h eart of cap italist accumulation, a position that g ives them great potentia l power, but our vision of a labor movement is far broader.

We want to make it c lear that we do not proceed from some face less, race less, neutered idea of the working c lass. We e ndorse the thoughts of the Caribbean revolutionary Aime Cesaire who rejected the crude Sta l in ist version of c lass "un iversa l ity" he ld by the French Communist Party when he resigned i n 1 955. I n h is resignation l etter he wrote, "I have a d ifferent idea of a un iversa l . It is a un iversa l rich with a l l that is p a rticu lar, r ich with all the particu la rities there are, the deepen ing of each particu lar, the coexistence of them a iL" Nowhere does diversity shape the particu larities of the working class more than in the U.S. Nowhere is th is d ive rsity more centra l to the d ivisions, d iversions, a n d stren gths experienced by working c lass people in d ifferent ways. No where do working c lass people see themselves and one another i n such different, usua l ly d istorted, ways. The prism of race, i n particu lar, is h igh ly d istorting of c lass perceptions, even though in d ifferent ways for d ifferent groups-although it is a lso a source of c lass strength for many people of color. I ndeed, the problems and potentia l of d ive rsity is a theme we wil l return to aga in and again as we a ddress q uestions of consc iousness and organ ization .

One reason for focusing on the unions is that with some n otab le exceptions they are the most socia l ly integrated organizations in American l ife. Afri can Americans c ompose 1 5% of union members compared to 1 1 % ofthe employed workforce. Latinos make up 9%, s l ightly less than their share of the workforce . They are, however, the fastest growing ethn ic group in the un ions. Women, who were only 25% of union members in the 1 970s, now

account for 40% of union membership, j ust under the 45% ofthe workforce they compose. In 1 987, two-th irds of all un ion members were white ma les. Today they are just ha lf, a l be it due l a rge ly to the dec l ine of once ma le dominated industries. As America and its workforce changes, so do the unions.

An even more basic reason is that unions bri ng people together atthe heartofthe soc ia l re lations of production . Th is is where both c lass formation and c lass confl ict begin . Except on those ra re occasions when the c lass strugg le breaks i nto open pol iti ca l warfa re, it is at the workp lace thatthe tug of war between labor and cap ital is sharpest a nd most recurring . It is at the workplace that the conservative i deas a n d assumptions that b lunt c lass consciousness are most consistently confronted .

This confrontation is typica l ly socia l in nature. Not on ly in the sense of labor versus capita l, but of working people function ing together. In this context people from d iffe rent races and backgrounds are most l ikely to jo in forces to combat the employer. The education rece ived in c lass confl ict on the job or orig inating in work is a socia l one . Some, of course, wil l l earn faster, whi le some wil l not care or partic ipate actively except in ra re moments of strugg le . But here is where the activist layer of the un ions takes shape .

Fina l ly, the un ions provide a pol itica l/organ izationa l setting i n which on-going education, organ ization, and strugg le can be conducted . Whi le most un ion work is done atthe loca l level, the un ion a lso provides a nationa l or internationa l context that cuts across workp lace l i nes and these days, with most unions recru iti ng i n many industries, even across industry l i nes. Un ions a lso provide the most concentrated working c lass organ ization for intervention i n community affa irs . The l iving wage campaigns of recent years are a good example of union organized or backed politi ca l action . The cross un ion activist organ ization Jobs with Justice is another. Un ion backing has made the Labor Pa rty, founded in 1 996, a viable project with the potentia l of creating a genu ine c lass pol iti cs in the U.S. for the first time in decades.

Unions, of course, a re far from perfect pol itica l organ izations . They are bureaucratic . They often embody or protect racist and/or sexist practices. Their offic ia l ideo logy, which we wi l l ca l l business un ion ism, is a mass of contradi ctions, inc lud ing the idea of labor­management partnerships. Their leaders genera l ly do

their best to stradd le c lass conflict. Yet it is precisely some of these contrad ictions that makes the Rank and F i le Strategy rea l istic . Today those contrad ictions with in un ions a re i nteracting with the pressures that come from employers' efforts to remake the workp lace and with the intensified competition of world cap ital ism. I t is that i nteraction-between employers' pressure on workers and union leaders' inaction or co l laboration­that creates rank and fi le rebel l ion-and potentia l for the Rank and File Strategy.

The Deep Roots of Working Class Self-Activity

The roots of worker se lf-activity and self-organ ization in opposition to the employer l i e , in the first pla ce, in the rea l ity of exp loitation; i .e . , the wage relationship-the very heart of capita l ist accumulation, expansion, and growth.

Put simply this means that workers produce more va lue or wealth than they make in the wages and benefits that make up their standard of l iving. So, for example, in 1 995 manufactu ring companies made $5.39 of va lue added an hour for each $1 .00 in hourly wages they pa id production workers.

This ratio is not constant. Whi le we hear much from the capital ists' about their competition for market share, the fact is that growth in profitabil ity (th e ra�e of profit or return on i nvestment) actual ly comes from increases in this ratio. So for each do l lar ca pital pa id to workers in the U .S. , capital skimmed $2.47 i n 1 947, $3.23 in 1 967, S3.73 i n 1 977, $4.64 in 1 987, and $5.39 in 1 995. This rip­off ratio grows in sp ite of the fact that hourly wages � Iso rise. The reason the ratio r ises is that productivity Inc reases.

Whi le th is neutra l sounding economic category seems harmless, it is not. Over t ime the workers' i ncreased productivity reduces the amount of t ime they spend produc ing their own wages and benefits and expands that devoted to prod uc ing the surplus from which profits are taken. This might be the result of new technology which e l iminates workers' jobs or of increased effort by the workers or, typ ica l ly, a combination of both.

New technology is ha rd ly ever introduced without attempts to increase worker effort as wel l . The introduction of l ean production methods in the last twenty years has emphasized increased effort a long with downsizing and work reorgan ization. To put it

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simply, capita l does not get these i nc reases without putting e normous pressure on the workers.

More and more workers, facing the pressure for more production and all the rhetoric about competition these days, understand that it is they who create this profit. One UAW member expressed this i n an i ron ic way when he wrote to his un ion newspaper, "Be l i eve me, we know how hard it is to make a profit-we spend 50 to 60 hours a week at the company working to make a profit for our employers." [l]

The strugg le over what workers produce does not take p lace on ly at the workp lace . The government backs capita l with pol ic ies that red istribute the surp lus between c lasses, l imit the soc ia l safety net, impose greater market d isc ip l ine on workers though deregu lation and "free" trade agreements, and l imit un ion action. Broad pol iti ca l strugg les a round these a nd other social issues p lay an important role in the development of c lass consciousness. At c ritica l moments, they can make the difference between mass mobi l ization and fragmented strugg les-even revolution or defeat.

Communities, too, a re an important s ite of strugg le . Nationa l , rac ia l , o r ethn ic identities and ne ighborhoods often provide a place to mobi lize aga inst oppression . The workers centers mentioned above provide one form of resistance, consciousness, and organization for working c lass people of color and women-particu larly those not working for wages or outs ide the u n ions. Like the workplace, these a re essentia l p ieces of the c lass puzzle .

But it is in the workp lace, i n the basic soc ia l re lations of production, that the fight over the extra product of productivity occurs most sharply on a regu lar basis, and where even perceptions of bigger events can be shaped in a c lass perspective. The workp lace is a lso, of course, where workers have the most power to act on their c lass consciousness, whatever its source may be .

Karl Marx ana lyzed these relationships and saw them as the basis of worker se lf-activity in resistance to a l l the employer attempts to i ncrease the rate of exploitation. Trade un ions and other working c lass organizations a rose in the 1 9th century around this most basic strugg le between labor and capita l over the surplus. Trade un ions are a natural outcome of cap ital ism. These organ izations expand beyond the workp lace into

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l abor federations and workers' pol itica l parties, but it is the experience of exploitation a n d its intensifi cation that l ies beh ind the great labor upheava ls of the last c e ntury and a ha lf.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels were the first lead ing soc ia l ists to see in the trade un ions the potentia l for a growing c lass consciousness a n d organ izationa l experience that would make socia l ist ideas common c u rrency ac ross the working c lass. They d idn't think u n ions were revolutionary organizations themselves. They understood well , long before most economists, that the i r basic purpose was, as modern labor economists put it, to "take labor out of competition" in the fight to p revent fa l l ing wages. Engels noted this ea rly on in h is 1 845 Conditions of the Working C lass in England, when he wrote:

The active res istance of the Eng l ish workingmen has its effect in ho ld ing the money-greed of the bourgeoisie with i n certa i n l imits, and keeping a l ive the opposition of the workers to the socia l and pol itica l omnipotence of the bourgeoisie, whi le it compels the admission that someth ing more is needed than trade un ions to break the power of the rul ing c lass. But what gives these un ions and the strikes arising from them their rea l importance is this, that they are the first attempt of th e workers to abol ish competition .[2]

This reminds us of just how closely l inked were the orig ins of trade unions and the socia l ist movements of the time i n Europe, North America, and elsewhere. For the abolition of competition i s certa i nly a c lassic soc ia l ist goal. The diffe rence, of course, is that un ions on ly reduce competition among workers, not among capita ls, and l eave industry in the hands of capita l .

Add itiona l ly, however, Marx and Engels saw the u nions that a rose i n the 1 9th century as "schools" in which workers learned the rea lities of the system fi rst h and, but a lso developed the org a n izational , tactica l , and pol iti ca l sk i l l s needed to take the struggle further to the po liti ca l and revolutionary levels. Marx and Enge ls' assessment of just how well trade un ions performed these tasks waxed a nd waned with the level of strugg le, the rising conservatism of the c raft unions, a n d, i n Engels' l ifetime, the exp losion of the "New Unionism" that brought tens of thousands of u nski l l ed workers into more struggle-oriented unions. But the notion that un ions had a role in ca pita l ism beyond their obvious economic col lective ba rg a in ing function, a ro le

in ra is ing c lass consciousness, remained basic to their v iew of society.

The notion that un ions cou ld ra ise consciousness and tra in workers i n various pol iti ca l ski l ls rested, o f course, o n the assumptio n that the members and not on ly the offic ia ls actua l ly played an active role i n the conduct of union ism-that they a re democratic organ izations. Most of today's un ions appear to fa l l fa r short of that assumption . They a re h ierarch ica l and bureaucratic . At the nationa l leve l they a re typica lly dominated by fu l l ­t ime offi cia ls, appointed reps, and staffers. The members tend to be exc l uded from the un ion's admin istration and dec is ion-making . So l ong has this bee n the norm that most members judge the effectiven ess of their union by how wel l it "services" them, rather than by how well they themselves a re using it to pursue their goa ls.

It should be said that some nationa l unions a re more democratic than others and that the vast majority of the 50,000 or so loca l unions in the U.S. are relatively democrati c orga n izations-ce rta in ly in contrast to the corporations that employ their members, to the do l lar­drenched nationa l and loca l e lections that c la im the name of democracy in this country, or, indeed, to most volunta ry organ izations. But these loca l un ions typ ica l ly function i n the context of a nationa l or Internationa l un ion cu lture that i s top-down by design, pol itica l ly dead by habit, and narrowly focused on contract admin istration by labor "professionals ."

The evol ution and consequences of this sorry situation a re centra l to the Rank and Fi le Strategy. For this bureau cratic real ity gives the politica l confl ict withi n un ions a certa i n "sociolog ica l" cha racter. Ranks versus Tops to put it c rude ly. Whi le the socia l aspect is rea l , i t can a lso be deceptive. Just as not every leadershi p contest in a un i on has much i n t he way o f pol iti ca l content, so not every shop floor gripe or expression of d istrust or hatred of the un ion leadersh ip is an inc ip ient rank and file rebel l ion. But where opposition to the old regime arises i n the grassroots of the union, d rawing i nto action at least much of the active membership, and resting on the support of the majority, there i s a lmost a lways an authentic pol itica l d ifference over th e d irection, cu lture, and pol itics o f the un ion and the way it fights (or cooperates with ) the employers.

It is here, whether it is a strike movement, pro longed workplace campaign, or un ion reform caucus that the "school" Marx and Engels saw in the ea rly u nions

--------�==�-===============�-------

in Eng land comes ba ck to l ife. It is he re that the institutiona l attempt to suppress competition among the workers through contra ct admin istration turns into l iving sol ida rity. It is he re that the opportun ity for consc iousness to deepen and g row presents itself aga in and aga in . It is a lso here that socia l ists have the chance to reconnect with socia l ism's natural base­the active working c lass.

The Roots of "Common Sense"

The q uestion of bureauc racy in workers' organizations is l i nke d to consc iousness as wel l a s to material , h istorica l , and cu ltura l conditions. I ndeed, i t is impossible to p ick these e lements apart complete ly. We wil l begin with the q uestion of consciousness and then proceed to the cond itions that produced the uneven consciousness of the American worki ng c lass and the phenomenon of bureaucratic bus iness un ionism that is un ique to the Un ited States and, to a l esser degree, Canada .

Here we stress that whi le we th ink consciousness is c ruc ia l in bui ld ing a workers and revo lutionary movement, we are not saying that great upheaval and even revolutions requ i re o r a re l ikely to depend on a thorough-going, complete revo lutiona ry consciousness across the c lass. People act on their understand ing of the moment, but the log ic of strugg le can carry them fa rther than that consciousness. Furthermore, consciousness is a lways uneven with in the c lass, or any of its sections, even when everyone is moving in tile same d i rection . That i n fact, is why understanding the re lationship of action to consciousness is so important. I n many situations, i nc lud ing revol utionary ones, action may wel l precede tota l consciousness. The proposition that socia l movements or revolutions are on ly made by people with a total understand ing of socia l rea l ity or some compete "pol itica l correctness" is not val idated by the h istory of any ofthe great revo l utionary upheava ls of the last two centuries or more.

Whi le there a re many d ifferent Marxist approaches o the question of c lass consciousness, we wi l l look

critica l ly at two of the more popular exp lanations among socia l ists, those of Len in and Gramsci .

_eni n's most famous statement about the l imits of trade un ion consciousness was i n What i s to Be Done? vhere he wrote, "the history of a l l countries shows that

:18 worki ng c l ass, exc lusively by its own effort, is able :0 develop on ly trade un ion consc iousness . . . " [3] Trade

7

union consc iousness was bourgeois conscious he argued later. Revol utionary socia l ist consciousness had to come from outside, from professiona l revol utiona ries tra ined in socia l ist theory. Three years later i n 1 905 a trade un ion strugg le g rew into a mass strike movement and a revo lutionary confrontation with Czarism. Len in revised h is view a l lowing for the "spontan eous" development of socia l ist consciousness. Yet, he knew that sections ofthe working c lass everywhere remained mired in reformism.

Lenin was one of the first Marxists to exp l ic itly d raw the l i nk between reformist consciousness a n d the economic impact of capital's expansionary imperative. I n Imperia l ism, written in 1 9 1 7, he saw the problem of backward a nd uneven consciousness as a function of the development of a privi leged layer of the c l ass. Although he d idn't use the term, it has genera l ly become known as the " Iabor aristocracy" exp lanation . (Th e term was first used by Enge ls . l Lenin attributed the g rowth of imperia l expansion to the economic s urplus generated by monopoly profits. This same surplus, Len in a rg ued, a l lowed capital to buy off a priv i leged section of the working c lass, which became the base for reformism. The economic ana lysis, borrowed from a British l ibera l economist as well as from the Austrian Marxist R udolph H i lferd ing, that imperial ism is the result of a "monopoly" surplus doesn't accord with the facts of the time. A fa r more plausible exp lanation for the expansion of overseas i nvestment and the rush for colonies, a bove a l l in Africa, that began in the l ate 1 9th century was the fal l ing rate of profit that was at the roots of the world-wide c risis of the 1 870s.

Lenin's view can't expla in , e ither, the enormous employer resistance to c raft un ions of ski l led workers in most countries throughoutthe entire period h e writes of and after. This was the era of Taylorism (des ki l l ing) , Homestead, and the "Open Shop" drive i n the U.S . and of ski l l "d i lution" everywhere. Such a vic ious employer offensive d irected at ski l led workers is better understood in the context of the repeated c rises and profitabil ity problems of the era and contrad icts the picture of the corrupting hand of capita l passing out raises to craftsmen. Add itiona l ly, the " Iabor a ristocracy" approach can't exp la in why these same ski l led workers can become revo lutionary i n outlook as they d id in many countries during and fol lowing the Fi rst World War. Fina l ly, it doesn't expla in why the m ass of unski l l ed industria l workers can and did become just as conse rvative in outlook in the years followin g the

8

Second World War.

The problems of d iffering ski l l levels and the pay d ifferentia ls inevitably attached to them a re inherent in a capita l ist labor market. They can and typica l ly do p roduce a na rrow "job trust" consciousness among sk i l led craftsmen. At the same, however, capital ism is a lways attempting to d i lute or e l iminate these same ski l ls and rep lace them with cheaper labor atta ched to technologies that incorporates yesterday's ski l ls . The attempt to d i lute, e l iminate, and degrade ski l ls can p roduce a rad ica l consciousness, as i t d id even under Lenin's nose. The process of degrad ing sk i l l s is very much at work today.

This is not to say that Lenin wasn't right about the connection between capita l ism's co lon ia l expansion, materia l conditions, and conse rvative or reformist consc iousness. Imperia l ism, conquest, and continenta l expansion a re certainly major factors underlying the fact that socia l ist ideas have never won over the majority of American workers. Len in's contribution remains c ritica l because of the confusion of so many soc ia l ists over questions of nationa l l iberation than and n ow. The wealth extracted over the decades by these activities as wel l as by slavery has p layed a big ro le in the accumulation of capita l in the United States. In the period following World War Two, this a l lowed U.S. capita l to make extensive concess ions to a majori ty of the working c lass. It is not monopoly, but the rea l ity of capita l ist competition, however, that drives this process, as well as the fi ght ove r the i l l -gotten gains of imperi a l expansion. We wil l d iscuss the ways in which this worked a nd its impact on worker organ ization and consc iousness shortly, but first we want to look more c losely at consciousness itse lf.

The Ita l i an Marxist Antonio G ramsci a lso attempted to ana lyze the p roblems of working c lass consciousness and reformism i n particu lar. H is emphasis was on the a bi l ity of the ru l ing capital ist c lass to mainta in its rule through ideo log ica l means. G ramsci ca l led this "hegemony." Many neo-Gramscians and "hegemony" theorists have tu rned this into an absol ute, und ia lectica l domination of working c lass consciousness by bourgeois ideology. Here we want to employ a more contrad ictory concept of "hegemony" us ing G ramsci's idea of "common sense."

By "common sense" G ramsci meant the contradictory accumu lation of ideas, bel iefs, and ways of viewing the

world that most people ca rry a round . " Common sense" is not some consistent capital ist ideology. It was, as he noted, "fragmentary, incoherent." [4] It is usua l ly a c lashing co l lection of o ld ideas handed down, others l ea rned through da i ly experience, and sti l l others generated by the cap ita l ist media, education system, re l ig ion, etc . It is not s imply the popular idea of a nation tranq ui l ized by TV and weekends in the ma l l . "Common sense" is both deeper and more contrad ictory because it a lso embodies experiences that go aga inst the grain of capita l ist ideology. It is, n everthe less, capita l ist "common sense" in that it tends to embody a n a cceptance of the capital ist system as the natural background of l ife. G ramsci counterposed to common sense "phi losophy," mean ing Marxism or socia l ist consciousness. Whi le G ramsci's prison writings were necessarily h igh ly abstract and aesopian, his answer to the tra nsition from "common sense" to "ph i losophy" or "understand ing" appears to l ie in the "feel ings" or "passions" of the masses. Here we wi l l interpret this to mean the d rive to resistance that comes from the experience of exploitation.

Working c lass l ife, after a l l , a lso embodies experiences that contrad ict many of the o ld ideas and assumptions. As we have a rgued, these contrad ictions tend to be sharper and more frequent atthe point of production, but they can and do break out in other realms of l ife as wel l . The experience of exploitation and the intensification and reorganization of work and/or fa l l ing rea l incomes that inevitably accompanies it push workers into co l lective conflict with their employers. People wi l l put up with a lot when they feel they have to, but soone� �r later some people begin to fight back, then more Jom in . The experience of c ol lective strugg le against the boss cha l lenges much of the o ld "common sense" even more directly as people beg in to think through the rea l power relationsh ips they a re confronting a n d sta rt to fee l their power as a g roup .

C lass consciousn ess is a s l ippery item to investigate. Ga ins in consc iousness can be gradua l o r rapid, partia l o r more or less total depe nding on the magn itude of the experience that shakes up the old ideas and the a lternative ideas avai lable. But consciousness can sl ip back into o ld habits as wel l . Whi le we wil l talk about different l evels of consciousness, we do not mean to imply some stage theory of consciousness. The means by which thoughts and perceptions of the world change withi n an ind ividua l a re c learly complex. We won't try to dea l with this "psycholog ica l" s ide of consciousness

h ere.

Marx made the distinction between the consciousness of be ing a c lass " in itself" and "for itself." The fi rst i s the simple recognition that the working c lass is a d istinct c lass with interests opposed to the capita l ist c lass. This is something l ike what Lenin saw as trade u nion consciousness. It involves a n awareness of c lass confl ict and the need for organization, but a more or less unquestioned assumption that "the system" is here to stay and a l l that is to be done is to make it better for the workers. The consciousness of be ing a c l ass "for itse lf" is the awareness that capita l ism can be rep laced a nd that it i s the task o f the workin g c lass to emanc ipate itself by doing just that. This is socia l ist consciousness.

For Marx a nd most twentieth centu ry Marxist theoretic ians in Europe, c lass consciousness "in itse lf" was assumed to be a natura l product of capita l ism and c l ass conflict, at least among organ ized workers and the i r communities. The great problem of the twentieth c entu ry, that which Gra msci addressed, was how to get from this given " in itse lf" consciousness to a revolutionary consciousness of being a c lass "for itself" with the h istoric task of abol ish ing capita l ism and establ ish ing socia l ism. Viewed in this way, as most European Marxists d id, the answers tended to focus on pol iti ca l org a nization-the tasks of the revolutionary party.

I n the Un ited States and i n many other countries, this consciousness of being a c lass "in itself," however, cannot be taken as given. Not that it is tota l ly absent a l l the time. There have been times l ike the 1 930s when th is sort of c onsciousness rushes to the fore i n the minds of mi l l ions. It is, not surpris ingly, in such times that a smal l layer of the c lass moves beyond to soc ia l ist consciousness. I n more " norma l" times, however, even the "in itself" level of consciousness recedes to a smal l section of the c lass. It is th is s ituation that underl ies the isolation of socia l ists for the last ha lf a century.

At least four major i nterrelated factors more or l ess un ique to the Un ited States underl ie the fragi l ity of "in itself" c lass consciousness with i n the American working c lass. The first is the abi l ity of American capital ism to continue its expansion over the past century and a ha lf regard less (or because) of depressions, wars, or the emergence of new competing powers. Second is the d istorting effect of racism in U .S . society and its deep

9

roots i n that h istorica l accumulation process. The thi rd i s the American "busin ess un ion" ideo logy that is la rge ly the resu lt of the course of capital accumulation in the U .S. and wh ich attempts to d eny the importance of c lass. The fou rth, a consequence of a l l the p receding, is the l ack of an independent mass working c l ass pa rty to perpetuate rudimentary pol itica l c lass consciousness beyond sectiona l trade union awaren ess and business un ion ideo logy.

Accumulation, Class Formation & Consciousness i n the U.S.

The development of capita l ism in what is now the Un ited States d iffered from that of Western Europe and much of the Western hemisphere as wel l in two major ways. Fi rst, its ru l ing c lass had to remove and/ or e l iminate (not, as in Europe, employ) the i nd igenous population in order, by the late n ineteenth century, to ga in uncontested, low cost access to the land to feed and c lothe the new working c lass as cheaply as possible, to extract the natural resources which fed and fue led industry, and to bu i ld the canals and ra i l roads that tied it a l l togethe r. [5] This i s not just a matter of continenta l expansion, per se, which might have been accompl ished on a l ive and let live basis as was somewhat more the case i n Canada, but of the possession of the land and natural resources. The resistance of Native Americans to the adva n cing white population was as much a ba rrier to accumu lation the n as the resistance of ind igenous people i n Ch iapas is to agribusiness and o i l interests in Mexico today or as the land rights of Canada's First Nations a re to extractive industries there.[6] As a result of e l iminating these human barri e rs, bu rgeoning U .S. capita l ism had l ittle need of expensive imported food or raw materia ls. The unca lcu lated wealth this contributed to accumulation i n the n ineteenth century was c e rta in ly enormous.

The second equa l ly unique and invo luntary contribution to U .S . capita l accumulation was African s lave labo r. Slavery is, of course, the opposite of cap ital ist wage labor. Neverthe less, the unpa id labor of mi l l ions of Africans provided the cash c rops which suppl ied industry and a good dea l of the population , but a lso brought in fore ign exchange th rough trade. To be sure, British and French capita l ism got a big leg-up from s lavery, but their s lave labor force was housed in the Western H emisphere thousands of mi les from their white populations. I n the U .S., the fact of rac ia l s lavery

10

with in the same nation as the dominant white settlers l a id the basis for a domestic racia l divis ion of labor that has never gone away completely-even though as Jacque l ine Jones has shown, that d iv is ion of labor c hanged shapes and rationales from time to time.[7]

The ideology of modern ra c ism took root in this h istori ca l ly un ique socia l phenomenon as the s lave owners and pol icy-ma kers sought to justify the institution and to sel l that justification (racism as a c onsistent ideology) to the population as a whole . It mattered l ittl e whether or not the white merchants, farmers, and a rtisans of the ea rly U.S. Republ ic absorbed the whole pseudo-sc ientific rationa le of e ighteenth a n d n ineteenth century racism. It became part of the "common sense" of the white population and , hence, of the n ew working class as it took form. N atura l ly, the conqu est of the Native American nations, of Mexico, a n d l ater Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands a lso fed i nto rac ism as part of the rationa le for the "Man ifest D estiny" of the white settle r nation's ru l ing c lass .

In this un ique situation, as David Roediger and others h ave shown, where a lmost a l l wage earners were of European descent, the socia l construct of "whiteness" s pread first by the slave owners and their apolog ists became part of the very defin ition of "free" wage labor. For decades following the Civil War and the abol ition of s lavery, this attitude went l a rge ly uncha l l enged as the vast majority of African Americans remained tied to the l and in the Old South where large sca le cheap labor was sti l l needed to mass produce cash crops. Whi le racism was common to a l l c lasses, for the workin g c l ass o f the n ineteenth century the very i d e a of class i dentity was i ntertwined with that of race . Each new wave of European immigrants would learn this bit of white American "common sense." Whe n competition between B lack (or Asian or Latino) and white workers d id beg in to emerge, racism and the old c lass "common sense" provided the rationale for the exc lusion of workers of color from many jobs and for th e segregation of socia l institutions in much of the country.

The Rise of Bureaucracy and Business Unionism

There a re many theories that attempt to exp la in the rise of trad e un ion bureaucracy. One-time soc ia l ist turned fasc ist admi rer Robert Michels and e l itist Fabians S idney and Beatrice Webb saw un ion bureaucracy as the natural outcome of organ izationa l g rowth and effic iency. Michels' " I ron Law of O l igarchy" still informs

much of the sociolog ica l thinking on the top ic . Early in the twentieth centu ry, the Un ive rsity of Wisconsin spawned two generations of institutiona l theorists who continued this trad ition . I n the 1 950s a n d 1 960s, academic "maturity" theorists reasoned that unions fo l low a natura l pattern of development from e a rl ier rebel l ious behavior to "mature" co l lective ba rga in ing . Th is l atter stage requires bureaucracy to bu i ld stable barga in ing relationships .

At best these "theories" a re descriptive. They are a l l apologetic a nd meant to make the phenomenon of bureaucracy in worke rs' organ izations of a ny k ind seem inevitable-and a democratic socia l ism, thereby, impossible . The anti-soc ia l ist uses of the "Wisconsin School" in the early part of the 20th century a nd Cold War conven ience of the "matu rity" theorists should be c lear enough . These theories, however, l ive on past their orig ina l app l ications in the minds of many academics for whom the idea of a radical , democratic working c lass movement is the rel ic of another e ra . And, of course, these ideas justify the th inking of many a h igh- level un ion leader as wel l . Virtua l ly a l l of them assume an immutabl e cap italism, perhaps not free of problems, but inherently stable over the long run.

It is surpris ing that ne ither Marx and Engels northe g reat Marxist theoretic ians of the early twentieth century attempted anyth ing l ike a systematic theorization of trade unions. To be sure, Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky, G ramsci, and others had th ings to say about un ions and certa in ly observed the bureaucratic and conservative tendencies of the labor bureaucracy of the i r day. As people deeply i nvolved in revo lutionary struggle, it is perhaps understandable that they were so d ismissive of unions. But for Marxists in countries the n and now where revo lution was not "around the corner," such a lUXUry does not exist.

Bureaucracy and conservatism in the trade un ion leadership are by no means un iqueto the U.S. To a ce rta in extent, bu reaucracy is the p roduct of the intermed iate position of fu l l-time un ion leaders as negotiators and mediators between the members who work for capita l and the capital ists or their representatives. In times of economic growth the temptation to stabilize ba rga in ing relationships by insu lating this intermediate position from the rising expectations of the members is g reat indeed . If some sort of politica l "mach ine" a l ready exists among the leaders, as it usua l ly does, the leaders' abi l ity to i nstitutiona lize their independence

from constant member influence is in creased. If there i s no counterposed "mach ine" or organization in the ranks, the path to gradual bureauc ratization is fai rly open . If this insu lated and growing mach ine can de liver the goods to the members, as it did for many years in the U .S., it is l ikely to go uncha l lenged by a majority of the members, although it se ldom goes complete ly u n cha l l enged.

What i s somewhat un ique to the U .S . is the extent and depth of bureaucracy and the expl ic itly pro-capital ist ideology that justifi es it among other th ings . While a general theory may exp lain the rise of permanent u n ion bureaucra cy, it cannot expla in the particu lar d eve lopment of e ither trade union ideology or the dominant forms of working c lass "common sense" that have been influenced by it. For th is, we must turn to the h istory of trade unionism i n the formative years of business un ionism and its strugg le first with the rad ica l ism of the post Civi l War e ra and then with the expl ic itly soc ia list and revolutionary ideas presented by the Socia l ist Party and the Industria l Workers of the World after the turn of the century.

The fi rst two decades fol lowing the Civil War were h a rd on both the n ewly freed slaves of the South, the remain ing Native American nations, a nd the emerging workin g c lass sti l l mostly in the North, though their experiences were sti l l separate and distinct. African Americans lost the fight for Rad ica l Reconstruction and land and faced the onslaught of "Jim Crow." The "I nd ian Wars" of this era saw the fina l mil itary defeat of these nations. Ea rly attempts by workers a round the country to form un ions general ly fai led. A fi nanc ia l c ris is beg inn ing i n 1 873 threw many workers onto the streets and i nto poverty. From the l ate 1 870s to the mid- 1 880s, the growing working c lass turned to various fo rms of rad ica l ism, inc lud ing the rad ica l and racia l ly i nc lus ive un ionism of the Knights of Labor. This period saw the insurrectionary strikes of ra i l road workers in 1 877, the fight for the e ight-hour day that culminated in the May 1 , 1 886 gen era l strike and H aymarket i nc ident thatfo l lowed, the prol iferation of l abor and farmer- labor parties, and the r ise of socia l ism within the working class movement.

Looking at these developments, Enge ls was astounded at the rapid ity with which th is n ew working c lass rad ica l ism took shape in the U.S. i n these years. He wrote, fIn o one cou ld then ( 1 885) foresee that in such a short time the movement wou ld bu rst out with such

1 1

i rresistible force, would spread with a rapid ity of a prairie-fi re, would shake Ameri can soc iety to the foundations . . . "[8] This story has bee n well to ld by Jeremy Brecher i n Strike ! and won't be repeated here . [9]

Despite the c risis of the 1 870s, this period was s imultaneously very good to capita l . In h is 1 947 work ana lyzing the rise the business un ionism, Sidney Lens summarized the incred ibl e growth of American cap ita l ism from the beg inn ing of the Civil War to the end of the century wel l when h e wrote:

The growth of American capita l ism was phenomenal . From 1 859to 1 899, the numberofcapital istestablishments trip led; the numbe r of wage earners quadrupled. The va lue of its products went up sevenfold, and the amount of capita l invested in industry increased n inefold . I n the same period i n Eng land, the va lue o f its products i nc reased by on ly approximate ly 50 per cent; in France by approximately 45 per cent; in Germany, 65 percent. [ 1 0]

To this must be added the d ramatic expansion of the ra i l system, which by 1 900 tota led more m i les than those of a l l other nations combined . To a greater extent tha n i n Europe, whic h was engaged i n the race for colonies abroad, this expansion took p lace with i n the nation's, by now, continenta l boundaries. Fue led by a combination of the exploitation of mi l l ions of new immigra nt workers, the surp lus of Southern B lack agra rian l abor, and the land a nd natura l resources taken from Mexico, Spain, and the ind igenous population American capita l ism, though by no means every cap ita l ist, flourished indeed .

Lens, in one of the few attempts to provide a mater ia l basis for the r ise of business un ion ism, sees this expansion as a suffi c ient explanation. It is ce rta in ly the background that made the success of the n ew unions of the 1 880s possibl e, and a l lows us to understand the anti-socia l ism that became centra l to bus iness un ion ideo logy. But it would be an enormous overs ight not to i ntegrate the impact of the pre-existing racism that informed the whole strategy of the n ew business union ists-the strategy that gave them the upper hand in the fight with the rad ica ls in the l ate n ineteenth century. As we a rgued ear l ier, this rac ism was part and parcel of the process of accumulation as i t unfo lded in what is now the Un ited States. Business un ion ism, large ly a product of the rapid expansion that fol lowed the Civil War, a lso incorporated the "common sense"

- - -------------��-====-�

1 2

rac ism of the pre-War period.

Craft un ionism was not unique to the U .S. It had existed in Brita in for some time and would evolve e lsewhere as well . But a lmost everywhere e lse it would be a c companied by some kind of c l ass-based po l itica l pa rty and socia l ist ideology by the late n ineteenth c entury. The major a lternative in Eu rope and Latin America was Ch ristian, i . e ., Cathol ic, un ion ism not business un ion ism. Ind eed, even in the U.S. many of the founders of the new craft un ions of the 1 880s rega rded themselves a social ists, and socia l ism wou ld contend with business unionism and a smal l organ ized Cathol ic p resence as the ideology of these unions for some t ime. The first politica l contest with in organized labor, h owever, was not primari ly that between socia l ists and bus iness un ion ists, but between practica l ly minded c raft un ion ists, both "pure and s imple" and (reform­minded) socia l ist, a nd the labor radica lism of the 1 880s.

The a nswer to why busin ess union ism triumphed, h owever, l i es in the intersection of American cap ital's i nc red ible expansion with the way the new craft un ions attempted to protect their membe rs. The period fol lowing Haymarket in 1 886 was one of growth. Capita l, however, d id not see this as a reason to be generous to the existing un ions. In fact, the employers launched a mighty anti-un ion offensive that destroyed the Knights of Labor in short order. This offensive a lso destroyed or d rove underground those craft un ions that had ca rved out a p lace in industry. I n the ea rly 1 890s, g reat strikes that involved both c raft and unski l led workers l i ke those at Homestead and Pu l lman were defeated.

The un ions that survived and grew the most in this period were those based i n local labor markets i n the new and growing large and smal l industria l c ities of the period. Primary among these were the bu i ld ing trades un ions of the new American Federation of Labor and various loca l transport unions such as the Longshoremen and Teamsters. These unions dea lt with smal l loca l employers i n loca l labor markets, not with the emerging industria l corporations. As industria l c ities large and sma l l a rose ac ross the country, these sma l l employers had plenty of work and p lenty of income bui ld ing homes, the new offi ce bu i ld ings, and factories and in the g rowing transportation n etworks withi n and a round these c ities.

The c raft un ions regu lated their wages by restricting the supply of labor to a l imited un ion membership,

rather than organizing a l l the workers i n a g iven trade. The ir centra l method was to l imit and control the loca l labor market. The strike was used primarily to bring reca lc itrant employers into l ine . Each c raft ba rga ined on its own, but a picketl ine by any un ion would usua lly be honored by al l . They expressed cross-craft and industry sol ida rity through centra l labor counci ls composed of de legates of most local un ions whether AFL or not. These CLCs ca l led strikes when necessary. In the earl iest days these n ew c raft un ions expressed some of the same ega l ita ria n idea ls embodied in the Knights of Labor. Members in itiated into early AFL unions p ledged, "1 promise never to d iscriminate aga inst a fel low worker on a ccount of color, c reed, or nationa l ity." There would be monumental strugg les i n which B l ack and white workers in AFL un ions would fight side by side, most notably the New Orleans general strike of 1 892. Some un ions, notably the Un ited Mine Workers and Lon gshoremen, whi le by no means free of racism, recruited B lack workers and had African American offi cers and organ izers . The state AFL in Alabama fought for the inc lusion of B lack workers. These were, however, the exceptions.

Obvious ly, a restricted labor force in a growing market characterized by smal l , loca l employers feed ing off the enormous expansion of capita l ism i n the U.S. g ave these bu i ld ing trades and other loca l c raft un ions a she lter from the b igger offensive of the increas ingly nationa l corporations. It a lso gave them the ab i l ity to keep wages up and rising while the employer passed the cost on to c ities, corporations, the wealthy, and the new middle class consumers flush with money. None of this is to say that these c raft workers were h a nded big wages volunta rily by the i r bosses. Strikes were frequently necessary. Neverthe less, the practi ce of col lective barga in ing would change significantly for these unions over the next decade or so.

Fi rst of a l l , the practice of l imiting the labor supply of ski l led workers rather than organ izing a l l workers in a given industry rapidly took on a rac ia l character s ince most such ski l led workers outside the South were white to beg in with. This was soon codified in the constitutions of several c raft unions. G iven the un ique economic context i n which i t a rose, th is exclus ive craft un ion ism worked where the rad ica l ism and ega lita rianism of the Knights

' had fa i led . If the ideology of the Knights and

of most of the embryon ic labor parties of the 1 880s had been classless and often rooted i n monetary a nd l and reform, the ideology that began to take shape i n the

c raft un ions was c lear and well in l i ne with much of the "common sense" of American ca pita l ism.

Ca l l i ng it "pu re and simple" union ism, th e bo lder of the AFL leaders rejected any grand mission l ike socia l ism in favor of l im ited co l lective barga in ing . The putative father of business un ionism is not Samuel Gompers, but h is friend Adolph Strasser, a fel low c igar maker, and for a whi le a soc ia l ist, who in the 1 870s spel led out a practica l and centra l ized version of un ionism h e thought compatible with the pragmatic outlook of American workers. It would be over a decade before h is ideas could be put into practice . Samue l Gompers, h owever, d id more to develop this as a se lf-conscious "ph i losophy" of labor and by the economic c risis of 1 893, it was well d eveloped and widespread . Its main r iva l in the ea rly years of the new century would not be vague radica ls but socia l ists of various stripes, from reformists to revolutionaries.

Strasser, Gompers, and the othe r "pu re and simple" un ion ists did not reject pol itics, but had little chance to practice them at the nationa l l evel unti l the un ions began to grow afte r 1 896 when recovery set in and the employers turned nasty. The first major entrance of the AFL i nto nationa l pol itics was a lobbying effort i n 1 895 to win legis lation to l imit the use of injunctions a ga inst unions and for the e ight-hour day.[llJ After this it was a short road to the practice of hoping to win l egis lative infl uence for labor by "rewarding our friends and punishing our enemies," which meant stayin g wel l with in the two-pa rty system that had come to prevail after the Civil War. Antic ipating Len in, the "pure and simple" un ion ists u nashamedly embraced bou rgeois pol itics as trade un ion pol itics in a un ique ly d i rect way. The British Labor Pa rty might practice bou rgeois pol itics from an independent working c lass position when it e merged at the turn of the century, but American business u nionists went d i rectly to the bou rgeois parties. Th is fact, of course, left an inde l ible mark on the rud imenta ry c lass consciousness that fl ared up from time to time.

As the AFL grew and a new kin d of l ibera l bourgeois pol itics emerged at the end of the centu ry as "Progressivism," the practica l experience of the l eaders of "pure a n d simple" un ion ism led them to support the "progressives" i n the two major parties rather than fol lowing the minority of trade u n ion ists into the new Socia l ist Pa rty. The re lative success of the bui ld ing trades u n ions and other loca l ly-based

1 3

un ions in this formative period gave them a n d their app roach credibi l ity. They spread this i deology and whe re app l icable the practices to other un ions through the c ity centra l labor bodies and state fed e rations of the AFL.

Rac ism and rac ia l exclusion were built i nto this ideology. It is not just that the racism of the society sp i l led over i nto these un ions as it did into early i ndustria l un ions l i ke the Un ited Mine Workers, or othe r unions that did not exc lude B lacks, it was i n the constitutions and co l lective ba rga in ing agreements of a growing number of c raft un ions. It was i n the publ ications of the AFL and most of these c raft u nions.

The triumph of business un ion ideology was g iven an add itiona l boost by the s imultaneous development of the embryo of bureaucracy and "mach ine" ru le in the AFL. While in most of the theories mentioned above, the development of a labor bureaucracy is associated with l a rge organizations, the development of corporations, a n d ba rga in ing stabi lity, the actual roots of American l abor burea ucracy were in itia l ly the resu lt of confl ict in loca l l abor markets.

Following the H aymarket inc ident, Ameri can capital went on an a nti-un ion rampage. The n ew craft un ions were not spared the rage of capita l o r even of that of the smal l employers for whom many of these ski l led workers toi led . Union members were frequently d ismissed out of hand, particu larly if they ra ised any grievances on the job. To protect themselves, they began to se lect the more vocal mi litants as "walk ing de legates," the first ful l-time union negotiators. We know them today as business agents. Th is i n itself was ha rd ly bureaucracy. B ut as barga in ing regu larized itself in the years of growth before 1 893, the de legates settled into routines and the city-wide loca l u nions sought to bring them under their control rath e r than that ofthe members who had origina l ly se lected them. If the members attempted to rep lace a complacent business agent, as they sometimes did, the business a gent and loca l offic ia ls cou ld turn to the employers to get rid of the troublemakers, as they increasingly d id.

This period a lso saw the r ise of the nationa l un ions, which u p to now had p layed little role . These were the major ca rriers of business union ideo logy. But on top of that, l ike the loca l leaders, they saw in these new ful l-time business agents the poss ibi l ity of a pol iti ca l mach ine not u n l ike that of the u rban po litica l

14

machines they increas ing ly dea lt with. All of this was further intensifi ed as the nationa l business un ion l eaders of the AFL brought the formerly autonomous centra l labor bodies and state federations under the i r contro l . Inc reas ing ly, these practices spread to othe r AFL un ions taking on the characteristics of norma l u n ion practice . By today's standards this mach ine ry was p retty min ima l, but it did a id the entrenchment a n d insu lation o f business union leaders a nd the i r ideology from a ra nk and fi l e that would become increas ing ly restive and rad ica l as the new century opened .

The AFL and most of its affi l i ated u nions had survived and grown through employer repression and the disastrous depression of 1 893-96 where the Knights, the l abor parties, and the Popu l ists had fa i led. Reflecting both this rea l ity and the goa l of stabi lity so important to business un ion ism, Gompers cou ld say with pride atthe 1 900 AFL convention :

It is noteworthy, that whi le in every other previous i ndustria l c risis the trade un ions were l iteral ly mowed down and swept out of existence, the un ions now i n existence have man ifested not on ly the power of resistance, but of stabi lity and permanence . [ 12]

Business Unionism's Defeat of the Socialists

When the c risis of 1 893- 1 896 ended, American capita l ism took another leap forward . I n 1 898, for the first time U.S. productivity surpassed that of its major c ommercia l rival B rita in, as well as al l other industria l powers. Despite recessions, from 1 870 through 1 91 3 the growth of rea l per capita G ross Domestic Product in the U.S. outstripped that of any industria l nations save its ne ighbor Canada . Union ism, too, g rew rapid ly and the AFL went from 280,000 members in 1 898 to 1 .6 mi l l ion i n 1 904. This time, unionism reached deep into the manufactu ring industries. Along with the growth of the c raft un ions came the rise of new industria l un ions such as the Un ited Mine Workers, the rad ica l Weste rn Federation of Miners, the socia l ist-oriented garment workers un ions, and the revolutionary syndica l ist Industria l Workers of the World . On the ra i l roads, the c raft unions turned from mutua l assistance and insurance to co l lective barga in ing .

The retu rn of economic growth, the vast merger movement of ca pital, and the growth of un ion ism brought a qu ick response from the employers in the form of a nationa l "Open Shop" drive led by the n ew Nationa l

Assoc iation of Manufacturers . The years after the tu rn of the century through World War One saw intense c l ass confl ict, new forms of cross-c raft organization in industry, and the growth of regiona l barga in ing .

In the wake of th is new c lass-based radica l ism came the growth of the Socia l ist Party of Eugene V. Debs. U n l ike in Europe where both un ions a nd parties shared a socia l ist outlook, however, the major trade union federation, the AFL, was ideolog ica l ly hosti le to the SP. Inside the unions and the AFL, Socia l ist Party members fought business un ion ists for control or at l east infl uence . Workplace-based rank and fi le rebel l ions in this period typica l ly took on a more pol iti ca l character as SPers cha l lenged the "pure and s imple" un ionists who were increas ing ly a l igned with the "progressives" of the Democratic and even Republ i can parties. By 1 9 1 2, Socia l ist typographers' leader Max Hayes won a third of the votes i n a contest with Gompers for leadersh ip of the AFL.

Debs, h imself a former un ion leader, an advocate of industria l un ion ism, and leader of the Pu l lman strike, he ld the conservative c raft union l eaders in contempt. He noted their sepa ration from the ranks, their change in dress, habits, and associations-notably with employers and pol itic ians. Debs remained a supporter of the IWW. The Socia l ist Pa rty, however, had no trade un ion pol icy. It made no demands and put no pressure on members who became high level un ion officia ls­other than that they support the S P e lectoral ly. It was a s imple matter for these Socia l ist un ion leaders to sepa rate the runn ing of the un ion from their pol itics, to become business un ion ists in practice whi le reta in ing their "Socia l ist" membership and identity. Whi le some Socia l ists held on to leadersh ip of AFL a nd independent un ions such as those in garment a n d textile, the Socia l ist Pa rty itself spl it, faced the genera l repression aga inst a l l rad ica ls, and then shrank after the First World War.

The triumph of the business un ionists was, however, guaranteed more than anyth ing by the impact of the Fi rst World War. As one labor h istori an put it:

World War I, in fact, h elped make the American Federation of Labor a permanentand lasting organ ization by giving it the strength to survive the 1 920s.[ 13]

It d id so in three ways. Fi rst was s imply the growth in number of members caused by war production, to 5 mi l l ion by 1 920. Second were the wage g ains that came with the swel l ing of war orders after 1 91 4. These secured

the loya lty to inc umbent leaders in many cases. Third was the government's pol icy of favoring AFL unions in wa r ind ustries, whi le at the same time conducting vio lent repression aga inst the IWW and S P. A corol lary of this rel ationship with the government was the fu rther bureauc ratization as war-time dec ision-making moved up the h iera rchy into various tripartite bodies and as attempts were made to regula rize grievance hand l ing . Business un ion leaders, practi ces, and ideology were now deeply entrenched, whi le the rad ica ls were on the defensive and their organizations severely weakened.

The First Experiment in Rank and Fil e Strategy

The last years of the war and those immediately fol lowing saw sharp c lass confl ict and industria l up­h eaval i n the Un ited States as in much of the developed capita l ist world. In 1 91 8, it looked as though G erman workers would fol low the example set in Russ ia a year earl ier as workers counci ls spread across the country a n d revo lution seemed an accompl ished fact-though i n fact the leaders of the Socia l Democratic Pa rty would soon dera i l the revolution .

Across the i ndustria l world, n ew forms of rank and fi l e -based worker o rgan ization sprang up to dea l with the massive changes in i ndustry and work the war had brought on. The Shop Stewards a n d Workers Committee Movement in B rita in, the Revolutionary Shop Stewards in Ge rmany, factory committees in Ita ly, and s imi lar organ izations in Fra nce exempl ified the workers' effort to take on issues the o ld leaders, even so-ca l led socia l ists, shrank from. I ndeed, by 1 920 the n ewly formed Communist I nternationa l based its strategy for revolution on these rank and fi l e upsurges that swept ac ross industry in the developed nations. As one study of this period put it, " . . . in the Communist I nternationa l's own judgement-which we sha re-it is p rimari ly in the industrial strugg le that the opportunities for inte rvention by revo lutionaries a re to be sought, and it is a party's performance in relation to these opportunities on which it is primarily to be judged."[14]

The U.S . , too, saw intense c lass struggle . An attempt to organize the stee l i ndustry in 1 9 1 9 with a coa l ition of c raft un ions led to a strike of 365,000 workers. Soon a strike of 400,000 coal miners fol lowed . A genera l strike in Seattle led to a near "Soviet" s ituation as the un ions took charge of the c ity. In 1 920-2 1 600,000 coal m iners struck lead ing to a vi rtua l c ivi l war in West Virg in ia and centra l I l l i nois. In 1 921 the Typographers waged

15

a year- long strike, whi le 1 00,000 texti le workers i n New Eng land h it the bricks. I n 1 922, 400,000 rai l shop c raft workers struck.

This explosion was made possib le in part by the enormous growth of the unions and the rapid economic expansion associated with the war. But i t was a lso a response to the industria l speed-up that had under la in the entire per iod of growth from the end of the Civil War through World War One and the carnage it produced . I ndustria l death rates i n the U .S . were estimated at two to three times those in Europe. On the ra i l roads some 75,000 workers perished from the Civil War to the beg inn ing of the First World War. In construction the industry itself said that each story of the new skyscrapers cost a worker's l ife. The Triang le Shirtwa ist fire of 1 91 1 underscored this reckless d isregard of l ife. Alongside of this and pa rtly responsible for it were the constant and deep cha nges in work associated with Taylorism, ski l l d i lution, and work intensifi cation that drove workers to resistance .

Altogether, from 1 91 9 through 1 923 over 8 mi l l ion workers struck. Almost a l l of the strikes, however, were defeated . I n the wake of these defeats, un ion membership p lunged from its 5 mi l l ion h ighpoint to 3.6 mi l l ion in 1 923, stabi l iz ing at around 3.4 mi l l ion l ater in the decade. Al l the issues that had led to industria l rebe l l ion remained unresolved, the po liti ca l position of labor weaker, the un ions l ess and less a ble to resist whi le relying on the conventiona l methods of business un ionism and of craft unionism in pa rticu lar.

The pol iti ca l state of business un ion ism was a ptly summarized by A. Phi l ip Randolph and Chand ler Owen in the African Ame rican soc ia l ist weekly, The M essenger, where they described the 1 921 AFL convention:

The recent convention of the American Federation of Labor held in Denver, Colorado, was co lorless except for the fi ght for the pres idency between Gompers and John L. Lewis, president of the Un ited Mine Workers. The convention opposed trade with Russia; refused to condemn the unspeakable Ku Klux Klan; ratified Gompers' withdrawal from the Amsterdam Labor I nternationa l; c losed the door in the faces of Negroes and women; ree lected its a rcha ic pi lots; then adjourned . . . [1 5]

Whi le the triumph of the business un ion ists and their ideology had not rea l ly been in doubt, it is natura l that thousands of un ion activists should q uestion these

1 6

l eaders a n d their methods, inc lud ing craft un ionism itself. At the same time, this was the fi rst time that c apital had inflicted such a massive defeat on labor without destroying the unions. Despite the setbacks, un ion membership remained wel l above its pre-war l evel, a l lowing for the growth of opposition within the u n ions. A symbol of th is new mood was the rebe l l ion in Gompers' home loca l of the Cigar Makers that b locked h is e lection as a d e legate to the 1 920 AFL convention. O pposition g roups grew in several un ions, notable the I nternationa l Lad ies Garment Workers Un ion, the Fur Workers, the Mach inists, the Carpenters, the I ron and Stee l Workers, and the Un ited Mine Workers. Though they were often led by rad ica ls, they tended to take on a b road, rather than partisan ISP, IWW) cha racter.

I n 1 9 1 9 in the midst of the industr ia l upheaval, fol lowing a long and destructive fi ght in the Socia l ist Pa rty, the former S P Left Wing formed the Communist Party Itwo of them at first). After the defeat of tll e 1 9 1 9 stee l strike, its organ izer Wil l iam Z. Foster, and other l i ke-minded veterans of the stee l and other strugg les, organized the Trade Un ion Educationa l League i n 1 920 to do revolutionary synd ica l ist work withi n the AFL. After a couple of years of infi ghting and underground existence, the new Communist Pa rty Ical led the Workers Party for a whi le ) recognized the potenti a l of the TUEL for estab l ish ing and expand ing the party's roots in the organized working c lass.

By 1 92 1 , when Foste r l ike many synd ica l ists a round the world, jo ined the CP and abandoned h is anti-party position, the program of the TUEL took shape. It stood, a bove a l l , for industria l un ionism and a labor party-two ideas that made e normous sense as the craft unions fa ced one defeat after another. The TUEL also stood for the end of all rac ia l ba rriers to un ion membersh ip, equa l status with in the un ions for African Ameri cans, and for un ion democracy. At the same time, it supported the young Russian Soviet republ ic, as d id many trade un ion mi l itants in its ea rl iest years. It was endorsed by a b road cross-section of mi l itants and offic ia ls , inc lud ing Debs.

La bor h istorian James Barrett summarized the orientation of the TUEL aptly as fo l lows:

The TUEL mobi l ized in more tha n a dozen industries but bu i lt its strongest and most d u rab le movements in the need le trades and coal min ing . I n each industry economic problems and competition led to dramatic

confrontations with employers, whi le conservative un ion pol ic ies precipitated ran k-and-file opposition movements. League m il itants bu i lt un ited fronts with these groups by addressing genu ine industria l problems and confronting unpopu lar leade rs . [ 16]

There were no d ues. Membersh ip was establ ished by subscrib ing to is nationa l paper, The Labor Hera ld. The TUEL had both industria l and loca l geographica l o rgan izations. Its major campaign was for industria l un ion ism through the amalgamation of craft un ions or the ir industry d ivisions, such as ra i l . Resolutions favoring amalgamation passed in thousands of local un ions, seventeen state federations, and twenty internationa l unions. These same mi l itants broughttheir local unions into the n ew movement for a labor pa rty, where TUEL also worked with progressive offic ia ls l ike John Fitzpatrick of the Ch icago Federation of Labor.

TUEL activists, however, d idn't just bu i ld the TUEL or its campa igns. They got involved in the issues confronti ng each industry, sometimes led strikes, a nd partic i pated in or led the various rank and fi le movements of the time. Severa l of the TUEL ind ustry groups were based on existing rank and fi le movements and on the new shop de legates and shop stewards movements. These inc luded rank and fi le oppositions in the I LGWU, the Fur Workers, the Carpenters, the Ma ch in ists, the Amalgamated I ron and Steel Workers, and the Un ited Mine Workers, a l l of which had cons iderab le success.

The TUEL demonstrated the power of ra n k and fi le rebe l l ion and the ab i l ity to organ ize beyond those a l ready loya l to the left. Their day-to-day work focused on workp lace issues and un ion democracy as wel l as industria l un ion ism, a labor pa rty, and, l ess consistently, rac ia l equa l ity. [ 17] The combination of this very basic program and the activities of the TUEL moved tens of thousands of workers to action and many more to vote for r'esol utions and cand idates backed by TUEL activists. It a lso l inked the various rank and fi le opposition movements into a broad progressive current across the labor movement giving these efforts a c lass­wide framework, a shared vision of what un ionism could be, and a common basic program.

By 1 924, however, the TUEL c lass-wide experiment lay in shambles, with the Communists isolated from the mass of a ctivists they had h elped to motivate and organ ize. Probably the major reason was the vicious counter­mobi l ization of the business union bureaucracy across

the AFL. TUEL and CP activists were expel led r ight and left with no means of recourse. D espite b ig votes for oppositi on candidates in several unions and strong bases in many loca ls, the entrenched AFL leaders ma inta ined control over the expanded mach inery of their un ions. For the expe l led rebe ls there was no p l ace to turn.

At the same time, the reaction of the bureaucracy was made a l l too easy by the po l ic ies of the CP and the wea knesses of the TU EL. O n e weakness was the resol utionary nature of its centra l campaign, that for ama l gamation . While TUEL activists had great success i getting reso lutions in favor of ama lgamation passed across the labor movement, they had a lmost no success i n actua l ly forc ing or ca rryi ng through amalgamation :oward industria l un ionism. Resolutions can not be a substitute for organ ization a n d the abi l ity to fol low :1rough on a goal . There isn't m u c h doubt that most of :1e activists, inc lud ing pa rty members, who partici pated i n the TUEL campaigns wanted such organ ization and influence, but the way in which the CP " ran" the TUEL made this diffi cu lt.

The g reatest weakness of the TUEL was that it was contro l led top-down by the C P. It n ever rea l ly developed a democratic structure of its own, nor an in dependent rank and fi l e l eadersh ip to combat the growing sectarianism and e rratic behavior of the CP. The TU El:s lack of independence was s igna led a ong other things by its affi l iation with the Moscow­control led Red I nternationa l of Labor Un ions. More 'mporta ntly, virtua l ly a l l the leaders of the various TUEL bodies were CP members. Both of these rea l ities left TUEL without a se lf-organized base and unnecessari ly open to red ba iting .

e prob lem of party control was compounded by the s ec·arian d i rection that came from the pa rty's central eadersh ip in New York. Far from the da i ly course of

c ass strugg le and preoccupied with i nterna l factiona l matters and Russian policy requ i rements, these leaders attempted to push their l ine on the CP leaders of the

E L This was particu larly sharp i n the case of Foster's '1ork in the labor pa rty movement. There, the CP eaders pushed for a prematu re l aunching of a fa rmer­l abor party, which led to a break with non-Communist eaders and the co l lapse of the whole project. In 1 924,

e CP leadership guaranteed the end of the TUEL as a broad rank and fi le-based movement when it took the absurd ste p of merging the TUEl:s paper, the Labor

1 7

H erald, with two other C P contro l led papers, the Soviet Russia Pictoria l publ ished by the Friends of the Soviet Un ion and The Liberator, the CP's offi c ia l paper, into the Workers Month ly, which was supposed to serve as the offic ia l publ ication of both the TUEL and the CPo

It must a lso be said that Foster himself was part of the problem as wel l as the in itiator of the so lution . He h a d rea l ized that t h e on ly way the n ew CP cou ld overcome its isolation was to work in the AFL bui ld ing rank and fi l e movements to rep lace business un ion ism with a c lass­strugg le brand of unionism. U n l ike most other top C P leaders, he understood this to b e a long process. At the same time, h e had a certain e l itist view of th is work as well as a tendency to mainta in persona l control of the operation . In 1 922, he wrote that most rank a n d fi l e workers were " ignorant and s lugg ish." I n 1 924, he told the socia l ist Scott Nearing, "Revolutions a re n ot brought about by the sort of far-s ighted revol utionaries you have i n m ind, but by stupid masses . . . goaded to desperate revolt by the pressure of soc ia l conditions ... led by stra ight-thinking revolutionaries who are ab le to d i rect the storm inte l l igently aga inst capita l ism."[1 8] This is far from Marx's idea of trade un ion strugg le as a school in wh ich the masses learn pol itica l ski l ls and come to a c l ea rer c lass consciousness-though n ot so fa r from the Sta l in ism Foster and the CP wou ld soon adopt. I n the end, the combination of CP control a n d el itist outlook ki l led this first experiment in conscious rank and fi le rebel l ion.

By the second ha lf of the 1 920s, the bureaucrac ies of the AFL, its affi l iates, and the independent un ions i n ga rment and ra i l were safely entrenched. The price pa id for the fa i lure of the TU EL was h igh . The un ions lost more members, real wages s lumped, they adopted labor-management cooperation schemes, and the number of un ions exc lud ing workers of color constitutiona l ly or by ritua l actua l ly rose from 1 1 in 1 920 to 24 by the end of the decade.

The Lesson of Transitional Politics

I n his assessment of the problem of C P control and the fa i lure of the TUEL Sidney Lens wrote:

By permitting this state of affa i rs the TUEL obviated the orig ina l pu rpose for which it was establ ished, to become a bridge between the Communist party and the trade un ions, to offer an i nstrument that could ne ither be accused of "dua l un ionism" nor of be ing a rad i ca l

1 8

force outside the un ions. I t was to b e a c lass-struggle l eft wing, rather than a revo lutionary dua l un ion . I t was to advocate mi l itant strike ta ctics, democracy with in the existing un ions, amalgamation into industria l forms, a pol icy of spread ing stri kes to make them more effective, no faith in government a rb itration mach inery, and other such union strategies based on the theorem of "class aga inst c lass." It was not to be the instrument of the revolution itself, as was the conception of the I .W.W. by Vincent St. John and h is successors. It was to avoid the recurring d ifficulty of having new members e ndorse the idea of revo lution. The TUEL in l ife itself, h owever, was so ind istinguishab le from the Communist pa rty that it isolated itse lf from a l l but pa rty members or the c losest of sympathizers.[ 1 9]

I n other words, the TUEL cou ld not serve as a bridge between the bas ic c lass consciousness of most workers and the c lass "for itse lf" pol itics ofthe revo lutionaries if it was itse lf sole ly the revolutionaries' possession. That it showed so much promise in do ing just this for the first three years of its brief l ife is testimony to the viabi lity of th is strategy. Yet, the l eaders of the early CP, sti l l heady with the model of the R ussian revo lution and obsessed with internal party matters, bombed their own bridge to the activist layer of the c lass.

The notion of a bridge between rud imenta ry c lass consciousness or trade union mi l itancy and socia l ist consciousness is the corner stone of transitiona l pol itics and the Rank and File Strategy. The notion of a transitiona l program and pol itics was meant to rep lace the o ld idea of the min imum and maximum programs of c lassic socia l democracy, where the minimum program became the rea l practice and the maximum (revo lutionary) program a ceremonia l a rtifact. Sometimes employed by the early Communist I nternationa l before its corruption into Sta l in ism, it was resurrected in the late 1 930s by Leon Trotsky who incorporated it i nto the found ing document of the Fourth I nternational in 1 938. Formulating it primarily as a program of demands, Trotsky wrote:

It is n ecessary to he lp the masses in the process of da i ly strugg le to fi nd a b ridge between present demands and the socia l ist program of the revolution . This bridge shou ld inc lude a system of transitiona l demands, stemming from today's consciousness to wide layers of the working class a n d unalterably lead ing to one fina l conc lus ion : the conquest of power by the pro letariat. [20]

For Trotsky in 1 938 capita l ism was in its inescapab le "death agony," and the revolution b locked primari ly by the degeneration of workin g c lass leadersh ip i n th e form of socia l democracy and Sta l inism. Capita l ism's obituary proved prematu re in the extreme and the reduction of the prob lems of the working c lass movement to one of mis leadership insuffic ient. We can a lso question whether any system of demands can by itse lf lead "una lterably" to revolutionary consciousness.

It is importantto locate the purpose of such a transitiona l program. Trotsy's program was designed for a situation in which revo lution seemed imminent if on ly effective leadersh ip were in p lace . The 1 938 transitiona l program was meant to provide d irection for a new revo lutionary leadership . The fa r more l imited program of the TUEL had a more modest purpose, to raise the genera l c lass consc iousness of the activist layer of the un ions and to br ing the revolutionaries into a common org a n ization and movement with these mi l itant, but sti l l l a rge ly trade u nion-minded worker activists.

The idea of a transitiona l pol itics and program that can serve to br idge the gap we described i n the beg inn ing of th is pamphlet, betwee n today's "common sense" and genu ine c lass consciousness is an important tool i n overcoming both the isolation of socia l ists from the c lass and the l imits of leadership within the c lass. Such a program for today is not so much a l ist of demands as a combination of demands, goa ls, and actions.

Before developing the idea of a transition a l politics for today's labor movement, we want to look at the major competing left wing strategy for work in the un ions, permeation or the attempt to ga in i nfluence by s id l ing up to the incumbent bureaucracy or its a l leged prog ressive wing. This was, above, a l l the strategy of the Communist Pa rty in the new C IO un ions of the 1 930s.

Permeation & The H ighjacking of the CIO

The outl ines of the story of the industria l upsurge that led to the formation of the C IO a re wel l -known. Most of the c raft union leaders of the AFL has learned noth ing from the experience of the 1 920s. In the face of growing rank and fi le outbu rst in the unorgan ized basic industries, they offered patch work aid and so lutions when they offered anyth ing . The fi rst wave of strikes from 1 933 through 1 935 were mostly examples of rank and fi l e se lf-orga nization. Some of these workers seized on moribund local un ions to create n ew mass

o rgan izations, other got temporary charters as AFL "federal loca l un ions," while others s imply created the ir own un ions. The massive 1 934 strikes in To ledo, M inneapol is, San Fra ncisco, and in the texti le p lants pa rt icu l arly in the South were led by men and women with no more than a loca l title, l ittle in the way of money, a n d even less in terms of staff or " labor professiona ls ." Many of them were radica ls who saw the need for industri al un ionism as a priority and a tra in ing ground for a new generation of union leaders and activists­a nd revo lutionaries .

The rad ica ls, however, were not the on ly ones to read the hand writing on the wa l l . A handful of AFL leaders fo l lowing the l ead of John L. Lewis of the Miners began to push for industria l un ion ism. Lewis was no rad ica l . I n fa ct, he had been a l ife long Republ ican and as ded icated a bus iness unionist as Gompers or anyone e l se. But h is u n ion was organized a long industria l , n ot c raft l ines. H e had a lso learned a few th ings in his long fi ght aga inst the TUEL-supported opposition movements of the 1 920s. So, he, S idney H i l lman of the Amalgamated C loth ing Workers, and a handful of other top leaders formed the Committee for I ndustria l Organ ization to push the AFL toward organizing the mass production i ndustries a long i ndustri a l l ines. They got no where and left to form the new Congress of I ndustria l O rgan izations in 1 936.

The men who l aunched the C IO as a new federation were not out to make the revolution . Rather, the new CIO leaders presented themselves as an a lternative not on ly to the moribund AFL, but a lso to the rank and fi le l eadershi p a l ready in formation throughout industry. They did not have to do much organ izing, as we th ink of that today, for workers were a l ready pouring into or creating unions on the i r own or with the he lp of rad ica ls and their organ izations. I ndeed, as industrial strugg le grew and became more confrontationa l the n ew un ions became schools of c lass consciousness and leadership development. The 1 934 strikes i n Toledo, San Franc isco, and Minneapol is had al l been led by socia l ists of one kind or another.

It wou ld be overly simple to say that Lewis and the new C I O parachuted into this situation to save the day for capita l ism. No doubt many of these leaders, l ike many in the ranks, sawthe chance for a change in the ba lance of c lass forces with in American cap ita l ism through the organ ization of the mass production industries. Some, l ike erstwhi le socia l ist Sidney H i l lman, even brought the

19

elements of a new labor i deology that would distingu ish the C IO from the pure and s imple bus iness un ionists of the AFL for many years-socia l un ion ism. Yet, this meant that from day one, the CIO was a contrad ictory movement with a self-organizing rank and fi le in its new unions, but a fu l l -b lown bureaucracy at the federation level , and withi n those o ld un ions that jo ined, that d id a l l in its power to keep this movement withi n the channels of capita l ism, orderly co l lective barga in ing , and the Democratic Party.

It would take a lmost two decades to turn the C IO with its socia l un ion ist outlook i nto a modern business un ion ism s imi lar enough to the AFL un ions, some of which now had a more industria l cha racter themselves, to make possible the 1 955 merger that gave us the AFL-C IO. There were too many rad ica ls and rad ica l ized workers entrenched in the loca ls of the new un ions, with too much support in the ranks, and too good a track record i n the midst of the big strugg les of the second ha lf of the 1 930s to make their taming easy. Furthermore, most of the new un ions were too democratic, with p lenty of open pol itica l debate and competition, to easi ly succumb to the bureaucratic norms of the Mine Workers or the C I O itself.

Almost a l l of the left organ izations of the time played a s ign ifi cant role at one time or another: the Trotskyists in the Minneapol is Teamsters' strike, A. J . Muste's American Workers Pa rty in the To ledo Auto-Lite strike, the Communists in San Franc isco's genera l strike, the local Soc ia l ist Pa rty i n the Fl int Sit-Down, and so on. Had a l l these organ izations worked together, as they often did in specifi c struggles l ike the Flint Sit-Down, in an autonomous TUEL-type ra nk and fi le project the h istory of U.S. l abor might have been very d ifferent.

I ndeed, the potentia l of rad ica l led rank and fi le mobi l izations to c reate a class conscious l abor movement was evident not on ly in the n ew C IO unions, but even in the o ld AFL unions, as the example of the Minneapol is Teamsters showed. H ere, a smal l group of Trotskyists transformed a moribund craft un ion of truck drivers and he lpers i nto a n i ndustria l un ion in the loca l and eventua lly reg iona l fre ight and loca l cartage industries. When the process began, the entire Teamster Joint Counc i l in Minneapol is-St. Pau l had on ly one ful l-time offi c ia l and less than a thousand members. Each step in this process of transformation involved accelerated ra nk and fi l e mobi l ization, not only of the members of Teamsters Loca l 574 but eventua l ly of the

20

e ntire labor movement in Minneapol is in the dramatic 1 934 strike. The approach used by the Trotskyists is spel led out in Fa rre l l Dobbs' book Teamster Rebel l ion and represents a c lassic case of the appl ication of the rank and f i le strategy to the cond itions of that t ime and p lace.

Dobbs notes that, "Workers were rad ica l iz ing under the goad of economic depression. To mobil ize them for a ction it was necessary to start from their existing level of understand ing . In the course of battle a majority cou ld be convinced ofthe correctness ofthe Communist League's trade un ion pol icy." ( "Commun ist League" was the name of the Trotskyist organ ization at that tim e, later the Socia l ist Workers Party. ) He pointed to the contradictions of the un ion bureaucracy, but made the important point that the d i rection of the strugg le in these c i rcumstances was aga inst the employers. I n a l l l ike l ihood, the bureaucracy, particu larly in the persons of Danie l Tobin General President of the Teamsters and Cl iff Ha l l of the Minneapol is Centra l Labor Counc i l , would get in the way. As Dobbs put it, "Thus, the ind icated tactic was to a im the workers' fi re stra ight at the employers and catch the un ion bureaucrats in the midd le . " [21 ]

Us ing this approach, Dobbs a n d the Minneapol is Trotskyists went on to lead a massive organizing drive fo l lowed by three mass strikes. These strikes were models of rank and fi le mobi l ization, innovative tactics such as "cruis ing pickets," and a l l iances with other un ions and farmers organizations. I n the face of massive po l ice and vig i lante vio lence, the strikers mounted the i r own escalations with ra l l ies rea ch ing 40,000 people . I n effect, the Trotskyist Teamsters, working with other m i l itants, had turned a mere organ iz ing drive into a major politica l confrontation with a l l the powers-that­be.

The 1 934 strike victory did not end the p roblems faced by workers in the Minneapol is trucking industry. Loca l 574 was sti l l burdened with conservative officers. The ro le of the Trotskyists in the strike movement, however, made them recognized leaders i n practice . Dobbs and the other went about organizing a broad rank and fi l e caucus with the object of br ing i n a consistently mi l itant l eadership . But they d idn't simply run for office. Once a ga in , Dobbs expla ins what is sti l l an important lesson for rank and fi le rebels:

From the outset the bui ld ing of a b road left wing in the

local was rooted i n the programmatic concepts essentia l to a po l icy of mi l itant strugg le aga inst the employers. Although this perspective enta i led an u ltimate c lash with conservative un ion offi c ia ls, the i r remova l from office was not projected at the sta rt as an immediate aim. That cou ld have g iven the m istaken impression that the Trotskyist mi l itants were i nterested primari ly in winn ing un ion posts. To avoid such a misconception a f lanking tacti c was developed. I nstead of ca l l i ng for a quick forma l change in the loca l's leadersh ip, the incumbent offic ia ls were pressed to a lter their pol ic ies to meet the workers needs. [22]

Dobbs and the other socia l ists a l l i ed themselves with non-socia l ists who had supported their strike strategy and eventua l ly changed the leadersh ip of the loca l . The i r rank a nd fi le approach d idn't stop there, however. They rea l ized that most of the trucking industry was sti l l nonun ion and that they would have a hard t ime ho ld ing on to wages and cond itions if this remained the case. Dobbs developed a strategy for organ iz ing the over-the-road truckers and the fre ight workers in other towns i n the region. I n effect, Dobbs d id what more a nd more un ions are fi na l ly doing today. He recognized that the best organ izers are not necessa rily professiona l staffers, but committed members. So, each trucker became a n de facto organ ize r. The campaign to organ ize the centra l states (M idwest) trucking industry is told i n Dobb's book, Teamster Power. It was no easy matter. The rank and fi le Teamste r organ izers met with vio lence from the employers, po l ice, and governments. The president of the I nternationa l Union, Dan ie l Tobin, opposed them a l l the way. Their fi ght was, of necessity, a lmost a lways a dua l one aga inst the employers and conservative un ion bureaucrats. The ma in enemy was a lways cap ital, but the business un ion ists were a lways in the way.

Although the mi l itant leaders of Loca l 574 wou ld eventua l ly face enormous repression, the victory of Loca l 574 in Minneapol is a nd the organ iz ing strategy that fol lowed, were a c lear demonstration of the power of rank and fi l e un ionism under the leadersh ip of revolutionaries who understood both transitiona l pol itics and the potentia l of a mobi l ized and informed rank and fi le . It was an a lte rnative kind of un ionism to the top-down brand favored by Lewis, H i l lman, a nd other C I O l eaders. I n embryo form it existed ac ross the labor movement of the time. But th is potentia l would be sidetracked by the abandonment of a rank and file orientation by much of the left in the second ha lf of the

1 930s.

By fa r the l a rgest left orga nization was the Communist Pa rty. While it is c lear that the CP of the 1 930s was a thorough ly Sta l in ized, bureaucratic party, it was also a contra d ictory movement. On the one hand, the CP and its thousands of worker members played a major ro le in bu i ld ing the new C IO unions from the bottom up. They and the unions they came to lead were usua l ly wel l a head of other left g roups on matters of racism. And whi le some C P-Ied un ions showed the same top-down te ndenc ies as those lead by l iberal soc ia l un ionists, others were or would become more democrati c than most.

N everthe less, the Popu la r Front pol icy adopted around 1 936, just a s the b ig struggles were heating up, prec luded a ny rea l un ited front with the other left parties, much less a ra nk and fi l e strategy l ike the TU EL. The Popular Front meant bu i ld ing a l l iances with the leaders of the n ew C I O wherever possible and supporting the Roosevelt Ad min istration in the name of fi ghting fasc ism. This meant abandoning the idea of a labor party in practice and orienting more and more toward the D emocrats. Such a l l i ances i nevitably led to attempts to permeate the h ighest levels of both government, which were not very successful, and the bureaucra cy of the C IO and a number of its un ions, which were more so.

The most famous case of the CP's permeationist pol icy was that of Lee Pressman and Len D e Caux who became, as the joke went, " left hand men" to "The Three" as the C IO's top leaders, John L. Lewis, Sidney H i l lman, and Phi l ip Murray, were known . Pressman was genera l counci l for the C IO , whi le D e Caux was its pub l ic ity d irector. Pressman may have dropped forma l membership i n the pa rty after 1 935, but h e continued to have those pol itics for a decade or so. Whi le on ly a few cou ld insinuate themselves at the top of the l abor movement i n this manner, many more Communists became staffers he lp ing to bui ld the apparatus of the C I O and some of its affi l iates.

The vast majority of CP members, of course, had no hope of permeating their un ion's leadersh ip or staff. They either ra n for offi ce, often successful ly, or remained ra nk and fi lers . B ut the Popular Front a l l iances and the permeationist orientation that flowed from it meant that the largest group on the l eft had checked out of a ny fi ght aga i nst the g rowth of bureaucracy in the new un ions and in some places contributed to it. Rank and

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fi l e CPers might sti l l be mi l itants in the ir workp lace, and might even resist authorita rian moves by the leadership when those leaders weren't CPers themselves, but their pa rty had its s ights set h igher on the big a l l i ance with Rooseve lt, Lewis, et a l .

The Second World War acce lerated the process of bureaucratization and the formation of a modernized business unionism, much as the First World War had . A series of government labor boards set the precedents and patterns of bureaucratic labor relations that shaped the whole post-World War Two e ra . Historian N e lson Lichtenstein summed up the impact of these boards when he wrote:

For the next four years, these boards were instrumenta l in setting for the first t ime industry-wide wage patterns, fixing a system of " industria l j urisprudence" on the shop floor, and influenc ing the interna l structure of the n ew industria l unions. They were a powerful force in nationa l izing a conception of routin e and bureaucratic industria l re lations that had been pioneered in the garment trades but that the Wagner Act a n d the N LRB had thus far fa i led to implement ful ly.[23]

The CP, by war time far and away the largest left organ ization, saw the war not as an imperia l ist war, but as an anti-fascist war for democra cy. Its vig i lance in supporting the war effort and war production surpassed that of ord inary anti-fascists o r American j ingoists to inc lude opposition to a ny a nd a l l d isruptions of production . I ndeed, when Lewis broke with Murray and H i l lman (and Roosevelt) fi rst rejecting government mediation i n the miners contract in 1 941 and then lead ing four miners' strikes in 1 943, the CP sided with H i l lman and Murray. They fu l ly supported the C IO leadership's no strike agreement. And when strikes aga inst the inhuman pace of work or other issues began to spread in 1 943 they opposed those.

The C P's e l ite a l l iance a lso hurt the African American l iberation struggles in which they had previously p layed a major role in communities l ike Ha rlem. With the coming of the war, however, they p layed down racia l strugg les. They didn't support A. Phi l ip Randol ph's proposed marc h on Washington to demand jobs for African Americans in the burgeon ing defense industries. Nor d id they support the Doubl e-V campaign for vi ctory over fasc ism abroad and racism and segregation at home.

With the entrance of the U.S. into the war, the number of workers i nvolved in strikes d ropped dramatica l ly

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from 2.4 mi l l ion in 1941 , the h i ghpoint of the pre-war years, to 840,000 in 1 942. In 1 943, however, the number shot up aga in to nearly 2 mi l l ion workers and kept ris ing u ntil 4.6 mi l l ion workers joined the huge 1 946 strike wave. Except for the coal m iners strikes, the strikes from 1 943 th rough 1 945 were a lmost a lways rank and fi le actions, frequently led by stewards wi l l ing to buck the increasing ly entrenched C IO bureaucracy and the government. These were the greatest counterweight to the bureaucratic trend acce lerated by the war time i nstitutions. Yet, the la rgest left party opposed them­although it is l i kely that many ran k and fi l e CPers partic ipated.

I ron ica l ly, one of the pith iest desc riptions of what came n ext comes from Len De Caux's memoirs:

O nce the C I O won all that cap ita l ism would a l low it. . .sitdowns a nd mass strugg le gave way to un ion admin istration, dues col lection, l abor board briefs, d eta i led negotiations. The swive l -cha ir tribe began its own long-l asting s itdown in un ion offi ce. This tribe rode to offi ce on the broad shou lders of Lewis and the backs ofthe ag itators, the mi l itants, the reds. Once they a rrived they tu rned-dutiful ly, patrioti ca l ly, devoutly­to kick in the face those on whom and over whom they h a d scrambled .[24]

The Popu lar Front, permeation, a n d war time patriotism were repaid with Cold War purges of the Communists a n d then othe r l eftists as wel l . When the a l l iances at the top shattered, the lack of an i ndependent rank and fi l e base left the radicals isolated. The Communists faced the add itiona l problem of having lost a lot of c red ib i l ity for the i r war time co l laboration . For the C I O as a whole, the swive l-chair c rowd rapid ly completed the i r insu lation from the ranks in most unions and estab l ished the norms of modern business un ionism that a re sti l l dominant. To be sure there was plenty of rank and f i le resista nce to the l oss of democracy, the i nc reased length of union contracts, the increasing ly infreq uent and ritua l ized conventions, a nd the cozy and stab le relations with employers that more and more l eaders sought. But the resisters fought a lone with few experienced pol itica l leaders among them and l ittle or no contact with the opposition ists in other unions. The marvelous fighting democracy that had been the un ions of the early th irties and then the CIO had been h ighjacked by leaders who soon made their pea c e with cap ita l and institutiona l ized l abor relations a s the property of a layer of professiona l labor leaders and

staffers to a degree few had ever d reamed possib le.

Modern Business Unionism & The Problem of Consciousness

The stabi l ization of co l lective barga in ing and the institutiona l ization of modern business union ism were aided by another period of economic growth a n d expansion for American cap ital-this time asthe world's lead ing economic a nd mi l ita ry power. This a l lowed a labor movement that now covered over n ine mi l l ion workers, as De Caux put it, to win "a l l that capita l ism would a l low it," which in this period was more than most workers anywhe re had ever seen. Th is, in itself, partly exp la ins the un ique ly conservative consciousness that swept most un ions and their members. The Cold War repression and a pol itica l atmosphere that equated any form of leftism with the Sta l in ist regime of the Soviet Union was another big factor in de leg itimatizing any brand of socia l ist pol itics. On top of th is setting, the practices of modern business unionism contributed many of the specifi cs to the new post-war working c lass "common sense."

The knot between the new c ia and the Democrati c Party had been tied by 1 936. Neverthe less, labor pa rty sentiment reemerged during the war. I n 1 943, H i l lman and Murray set up the c i a Pol itica l Action Committee ( PAC) specifi ca l ly to combat local and state labor party in itiatives and to mobi l ize the union ranks right down to the p rec inct l evel for Roosevelt and the Democratic Pa rty i n the 1 944 e lections. Thus, the new un ions entered the post-war era with a pol itica l practic e virtual ly identica l , though far more organized, to that of the AFL, with its own La bor's Non-Partisan League. This, no doubt, eased the way to the 1 955 merger with the AFL. Any idea of c lass pol itics was abandoned o r sque lched, a fact that would shape a n d l imit workin g c lass consciousness enormously for decades.

By the end of the 1 940s, the c ia had surrendered its pol itica l program of ful l employment, nationa l hea lth care, generous socia l security, civi l rights for African Americans, and publ ic housing for a l l who needed it, when i t became c lear the ir Democratic "al l ies" had no interest in such reforms. This politica l cho ice meant that the l ibera l socia l un ion ist ideology of the C IO turned away from the pol itica l a rena and toward the narrower fi e ld of co l lective barga in ing . The new benefits barga in ing for pensions, hea lth care, and othe r items previously seen as part of a n expanded welfa re

state l i ke those in Europe, created what some have ca l led a "private we lfa re state" tied to the employers.

This had at l east two long term affects. The fi rst was to increase the professiona l ization and hence the bureauc ratization of co l lective barga in ing as contra cts became i ncred ib ly complex and the i r admin istration more expert-h eavy. The number of fu l l ­time " I nte rnational Reps" g rew and their power over contra ct administration inc reased. The notion and p ractice o f the union as a service agency took root. Along with this came the erosion of basic democracy as conventions, once a nnua l affa i rs, became every three or even five yea rs i n many un ions.

The second was the fragmenting affect th is "private we lfa re state" had on the consciousness of union members, a long with the growing separation of the ir l iv ing standards from workers in weaker un ions or in no un ions. With benefits flowing from company coffers, the idea that the wel l -be ing of the company is a u n ion goa l was g iven a previously unknown economic underpinn ing . At the same t ime, j ust as any idea of a d istinct c lass pol itics had been sque lched, so too had the idea of the labor movement as a c lass movement been laid to rest. It was now a bureaucratic agency dependent on employer wel l-being ( i .e. , productivity dragged out of the workforce) to d eliver services to it members and them on ly. Na rrow "interest group" consciousness was certa in at most t imes to beat c lass consc iousness as a contender for this period's U common sense."

The rep lacement of social un ion ism, i n al l but convention-time rhetoric , by a top-down service mode l and fragmenting "private welfare state" was accompanied and sometimes preceded by the a bandonment ofthe C I O's c ommitment to racial equa l ity. Whi le this commitment had a lways been l imited and se ldom ca rried into white bastions l ike the ski l led trades, the a l l iance with the progressive organ izations of the African American community had contributed to a rac ia l ega l itari anism largely absent in the o lder bus iness un ionism of the AFL. But, when organizing, strik ing, and mobi l iz ing were rep laced by orderly professiona l barga in ing in the context of economic growth, there was l ittle need for such active a l l iances . When African American labor leader A. Ph i l ip Randolph proposed that the merged AFL-C IO ban rac ia l exc lus ion by any union at the 1 955 merger convention, n ot one white C IO l eader voted with h im. It was not that they

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bel ieved in exc l usion, but that they va lued the a l l i ance with their new conservative co l leagues more tha n that with the B lack community.

Al l of these featu res of modern business un ionism and the economic context in which i t sol idifi ed combined to bury, if not completely obl iterate, the kind of basic c lass consciousness that arose in the 1 930s and lasted well into the 1 940s. The fragmented consciousness was rei nforced by the rise i n rea l wages and, at least for a large minority, the new benefits that brought a midd le c lass l ife style to mi l l ions. Average rea l hourly earn ings in manufacturing rose by 50% from 1 950 through 1 965. The new benefits, furthermore, meantthat more ofthese growing wages were ava i lab le for d i rect consumption tha n had ever been the case before. Al l this was made possible by the continued growth of the economy. From 1 947 through 1 967, industri a l production more than doubled, whi le productivity g rew by over 50%.

While many on the left l ike to ta l k of this period as one of a "socia l compact" in which capita l wi l l ing ly handed over wage and benefit i nc reases i n exchange for increased production, the fact is that even in this period it took a high leve l of strike action to win th is new standard of l iving . There were more strikes a n d more workers on strike in the first ha lf of the 1 950s, whi le the new standards of co l lective bargain ing were be ing carved out, than du ring the years 1 935-1 939.

There was, however, a big d ifference . The strikes of the 1 930s had been enormous battles seen by mi l l ions as part of a b igger c lass strugg le . By the 1 950s, strikes tended to be orderly affai rs with token picketi ng . With some notab le exceptions, strikes became as routine as co l lective barga in ing itself. Furthermore, the so l idaristic movement-wide patte rn barga in ing of 1 945-1 946 had given way to a much looser system in which each un ion was on its own. Most stud ies showed that even by the early 1 950s the affect of major patterns set by the UAW or the Stee lworkers was fad ing . The idea of so l idarity was reduced to one's own union a n d one's own "private welfare state ."

Al l of this produced the kind of consciousness, the "common sense," thought to be the natural state of mind of workers and union members in the U.S. Ne ithe r c lass as an active concept nor any vis ion above the level of co l lective barga in ing was a part of this consciousness for the vast majority. But the conditions that u nderlay the stabi l ity of this whole a rrangement were beg inn ing

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to ch ange by the mid- 1 960s.

Fragmented Ranl< and File Rebell ion

By most accounts U.S. cap italism's rate of profit began to fa l l (or fa l l more rapid ly) around the midd le of the 1 960s. Production actual ly acce lerated at fi rst due large ly to the War i n Vietnam. Whereas industria l production h a d risen by about 50% from 1 953 through 1 963, from 1 963 through 1 973 it rose by 68%. Nevertheless, the fa l l ing rate of profit that corporations were beginn ing to experience more severely brought on both inflation and a push for i nc reased productivity across much of i ndustry. I nflation a nd speed-up, in turn, brought forth a n ew period of increased resistance and rebel l ion with in industry.

Whi le we ten d to think of the 1 960s and early 1 970s as the era of the mass anti-war and "new" socia l movements, it was a lso one of considerable labor unrest. Mi l l ions of publ ic sector workers poured i nto u n ions and for a moment, on the eve of Martin Luther King's assassination, it looked as though the la bor and c ivil rights movement might converge. The new B lack Power consciousness of the late 1 960's found expression in auto assembly plants and stee l foundries as wel l as in rebe l l ious communities.

At the same time, the number of workers involved in strikes rose stead i ly from just under a mi l l ion in 1 965 to 2.5 mi l l ion i n 1 97 1 . A growing number of these strikes were wi ldcat strikes in violation of the contracts and aga inst the wi l l o f the now entrenched and routinized l eaderships. The strikes were typ ica l ly aga inst speed­up a nd other management practi ces, but just as Dobbs had pointed out in the 1 930s, the union bureaucracy­n ow a much b igger target-stood in the l ine of fi re. O n c e again, rank and fi le re bel l ion was on the agenda. In the wake of these strikes came several rank and fi le based organ izations such as the Teamsters Un ited Rank & Fi le, Miners for Democracy, a nd the Un ited Nationa l Caucus in the UAW. I n add ition, B lack caucuses spread a c ross the auto a nd stee l i ndustries, of wh ich the most famous is the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement ( D RU M). The connection of DRUM and some other B lack caucuses with both Marxism a nd revolutionary n ationa l ism was d i rect, but the exception . Whi le l eftists played a role i n many of these new ran k and fi l e movements, there was no s ign ifi cant o rgan ized left in the un ions in this period .

The organized left of th is period was large ly student­based and focused on the anti-war a nd socia l movements. Whi le these movements a lso had an impact on the working c lass i n various ways, the soc ia l ist left, except for Black rad ica l g roups l ike the Detroit-based League of Revolutionary B lack Workers, pa id l ittle attention to this rising tide of rank and fi le rebe l l ion . Yet, the rebel l ion became h ighly visible as strikes swept the coa l fi e lds in the late 1 960s, when nationa l wi ldcats broke out among posta l workers and Teamsters in 1 970, when the Lordstown G M p lant became the focus of nationa l attention for the mil itancy of its young workforce, when 40,000 telephone workers i n New York State struck aga inst N ixon's wage freeze for seven months in 1 97 1 -72; and when the Miners For Democracy overturned a corrupt and murderous leadersh ip in 1 972 and reshaped the Un ited Mine Workers.[25]

The absence of a wel l -organ ized soc ia l ist left in most of these movements meant that the fragmented consciousness inherited from the modern business union practices of the post World War Two years, though cha l lenged by action, was not d isp laced with a broader cl ass consciousness or s ignifi cant movement toward independent worki ng c lass pol itics. Even the more visible ran k and fi le organizations had l ittle contact with one a nother. They fought their battles with the ir employers l a rge ly withi n the spheres of their own "private welfa re states." Furthermore, they fought from a position of assumed job security, whi le the new mi l itancy kept real wages ahead of inflation for most groups. As noted above, the economy was growing fast and the impact of fa l l ing profit rates on the economy as yet marg ina l . The "common sense" of the period had been cha l lenged by the actions taken by mi l l ions of worke rs, as wel l as by the anti-war and soc ia l movements. But there was no socia l ist left with in the working c lass, nor even a left focused on workers' strugg les, that was b ig enough to bring these strands together. [26]

The 1 974-75 recession, the deepest s ince the G reat Depression, brought the mi l itancy to an end and wi ldcat strikes virtua l ly d isappeared . Some rank and fi l e movements lasted past th is turning po int and the Teamsters for a Democratic Union was actua l ly born in 1 976, but the milita ncy and sense of confidence that made this pe riod of ran k and fi l e rebel l ion possible a n d g ave it its particu lar character was swept away as a n ew era of economic turbu lence took shape. The

fragmented c onsciousness encouraged by modern business un ionism not only survived, but was now reinforced by a sense of economic insecurity ac ross the class that a l lowed the bureaucracy to re- impose its authority a nd to open a new period of retreat and concessions barga in ing in the 1 980s.

The Rank & Fi le Perspective: A Contemporary Synthesis

I f the fact of a nd the rea l ity and importance of rank and fi le movements and rebel l ions i s c lear, the relationsh ip of socia l ists to these is sti l l not c lear. There have been three d ifferent problems rank and fi le movements of the 20th century confronted . The fi rst was a pa rty­control led attempt to provide a program and c lass wide framework in the ea rly 1 920s through the TUEL. This had a promising start but came to grief la rge ly as a resu lt of the C P's control, on the one hand, a nd its e rratic pol itics, on the other. Party contro l meant that no independent, g rowing leadership was developed that would g ive the movement the strength to rep lace the bus iness un ion leadership .

The second was the industria l upheaval of the 1 930s. Here the major left o rgan ization, the CP, pushed an a l l iance with the c i a bureaucracy, or what they imagined to b e its "progressive" wing, as wel l as with the Roosevelt Administration. This meant permeation where possible, but a lso a certa i n passivity toward the bureaucracy by rank and fi le CPers. This cripp led the possibi lity of independent ra n k and f i le organ ization i n most cia un ions, and meant the substitution of the party for an i ntermediate or transitional cross-un ion organ ization . U nder these c i rcumstances, the c i a bureaucracy and those of its affi l iates were able t o ga in or ma intai n control, c lose down the rough and tumble democracy of the fi rst decade or so of the C ia, and then expel the i r Communist a l l ies .

The third was the rank and fi le rebel l ion of the l ate 1 960s and early 1 970s. The many actions and organ izations of this period h a d very little contact with one anothe r, l et a lone c ross-un ion organ ization o r a shared view of the changes needed to beat the speed-up and inflation of the period. This rebel l ion, whi le exemplary of the se lf­activity and power of the workin g c lass in many ways, was hurt by the a lmost total absence of a pol iti ca l l eft or socia l ist wing withi n the movement. It rema ined the captive of the na rrow consciousness of modern business un ion ism.

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Drawing on the lessons of these major periods of c lass activity a nd rank and fi le rebel l ion, we need a synthesis i n which socia l ists p lay a lead ing role i n these rebe l l ions without subjecting them to the control of a ny "party" or socia l ist organ ization . At its most basic, this leadersh ip means confrontin g the bureauc racy withi n the unions and its po l ic ies by focusing on the fi ght with the employers over rea l conditions on the job and in society. This leadership ro le a lso draws on the concept of transitiona l po litics to provide a bridge from today's consciousness to deeper and wider forms of c lass consciousness and organ ization. This requ i res some institutiona l o r org a nizationa l means of bring ing a c lass-wide perspective to the various rank and fi le g roups in order to transcend the fragmented consciousness e ncouraged by the "private welfare states" and the intensified competition that increased internationa l economic integration has brought. This would i nc lude c ross-un ion formations, commun ity­based worker o rgan izations such as workers centers, and steps toward active c lass pol itics.

Whi le the pressures of capital on working c lass l ife a re a lways present, there a re obviously time.s when such a perspective offers greater possib i l ities. The rest of the pamphlet wil l a rgue that today's unfold ing conditions do offer s Lich possibi l ities, that rank and f i le rebel l ions are a common contemporary response to the rea l ities of changing cond itions and bureaucratic i nertia, and that there are specifi c things that socia l ists and socia l ist organ izations can do to maximize the potentia l of the period and to min imize the gap between convinced socia l ists and the majority of worker activists.

The Roots of a New Revolt

The closing of the twentieth century seemed to bring a resurgent hegemony to North Ame rican capita l in the post-Cold War world economy. Every c risis appeared as an opportun ity for the Un ited States and its lead ing transnationa l corporations to break down barriers to its accumulation goals and impose new pol itica l/economic structures and relations that e nforced its new advances. From the passage of the North American Free Trad e Agreement to the new World Trade Organ ization, from the "Drug War" on Latin America to the c rimina l bombing of I raq and Yugoslavia, no force seemed ab le to counter U .S . power. The recurrent economic cr ises of Latin America, the fi nanc ia l co l lapse in East Asia, and the overa l l meltdown of Russia a l l provided

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opportunities for North American ca pital to extend its a l ready massive g loba l reach . Despite the circus a round Bi l l Cl i nton's scanda l ized pres idency, big bus iness could rest assured that the same center-right po litica l consensus that had ru led in Washington for years was intact no matter the President's fate or which m ajor pa rty sat in Congress or the White House.

But the 1 990s' apparent deepen ing of U .S . economic and pol itica l hegemony was not a reru n of its post­World War Two rise to dominance. Two major changes in the world made this renewed surge of U .S. power far more frag i le than the period of growth experienced by the Un ited States and other major industria l nations in the quarte r of a century after the end of World War Two. The fi rst was that neol ibera l ism, the pol i cy of most of the world's governments, stopped working, both as a pol iti ca l phenomenon and as a stabi l iz ing force for cap ita l ism. ' The economic turmoil in East Asia and, a bove a l l, the pro longed and seemingly i rrevers ib le stagnation of Japan's formerly powerhouse economy were the certa in s igns that a ny hope for g loba l stabil ity was fad ing as fast as the centu ry itse lf.

The symbol of neol iberal ism's c risis as a pol itica l movement was the return, i n the last few years, of s ign ificant opposition, primarily from the working c lass and proleta rianized peasa ntry across much of the world . Mass strikes in opposition to neol iberal pol ic ies and their consequences erupted ac ross the g lobe. The s imi larity of these mass a ctions i n such diverse settings as Zimbabwe, Colombia, France, G reece, Russia, South Korea, Canada, and many more reminds us that whi le a majority of those who toil i n capita l's uneven g loba l system remain outside the formal re lations of wage l abor, t he working c lass has continued to grow on a world sca le . I ndeed, even by the na rrowest measu re, that of industria l workers, the industria l ized DECO countries, where industria l dec l i ne and downsizing was widespread, saw a s l ight growth from 1 1 2 mi l l ion i n 1 973 to 1 1 5 mi l l ion i n 1 994. I n the economic South, inc lud ing the former Communist countries, the i ndustria l workforce has risen from 285 mi l l ion in 1 980 to 407 mi l l ion in 1 994. O rgan ized labor movements that were repressed in the 1 960s and 1 970s, a rose aga in or for the fi rst time in much of the Third World, as well as southern Europe. Fascism was overthrown in G reece, Portuga l , and Spain and unions emerged and were lega l ized aga in . By the late 1 990s. these movements, n ew and old, were expressing the i r opposition to the c rush ing impact of nearly two decades of neo l ibera l ism.

The second difference in North American capita l ism's fin de s iec le resurgence is that, un l ike the post-World War Two boom where American l iving standards rose on average, this expans ion of U.S. corporate power has seen the l iving standards of the vast majority s ink for twenty years. I ndeed, Wa l l Street ins ider Stephen Roach ca l l s the U .S. economic expansion of the 1 990s a " Iabor crunch recovery." I n 1 998, for example, the rea l wages of those who work for wages and sa laries i n the U .S. remained 1 2% below the i r 1 979 level . This general decl ine has been accompanied by a sharp d ivision between the bottom th ree-quarters of the population whose i ncomes have fa l len and the top quarte r whose i ncomes have risen. The h igher one goes, furthermore, the greater the increase in income and wea lth . I n come measures, however, on ly scratch the surface of what the majority of the working c lass has experienced in the last two decades. While there have been no mass or genera l strikes in the U.S. in recent years, the return of h igh profi le c l ass strugg le is now apparent and the reasons for it c lear. Fa r from provid ing the mater ia l basis for the continued loya lty and ideolog ica l submission of the working c lass majority, the new power of North American capita l is purchased in part by the i nc reased degradation in working and l iving conditions of the vast majority withi n the U.S.

One aspect of this change was the profound workp lace and labor market reorgan ization assoc iated with " Iean production." The promised brave new co-managed workp lace of the future tu rned i nto a top-down, we"­l it Satan ic mi l l . Whether you worked in a hospital or an auto p lant, a post offi ce or post- industria l techno­office, more than l ike ly your job was worse than it was a decade ago-if you were l ucky to have one that long. Whether or not i t is decorated with the trimming of employee pa rtic ipation, TQM, or the l ike, it was certain ly more stressful, probably hard er, a nd defin itely more dangerous by the 1 990s. U.S. in jury a nd i l l ness rates in the first h alf of the 1 990s were running anywhere from 9% to 1 00% higher than in the first ha lf of the 1 980s measured by the number of cases reported. Contributing to this rise in occupationa l i l l ness a nd i njury a re chang ing work time patterns. Fu"-time manufactu ring workers were putting in more overtime, whi l e mil l ions were becoming part of the precarious workforce that fi l ls the country's growing number of part-time, temporary, or casua l jobs.

The monthly fi gures publ ished by the Bureau of La bor Statistics put the number of "part-timers" (those

working less than 35 hours a week) at 21 mi l l ion in m id-1 997, or a bout 1 8.4% of the workforce, up from 1 6.6% i n 1 975. But inc lud ing those i n the 35-40-hour range, over 38 mi l l ion people actual ly work less than 40 hours a week, whi le an uncounted number o f "part­timers" earn ing part-time pay work 40 or more hours week-in and week-out. More sta rtl ing is the growth of temporary workers . Those who work out of "personnel supply agenc ies" have grown from 640,000 in 1 987 to over 3 mi l l ion in mid- 1 999. An undocumented add itiona l n u mber of temps work d i rectly for a growing variety of fi rms. A recent study by the Economic Pol icy Institute puts the total proportion of "nonsta ndard" jobs at 29.4% of the workforce, 34.4% for women workers-figures that adjust for the overl ap of part-time, temporary, a n d contract work. With the a rrival of "modular" production at the end of the 1 990s, which emphasizes o utsourc ing and sub contractin g even more than its " Iean" predecessor, sti l l more fu l l-time and wel l pa id jobs wi l l be turned in for temporary and/or lower wage jobs.

Al l of this has not gone unnoticed by the majority that compose both the shrink ing middle- income and g rowing lower- income workin g c lass-and they are angry. Whatever g low may have a ccompanied the early days of labor-management partn e rsh ip or workp lace partic ipation faded rapidly for many workers, as the ir jobs were cut and/o r i ntensifi ed to boost profits, stock pr ices, and top sa laries. Contesti ng with this anger and d is i l lus ionment, however, i s fear of job loss by the same forces: downsizing, outsourc ing, fac i l ity c losures, or scab herd ing . As a M u ltinationa l Monitor ed itorial put it recently, "A ruthless employer c lass blends these mu ltip le sources of job insecu rity into a whole greater than the parts."

The othe r s ide of the downsized coin, however, is work intensifi cation. If no one with power l istened to the workers who complained about th is, at least a few ears perked up when Wal l Street insider Stephen Roach wrote i n the Wa l l Street Jou rna l , "the so-ca l led productivity resurgence of recent years has been on the back of s lash-and-burn restructu ring strateg ies that have put extraord inary pressures on the workforce." Roach predicted a "worker backlash,"

There comes a point, after a l l, when the pressures and inevitab le ind ign ities of intensified exploitation o utweigh the fea r of job loss, as i t d id in the G reat D epression. As Marta Ojeda, d i re ctor of the U.S.-

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M exico-border-based Committee for J ustice in the Maqu i ladora's put it e loquently at the 1 997 Labor Notes conference in D etroit, "The hunger is stronger tha n the fea r-hunger for justice, not only for food . " First one group, then another tests the waters and open conflict retu rns to la bor re lations-despite the trimmings of company un ion ism or labor-management cooperation schemes. That is the mean ing ofthe b itte r strikes ofthe last few years i n the U.S. Some lose, as at Caterp i l lar and A.E. Staley. Some a re more or l ess draws, l ike that at Wheel ing-Pittsburgh . Others win something, as at U P S in 1 997, at severa l te lecommunications companies i n 1 998, in the seventeen loca l GM strikes ofthe last two­and-a-half years, the brief strike at D unlop, the 69-day Boeing strike, the week- long genera l strike of O regon state employees, the on-aga in-off-aga in strike at Ya le Un iversity, and the 54-day confrontationa l struggle at WCI Stee l in Warren, Oh io.

Then there are the mass ive strikes of immigrant and Latino workers on the West Coast: jan itors, dry-wal lers, and carpenters in Los Angeles;waterfronttruckers in LA and Seattle; and i n the last days ofthe twentieth century casua lized waterfront workers in Southern Cal ifornia . To these should be added the strugg le to organ ize 20,000 strawberry pickers in Ca l iforn ia, the smal ler number of app le pickers and processors i n Wash ington state, and those harvesting cucumbers in North Carol ina, These and simi lar strugg les of immigrant and Lati no workers a round the country a lso point to someth ing new-the rise of Latinos not on ly i n the workforce, but i n the un ions. Whi le un ion membersh ip overal l continued to dec l i ne from 1 992 through 1 996, the number of Latino un ion members grew by 1 2%.

Thus, in the long economic expansion of the 1 990s mi l itancy returned to many sections of th e U.S. working c lass. What a rose, however, was not the o ld rhythm of U.S. col lective bargain ing, with a l a rge number of relatively short, conventional strikes a imed at winn ing wage and benefit improvements. The strikes and struggles of the 1 990s were large ly defensive in nature, often very long and bitter, mostly focused on workplace and labor market c hanges, and i ncreasingly "pol it ica l," in the sense that they made demands that all workers cou ld identify with (sometimes de l iberately), and thus struck a sympathetic chord i n the working c lass publ ic and often appealed directly for broader support. The Sta ley, Detroit Newspapers, and U PS strikes a l l d id this, a n d the 1 998 GM and telecommunications strikes also g a rnered majority publ ic sympathy.

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The strikes of the last few years revea led the contradictions of business un ionism and its l imitations i n today's world economy. They a lso often showed the n ew power that many orga nized workers have. Strikes at Sta ley, Caterpi l lar, and the D etroit Newspapers were l ost partly because loca l or nationa l leaders pu l led their punches or even he l ped de rai l the strike . Ot is impressive that the strugg le aga inst the newspapers c ontinued despite this, with an impressive core of a ctivist resisters.) At Gen eral Motors in 1 998, where it was c lear that the union had enormous power to shut the company down, nationa l leaders refused to use the strike to make serious ga ins at the nationa l or even loca l levels. I nstead, they settled for smal l, often revers ib le, ga ins that didn't resolve the b igger problems of outsourcing and downsizi ng . Where some important th ings were won, as i n te lecommun ications, it was l a rge ly because new tactics, member mobi l ization, and pub l ic outreach were deployed.

In 1 995 a s ignifi cant change occurred i n the leadership of the AFL-C IO . Throughout the 1 990s, rank and fi l e rebel l ions occurred in many un ions, and took power for a time in the 1 .4 mi l l ion-member Teamsters. There would be major setbacks to these ga ins, but it was c lear that un ion pol itics were chang ing as the new century a pproached.

Internal Union Dynamics

M ost of this new consciousness and mi l itancy comes from the a ctivist layer of the un ions . These a re workers, workplace representatives, and loca l level un ion offi c ia ls who keep U.S. unions going from day to d ay. They work between the upper layer of ca reer offi c ia ls and staffers, on the one hand, and the majority of members on the other. Some are ful l -time, paid offi c ia ls, many a re not. They a re forced to confront the real ity of the workplace, a s opposed to its ideology, whether or not they a ccept this c u rrent partnership ideology in whole or part. A s ign ifi cant m inority of this l ayer, however, rejects the labor-management ethos that comes from employers a n d career union offic ia ls a l i ke . It is in this layer that the return of resistance has gathered the greatest force a nd, now and then, breaks through the passivity of the members and the backwa rd-looking immobi l ity of the top offic ia ls .

The a ctivists and the top leaders a re often at odds over how to respond to the chang ing workp lace and labor m arket. Un l ike in some European countries and at past

times i n the U .S. there is on ly one l abor federation . There is no d ivis ion by pol iti ca l loya lty: socia l ist, Communist, Christian . D ifferences in d i rection or pol iti ca l outlook must be expressed with in a un ion that has so le representation rights i n its barga in ing unit. I n add ition, most un ions in the U.S. have developed bureaucratic structu res beyond the reach of labor leaders in much of the world . So, pol iti ca l conflict tends to take an a lmost sociologi ca l cha racter: ranks versus bureaucrats. The forms of this c lash may be many. Pressu re from the a ctivist layer to a ct is one, a major factor i n the GM and Boeing strikes. Another is turnover at the top. The Assoc iation for Un ion Democra cy (AU D ) estimated that about a dozen un ion presidents were ousted i n contested e lections from the l ate 1 980s through the 1 991 victory of Ron Carey.

The ferme nt continued into the 1 990s. Labor democracy attorney Pau l Levy summarized i t i n a speec h to the National Lawyers Gu i ld in the Fa l l of 1 996 whe n h e sa id :

There is extensive intra-un ion activity in a large number of nationa l un ions, much more than ever before. I n service un ions such a s the Food and Commerc ia l Workers, the Service Employees and the Hotel Worke rs, construction unions such as the I B EW (E lectric ians ) o r the Bricklayers and the Carpenters a n d the Laborers, government un ions l ike the Letter Ca rriers, the AFGE (Federal Employees) and the Treasury Employees, industria l u n ions l ike the Mach inists and the Auto Workers.

To this l ist of cha l l enges in nationa l un ions can be added s imi lar movements i n large l oca l unions such as the New Directions caucus in the 30,000-member Transport Workers Un ion Loca l 1 00 in New York's transit system, the Caucus for a Democratic Union i n the Ca l iforn ia State Employees/SE I U Loca l 1 000 that has twice won control of this 40,000 member union, the successfu l rebel l ion i n Atlanta's transit union, or the reform group i n the simi la rly l a rge un ion of New York City jan itors a n d doormen, SE IU Loca l 32J/32B-John Sweeney's h o m e loca l . Even t h e famous Justice for Jan itors loca l un ion, SE IU 399 in Los Angles, saw a massive oppos itio n movement of Latino and Afri can American workers, ca l led the Mu ltirac ia l Al l iance, repl ace the old g u a rd executive committee-only to be p laced in trusteesh ip by John Sweeney who was sti l l SE IU president at that time. The split of the mi l itant Cal ifornia N u rses Association from the more conservative Ameri c a n Nurses Assoc iation i n 1 996 represents another form of

rebel l ion from be low. Recently formed loca l opposition caucuses, as opposed to trad itiona l caucuses of the " in" and the "out" opportunist un ion politi c ians, have a ppeared in u n ions as d iverse as the Auto Workers, Steelworkers, Teachers, Hotel Employees, Carpenters, and the IBEW.

N owhere was the cha l lenge from below more successful or the process of un ion reform deeper than in th e Teamste rs. I t seemed as i f t he ree lection o f Ron Ca rey over Jimmy Hoffa "Junior" in 1 996 not on ly spe l led the end of the corrupt o ld guard, but it opened a new phase of transformation . As Ken Paff of the Teamsters for a Democratic Un ion (TDU) expla ined, "We won the po l itica l battl e over the value of a c lean, democratic u nion. Hoffa had to adopt our program and promise to do even better at it. But we have not yet won the battle over the need for a new kind of un ion that de rives its power from a mobi l ized and involved membership ."

The dynamics of the Teamster revolution, as many TDUers ca l l it, had brought TDU a long way from 1 5 years i n the wi lderness as a c lear-cut opposition to five years on the front l i nes defend ing the reform regime and defeating the o ld guard. Now the most difficu lt q uestion of a l l was posed: how to go beyond the norms of "c lean" Ameri can business un ionism? For most a ctivists, the key to a nyth ing n ew was a n i nformed, a ctivated membersh ip . Whethe r speaking of winn ing a strike at UPS, organiz ing the unorganized, or bu i ld ing b roader coal itions for b igger soc ia l goa ls, success would depend on mobi l iz ing the tens of thousands of worke rs on whom the real power of the un ion rests.

This dynamic suffered a serious setback when outside consultants h i red by the 1 996 Ca rey campaign organization a long with the un ion's pol itica l d irector were caught i n a i l l ega l scam to d i rect un ion money into the campaign coffers. Carey was d isqual ified from the e lection and eventua l ly expel led even though it was n ever proven that h e was directly involved. I n the ' wake of this turn of events, the un ion reform coa l ition a round Carey fe l l a pa rt. It took months for the TDU­backed un ion reform movement to pu l l itse lf together. The s late that it ra n i n the 1 998 e lection rerun refl ected the th inking of those prepared to go well beyond "c lean business un ionism." But its presidentia l cand idate, Tom Leedham, was not wel l known and had on ly six months to campaign . Furthermore, the un ion members were made cyn ica l by the a l legations aga i nst Carey; voter turnout, at 28%, was no h igher than in the Teamsters'

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fi rst e lection, in 1 99 1 . The o ld guard cand idate, J immy Hoffa, son of the famous Teamster leader of the 1 960s, had campaigned for fou r yea rs and had the best known name in the un ion . H e won by 54%.

The central ro le of TDU in both the reform movement and the UPS strike was no fluke. It survives the Hoffa victory. It exploded in 1 999 in the strike by 1 ,000 immigrant meatpacking workers at I BP's p lant in Pasco, Wash ington. Here, TDU leader Maria Martinez was e lected ch ief shop steward. Opposed by the o ld guard white leadership, the TDU-Ied coa l ition fought the into lerab le working cond itions in the p lant and eventua l ly forced a strike. The spi rit of rebe l l ion cou ld a lso be seen at Anheuser-Busch, where members repeatedly rejected dea ls pushed on them by o ld guard l eaders and the H offa- led I nternationa l .

Whi le the TDU-backed rank and fi le movement wi l l have to fight to rega in leadership overthe un ion, the question that faces the Teamste r reformers is essentia l ly the same question that faces the entire labor movement: what kind of unions, what kind of movement can be bu i lt that is adequate to the cha l lenges of corporate power, internationa l competition, and the dominance of conservative pol itics.

Many of today's struggles have taken a certa in pol iti ca l character. As we noted , the UPS strike captured the attention and support of the working class publ ic . Many of the strugg les mentioned above, brought the state into action on the side of the employers-a fact that po litic ized many un ion activists. The struggle of members of the Transport Workers Un ion Loca l 1 00 i n N ew York City's transit system i l lustrates another way in which "s imple" un ion-employer confl ict turns pol iti ca l . The fight for a new contra ct in late 1 999 bec ame a four­way confl ict. The simple negotiating process between h e union and the Transit Authority would never have taken center stage in New York as the hol idays a pproached if it had not been for the New D i rections caucus in Loca l 1 00.

N ew D i rections began back in the 1 980s as a smal l d iss ident newsletter ca l led He l l on Whee ls. By the late 1 990s, it was a powerful movement that contro l led about 40% of the executive boa rd of th is 35,000-member local union and dominated the subway divis ion. It's cand idate for president of the local had come with in a few hundred votes of winn ing in 1 998. As during past contra cts it conducted its own contract campa ign .

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The size and infl uence of the organization by this time, h owever, meant it played a s ignificant ro le in the now c omplex negotiations. Reacting to the fear that New D i rections would push the un ion i nto a cr ippl ing strike in l ate December, Mayor Rudolph G iu l ian i entered the fray by getting a court injunction not on ly aga inst a strike, which was i l l ega l in any case, but aga inst the use of the word strike by a ny un ion member. The da i ly press i n New York ca rried end less stories h igh l ighting both G iu l i an i and N ew D i rections leader Tim Schermerhorn.

N ew D irections had become more than a powerfu l ran k a n d fi le movement, it was the center of c ity pol it ics for a time. The ma in reason was that the transit contract was the fi rst in a series of labor contracts for the c ity's tens of thousands of employees. For these un ion c ity workers, N ew Directions played the role that the U P S strike had for the country. Indeed, rank and fi le caucus a ctivists from severa l of the c ity's pub l i c sector un ions h a d formed a coa l ition and met together for some time. G iu l i an i, who actual ly has no part in the negotiation with the Transit Authority, pan icked at the idea of a series of strugg le in which the outcome was an acce lerati ng c ity payrol l-not to mention a re-energized labor movement. A genu ine c lass aga inst class confl ict was taking shape .

The Tasks of Socialists in Today's Resistance and Rebel lion

Thinking about the tasks of socia l ists in today's Un ited States can be overwhe lming. From Reagan through C l inton, the U.S. government has been ab le to l aunch a n end less series of h igh-speed wars that deny us the time to organ ize effective opposition . The rac ist pol it ics of prisons a n d punishment have reached such tida l proportions they, too, seem to l augh a t opponents. The g rowth of poverty, the servitude of workfare; the threat of ecologica l d isaster; and the seeming ly unstoppab le drift of mainstream pol itics to the right a l l tau nt the l eft a n d tempt it to do everything at once .

To be sure, there a re good s igns as wel l . Not on ly rebel l ion in the workplace and un ions, but a pro l iferation of community-based worker organizations, the rise of c ross-union campaigns and organizations, and a new generation of student and youth activists taking on sweatshops, "free trade," and many other important issues. All of these and more came together in Seattle at the end of November 1 999 to stake out their p lace i n the g loba l pol itica l l andscape. Here and there,

there are victories. But the basic problem remains one of power. The mu ltinationa l corporations and the pol itic ians they so generously fund ( and, of course, the state and mu ltil atera l institutions they d i rect) have a lot of it and we don't.

This brings us right back to where we sta rted, r ight back to Karl Marx and the working c lass. Marx d idn't look to the working c lass because of some supposed moral superiority, the c la rity of their ideas at any parti cu lar moment, or the i nfin ite effectiveness of their trade unions. We have a l ready a rgued that these things can be as absent among workers as ind ividua ls as among members of any other c lass. No , Marx looked to this c lass because in capita l ist society they were the on ly other c lass, besides the bourgeoisie, who had the potenti a l power to change things. Their power flowed from their position i n the economy and from the i r numbers. "Ye a re many, they a re few," as the poet Shel ley put it. More than that, this c lass has the power to c reate society's wealth and , acting as a c lass, to bring society and its production to a ha lt. "Without our brain and musc le not a s ing le wheel would turn," the Wob bl ies sang. We might add: "not an i nch of fi ber optic cab le la id , no just-in -time de l ivery made, not a whole ba l l season played." You get the picture.

The problem has a lways been organ izi ng that power and g iving i t conscious expression for a common purpose. What is being a rgued here is that there i s a l ready a sta rting point i n the form of the rank and fi l e resistance and rebel l ions, community-based organ izations, and transitiona l formations d iscussed above. Whi le socia l ists can and do p lay a n important ro le i n bui ld ing and provid ing direction for such movement, they don't have to invent them. The existence of the organ izations, networks, projects a nd activists that make up this rebel l ion and resistance, of course, do not solve the problems o f power, or rather the left's l a ck o f it, immediately. This is a long range, multi-faceted strategy. It is a perspective that requ ires a division of labor, for which reason it is most effectively conducted by organ ized socia l ists even though there is p lenty for i ndividua ls to do. It is a strategy that focused primarily, though not exc lusive ly, on the un ions, so it fo l lows that most of those carrying it out wil l be union members, a lthough there a re roles for those not in un ions.

In summary, the tasks of socia l ists in the labor movement i nc lude:

1 . Bu i ld ing the rank and fi le movements and organ izations that are fighting for a more effective, democratic, a nd inc lusive un ion in the context of the ma in fi ght with the bosses-the Farrel l D obbs approach of letting the bureaucratic old guard get caught in the c ross fire. Rea l istica l ly, however, the bureaucracy is fa r more omniprese nt and in the way these days tha n in the ea rly 1 930s, so that there is no hope of avoiding interna l un ion confl ict i f any progress is to be made. Peop le a re compel led into strugg le by real cond itions and these a re mostly shaped by capital and its end less attempt to regain or improve profitabi l ity. These efforts to increase exploitation impact i n al l a reas of workin g life inc lud ing the d ifferent position of white and Black, men and women in the workforce and the un ion. We bui ld these rank and fi l e groups, acts of resistance, and movements on their own terms, but offer an ana lysis of the roots of the problem a nd a b igger vision of how to address them when appropriate. We cal l this socia l movement un ionism: a u nion ism that is democratic, acts l ike a movement and not just an institution, and reaches out to other working c lass and oppressed people to bu i ld a mass movement for change.

2. Bu i ld ing the growing number of c ross-union, hence by impl ication c lass-wide, transitiona l organ izations, publ ications, and projects that he lp provide a broader c lass vision for the work withi n t he un ions and d i re ct l inks between a ctivists i n d ifferent u nions a nd industries. These i nc lude both un ion-backed and expl ic itly oppositiona l g roups. Among them a re Labor N otes, Association for Union D emocracy, Jobs with Justice, strike support campa igns, and sing le and soc ia l issue campaigns where relevant. The on-go ing organizations a nd projects, i n particu la r, provide opportunities to ra ise transitiona l ideas l i ke shorter work t ime as wel l as a living demonstration of aspects of socia l movement unionism.

3. Bui ld ing and a l lying with community-based working c lass organ izations. We have mentioned workers center as important, butothers l ikethe environmenta l justice movement based ma in ly in communities of color a re also important. The s ign ificance of these organ izations if both that they bring to the overa l l movement section s of the working c lass, mostly people of color, not in u nions. Like rank and fi le

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movements, these org a n izations a nd campaigns tra in working c lass leaders and a ctivists needed to enhance the power of a l l working people and to deepen the reach of the b roader labor movement we seek.

4. Bu i ld ing a ctive internationa l workers' sol ida rity. There a re a growing number of opportunities to bui ld d ire ct l inks between workers in d ifferent countries as well as engage in so l ida rity actions at home. The Transnationa ls I nformation Exchange, the Coa lition for Justice in the Maqu i ladoras, Labor Notes, the U.S'; Labor Education i n the Ame ricas Project, and other groups make worker-to-worker contacts to foster internationa l ism.

5. Bu i ld ing a lternative c lass-based pol itics. This would inc lude working in and bu i ld ing the Labor Party, loca l independent campa igns with a working c lass base a nd pol itics, and efforts l ike the l iving wage campaigns that promote transitiona l c lass pol it ics. Through these efforts transitiona l ideas such as national hea lth care gain legitimacy a n d can be brought back into our da i ly work i n appropriate ways.

6. Bu i ld ing socia l ist organization that relates to a l l of these levels of working c lass activity as wel l as promoting and acting on a broader socia l ist pol itics covering the entire range of soc ia l , economic, and pol itica l issues. To the degree that a sig nifi cant portion of the members of the socia l ist organ ization a re involved in one or more of the fi rst four a reas of activity, the organ ization wi l l have the roots i n the l ife of the activist layer of the organ ized working c lass that lay the basis for b igger developments as events unfold . To the extent that others of its members a re involved i n the whole range of issues and pol itics, they can enrich the vision and ana lysis of the labor activists. Overal l , soc ia l istorgan ization a lso makes possib le the coord inated d ivision of labor of its activists that is essentia l to the rank a nd fi le strategy. It is a lso the organ ization that ca rries the transitiona l ideas to their socia l ist conc lus ions; the organ ization that makes and tra ins soc ia l ists.

Each of these points begins with the word "bu i ld ing" because the kind of soc ia l ist pol itics we are ta lk ing about involves bui ld ing movements, strugg les, a nd organ izations that can make a d ifference. Expl ic itly

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socia l ist education and pol itica l work must be done in connection with such work in the world of the worki ng c l ass. It must be done in a nonsecta rian manner in which socia l ists from different grou ps work together where they ag ree, a long with un ion and community a ctivists who haven't yet drawn socia list conclusions.

Sol ida rity, as a revolutionary socia l ist organ ization, attempts to fol low these prescriptions in its labor work as well as in other a reas of pol itica l a ctivity. We are a m ulti-tendency organ ization with a wide range of views on many q uestions, in c lud ing the rank and fi le strategy. We are a "work in progress" that recognizes that the roa d to the type of mass democratic revo lutionary soc ia l ist pa rty (or parties) needed to end the d isastrous ru le of cap ita l and usher in the rule of the worki ng class is sti l l a long one. Whi le we don't c la im to have the road map, we do c l a im to have a compass. It points to the working c lass and the means to expand and deepen c lass consciousness and organ ization in such a way as to make socia list ideas credib le i n American society. This route leads first to the active ran k and fi le of the un ions and the strugg les they a re engaged in. If we c a rry out this rank and fi le strategy inte l l igently, if we c a n win l a rge numbers of leftists and un ion activists to this strategy, and if socia l ism becomes the outlook of more and more of these activists, we can put socia l ism back on the pol iti ca l agenda in the Un ited States.

Notes

1 . Sol idarity, December 1 996, Un ited Automobi le Workers, p. 5 .

2. Frederick Enge ls, The Cond ition of the Working C lass i n England, q uoted in Hal D raper, Kar l Marx's Theory of Revol ution, Vo lume I I : The Pol itics of Socia l C lasses, Monthly Review Press, New York, 1 978, pp 91 -92.

3. quoted in Tony Cl iff, Len in, Vo lume I: Bu i ld ing the Pa rty, P luto Press, 1 975, pp. 79-80.

4. Antonio Gramsci , Selections from the Prison Notebooks, I nte rnationa l Pub l ishers, New York, 1 97 1 , p. 419 .

5 . The particu larly rapacious natu re of U .S. capita l ism stems i n part from its orig ins in Eng l ish capital ism. As El len Wood a rgues in The Orig ins of Capita l ism

(Monthly Review, 1 999) i n the 1 7th and 1 8th century Eng land was sti l l the on ly country with a truly integrated nationa l market based on competition and accumulation . Its trade and co lon ia l systems, un l i ke those of France and Spain, ran on cap ital ist princ ip les of expa nsion, economic compu lsion, and agrarian " improvement," i .e. , productivity. It was John Locke who, in the 1 7th century, provided the capita l ist rationa le for expropriating Native American l ands in the name of " improvement," basica l ly the same as that for the land enc losures withi n Eng land. The distinctly un-Eng l ish rough and tumble cu lture of the U.S. flows i n part from the dec ided ly "Eng l ish" nature of its continental expansion from the 1 7th century through the 1 9th, unmitigated by the d irect rule of Eng land's h igh ly centra lized state even in co lon ia l times.

6. For this point I am indebted to D ebora h Simmons, whose "After Ch iapas: Aborig ina l Land and Resistance i n the N ew North America," brought this point home to me.

7. Jacqua l ine Jones, American Work.

8. Frederick Enge ls, "Preface to the Ameri can ed ition of The Condition of the Worjking Class in Eng land, January 26, 1 887, in Kenneth Lapides (ed.) , Marx and Enge ls on the Trade Un ions, I nternationa l Publ ishers, New York, 1 990, p. 1 4 1 .

9 . Jeremey Brecher, Strike ! , South End Press, Boston, 1 997, passim.

1 0. S idney Lens, Left, R ight, and Center: Conflicting Forces in American Labor, Henry Regnery Company, H insdale, I l l i nois, 1 947, p. 33.

1 1 .Labor's fi rst major pol itica l effort i n the 1 870s and 1 880s was the d isgraceful campa ign for state a nd nationa l legis lation exc lud ing Asian workers from the U .S. This occurred prior to the formu lation of the AFL, but was supported by most of the unions that would jo in it and by the otherwise ega l itarian Knights of Labor.

1 2. Thomas R. B rooks, Toil and Trouble : A H istory of American Labor, De lta Books, 1 965, p. 97.

1 3. Brooks, ib id ., p. 1 33.

1 4. James H inton and R ichard Hyman, Trade Un ions and Revolution : The I ndustria l Po litics of the Early British Communist Pa rty, Pluto Press, London, 1 975, pp. 1 0, 23.

1 5. Ph i l ip S. Foner, The H istory of the Labor Movement in the Un ited States, Vol . 9, I nternationa l Publ ishers, N ew York, 1 99 1 , p. 323.

1 6. James R. Ba rrett, "Boring fromm With in and Without," in Eric Arnesen, J u l ie Greene, and Bruce Laurie (eds . ) , Labor H istori es: C lass, Po litics, and the Working C lass Experienc e, U n ivers ity of I l l inois Press, U rbana and Ch icago, 1 998, pp. 31 5-31 6.

1 7. Their success in the ama lgamation campaign and the labor party movement contrasted, according to the historian Phi l ip Foner, with their genera l fa i lure in the fight for racia l i nc l us ion and equa l ity. Foner, op . c it., p. 338.

1 8. Barrett, op . c it., p. 3 1 2.

1 9. Lens, op. c it., p. 1 80.

20. Leon Trotsky, The Death Agony of Capita l ism a nd the Tasks of the Fourth I nternational , P ioneer Publ ishers, New York, 1 964, p. 9.

2 1 . Farre l l Dobbs, Teamster Rebe l l ion, Monad Press, N ew York, 1 972, pp. 41 -43.

22. Fa rrel l D obbs, Teamster Power, Monad Press, New York, 1 973, p. 24.

23. N e lson Lichtenstein, Labor's War at Home, Cambridge Un iversity Press, Cambridge and N ew York, 1 982, p. 5 1 .

24. quoted i n Roger Horowitz, N egro a n d White U nite : A Socia l H istory of I ndustria l U nion ism i n Meatpacking, 1 930-1 990, Un iversity of I l l i nois Press, Urbana and Ch icago, 1 997, p. 1 43.

25. An account of this period can be found in Kim Moody, An I njury to All: The D ec l ine of American Un ionism, Verso, London a n d N ew York, 1 998. For a somehwat d ifferent view of this period see

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Glenn Perusek and Kent Worcester, Trade U nion Po l itics : American Un ions and Economic Change, 1 960s-1 990s, Human ities Press, New J ersey, 1 995.

26. An exce ption was the I ndependent Socia l ist C lubs, which became the I nternationa l Socia l ists ( I S ) i n 1 970, whose members ch ron ic led the events of that period and played a role in some rank and fi l e movements. The IS was one of the gro ups, a long with Workers Power and Socia l ist U nity, who founded Sol idarity i n 1 986. The Sojou rner Truth Organ ization and some Maoist groups a lso h a d a smal l presence in the working c lass towards the end of th is period.

Interested in learning more about organizing with

III

A RfVOlUJlONARY SOCIAliST, ffMINIST AND ANJI -RACIST ORGANIIAJlON • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Solidarity is a revo lutionary soc ia l ist organ ization with members and bra nches across the country.

Today, we are a ctive in strengthen ing

a working-c lass fightback to the economic crisis, demanding an end

to the wa rs in I raq and Afg han istan, a nd bu i ld ing the l abor movement, strug g les for se lf-determination of peop le of co lor, women and LG BTQ

a n d the fight for envi ronmenta l justice .

The soc ia l ist future that we fi ght for has democratic, working­c lass power as its bedrock. We emphasize the need for soc ia l ists to

b ui ld movements for the i r own sake . At the same time, we foster soc ia l ist c onsciousness through l i nking iso lated strug g les, opposing the

log ic of ca pita l ism and making the

c ase for revolutionary organ ization .

Get in Touch

For a l ist of branches, go to : www.so l i d a rity- us .o rg/b ra n c h es

To emai l a National Organizer, e m a i l i nfo@so l i d a rity- us .org

To get in touch by phone, c a l l 3 1 3-841 -01 60 ( N ati o n a l Offi c e )

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Members a re expected to h ave an activist commitment and participate in the organization -th rough join ing a branch, becoming a ctive in a working g roup, and paying

month ly d u es. If you don't yet meet

these requ i rements, you may a lso app ly for formal sympathizer status. To a pply for membership, p lease use the a bove conta ct i nformation or go

to http://www.so l idarity-us.org/jo in