People on the left too often quarrel with one another and perceive each other’s sides or group’s viewpoint/s not as good as theirs,and it weakens the struggle,giving ammunition to the corporate bosses who sit back and watch from a short distance. One thing,Yolanda, the right is united in the two things that obsesses them most: MONEY and POWER. They are unanimous in this. It is “their creed”,money and power.
What happened last year was a difference in strategies beteen Sweeney’s AFL-CIO leaders and Stern’s approach to union organizing within SEIU. There were many meetings between the various unions which resulted in the split,as you well know.Whether or not the CtW coalition reinvigorates the “labor movement” or not,it remains to be seen. Stern seems to be aggressive and going in the right direction. Time will tell. At any rate,when push comes to shove,to use an old cliche,the AFL-CIO and CtW will join forces.

Check this out Yolanda:You,me,laddie,daddie and everybody in the labor movement need to get on the same sheet of music (another cliche). Union and non-union alike. My union,the Teamsters, said 30% of credit card purchases on the Teamster’s Master Card were from Wal-Mart stores, one of the biggest anti-union companies on the planet. Our union, SEIU, and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, have been trying to organize them. I think more union workers are shunning that chain as they figure out what is going on. I gotta’ tell ya’ Yolanda,American workers ain’t too bright when it comes to labor issues. “Just the facts,m’am,just the facts”.
I,and others in various unions have taken Labor Studies classes in junior colleges,state universities,and from unions themselves in order to have a better understanding and to use the knowledge gained in the workplace and the bargaining table during contract nogotiations or greivances. BE assured,Yolanda,management uses “skilled” people on their side of the table.
You ask whether or not revolutionizing the worker’s struggle will have to take place outside the official labor movement altogether? No way! Not in this country,and besides,unions are already in place and NEED(I’m serious) people like yourself,interested and intelligent enough to read brother Stan’s web page to want to make a difference and participate in making this a fair and more humane world.I’ll sum it up Yolanda, for you,Stan, and all the men and women that work for a living or depend on someone who does.
Stop watching Fox(anti-union Ruppert Murdoch’s) cable stations as well aswhatever moronic shows he has on TV.I hardly ever watch CNN and Quit watching MSNBC since they took the popular and pro-union Phil Donahue off the air because of his anti-war position. I recommend C-Span,especially C-Span two on the weekends,but at least C-Span lets you see politics rather than the trash on the other stations. The best television station is FreeSpeechTV out of Boulder,Colorado. Dish Network has it,which is the best company,I firmly believe. 24 hours of progressive shows. By the way,Comcast cable company is very anti-union.Union busters. Change over to the Dish Network. Next on the agenda,start listening to progressive radio stations instead of the reactioary fascist stations and the plethora of fake hate-mongering “christian” radio shows. These charlatans have little,if any spiritual understanding. They represent the big guys, that want to keep us peons ignorant. Read,Yolanda,educate yourself and have that enquiring mind that you were born with. Question all things,even what I’m saying,and you’ll get closer to the truth,which is,the highest religion. Next: obviously,you would’nt be reading this without a computer,and if you do,LISTEN to PROGRESSIVE radio shows,and if you don’t have audio-streaming on yours,well old-fashioned reading(still the best) of pro union,pogressive or liberal news. commondreams.org has just about everything a good trade-unionist is looking for. Ignorance is unforgivable!
Unless the working class has a real desire to change society for the better,we remain in a disadvantaged position.What do I mean? First,workers must learn about the history of labor unions,why they came into being,the necessity for them,the benefits derived from being in a union ,etc. Second,and in this day and age and with these thugs running the country(down) in D.C..it’s imperative American people learn American history,especially the Bill Of Rights which this administration would like to place in the shredder. You can’t be effective in the “struggle” until you know what you are struggling for. Third, if you work for a living or work for a company it is plain dumb to vote for a republican or if their Democratic rival is basiclly the same.Vote for that alternative party candidate.Attend town hall meetings in your local communities and question your representives when they compromise or endanger everything labor has fought for throughout its short history. Attend your own local union meetings and hold your own union officials accountablif the are doing something wrong. Remember…WE are the union.The union is us,and if WE slack off wanting somebody else to do our part,then we all lose in the end. Fourth,DO NOT for a second fall for the crap that we have to give back what was HARD EARNED in contract negotiations over the years to stay “competitive” in the “global economy”. If you want good pensions,if you want employer paid health insurance for you and your family,if you want decent paid vacations,paid holidays, good working conditions, senority or “tenure” rights and an enforcable contract to work under, then you need to get in gear and get ACTIVE in the trade union movement and as boring as it may sound…POLITICS! If anything has to be repealed,it’s the Taft-Hartly Act of 1947-48.Fifth,Yolanda,is union workers supporting other union workers especially during a strike. A scab is the lowest form of life on Earth. Jack London said it best in his description of “replacement” workers. Sixth:Look at the bright side of things. The crookedest government in U.S.history is being exposed and even the ignorant are beginning to see the light. Seventh:Never Tire of Protesting, also the title of a book written by the great George Seldes in 1968. I recommend it along with Seldes other works. And last:I probably did not answer Yolanda’s question and certainly not the FRSO’s piece,but in all reality,minus the mumbo jumbo, the people must have a desire for knowledge of the things stated above or else they become slaves and stooges by their own lack of understanding. We’ll get to overpopulation in another chat,Stan.

Frank

With great respect for you,
Frank

Here are my questions. If it is correct that CtW has not confronted the labor situation presented in the LC/FRSO analysis, and if both factoring in and then formulating strategy based on this situation are NECESSARY for workers’ empowerment, how will CtW revamp and/or lead the labor movement? Should I even assume that it will be CtW, or will it be progressive/unaffiliated unions like UE that direct the struggle? Or, will revolutionizing the workers’ struggle have to take place outside the official labor movement altogether?

I know I just asked some impossible questions here, as it is hard to predict how people will respond to their own conditions, much less the conditions of larger movements and the capitalist class. But these are the questions that I ask myself, as a worker who feels totally disconnected from the labor movement, even while I am deeply grounded the radical left. If someone like me is estranged from trade unionism, what does that say about the masses of workers out there?

If Stan or someone else CAN answer some of the questions I asked, I would greatly appreciate it. But you don’t have to.

Yolanda

While I’m not convinced of the formulaic description of these redundant people now living in the scrap heap outside the labor-capital contradiction as “a new objectively communist class,” as Nelson Peery puts it… that these people exist, and in ever larger numbers worldwide, without the qualifications in this statement from the LC/FRSO, is not disputable.

This is actually pretty basic organic composition of capital stuff, combined with Marx’s “law of population.”

The data that’s hard to get accurately that can measure this is how many people are actually drawing wages around the world right now in the process of valorizing the aggregate world capital. In a world of six and a half billion souls, that number is certainly only a small fraction.

So there are two secualr trends that have to be accounted for here, and neither of them will find their explanations nor solutions in leftist orthodoxy, which never anticipated the scale (quantity into quality) of this development.

As we near 7 billion people, the very real issue of biospheric and energetic carrying capacity can be dismissed as malthusian for as long as we wish, but this is left-wing ostrich consensus. The difference between us and the malthusians is that they account for the real problem as a genetic defect in homo sapiens, while we see expansion as a characteristic of a historicaly contingent social system (capitalism). Neither side of this debate can escape from the very real limitations of growth without descending into terminal self-delusion of radcial technological optimism.

The other secular trend is that of this redundant layer itself, these surplus people, which well may BE the world majority right now. The ruling class has already embarked on a project of steady exterminism, because they have not been deluding themselves about this

Labor in the core countries is not immune to th eimpulse to unite with ruling layers in this exterminist stage of late imperialism.