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| Source | News for Social Justice Action |
| Date | 05/05/11/01:54 |
| The Labor Party: Past and Possible Future
Robert H. Mast As the right-wing offensive continues its surge, those millions believing in equality, justice, and freedom - the progressive left - face immense challenges in ideology and organization. They must try to identify who they are, understand what is happening in the world, and decide what role and political priorities they can adopt in this newest version of an ominous world. A lot of analysis and soul searching is required. Many oppositional organizations have arisen in the last decade as a response to the right-wing take-over of U. S. domestic and foreign policy. Among these, the Labor Party (LP) (http://www.thelaborparty.org) founded in 1996, bears scrutiny because of its anti-corporate and pro-working class nature, its vision of grass-roots mobilization, and its experiments in party building. I shall try here to review the party's organizational experience and relationship with unions, communities, and the left. My information comes from nine years of direct party work in Pittsburgh, Albuquerque, and Detroit, along with monitoring of party activity around the country. Finally, I'll speculate on a future LP that adopts a plan to closely link progressive unions with progressive community groups around the LP ideology and program. The need is great today to review and learn from past political experience. This is required as a first step in building effective organization that can lead resistance to the right-wing onslaught and turn the direction of this country more toward democracy and equality. A broadly defined 'working class' is the constituency and building block, and from that large sector must come future political initiatives. Modest beginnings are seen in such organizations as U. S. Labor Against the War and the Million Worker March Committee. Such groups extend the reach and outlook of the peace and justice movement into deeper dimensions of class justice. Except in a general way, my purpose is not to dwell upon the dynamics and nuances of capitalism. Many better minds than mine continue to inform us of these patterns in persuasive detail. I accept that capitalism's internal contradictions are endemic and not reformable from a working class perspective. Serious systemic crises currently operate, with greater ones coming. I expect intensified 'creative destruction' of capital and workers, chronic militarism, and nonstop organizing of resistance by the world's exploited and oppressed. I accept that this all is part of the long-term historical process leading toward more humane solutions. The tiny LP experiment in the late 20th Century in the U. S. is part of this process. Summary of Labor Party Motion "History in the Making" was emblazoned on delegates' badges at the founding convention of the Labor Party, on June 6-9, 1996 in Cleveland, Ohio where some 1400 mostly-union delegates formed a new independent working class party. A constitution was created, an elementary national structure was formed, and an unusually progressive platform was hammered out by this first national union-based 'labor party' since the 19th Century. For about three years the challenge of a labor party spread widely and enticed many unions and individuals to it. At its peak in 1998-9 the party had some 15,000 members, 50 local chapters, and several hundred endorsing or affiliated unions that represented two million workers (some 13 percent of the unionized). Like much of working class activism today, the LP is in a declining-hold mode, though the party maintains a skeleton office in Washington, D. C. headed by Mark Dudzik, formerly of Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers (PACE), with financial support from a small core of unions. The bimonthly Labor Party Press did good investigative journalism, but in April 2005 was replaced by the considerably abbreviated Labor Party News. The LP Interim National Council (INC) meets irregularly and focuses mostly on specific elements of the LP program (single-payer, free higher education, and labor law reform). The impact of anti-working class domestic and world trends fortunately are limbering up some INC members, along with Dudzik, who are beginning a creative search for new approaches. Local and state chapter organizing activity is minimal, though Iraq and the 2004 elections have induced some new energy in those chapters retaining LP identity and some continuity with local activism. Individual LP membership may have reduced by more than two-thirds since peak (numbers are not published). Reportedly, a number of endorsing or affiliated unions have drawn back financial and organizing support. Some critics say the party is dead or never really took life, others say it's slumbering. Still others say it was a feel-good pipe dream, following the tradition of labor party failures in U. S. history, and emulating conservative labor parties in other parts of the world. However, a hardened minority of left-dedicated activists who truly support working class power has not given up the search for party renewal. Their work may bear fruit in time. The Rise of the LP The officially-created LP of 1996 that crested about 1999 was really begun in the early 1990s as Labor Party Advocates (LPA). This was a creature of now-deceased Tony Mazzocchi of the old Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers (OCAW), with the help of a sizeable handful of left leaders from such unions as the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (UE) and the west coast sector of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU). Scores of labor academics, independent intellectuals, detached socialists, and class-conscious progressives further facilitated the LP planning and organizing thrust. Mazzocchi made hundreds of visits to unions and progressive gatherings to beat the LP drum and encourage unionists to help move the LP project forward. His message of hope, class politics, and independence from the two main parties resonated among many. Among those attracted were radical liberals with a socialist stripe (progressives?), some students and their left professors, labor scholars, left union functionaries and their followings, union retirees with some memory of past labor struggles, cadre from the variously-sectarian Marxist grouplets, and some activists from grass roots community groups. LPA community chapters became established in some 26 states, usually in urban centers with higher union densities and left traditions. LPA units also were created in several hundred union bodies with some kind of left presence. The Cleveland founding convention in 1996 - one of my more inspiring political moments - brought it all tentatively together. Despite growing national conservatism, labor's weakness, a new world capitalist order, and the international decline of socialism, many of us became totally dedicated to building an independent left party grounded in the unions and embracing the community. Later, we resonated to the LP's electoral resolution, passed at the 1998 First Constitutional Convention, which began with, "The Labor Party is unlike any other party in the United States. We stand independent of the corporations and their political representatives in the Democratic and Republican parties. Our overall strategy is for the majority of American people - working class people - to take political power." This was to be the new thrust of the 21st century, drawing on the rich experience of labor parties throughout the world and the earlier days of the U. S. labor movement, and building on the left-liberal penchant among a substantial sector in the U. S. In the early 90s, few progressives saw labor as any kind of political vanguard. Many were prejudiced toward organized labor because of industrial partnerships, internal corruption, and marriage to the Democratic Party. Many were turned off by electoral politics and preferred 'street heat,' or other forms of resistance adopted in the 60s, as we wait for capitalism's implosion and an impoverished working class spontaneously rising up in self interest. The efforts of Mazzocchi and fellow Labor Party builders were not broadly known. However, as the word spread slowly, some left-progressives (inside and outside the union structures) became party activists. Since this was a period of third party formation, some joined the other left-like parties being formed - New Party, Green Party, Working Families Party - that, unlike the LP, quickly experimented with electoral politics. The mainstream media chose to ignore the LP phenomenon while much of the left-wing press gave it cautious and mixed reviews. The LP Program The LP Program ("A Call for Economic Justice") is a remarkable package (for the period) of anti-corporate/capital, pro-people/worker demands. Researched and drafted by LPA activists and consultants, the Program was approved by the 1996 convention and slightly revised by the 1998 convention. It consists of 16 points that can be broken into three separate, but overlapping, agendas. The first agenda is to rein in the power of capital by ending corporate abuse of trade, ending corporate welfare, ending corporate dominated elections, and making the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes. The second agenda is to greatly enhance the power and security of workers by guaranteeing a living wage job to all; protecting the right to organize, bargain, and strike (repeal Taft-Hartley, etc.); involving workers more in workplace quality and technology; improving their hours, benefits, and compensation. The third agenda deals with the broad public responsibilities of government: single-payer universal health system, free public education at all levels, an ending of discrimination and bigotry, and a public obligation to provide for the security and well being of all in such areas as infrastructure, transportation, environment, housing, and social security. This package of demands may seem very radical in the present period. It is not unlike some socialist-leaning agendas of earlier European social democracy. It emulates some of the ambitions of Roosevelt's New Deal and the progressive inclinations of the 60s. The LP program, done in some haste by a rag-tag of union and academic radicals, tried to accommodate to built-in union conservatism. Thus, the original program did not adequately cover such areas as racial/gender justice, housing, environment, and foreign policy. Following the lead of U. S. Labor Against the War, however, foreign policy finally was brought into focus with the February, 2003 statement "Labor Party Interim National Committee Statement Against War in Iraq." (http://www.thelaborparty.org/a_iraq.html). Whatever its omissions, the LP program is deeply class based. Without equivocation, it calls the working class to struggle for its legal and moral rights and to mobilize political opposition to corporate capitalism. The program sets minimum quality-of-life rights and standards for all. It challenges the working class to take more control of the process of income production and workplace life. The program was written in the early Clinton years when the lot of the working class was steadily being eroded by 'bipartisan' congresses that generally represented the interests of capital. Reaganism, neo-liberalism, right-wing think tanks, and the Project for the New American Century had surely kicked in. The LP program called for a major restructuring of class, income, and the rights of workers. This was a direct ideological challenge to the maturing right-wing offensive. The LP Structure and Process Early LP activists saw a new working class party emerging from a small base of progressive unions (e.g. OCAW and UE). As that base grew and became viable, as the LP matured, other unions would give greater priority to the LP and dedicate more resources to it. Then increasingly more community groups and single-issue movements would be drawn into an enlarging system moving collectively toward fundamental political and social change. "Social movement unionism" is the term some use to summarize the process. Though U. S. labor history shows the great success of this strategy, the union movement basically abandoned it after World War Two in favor of 'value added unionism' (facilitating the work process) and the politics of accommodation. From 1987 to the present, Jobs with Justice - a union-community progressive formation - has experimented with social movement unionism, sometimes quite successfully. An adumbrated, and failed, version of this strategy was tried in the 1990s by the AFL-CIO's Union Cities project that would function through the thousands of central labor councils throughout the country. In contrast, the LP envisioned building a large social movement of unions and the progressive community under the banner of the LP program and a future electoral capability. The Mazzocchi people wanted a party with eventual divisions that corresponded to legal voting boundaries (national, state, county, city, precinct, etc.), reflecting the model of a traditional political party. Though the founders of the LP (mostly union functionaries) were not inclined toward a slam-dunk electoral capability, they still hoped that an electoral-type geographical structure would be formed at the founding convention. The LPA bodies that preceded the founding convention, however, were something akin to left affinity groups, some at the workplace, others in the community. Their purpose was to agitate and organize for a new working class party. Most of these groups had created loose geographically based structures with recognized leaders. Their delegates came to the convention with an identity more local than national. Though representing a jerry-built system of near-phantom LP groups, they successfully lobbied to be grandfathered into the new party as community-based chapters ranging in scope from the region or state to the small city levels. Convention delegates returned home in June, 1996 fired up to expand or create LP units in their unions and geographic spaces. Many drew up constitutions and by-laws that approximated union models. The party's Interim National Council at its peak consisted of delegates from the 10 international/national affiliated unions, along with delegates from other labor bodies, worker-supportive organizations, and the chapters. The party tried to achieve a national leadership balance reflecting the nation's workplaces and population, so the INC's composition continued to expand and diversify in the early years. Some participants at the founding convention (e.g. National Welfare Rights Union, Kensington Welfare Rights Union) insisted, with some force and success, that the LP leadership include representatives from groups that struggle for the poorer non-unionized sections of the working class. Then in 1999, under pressure from the community chapters, five regional chapter representatives were seated on the INC, each being given 1/5 of one vote. Previously, the community chapters were hardly acknowledged formally and not listed in the Labor Party Press. Notwithstanding limited resources, the National did make an effort to manage and facilitate the growing complex of LP organizations. Three regional organizers (Mid-Atlantic, New England, and Pacific) were put in place. The national office did its best to respond to requests from the grassroots. From the beginning, the founding unions controlled LP decision making and policy, and provided necessary finance. I believe the better side of union democracy and philosophy was expressed in the development of the LP. Some disagreeing elements, both inside and outside the union loops, complained that key unions like OCAW and UE had unfair influence in general and excessive voting power at the three national conventions (1996, 1998, and 2002). On the other side, these unions provided necessary party building resources and motivation as they risked further alienation in a period of reaction and union decline. They showed flexibility in absorbing the old LPA bodies and embracing worker-supportive organizations in 1996. In 1998 the leading unions gave their blessing to an electoral policy and a national organizing structure that promised to go deeply into the grass roots. But the unions' internal LP dynamics and structural configurations always were murky areas to many of us. Hundreds of union bodies officially endorsed or affiliated with the LP, but it never was clear how the internal process worked, what the structures looked like, and if or how unions would coalesce with the community. It was essentially a top-down operation. With notable exceptions like OCAW and UE, it appeared that most national affiliated unions failed to filter their LP policies and plans down to lower bodies. Since unionists commonly constituted over 70 percent of a community LP membership, it was natural for them to be the chapter's officers or role models. Meetings frequently were held in union halls, but seldom seemed to be sponsored or organized by a union. The 50 or so geographic LP bodies (urban, regional, and state) were relatively autonomous and marginally democratic. Spread throughout the country, they hypothetically embodied and crisscrossed the unions in their space. They were burdened by the lack of a national plan for their organization and development. Clearly, the National lacked funds to dedicate to the complex task of building at the community level. The National was sometimes condemned as having a lackluster attitude, while others at the local level were pleased at not being micromanaged from Washington. The National focused more on union mobilization and recruitment on the assumption that resource growth from the union base (finance and personnel) eventually could be funneled to the LP bodies outside the union structure. As the national convention of 1998 approached, many party activists, experiencing the dissonance that accompanies ambiguous structure, were ready for a formal restructuring of the LP. The two years since the founding convention showed growth in party numbers, party organizations, and slowly increasing public acceptance. This growing complex had to be somehow managed more efficiently, guidelines for the community bodies had to be developed, and the electoral question had to be resolved. Though less dramatic than the 1966 convention, the 1988 convention produced some clever and rational resolutions that were hoped would begin a successful restructuring process. Resolution Two ("Change the Party Structure to Organize Faster and Meet New Responsibilities") spoke directly to the issues of structure and organizing, and was strategically creative. Resolution Two said, "Party organization must go to where our constituency live and work. Very few people will seek out the Party if it is distant and inconvenient to them. Consequently, the base unit of the Party, its recruiting and organizing edge is the local organizing committee. A Labor Party organizing committee should be easy to form and administer, accessible and convenient to our constituency, and able to directly talk, recruit and mobilize people face-to-face. This Party places organizing above all else." Union affiliates were encouraged to have "a Labor Party steward on every job, a Labor Party committee in every workplace and local union." The chapters had to decide if they would try to meet the new requirement of 250 members to continue chapter status, of if they would opt into the new structural identity called the local organizing committee (LOC). A solid number of chapters decided to go through the difficult process of designing a medium term strategic plan to meet requirements of the National. Some chapters just opted for LOC status. Meanwhile, a special INC committee headed by Ed Bruno (New England organizer) reviewed chapter plans for approval and made recommendations for change. Since the 1998 convention had approved electoral capability, the Bruno committee pushed strongly for chapters' geographical identity being based on congressional districts (or associated zip codes). The party finally had come back full circle to the early LPA days when Mazzocchi's preference was for a party based on electoral districts. Whether in unions or the community, the local organizing committee concept was brilliant. It continued the solid theory-practice legacy of union and community organizing that has stood the test of time. By the end of 1999 four LOC bodies were granted charters by the National and over 20 LOCs were in formation. However, organizing an LOC was a mighty task that required more guidance and resources than were available from a party fumbling for survival in an increasingly reactionary national milieu. Another 1998 convention resolution complemented the one that set up the LOC structure. Called the "LP Style of Work," this resolution in part said, "Whereas, the only method open to us is to move beyond "politics as usual," bringing millions of ordinary people into the fight for a new political agenda and that organizing - disciplined, nitty-gritty, face-to-face organizing - is the Labor Party style of work." Each LP member was challenged to recruit another person (workmate, friend, family, neighbor), allowing the party to increase geometrically. If the local organizing committee (both in unions and communities) had become joined with the "each one recruit one" mandate, the party might have grown considerably. But other factors obviously were operating that prevented this from happening. The Left For present purposes, the 'left' is defined as those persons who believe that some form of socialist or cooperative society is necessary to regulate (or abolish) capitalism, to redistribute wealth, and to protect and nourish the working class (the term 'progressive' may or may not include this definition). Tens of hundreds of the left around the country became LP activists, however short the time. They brought to the party extensive skills and knowledge that generally belong to those with a left background. They were a remarkable mix of independents and representatives from nearly every left tendency (revolutionary, socialist, anarchist, communist, social democratic, etc.) Nearly all had some exposure to Marxist or socialist thought and strongly endorsed the LP's class-based, control-the-corporations approach. Though LP literature never mentioned capitalism, socialism, or imperialism (illustrating today's left language laundering), these concepts nevertheless flooded the consciousness of LP activists. A number were past or present devotees of various left groups or theoretical tendencies, a potentially divisive situation. They brought some long-standing animosities and disagreements to supposedly-neutral LP territory. In fact, it appeared that the LP served as an imperfect vehicle for compromise or reconciliation among those who would be left antagonists. The LP targeted a class enemy with an imperial foreign policy, though not in so many words. This political declaration promoted temporary unity (or lesser conflict) among those who otherwise may have engaged in sectarian bickering. Many left LP activists were challenged with the task of building a new radical party from the ground up, a new party that embraced both unions and community organizations. Thus, they dedicated their abundant energy and organizing skills (much coming from seasoned union organizers) to this mighty task. This is not to say that tension, distrust, caution, or jealousy did not exist; indeed, most LP bodies likely experienced these quasi-paranoid symptoms, which are so common in the U. S. left, and which are to be expected in a predominately capitalist political culture which exerts enormous conformity pressure on citizens. Contradictorily, the generalized 'left' also has a deep internal love and sense of extended family membership that is based on a fairly similar world view and political strategy. And this is what drew large numbers of the left to the LP and allowed a reasonable degree of communication and tactical cooperation. However, working together to build a new left political project in a right-wing day and age, without adequate organization and strategic plans, suggested a recipe for confusion, if not disaster. Some left activists were charged with lurking on the edges to recruit LP members into their 'parent' group. The charter of the reportedly 1000-member Metro New York chapter was pulled sometime in 2000 because of alleged business improprieties, but it was generally speculated that age-old sectarian struggles were being played out. Party critics asserted that this was another case of 'Trots' or 'Stalinists' or 'Anarchists' or agents of some kind just performing their usual destructive behavior. However applicable in one sense, that is too simplistic an explanation. Of greater importance was the immense and difficult challenge of building a new class-based party with inadequate resources, no practical experience, a relatively hostile union 'establishment,' a cynical electorate - all affected by the on-rushing right-wing behemoth. The Unions Of all U. S. institutions, the House of Labor has been the most vibrant and viable agent of change on behalf of the working class. The centuries-old struggle of workers to improve their lot and change society has affected law, wealth distribution, and quality of life. The union movement, born in the U.S., was radical, strong in numbers and dedication, proud of its history, in possession of resources, and skilled in organizing. Though union strengths and attributes were deteriorating by the time the LP was conceptualized, a labor party political alternative made sense to many. It would pursue the long tradition of labor parties in the U. S. which, in certain times past, had made a considerable difference. Surely, it was thought, there was a great need for a workers' party, so why not give it a shot? Early on, Mazzocchi and associates stirred some radical ripples at all levels of organized labor, quite an extraordinary thing in the conservative 90s. With patience and persuasion they brought the LP vision and program to the progressive wing of the House of Labor. They paved the LP way in many union bodies, including those as diverse as the American Federation of Government Employees (federal), Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way (railroad), United Mine Workers, and California Nurses Association. Since a small left-progressive core exists in numerous unions, it is understandable that several hundred union bodies officially affiliated (provided money) with the LP or endorsed it (no money necessary). With varying levels of steadfastness, these unions responded to the LP vision and program, and provided most of the initial recruits for the LP project. Many were experienced union builders or active in social/economic justice struggles. One-half to three-quarters of chapter-based LP members were rank and file unionists, but few upwardly mobile union functionaries spent the $20 to join the party. A strong feature of local LP work was street support for union demonstrations, strikes, and organizing drives. The more hardy and dedicated would integrate LP banners and flyers with the union ones, or set up LP tables at union affairs for advertising and recruitment purposes. This did not endear the LP to some union bureaucrats whose instructions to 'leave the LP alone' came directly from their national. LP unionists often were confused whether their main public identity should be LP or union. Many LP unionists also were officers of union locals or delegates to central labor councils, thus affording a communication flow between the LP and union bodies. LP meetings and business practices generally followed union traditions, and many chapter meetings were held in union halls. Some party builders supported initiatives in unorganized workplaces where disgruntled workers were ready to form or join a union (surveys in unorganized workplaces have shown that up to one-half of the workers would join a union if one were available). In some cases, LP activists linked unorganized workers with seemingly appropriate union functionaries in hopes of beginning an organizing process that might lead to NLRB recognition. It is my impression that few of these cases were successful, partly due to labor's lack of resources and partly because the LP was not sufficiently trusted as the go-between. Greater success emerged from the early-'90s inception of a non-majority unionization thrust in which NLRB certification was not the absolute goal. For example, Southern-based Black Workers for Justice (BWJ) provided workplace organizing models that sought community alliances, a form of social movement unionism. BWJ also tendered its wisdom to the LP in the party's early formative days. Information on LP development in the unions did not filter down meaningfully through party channels. It never was certain whether this was because of underdeveloped administration, lack of resources, privileged information, shortage of information, little to report, or confusion on how and what to communicate. The typical on-the-ground LP activist found the union element of the LP to be a relatively unknown quality and quantity. All the while, the Labor Party Press reported larger numbers of endorsing or affiliating labor bodies, until finally the number of represented workers exceeded two million as we entered the 21st Century. Perhaps there was an element of grandiloquence in these figures, but there is little doubt that many left-progressive union functionaries, applying the LP style of work, were inching the party forward in diversified union contexts. Thousands of active rank and file were being reminded that, to quote labor scholar Nelson Lichtenstein, "---the fate of American labor is linked to the power of the ideas and values that sustain it" (State of the Union, Princeton University Press, 2002, p. 275). Labor scholars also were promoting independent labor politics. Michael Yates wrote, "Labor's need is to develop a politics of its own, an independent politics, one to which it holds no matter what policies are promoted by the two parties of capital" (Why Unions Matter, (Monthly Review Press, 1998, p. 103). The more progressive union leaders privately acknowledged the importance of the LP concept, but they were plagued by their own organizational problems emerging from objective domestic and world conditions unfolding for the last 50 years. The chief, and well known, conditions include globalized ownership, finance, production, and services; development in technology; anti-unionism and class inequality; the 'rush to the bottom' for cheap labor; a labor-management 'team' approach to work organization; and a generalized anti-worker, pro-corporate conservatism that permeates all classes and institutions. Tony Mazzocchi's final written statement (July, 2002) just weeks before his death from pancreatic cancer noted, "Unions are besieged. They are losing ground on every front. They are consumed with day-to-day struggles. Except for a very few, they are in retreat. Several prominent labor leaders have told me that while they agree with the Labor Party ideologically, they have to be very pragmatic in this era. They fear losing access to politicians needed to help them survive." U. S. history shows that organized labor has experienced crises before and overcame them, but globalization and other trends makes labor's struggles much tougher today. The industrial pluralism model of the 1950s (labor and management are equals) has little applicability as labor's clout declines precipitously. Since corporate capitalism has been in a rate-of-profit crisis since the 1960s, the main agenda of its think tanks and political allies has been to slow or reverse the profit decline through policy and legal changes that effectively attack the U. S. (and world's) working classes. Capital's practices are well known: international agreements like NAFTA, outsourcing, anti-unionism, technological change, intensification of work, 'bilateral' relationships with government agencies, and 'bipartisan' pacts with the two parties of capital. Unlike most other countries, the U. S. working class has no political party to protect its interests. The negative impact on the working class and its organizations has been astounding. It is well known that unions are fighting defensive rear guard actions regardless of their changed organizing priorities in the last 10 years that partly resulted from the 1995 change in AFL-CIO leadership. Union density (percent of the total labor force that is unionized) peaked at about 35 percent in 1950, fell to 29 percent in 1973, reduced to about 16 percent in 1991, and hovers just above 11 percent today. With a continuously enlarging 'official' workforce of now over 130 million (80 percent of recent additions being in the lower paid service sector), there has been a fairly constant total of 16 million unionists for several decades. Though not an insubstantial number in terms of political action, workplace militancy of the past has been replaced with accommodation and retreat. A major indicator of this motion is the decreasing number of strikes over time. In 1970 there were 381 major work stoppages (over 1,000 workers) involving about two and one-half million workers and nearly 53 million days idle. The year 1985 saw just 54 strikes with 324,000 workers and seven million days idle. Today there are about 25 strikes annually involving less than 100,000 workers, and no more than one million days idle. We are in a state of relative workplace peace that benefits corporate capitalism to the profound detriment of the workers. But nothing stands still for long. As corporate capital continues to consolidate, globalize, and gain power, organized labor searches for innovative strategies to challenge the corporate colossus; strategies that might arrest, if not reverse, the race to the bottom. The restructuring calls by SEIU and its affiliates in the now-defunct New Unity Partnership, along with similar calls from other unions, should guarantee a spirited gathering at the July, 2005 AFL-CIO convention. As corporations inevitably merge and consolidate across the world, so have the unions in individual countries. The continuing wave of union mergers in the past decade is intended to gain strategic leverage through streamlining operations, devoting more resources to organizing, and changing the density patterns. LP-founding OCAW (oil and chemical) merged several years ago with the paper workers to form PACE, which now has merged with the LP-friendly United Steelworkers to form the largest U. S. industrial union: United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union. Since each new merger tends to alter elements of the former unions, OCAW's earlier priority to the LP has been watered down (not abandoned) in the absorption process. The results of labor's current discontents and restructuring efforts remain to be seen. Mega unions with more muscle may emerge. There is an "upsurge" potential if unions ally with the community (see Dan Clawson, The Next Upsurge, Cornell University Press, 2003). Will the restructuring struggles and debates induce more unions (or more rank and file) to turn to the LP as an alternative to business as usual? A key question for present purposes, the answer may depend on the organizing perspective of the future LP. The LP and the Community One of the most challenging aspects of LP activism at its peak was outreach to non-union workers (some 88 percent of the labor force). The LP was based in the unions, and the great majority of members came from that source. But unions are a finite recruiting ground, especially if the leadership is hostile or neutral due to two-party loyalty. Many chapters tried to recruit broadly in their communities so as to achieve the critical mass needed for promotion of the LP vision and program, and successfully engage in any future electoral campaigns. What little public image the LP generated came from 'newsworthy' participation in local labor actions and community events. When the idea of the LP began to percolate among left-progressive and radical groups in the early 90s, many were cautious about unions leading a new class-based movement. Social movement unionism, if thought of at all, was considered an artifact predating World War Two and mostly irrelevant in the modern period. People leading progressive and radical groups at the time were likely to have been at the early end of the boomer generation. 'Red diaper babies' (those counseled by a left-oriented family) seemed more open to the possibility of radical union action. Most radical community leaders, however, were skeptical. They were the products of specific race, gender, anti-war, environment, and class-based movements of the 60s and 70s in which unions participated weakly, if at all. Furthermore, certain errors and omissions of the earlier movements (e.g. weak class analysis, while male supremacy, inattention to the grass roots, inefficient organization) were carried forth into the 90s by many who had lost their revolutionary zeal, were tired or burnt out, or had made their peace with the establishment. Meanwhile, the right-wing onslaught continued to ravage the union movement and stifle progressive dissent. Though the above scenario did not portend well for the formation of a new working class-based independent party, progressive things existed that encouraged optimism among early LP organizers. Critically important was the presence of thousands of 60s-70s activists who still tried to express their progressive instincts in social action or survival projects emerging from secular or faith contexts. They had experience, skills, and talent that might be directed towards a more class-based action. Along with a growing number of politicized youth, they focused on issues such as race, gender, poverty, urban decay, U. S. foreign policy, sweatshop labor, globalization, deindustrialization, and immigration. They constituted (and continue to constitute) the broader left-activist community with a deepening tactical appreciation for the principles of "think globally, act locally" or "all politics is local." Many were attracted to the LP concept. As noted earlier, some groups (e.g. National Welfare Rights Union) insisted they be included in national LP policy making because they represented the poorest and underserved of the working class. At least nominally, several of these groups were accepted into the LP as worker-supportive organizations. This new category advanced the perception that the LP's constituency was broadly working class, and not only based in the unions. A potentially important leap, the LP now could include diverse community groups that advocated for the rights of all workers (whether fully employed, partly employed, or unemployed) or fought for selected constituencies (racial, gender, etc.) that may have been historically underserved by the progressive movements. |
Copyright (c) 1998, Joongpil Cho