Socialism is the Best Medicine

Socialism is the Best Medicine

Solidarity Divided: A Return to Class Politics?

July 28, 2009

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BOOK REVIEW: Bill Fletcher, Jr. and Fernando Gapasin (2008) Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path Toward Social Justice.

What is the purpose of a union? How should unions respond to the oppression of Blacks, women, immigrants and gays? How should unions relate to the rest of the working class, the employer, and the State? Should existing unions be reformed, or is more fundamental change required?

In Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path Toward Social Justice,¹ Fletcher and Gapasin insist that we need new answers to these questions if we hope to reverse “the crisis facing organized labor – indeed the crisis facing the entire US working class.” This crisis is marked by declining unionization, inter-union conflict, falling living standards, rising unemployment, growing poverty, and deepening oppression.

Solidarity Divided is essential reading. For discussion of the contents, I recommend Immanuel Ness’s review.² I will address the tactical and strategic questions raised by this book.

What should unions do?

Since Samuel Gompers became president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1886, the official answer to the question of what is the purpose of a union has been to promote the economic interests of union members.(p.15) Fletcher and Gapasin argue that this narrow focus on economic self-interest (economic unionism) has been a colossal failure for unions and for the working class as a whole.

Unions are the most organized section of the working class. They could win mass support if they championed the unity, rights, and standard-of-living of the entire class, that is, if they addressed social and political issues.

Unions that do not support the larger working class cannot count on the class to support them. And without mass support, unions cannot prevail against an employers’ offensive that pits groups of workers against each other.

How can union supporters argue that unions fight for everyone, when unions themselves refuse to make this argument?

Polls show that most workers want union jobs, so there is potential for mass support. However, a narrow union focus on economic self-interest does not encourage mass support. On the contrary, it generates resentment among non-union workers. The authors rightly insist that, by refusing to fight the political class war, unions are losing the economic battle.

To reverse this situation, Fletcher and Gapasin argue that the union movement must undergo a political transformation and champion the economic and social interests of the entire working class: union and non-union, employed and unemployed, all ‘races,’ genders, sexual orientations, native-born, and immigrant. However, the authors do not tell us how this might be achieved.

Fighting oppression

Employers use racism, nationalism, sexism, and homophobia to divide workers and weaken their collective power. Unions build unity and power by fighting these oppressions. However, most unions go along with workplace and social divisions, and their structure reflects this – most top union officials are straight White males.

When unions do address matters of oppression, these are not considered central to the union’s function. Instead, they are usually delegated to separate union departments or caucuses, so that Black members are expected to fight racism, women to fight sexism, gays to fight homophobia, etc. The implication is that straight White male workers have nothing to gain from fighting oppression. The question of whether they do or not divides society, the workplace, the unions, and the left.

Lies

Class inequality increases over time because employers pay workers less than the value of what they produce. However, this exploitative relationship is hidden by the lies that a) employers create jobs and b) workers are lucky to have them. In fact, labor creates all wealth, and capitalists are lucky that workers keep producing it for them.

Lies are also used to divide workers. We are taught that workers who are better off have benefitted at the expense of workers who are worse off — that men benefit from the oppression of women, that Whites benefit from the oppression of Blacks, that straights benefit from the oppression of gays, that workers in richer nations benefit from the exploitation of workers in poorer nations, and so on.³  If this were true, then class solidarity would be impossible. Fortunately, it is not true at all.

Only employers benefit when workers are divided. The differences in wages and benefits between various sections of the working class go to the employers. When workers unite, they raise the living standards of all workers. The purpose of pitting workers against one another is to prevent that unity.

Solidarity Divided accepts the lie that some workers benefit from the oppression of others, so it promotes cross-class alliances of the oppressed. This strategy does not serve the need of the oppressed to end their oppression, nor does it serve the need of the working class to unite. On the contrary, it feeds the employers’ strategy of divide and rule. The presumed beneficiaries of oppression feel guilty around their oppressed co-workers who, in turn, feel resentful toward their more ‘privileged’ brothers and sisters.

This issue must be resolved if we hope to build an effective fight against oppression. As the authors state,

[Either] oppressions such as racism and sexism become battlegrounds to unite workers in the larger challenge for power, or they become battlegrounds in the intra-class struggle over resources. (p.181)

How should unions relate to employers?

Fletcher and Gapasin describe how American unions embraced a social contract with employers after World War II. By the late 1970’s, employers were clearly on the warpath, demanding concession contracts that rolled back wages and benefits. Both Republican and Democratic administrations backed the capitalist agenda.

In the wake of President Carter’s firing of postal workers after the 1978 wildcat strike and then the dramatic firing of the PATCO workers by President Reagan, organized labor had no sense of how to build a massive social movement that was anything more than a lobbying effort. Organized labor made excuses for its inaction rather than reflectively and self-critically acknowledging that labor’s “Pearl Harbor” had taken place and that a new form of class warfare was unfolding on the national level. (pp.46-47)

Despite escalating assaults, most union leaders accepted employers’ demands for concessions, no matter how deep, in the hope that they could regain lost ground once profitability was restored. However, the demand for concessions continued, even as the economy boomed during the 1980s and 1990s.

Fletcher and Gapasin rightly argue that the organizational strategy of acquiring more members and building bigger unions cannot succeed unless it is matched with a political strategy that acknowledges the fundamental conflict between labor and capital, challenges the supremacy of capital, and fights for working-class power.

I would argue that the problem is not simply one of wrong strategies by union leaders, but the fact that the union bureaucracy is a class apart from the workers it claims to represent. As long as the bureaucracy is more invested in protecting its material assets than in defending its members, it will not challenge labor laws that prevent effective strike action. The authors warn,

As long as unions operate solidly within capitalism, accepting its basic rules and premises as permanent, they may be marching to their doom. (p.214)

How should unions relate to the State?

Samuel Gompers believed that the interests of American workers were linked with the interests of American corporations and the American Empire. So the AFL allied itself with US capital and the US State in their program of world domination, even though this partnership put the AFL in direct conflict with the interests of workers in America and around the world.

With the notable exception of US Labor Against the War (USLAW), most American unions support US foreign policy, imperial wars, and military aid to foreign governments that attack workers’ rights (eg. Columbia, Indonesia, Israel, Egypt, etc). As the authors state,

The AFL-CIO and CTW leaderships appear to equate patriotism with support for US foreign policy and are clearly reluctant to entertain broad-based discussion of US foreign policy within the ranks of the union movement. (p.120)

Fletcher and Gapasin argue that unions must take a stand against US imperialism, because class solidarity means nothing if American workers back their State to dominate and destroy the lives of workers in other lands.

Similarly, unions must oppose domestic anti-worker policies, including racist immigration measures, a privatized medical system, and neoliberal economics that force workers to pay the cost of bailing out failing corporations.

Solidarity Divided challenges the myth that government represents “we the people” (as in, we the people now own shares of GM and Chrysler), when it actually represents the collective interests of the capitalist class (as in, we the capitalist class are using public money to float GM and Chrysler until it can be returned to profitability). As they point out, the State serves the employers by blocking effective working-class actions.

Political Action?

The authors call for independent political action, but they do not support political independence from the Democratic Party. Instead, they call for a neo-Rainbow approach – building organizations that can work both inside and outside the Democratic Party.4 This is a trap.

The American electoral system is designed to prevent independent mass organizations from developing. Bi-yearly electoral races pressure all social movements to back particular candidates and tone down their demands to get those candidates elected.

The Democratic Party has been exceptionally successful in absorbing and derailing social movements, the campaign to elect President Obama being the most recent example. Fletcher signed the founding statement of “Progressives for Obama” which states,

We intend to join and engage with our brothers and sisters in the vast rainbow of social movements to come together in support of Obama’s unprecedented campaign and candidacy. Even though it is candidate-centered, there is no doubt that the campaign is a social movement, one greater than the candidate himself ever imagined.5

The inevitable betrayals of the Democratic Party are followed by disorientation and demobilization of the movements.6

Despite warning that the State is not class-neutral, Fletcher and Gapasin fall into Gompers’ trap of viewing the State as

“an empty vessel that could be filled by any sort of politics or political or economic influence… [so that] the working class need not challenge the capitalists for state power.” (p.15)

Unions are organizations of worker defense, not of political struggle. A union must represent all workers in the bargaining unit, regardless of their political views, and the capitalist class are effective at convincing workers to adopt views that conflict with their class interests. Unions also divide workers by workplace, job description, industry, nation, etc.

Such limitations make it difficult for unions to raise general working-class demands. Only an independent political organization of workers can promote the interests of the working class as a whole.

Can unions be reformed?

Fletcher and Gapasin rightly argue that existing unions cannot be reformed because they are structured to prevent democratic control from the base. (pp.165-166)

For those attempting to build independent unions, Fletcher and Gapasin warn that capitalism creates the conditions under which undemocratic business unions are reproduced and by which even the most well-intentioned leaders are co-opted. Preventing such corruption requires stringent counter-measures that enable members to maintain collective and democratic control of the union. As the authors put it,

members must be active participants in the change process rather than recipients of someone else’s work, even if that work is conducted on their behalf. (p.66)

This is a huge challenge in a society that strives to keep workers passive and powerless.

Fletcher and Gapasin describe how the ascension of rank-and-file workers to union officialdom “marks the beginning of a transition from one class to another.”(p.58) They also describe the revolving door between union officials and local politicians. (pp.102,159) However, instead of attributing the conservative politics of union officials to their position as middle-class managers, the authors attribute these politics to “old-style thinking.” (p.108)

If the problem of union strategy were simply one of ideology, then unions could be reformed. If the problem is a class divide within the unions, then a revolution-from-below would be needed to turf out the union professionals and put the worker-members in power. The same would be true for social movements dominated by professionals.

Unions and social movements that joined forces to advance working-class concerns would be a mighty force. However, there is huge resistance to acknowledging the existence of any class divide within unions and social reform coalitions.7

Social Unionism

Solidarity Divided rightly argues that the struggle against oppression must transcend the boundaries of workplace, union, and nation.

The authors criticize unions for paying lip service to social issues and for failing to organize a real fight against unemployment, for women’s reproductive rights, for affirmative action, for immigrant rights, for gay marriage, etc. At best, resolutions are passed and money is donated.

Instead, unions should promote internal political discussion with the aim of mobilizing members to actively fight for the rights of the oppressed of all classes and for the working class as a whole. (pp.168-169) The authors do not explain how this could be done without a) challenging the mistaken belief that some workers benefit from the oppression of others, and b) challenging corporate power.

Solidarity Divided sidesteps the central question of how to rebuild the power of the working class at the point of production, the workplace. Instead, it calls for building geographically-based unions and workers’ councils that include union and non-union members.

During high points in class struggle, such formations can broadened the base for working-class power. However, we are not in that position today.

Social unionism cannot substitute for class power in the workplace – it flows from that power.

Lacking the leverage of economic power in the workplace, social formations have no alternative but to pressure governments for reform, governments that repeatedly side with the employer class.

The authors acknowledge that today’s unions are too weak to challenge the employers, let alone lead a more general class uprising, so they look to other sections of the class to revitalize the unions. The 2006 million-strong general strikes in defense of immigrants’ rights were fed by the rising unionization of immigrant workers and, in turn, fed into that unionization.

We do need to build mutually supportive relationships between unions and social movements. However,  the authors do not explain how this can be accomplished, given the conservatism of the union bureaucracy and the domination of most social movements by middle-class professionals.

Conclusion

Solidarity Divided calls for a welcome return to the class-struggle politics that originally built the unions. However, these politics did not come from the unions, but from the socialists who were active inside of them. These socialist were purged from the unions during the “Red Scare” of the 1950s.

The American working class is losing ground, not because union leaders have a wrong-headed strategy, but because the link between the labor movement and the struggle for socialism was severed and has not yet been rebuilt.

Workers join unions to put more bread on the table. Battered by the capitalist class and hamstrung by conservative bureaucracies, today’s unions have great difficulty advancing workers’ economic demands, let alone championing the political rights of workers and the oppressed.

To turn things around, workers need socialist politics. They need to understand the power they have to stop the flow of profit.8 And they need to depose any bureaucracy that protects its assets more than its members.

The questions raised in this book deserve serious consideration, widespread discussion and further development. As Fletcher and Gapasin point out,

“Class struggle is built into the fabric of all societies that have classes.”

Our challenge is to rebuild a fighting labor movement that can end the class-division of society and all the oppressions that go with it.

NOTES

1. Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path Toward Social Justice, by Bill Fletcher, Jr. and Fernando Gapasin (2008). University of California Press. The numbers in parentheses indicate page numbers from the book.

2. Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path Toward Social Justice, by Immanuel Ness. First published in Socialism and Democracy, No. 49, March 2009.

3. “The politics of identity,” by Sharon Smith. International Socialism Review, Issue 57, January-February 2008.

4. “Visualizing a Neo-Rainbow” by Danny Glover and Bill Fletcher Jr. The Nation, Feb 14, 2005.

5. Barack Is Our Best Option – And You’re Needed Now! by Tom Hayden, Bill Fletcher, Jr., Barbara Ehrenreich, and Danny Glover. Progressives for Obama, March 24th, 2008

6. The Democrats: A Critical History, by Lance Selfa (2008). Haymarket Books. Chicago.

7. Professional Poison: How Professionals Sabotage Social Movements, and Why Workers Should Lead Our Fight, by Susan Rosenthal (2009). ReMarx Publishing

8. Reviving the Strike: How Working People Can Regain Power and Transform America, by Joe Burns, Haymarket (2011)

6 Comments

6 Comments

  1. Dr. Rosenthal: Your article is just what we need and the labor movement needs.

    We Whites have to face our self-defeating privileges within unions, just as White citizens and cops need to recognize their self-defeating privileged status just because of skin color. The wealth class makes effective use of these “privileges” to divide and defeat us, and to preserve its power.

    I too regretfully supported Obama, as did Fletcher, Hayden and Ehrenreich.

    Obama is a dangerously masterful communicator whose acts so far, always betray us and serve corporate wealth at home, in Israel, the Middle East and Honduras. Given his advisers and apparent personal conservatism, I see no prospect of change.

    We need to plan now for the immense despair and bitterness that will surface as more and more voters, now afflicted with Obamamania, realize that Obama has seduced and betrayed them.

    Dr. Rosenthal’s outline of a class based employee movement is an excellent place to start.

    Otherwise, a bitter and dissillusioned employee class is likely to vote for a Wall Street backed Sarah Palin for President in the next cycle. At least she would provide a circus of entertainment, and would do no more harm than brilliant Harvard graduates who always serve corporate wealth.

    Reply
  2. The real battles are class based. Our society is based on the old European ideas of nobility and aristocracy. It is doubtful that these things can be repaired. Change will not happen till the society is completely broken. Then it will be obvious change is necessary.

    When that time comes people of good will need to be ready to act. Otherwise the Lenins and Dzherzinskis will take hold of any class based movement. The change can go bad in an instant. Till then we can try to move the discussion in the right direction.

    Do not allow the pseudo conservatives, pretend libertarians and the pretend social darwinists to dominate the discussion. Though these people talk tough, they always demand that the table be tilted in their favor. I have never met one who made it on her own without a leg up from mommy or the government.

    Society will not work if it is set to benefit only a few. And no person is inherently better than another simply due to accident of birth.

    Reply
  3. I do not believe that workers support capitalism because they think it exploits certain segments of society which enables them to personally benefit. Furthermore, if people are so callous as to support the system for that reason, I do not foresee them switching into supporting a just system by telling them that the unjust system really does not benefit them personally. Why not support another unjust system that does?

    Furthermore, the prevalent neoliberal ideology promotes the idea that the US is an equal opportunity society, therefore, the poor are so because they are lazy or stupid; the rich, on the other hand, are so because they are hardworking, innovative, and honest. The notion that each has the position he/she deserves is widely promoted in schools, political discourse, and the media and most wholeheartedly buy it.

    As to the notion that American workers believe they owe their wealth to the oppression of workers in other parts of the world, this flies against expressions of American exceptionalism so prevalent, again, in schools, political discourse, and the media. Notions such as “we are the greatest nation the world has ever seen”, “leaders of the free world”, “beacon of light that shines upon humanity”, etc. are so common as to be considered central to American culture and ideology. Most Americans truly believe the US owes its position in the world to their collective virtues of hard work and intelligence, certainly not to exploitation by its state and corporate class.

    It is not untrue, as you state, that American workers benefit from exploitation elsewhere. The resources the US is able to cheaply import benefits workers by giving them jobs in industry. The cheap capital that flows from poor countries benefits the US, workers included, by granting them cheap credit to buy houses and imported cars they could otherwise not afford. Pension plans and the US government itself is sustained by dollar hegemony which benefits all of society, including the working class.

    Finally, the economic growth Americans are so proud of could not have been possible without population growth, most of which is due to the immigration of Mexican peasants whose livelihood was destroyed by NAFTA. To state that the working class does not benefit in some way from the US’ position as sole superpower is ludicrous. It is the reason why unions and the people themselves amply support, and are openly proud of, American supremacy.

    “The 2006 million-strong general strikes in defense of immigrants’ rights were fed by the rising unionization of immigrant workers.” This is also false. It was fed by the American Catholic Church and Chambers of Commerce.

    Even if you were to convince workers that American financial, corporate, and military oppression does not benefit them in the least, how does that help combat poverty and injustice, both domestically and globally? The problem is to convince Americans, including workers, to fight for justice, to become socialists.

    Reply
  4. I have been reading Capital volume three again, it is amazing, how in my opinion, the crash was predicted, the exploitation of the movement of capital, in particular the derivative market, and how the derivative market was effected/exploited/ by the middle east conflicts relating to oil prices/risk, similar to the 70’s, but much harder and faster of course.

    I think Marx was right, capitalism is destroying itself.

    I don’t think that is a line anymore.

    I don’t think a person has to be a marxist to realize how the credit crunch, equity reversal, bankers’ greed was so predictable, and even madoffs were predictable. But it is not about money, it is about people.

    It is people that give fiat money power. It is not just the workers revolt that was predicted, but the system crash before the revolt. If I read it right. It just amazes me volume 3 was written so long ago, and wasn’t published in his life time and in some ways a hundred years is not that long and neither is one man’s life.

    Great article, Great site.

    Scary times though eh.

    Thank you Dr. Rosenthal

    Reply
  5. If you look at chapter 50, in volume 3 of capital, the illusion, is created through competition, and that is also part of what is destroying capital.

    So if the system can’t replace the surplus, that is being destroyed, quick enough, the destruction of capitalism will happen by exploiting capital in its movement, which modern people call the derivative market.

    Marx warned us about that in volume 3. Not just about workers being exploited, but the actual movement of capital being exploited. And this exploitation of capital appears to be destroying the capitalist system.

    As capital is destroyed, the capitalist system will collapse.

    which is an artificial system, but the product of workers is real, and that is what will build the new society. That appears to be what Marx was predicting, he appears to have been right so far. And I guess people will adapt to that, or die.

    Of course alot of people have no choice they are dying from world hunger, poverty, wastage and cruelty, now.

    It could be quiet depressing, if you didn’t believe in people’s ability to turn it around one day, probably more out of necessity than choice.

    Marx did. And he appears to be right so far.

    Reply
  6. I agree with Doug Page’s assessment. Back in the 1930’s Socialist understood the role racism plays in maintaining capitalism much more so IMO than the other identity groupings. You’ll find racism within woman groups and gays. Thus racism is still the main form of division and oppression. The other grouping, albeit important, was used to counter the progressive nature of the politics amoung people of color and racism is very much virulent today especially when you consider Zionism.

    Thus we need a dual approach of both races and class like the old Socialist/Communist orientations of the 1930’s.

    Reply

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