From: obu-AT-teleport.com
Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 23:35:21 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Detroit rally


I didn't notice any postings on the big Detroit labor rally. Here's
something from the IWW list about how the official unions stopped any
militant actions from occuring.

CA Canny
Portland IWW

*****************

Brothers and sisters,

This list is not meant for personal travelogues, but I couldn't find one
mention of the weekend's events in Detroit in any newspaper (including
the NY Times and WS Journal).

The Detroit police put the size of the march at 120,000.  The AFL-CIO
said it was 100,000.  The Detroit wobblies and I actually estimated 50,000.
NPR said it was 60,000.

Whatever, I can't think of a larger rank-and-file mobilization of US
labor in my memory.

Of course, the leadership of the AFL-CIO sold out the mobilization even
as it congratulated it.  Though the march went directly by the offices of
the scab newspapers, UAW "Marshalls" (UAW staff guiding the march) joined
the Detroit police in guarding the offices from the rank-and-file.  That
the rank-and-file were willing to do more than just march is evident by
the total lack of un-vandalized newspaper boxes along the entire length
of the march.  But the leadership wanted no sit-ins or occupations that
would actually threaten the papers and shut them down.

The IWW, working with a number of militant strikers, attempted to spread
the word for blockades at the printing presses of the papers on Friday
and Saturday night.  All told, we printed and distributed 5000 flyers
(2500 each day), and hung many overpass banners (one of which was 100 feet
long).

But in a further crime against rank-and-file activism, the AFL-CIO
leaders told the unionists "not to listen to any troublemakers" at the march.
Of course, the buses that the unions provided all left before the evening.
Even so, over 150 militants showed up to block the gates Friday night.
Not enough to combat the Detroit police and the hired scab guards
(violence against strikers has given over 60 strikers serious injuries,
including brain damage from repeated beatings).  We heard that several
strikers were told that "they would never work union in this town again"
if they organized for shut downs.

So the march wasn't Paris, Seoul or even Toronto (the Canadian unions
just across the river  were asked NOT to attend!).  But the US
rank-and-file still have enough solidarity in them to answer the call of
their brothers and sisters. But the leaders that called this march after
over a year of rank-and-file agitation for it are still more interested
in showing their control over disciplined unionists than in actually
winning a show down with corporate greed (or neoliberalism - the current
offensive against our hard-won social organization).

Just prior to the march, the National Labor Relations Board ruled in
favor of the unions, stating that the union's strike was over unfair labor
practices by the corporations.  This means that the newspapers have to
hire all the strikers back to work  - except that they will appeal and delay
the ruling for years.  2000 strikers still out of work while the AFL-CIO
declares "victory".  And then there is the matter of the many strikers that
have been "fired" for visible militant activity (some have been fired 5
times) which the unions will probably hang out to dry.

Time for the One Big Union.  An Injury to One is an Injury to All.

The rest of the left was at the march with 2 exceptions (more groups and
grouplets than  I'd ever heard of - splits from the sparts and 2 different
labor party entryists).  The ISO didn't attend because this was the
weekend of their summer school - just hours away in Chicago.  And the Maoist
International Movement is actually encouraging African-Americans in
Detroit to scab (it is one thing to have an analysis of a privileged
working class split by race, but it is quite another to foster that
split - I would think that they would have been risking bodiliy harm in
attending.)   As for the plant gate mobilizations, the three largest
left groups were the IWW, the NWROC (a front group of the Revolutionary
Workers League, which has been adventurist to say the least, deliberately
provoking police violence by pushing picketers into the police) and the
Labor Party. LnR had a good group there as well.

solidarity n'such
john




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