Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 01:45:03 -0400 From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki) Subject: M-G: COCKROACH! Summer Extra! (Detroit!) COCKROACH! Summer Extra! (Detroit!) A EZINE FOR POOR AND WORKING CLASS PEOPLE. WE HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT OUR CHAINS. It is time that the poor and working class people have a voice on the Internet. Contributions can be sent to <malecki-AT-algonet.se> Subscribtions are free at <malecki-AT-algonet.se> Now on line! Check out the Home of COCKROACH! http://www.algonet.se/~malecki How often this zine will appear depends on you! Back issues of Cockroach and my book at http://www.kmf.org/malecki/ -------------------------------------------------------- 1. The Strike Is Over, But The Fight Goes On! 2. Dear Red Pearl! -------------------------------------------------------- The Strike Is Over, But The Fight Goes On! We=92re all in Detroit today to honor the strikers and help them win back their jobs and a contract. The strikers could have won, but the bitter fact is that the local and International union leaders turned victory into defeat: they opposed the strikers=92 calls to shut down production, organize a general strike, and a national march in Detroit. Instead they pushed the losing boycott and delayed this March until long after they had ordered the strikers back. Now, we=92re all faced with the job of helping them under very tough circumstances. This loss in Detroit, our unions=92 stronghold, will hurt us all as employers everywhere watch and learn. We, as workers, must look and learn too. Only then can we go forward. We are a group of working people, activists who mainly came together around the Staley fight. This flier is to help figure out how to beat corporate greed. The Strike Could Have Won After thousands of strikers and other workers shut down the only production plant around Labor Day 1995, Gannett and Knight-Ridder ran to their judges and got an injunction. The Metro Newspaper Council union presi- dents, backed up by the internationals, refused to keep production shut down. Instead, they promoted boycotts and sticking it out =93one day longer=94. Up against mega-corporations with deep pockets, with owners who=92d planned this union-busting for years, that boycott strategy was DOA, even though it did cost the paper owners maybe $250 million in losses. For the owners, this was an investment in future profits. For our side, it was a loser. Boycotts and customer campaigns were no substitute for what the strikers demanded: Shut It Down! Within a month of the injunction and the union leaders=92 backing down, both strike activist groups (the AFL-sponsored Labor/Community/Religious Coalition and the strikers=92 Unity-Victory Caucus) called for: 1. =93mass picketing to win the strike=94 2. =93A general strike in Detroit=94. 3. =93A National Labor Solidarity March=94 A mass meeting of strikers from all unions, called by the Council, voted for mass picketing and defying the judge. How did the union presidents respond? They rejected the Coalitions =93recommendation=94, baited the Unity-Victory Caucus as a =93splinter group=94, and said that the strikers=92 meeting, which they=92d called, had no authority over them as local union presidents. Either the strikers would take and expand the fight or the =93Lords of Labor=94 would choke the fight to death. Our greatest weakness? No leaders came forward to implement the strikers=92 vote. This would have meant: 1. Organize workers to demand action from the local presidents and International unions. To expose and replace those who wouldn=92t do what needed to be done.. 2. A strike leadership elected to run the strike on their strategy, not giving up the fight to shut production down. 3. Build strong ties with the mainly Black Detroit working class community. The mainly white workforce reflected the papers=92 racist hiring practices. The companies hired mainly Black scabs to promote division. To overcome this division and create the massive, militant solidarity needed to shut down production, the strikers had to stand shoulder to shoulder with Black Detroit against corporate and police racism: To fight for hiring more Black workers at the papers. To publicly denounce and march against the police killers of Malice Green. 4. Win workers and local unions to shut off all services to the papers=92 production and offices. Phone, electric, mail. Tough? Very tough, but we need new politics to win! >From that time forward, the strikers=92 courageous stand weakened, day after day. Despite strikers=92 bold actions and great persistence, the union leaders- =93progressives=94 like Carey and Sweeney and Old Guard like Hoffa and Bahr- all choked off the fight. For example: * Sweeney/Trumpka/Chavez refused the strikers=92 call for a Solidarity March on Labor Day =9196. Instead, they got arrested in a token sit-in. Why? They didn=92t want to put candidate Clinton on the spot. They, like most of our union leaders, refuse to organize a separate party for the working class. Instead, they sacrificed the strikers for their deals at the top. * The striking Teamsters were 1,400 of the 2,000 strikers. Their local IBT presidents are part of the Hoffa forces; they strongly opposed mass picketing. * Strong pressure generated by the strikers for a National AFL-CIO Solidarity March forced the union leaders=92 hands. The New Faces joined the Old Guard and ordered the return to work. Then, and only then, did they join hands to call this March. Even so, This March Shows What Could Have Been Done to Win This shows that thousands of workers will come out in solidarity. Many people here today will go home and help the locked out brothers and sisters. But, if we=92re to help, We need a fighting workers=92 movement. When we take actions against these companies at home, let=92s expose the real role of the union leaders to our fellow activists. Sweeney brags that ordering the strikers back is a =93bold, new strategy=94. ?!? New? Bold? Duh. =93The 10J Injunction will win the day.=94 Our union leaders hope that the NLRB will avert a total defeat by winning a =9310J=94 injunction to return the strikers to the jobs remaining. What is the truth? Even if the NLRB decides to pursue the 10J, it has to go to Federal Court, which it hasn=92t done as of today (6/19/97). And even if the judge issues it, the companies can appeal that decision. This could take 5 years. And even if the NLRB does get the injunction, it still leaves out at least 1/3 of the workers, including the 181 fired for picket line duty and the 600 already outsourced. They turn victory into defeat. Why? Was this a fluke? Or is this behavior typical of our union leadership? And, if it is, what accounts for it? And what can we do to turn this around? Well, take a look at PATCO, P-9 Hormel, the rail workers, Staley, Caterpillar and Bridgestone-Firestone. Did our Internationals mobilize our power and fight? Even with good local leadership in some cases, the internationals caved in or sabotaged these fights. But why would they? Don=92t they at least want our dues? Ever since the start of the Cold War against communism, militant fighters and radicals were hounded out or isolated in our unions. The conservative leaders got a corporate lifestyle and social acceptance by the =91top dogs=92 in return for keeping us, the working class, in the deal. That meant getting better pay and benefits for most workers in exchange for giving the companies control over production. When workers=92 fought the companies over production issues, the union leaders acted smother that fight. Look at auto. That was the tradeoff behind the =93American Dream=94. Union leaders functioned as brokers, making deals and controlling us. Not as leaders. That deal =93worked=94 up to the =9170s when the post-WW2 deal broke down. Profit rates were down. Workers=92 militancy was up. U.S. corporations now had competition. The corporate answer? Smash the new militancy. Close plants. Break strikes with scabs. Step up competitive =93whipsawing=94 between workers here and overseas. Speed up production. Introduce union-management =93teams=94 to use our brains against us. Ever since then, the conservatives running our unions haven=92t delivered better pay and benefits with their deals. Instead, they used the carrot and the whip to get workers to accept speed-up, longer hours, worse conditions, downsizing, outsourcing, etc. The union leaders became mainly the enforcers- cops for the bosses. What=92s in it for them? They make good money, get acceptance by the big shots, live and think like corporate =91shirts=92, not workers facing one-sided class war. Corporate Profits or Workers Needs? Most union leaders and many workers accept the idea that corporations=92 profit needs must come first. They don=92t see any alternative to helping the company make profits. They can=92t imagine us, the working class, winning the power and running society for our benefit, so they make their peace with the dictators of corporate greed and their politicians. They try to make the loses not so bad, the cuts not so painful. But they end up trying to strangle our fights, like Detroit. They know that working class struggle like Detroit will force them to confront injunctions and jail.. They don=92t want to risk the union treasuries, their salaries, their freedom. But isn=92t that exactly what=92s needed- to mobilize our power, as a class? Isn=92t that exactly what it cost even to build our unions? Workers who want to fight and win must face these issues. The working class needs such workers, activists and groups. We need people who=92ve seen and cut those mental chains. Until we reject them, we=92re trapped. Until we put working class needs, power, and the fight for justice first, we can=92t see and organize the working class strength that=92s out there. Like it was in Detroit. Unless and until we get that straight, we=92ll keep depending on the same set (or =93New Faces but the same old AFL=94) to come and bail us out. Did they win Detroit? Most workers have a hard time believing that the union leaders would rather let us get beat and lose our dues than lead a fight. But isn=92t that exactly what the last 25 years shows? The =93let=92s make a deal=94 days are gone. Let=92s bury them with a new, fighting workers=92 movement. Working People=92s Action and Education Network, Box 578427, 60657, 773-935-5255. red1pearl-AT-aol.com ------------------------------------------------------- Dear Red Pearl... Red Pearl wrote; > >All the above makes sense, except: 1. " .. a shrinking world market..." Is >this more than an impression? do you have any facts about world trade that >support this? I know that world trade and production actually declined in the >mid-'70s, but I thought that both were and are actually expanding. This >doesn't mean that inter-capitalist rivalry isn't growing, but just because >that competition grows doesn't mean that it's over a shrinking pie of >production, either. I don't have any "facts" other then. We have mass unemployment here in Europe on the levels of the depression. And of course the ability for the various imperialist powers to expand their markets. Economic growth these days is not based on expansion but downsizing and dismantling the welfare states etc. However one could say that there is a capitalist/imperialist wild west boom in expansion to the east. But this is being down at the price of mass unemployment in the west and downsizing.. So rather then looking at the number of tubes of toothpaste sold I suggest looking atr the situation in regards to the above.. > >2. Isn't it true that the social democrats (in Sweden) offered tax cuts that >lowered taxes for the better-paid industrial, export workers while they cut >social services for the poorer? This was maybe 5-7 years ago, as I recall. If >you've run across any articles on this that'll straighten me out, please feel >free. No the big tax reform a few years back had more to do with a taxcut for the middle class rather then the industrial proletariat and public sector workers. The real gains came for people with above average incomes and those who owned their own homes. However historically the Social democrats have broken with there so called solidarity pay package and the last few years contracts for the leading private industrial workers has gone up much faster then in the public sector. However the gap is even larger if one were to look at the mass lay offs and down sizing of the public sector in the last four to five years. Over 500,000 to 750.000 jobs have disappeared. And I think in regards to the private secto vs the public sector it is around three to one in favor of the private industrial sector. >Are there any organized left forces building on the split you describe in the >SPD? Well yes and no. What we have here is quite a lot of anger and bitterness connected to quite a lot of illusions in getting back to the good old times. Organisationally it is at present being expressed both in a general hate for politics and politicians wehile at the same time quite a lot of grass roots activity both in the unions and nearly million people on the dole around all the cutbacks, attacks on welfare reforms and unemployment in general. Unemployment groups are poping up all over the place in the last year. Naturally the left is involved in this stuff but as of yet no real political and organisational split can be seen. With the elections only a little over a year away it will be quite interesting to see what happens. At present the unions appear to have the line of some sort of cultural revolution by fighting to get as many trade unionists opn the Social democratic ballots as possible. But there is a tendency in the north around the miners union which on the local level has slit with the social Democracy to the left. However it is only at present on the local level. Hopefully some sort of national iniative could take place connecting up both the unions and the unemployed committees on a fairly militant program to the next election. The Euro Communist appear to want to run their own race as the rest of the left want to tail the traditional back to the good old times Social democracy.. More Later when things develop here.. Warm regards Bob Malecki --------------------------------------------------------- Check Out My HomePage where you can, Read the book! Ha Ha Ha McNamara, Vietnam-My Bellybutton is my Crystalball! Or Get The Latest Issue of, COCKROACH, a zine for poor and working-class people http://www.algonet.se/~malecki Back issues of Cockroach and my book at http://www.kmf.org/malecki/ -------------------------------------------------------- --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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