File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1996/96-11-06.190, message 30


Date: 04 Nov 96 10:40:26 EST
From: jonathan flanders <72763.2240-AT-CompuServe.COM>
Subject: M-I: Union Positions


 >> The simple reason is that her head is cluttered with Marxish thought, 
but she really doesn't understand Marx. She can talk to you about
Derrida, Spivak, Deleuze-Guattari, Simone Weil, Butler, Foucault until
the cows come home but she has never read the Communist Manifesto.

She can not make elementary class distinctions. Her analysis of why 
Judith Shapiro, the feminist President of Barnard College, was trying to 
make poor, black female workers pay for their health premiums for the
first time? Well, Lou, she's new to her job and doesn't *understand* the
union at Barnard yet. <<Louis P.

Jon Flanders:

  I hope your friend thinks long and hard about taking a UAW organizer 
job right now. Of course this beats being an investment banker by a few 
miles, but at this stage in her development it would be far better for 
her to get some more workplace experience under her belt. This seasoning 
would make reading the Communist Manifesto something real, rather than 
another abstract analysis of society.

  The time is coming for socialists to use union positions to advance the
class struggle. I am under serious pressure to run for local chairperson
of my union this year. I have even drafted a "manifesto" and begun to
circulate it to explain better my outlook and make clear what I would do
if the membership were to elect me to union office. When I have come up
with a final draft I might share it with the list. I have some serious
misgivings about taking office still, but it tells you something that I
have had to go this far already. 

  The situation I am in is different, however, from taking an organizer's
position, which makes you an employee of the UAW officialdom. In this 
situation you are dependent on those above you in the hierarchy, and can 
easily be co-opted into the machine. There are definite dangers with 
elected positions as well, but at least you are primarily responsible to 
the ranks, which gives a base for your political efforts independent of 
the bureaucracy.



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