File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-04-21.135, message 38


Date: Sun, 20 Apr 1997 08:41:09 +0200
From: Robert Malecki <malecki-AT-algonet.se>
Subject: M-I: Cockroach Extra! (Defend Workers Voice!)


On principle Communists and especially Trotskyists defend the right to the
fullest possible exchange of ideas in the Workers Movement! Thus Cockroach
reposts here (below) Workers Voice material on the "Labor Notes" conference.

Malecki and Cockroach condemns the manovres by the Labor note people to
bueaucratically ban another organisation from distributing and selling
their material at the recent conference.

Wram regards
Bob Malecki

>AN ESSENTIAL component in the struggle for workers=92 power is the demand
>for democracy in the movement. 
>
>Plenty of groups make noise about the need to fight for the democratic
>rights of the working class to present their views without censorship
>and threat of reprisal.  But when it comes to actually living up to
>their claims, they mostly end up giving back-handed support to
>censorship.
>
>Or worse!
>
>One of the organizations that makes the most noise about the need for
>=93democracy=94 is the magazine Labor Notes (LN).  LN is run by the
>=93radical=94 reformist group Solidarity.
>
>This weekend, LN is holding its annual conference.  Hundreds of =93labor=94
>activists are expected to attend.  But, for those who attend, don=92t
>expect much in the way of democratic discussion.
>
>The Labor Notes Conference is being censored by the organizers.  Groups
>that couldn=92t cough up the bankroll for a table were banned from even
>distributing free literature and leaflets.
>
>In other words, if you were a worker who could not afford the hefty
>registration fee (like the great majority of the working class), you had
>no right to express your point of view.
>
>Oh sure, you could put your literature on a =93cornucopia=94 table, where
>they would sit for about five minutes, until one of the organizers came
>by, picked up the stack and threw them in the trash. 
>
>For example, the League for the Revolutionary Party (LRP) had hastily
>produced a leaflet based on an article in their magazine.  They placed
>it on the =93corny=94 table; about 15 minutes later, they were all gone.
>
>Where were they?  In a trash can in another part of the building.
>
>To Labor Notes, democracy is everything ... as long as they=92re running
>the show!
>
>We have already criticized LN for its anti-working class orientation and
>structure (its slavish obedience to the labor bureaucracy,
>petty-bourgeois composition and arrogance, etc. [see our leaflet
>reprinted below.])
>
>But our positions on the character of Labor Notes is one thing; the
>conscious censorship of other tendencies in the workers=92 movement is
>another.
>
>Only a few other groups expressed opposition to the censorship, and
>actually did something about it.  Groups like the Socialist Workers
>Party and the LRP continued to distribute their publications
>underground; the Freedom Socialist Party actually initiated a petition
>drive against the undemocratic actions of the Labor Notes organizers.
>
>Such actions by the Labor Notes crowd has wide-ranging implications
>throughout the U.S. labor movement.  Supporters of LN hold many key
>positions in various chapters and unions that endorse the Labor Party.
>
>At a time when the LP is in its infancy, and the need for democratic
>debate is essential, anti-democratic bureaucrats like the Labor Notes
>organizers can only lead the Party to destruction.
>
>Workers=92 Voice fights for the right of all tendencies within the
>workers=92 movement to present and argue their views -- including those
>tendencies with which we vehemently disagree.
>
>We call on all organizations interested in the right of democracy in
>workers=92 movement to condemn the actions of Labor Notes and their
>sponsors, Solidarity, and to take a clear stand in defense of the rights
>of workers=92 organizations.
>
>* An injury to one is an injury to all!
>* For the democratic rights of all tendencies within the workers=92
>  movement!
>* For freedom of expression and debate!  Down with bureaucratic
>  censorship!
>
>Detroit Branch,
>Workers=92 Voice (U.S.)
>19 April 1997
>
>========== -30- ==========
>
>Attached below is the text of the Workers=92 Voice Supplement which was
>banned at the Labor Notes Conference.
>
>
>Labor Notes Conference:
>Poor workers not wanted
>
>THE ISSUES facing the organized labor movement have a bearing on the
>entire working class.  The attacks waged against the Detroit Newspaper
>strikers, the Liverpool dockers, and all strikers and unions around the
>world have a direct effect on the livelihood of all sections of the
>working class.
>
>But, judging by the organizing of the Labor Notes Conference, you
>wouldn't think so.
>
>This year's Conference is being held in the posh Westin Hotel, part of
>Detroit's Renaissance Center.  Labor's most privileged strata, as well
>as "pro-labor" bourgeois politicians, will be represented in full at
>this conference.  But, we are compelled to ask:  where is the majority?
>
>Where are the representatives of the unorganized, underpaid, unemployed,
>underemployed, unrepresented and overworked masses of the working class
>who don't have the privilege of high-paying union jobs (like most
>unionists)?
>
>Geographically, they're not very far.  But in terms of interests and
>outlook, this Conference may as well be held on Mars.  Case in point:
>this conference, at a minimum, costs $65 -- and that's if you skip
>meals.
>
>Quite a hefty sum!  Certainly not something a worker can easily put
>down. Most workers have to save that kind of money for such "luxuries"
>like heat, lights, rent/house payments, or food for their children.
>
>Someone might say:  "Don't they have a reduced rate for low-income
>workers?"  This amount ($65) is the lowest amount listed on the brochure
>for the event, as well as in all other advertisements.  If there is a
>reduced rate, they certainly aren't advertising it.  And besides, most
>poor workers wouldn't even make the trip downtown to find out.  They've
>already been turned away.
>
>But this is not surprising.  The people associated with this Conference,
>sponsored by the magazine Labor Notes (LN), have a record of turning
>their back on the poorer elements of the working class ... unless it
>suits them.
>
>What is Labor Notes?
>
>THE HISTORICAL record of Labor Notes, its "critical" tailing of the
>traitorous union bureaucracy, and slavish following of "militants" like
>Ron Carey and the Teamsters for a Democratic Union, speaks for itself.
>
>As Carey was counseling the Teamster unions on strike in Detroit about
>how to "unconditionally" sell out the strike, LN was saying that "with
>the reelection of Ron Carey, the union's members have affirmed the need
>to build a clean, democratic union."  Tell that to the Teamsters who
>weren't allowed to even vote on the "unconditional back-to-work offer"!
>Some democracy!
>
>And while the Detroit Newspaper strikers are being buried under a
>mountain of gold bricks (i.e., the "corporate campaign" and
>"unconditional bak-to-work offer"), LN is touting the bureaucracy's line
>that the return to work without a contract, without security and across
>their own picket lines is "not a surrender"! 
>
>If that's not a surrender, what is?  Perhaps it's the infamous
>"corporate campaign," whose results can be seen from Staley to Safeway?
>Maybe it's uncritically cheering the bureaucracy's dead-end line about
>"carry[ing] on the contract fight from inside"?
>
>There are many representatives from different union movements around the
>world:  Korea, Brazil, France, Argentina, Canada and elsewhere.  If the
>workers in Korea followed the strategy of the AFL-CIO bureaucracy,
>"critically" tailed by the Labor Notes crowd, the general strike would
>not have happened.
>
>If the public employees in France and Canada had relied on a variant of
>the "corporate campaign," a dead-end strategy which has resulted in
>union busting and -- in certain cases -- pushed workers to suicide, we
>wouldn't be speaking of the militancy of French and Canadian workers,
>but rather their defeat and demise as an organized force.
>
>It's easy for the Labor Notes supporters to parade these class fighters
>from around the world across their stage -- they're not accountable to
>them.
>
>"Which way from here?"
>
>THE THEME for this year's Conference is "Labor on the Move: Which Way
>from Here?".
>
>This is a good question.  But don't expect a good answer from Labor
>Notes.
>
>Labor Notes' strategy is reliance on the "progressive" sectors of the
>AFL-CIO bureaucracy to "save" the organized labor movement -- with a
>little kickstart from "militant" bureaucrats like Ron Carey.
>
>The Russian Marxist Leon Trotsky warned against reliance on the
>"progressive" union bureaucracy.  The union bureaucracy, along with the
>highest strata of the working class, are a conveyor belt for bourgeois
>ideology into the working class.  They act as mediators of the class
>struggle, seeking to appease the bosses and demobilize militant workers.
>
>Workers' Voice (U.S.) seeks to present an alternative -- a genuine
>working-class alternative.
>
>We fight to organize and mobilize the masses of workers in struggle
>against the exploitation, oppression and crushing deprivation of
>capitalism.  We fight for the self-organization of the working class as
>a conscious force, fighting for itself and its interests. 
>
>We fight to build organizations of struggle that represent the many
>millions of workers who have been ignored and betrayed by the "labor
>lieutenants of capital."  We fight to build a class-struggle alternative
>in the unions, and to organize the unorganized -- which accounts for
>almost 90 percent of the workforce.
>
>We fight for an international workers' revolution, led politically by a
>working-class, Marxist party, and a classless socialist society.
>
>15 April 1997
>--
>\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\XXXXXXXXXX||||||||||XXXXXXXXXX///////////////
>\ Workers' Voice                            P.O. Box 44593 /
>\ Detroit MI 48244-0593                      UNITED STATES /
>> (313) 535-7161                       Fax: (313) 535-4212 <
>/ workersvoice-AT-earthlink.net          workersvoice-AT-igc.org \
>/         http://www.geocities.com/~workersvoice/          \
>///////////////XXXXXXXXXX||||||||||XXXXXXXXXX\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
>

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