Date: 	Wed, 29 Oct 1997 12:16:46 -0800
From: bhandari-AT-phoenix.princeton.edu (Rakesh Bhandari)
Subject: Re: M-I: Re: labor's bargaining room


I believe that the turnover rate is much higher in the US than even in the
UK; hasn't Harvard labor economist Richard Freeman estimated that it is at
least four times higher (book is something like Playing by the Rules of the
Game?) Higher turnover and the lack of benefits between jobs must undermine
labor's bargaining strength. A high turnover rate may be an indicator of
the kinds of jobs that are being created. There is also the problem of the
underestimation of the unemployment and underemployment rate, including the
massive reserve army of labor from Mexico.

At the same time, it is important that the left doesn't degenerate into
wage-fund, Senior- and Weston-like dismissals of wage struggles, though it
is clear that for Marx that union battles are either prepatory for
revolutionary struggle or they are worse than nothing.

One also fears that the recent UPS strike will become an advertisment for a
bureaucratic trade union movement which will now continue to enlist members
on the basis of that success, counsel against action until that moving
target of a critical mass is reached or militate *against* an action
especially by the unskilled in one place both here and abroad if the
leadership is representing better off workers in another division of that
big company elsewhere, or just sit on its ass until a rare conjunction of
factors requires some action. In short, the role of unions has to be
analyzed from the perspective of their total impact. A victory in one place
can't be segregated from a massive sell-out elsewhere--at least this is
what my disillusioned friends in the AFL-CIO have told me.

Rakesh




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