File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9712, message 116


Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 17:30:08 +0000
From: James Heartfield <James-AT-heartfield.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: M-I: Unions & the crisis of "tri-party rule"


In message <199712071607.LAA03183-AT-pobox.ids.net>, Louis R Godena
<louisgodena-AT-ids.net> writes
>
>And I do not "hate" labor; after all, of the regular contributors to this
>list, I am the one genuine worker, and the one least prone to swallow
>Official Labor's legends and shibboleths.  I *do* hate the labor leadership
>and, especially, their underlings on both the left and right whose aversion
>to risk-taking on behalf of their "class" illustrates the eclipse into which
>working class politics has withdrawn.

The industrial situation in Britain certainly seems to echo Louis' sober
assessment of the state of organised labour in the US.

Official union membership figures have declined from the 1979 peak of 13
million to under seven million in 1996. Affiliate membership of the
Labour Party has been set aside by the current party leadership. The
party membership is now overwhelmingly middle class, with 57 percent
earning more than =A320 000 (which makes it a more middle class party than
the Tories).

The British working class has not been so far removed from the centre of
political life since the nineteenth century.

Fraternally
James Heartfield


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