Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 10:23:14 -0800
From: iwp.ilo-AT-ix.netcom.com (CEP )
Subject: Labor Party,USA -- A question


    I received in the mail a communication about the upcoming
    founding convention of the LPA to form a Labor Party in the
    US.  The communication came signed by the ladership of several
    International Unions, local chapters of unions, etc

    Impressive list, on paper.  I also read several calls from
    people who support the founding of such party, including the
    recently posted call from artists (thank you, Marc!)-- the
    problem I don't know hardly anyone signing that call (my
    ignorance, maybe).

    I also read proposals from different left groups about platform
    and the intersting posting from The Organizing, which gave me
    some hints about the confusion and lack of clarity of what
    the conference will be all about.

    My question, which is maybe too basic for many, is still something
    that keeps coming to me. 

    In a country in which only, what?, 15% of workers belong to unions
    and where you have almost entire states without union               
    organizations; in a country in which "labor" had been identyfied
    mostly with "organized" workers, particularly state workers ....

    WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THE WORKERS PARTY?

    Most written proposed platforms and calls for this June Conventions
    talks about "labor" and do it in a way that refers exclusively
    to those organized in unions.  What about the 85% of the working
    class *which do not belong to unions*, including the overwhelming
    majority of immigrants, African Americans and other communities
    of color?

    People are certainly *proposing* to "support" and to "fight for"
    immigrant rights, against racism, etc .... but the main angle is
    that of *outsiders* from those communities and those communities
    are threated, in the written statements as somethjing they (those
    who wrote) will do something about.  But .... how those communities
    and workers be represented, as a class and as oppressed peoples
    and ethnias at the conference .....?  How a Labor Party in the US
    will *represente* or be considered part of the same movement?

    Can somebody shed a light on this ... I'm really puzzled.

    Comradely,
    Carlos

        



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