Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1996 13:51:11 -0500 (EST)
From: Jeffrey Booth <booth2-AT-husc.harvard.edu>
Subject: Re: Labor Party,USA -- A question



Carlos,
	I don't have much time to respond so here's some quick points.  
I've been in LPA for years and I helped found the Boston chapter which 
now has over 200 members.  I've done this as an open socialist and member 
of Labor Militant and I've been elected to the steering committee as well.
	LPA is worth building precisely *because* of its orientation to
the Unions.  Unions provide a financial and organizational base with class
struggle traditions (however buried these may be at times).  The reason
progressive "third" parties flounder in the U.S. is because they have to
go begging to the rich for money.  Only the unions, being independent of
big business, can provide money without bourgeois strings attached.
	Also, LPA is open to anyone and is not confining itself to union
members.  LPA has problems and may not in and of itself become a Labor
Party.  The main problem LPA faces is the Union bureacrats and all their
conservative and liberal baggage but it's important to keep in mind that
not *all* labor leaders are bureacrats and also that unions are not just
their leaders.  A union is all the members of that union.  A potential 
political base of around 16 million union members in the U.S. is nothing 
to sneeze at.  Although LPA is not seeking to exclude any workers, 
unemployed or youth:  anyone can join.  LPA is just a start but it's the 
most serious, working class, independent political movement out there. 
	Sorry these points couldn't be elaborated on and put in better 
order but I have to run.

				In Solidarity,
						Jeff Booth 

On Fri, 1 Mar 1996, CEP wrote:

>     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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