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Great article.
Posted by rocco on Feb 3, 2006 at 7:41 AM
“The opposite of solidarity is dog-eat-dog, which, if we had to choose a motto for the last quarter century of American history, would work as well as any.”
Sadly, “looking out for number one” and “it is everyone for themself” apply too. However, that is the nature of survival.
Posted by John Olsen on Feb 5, 2006 at 5:30 AM
Labor can never win without the sympathy of the general public or of other parts of the Labor movement which it once enjoyed. One of the problems is that we are now a selfish and hardnosed society; deeply unsympathetic to one another and full of self-defeating bitterness and resentment. Often we tell each other “shut up and just do your job.” This is no way to get a better deal for the growing number of us working poor with no rights whatsoever and no recourse or grievance procedure. Atomizing society’s lower half will make us weak in the face of our most daunting challenges!
Solidarity is needed now more than ever! We can quietly deal with our tactical disagreements in private but in public we must show a strong and unified front! As the quality job base shrinks and the distribution of society’s well skews ever upward toward the super rich, solidarity from below takes on an ever more important place in our values.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Feb 5, 2006 at 12:39 PM
Cabdriverinchicago, who is this “general public”? Who are the “selfish” and “hardnosed”?
I work as in-home caregiver and am a union member. A strike would, for obvious reasons, be inappropropriate in this case.
When talking about “atomization” among people who consider themselves to be “liberal”, the topic of middle and upper class college educated people insulting working people rarely comes up. People on all sides of the political spectrum will react against having the topic of “class” introduced, as if it weren’t a pertinent issue.
Fact is, a large number of college educated activists are so accustomed to referring to the working class as “lazy”, “apathetic”, “selfish”, “unevolved”, “devolved”, and “Neanderthal”, that they don’t even hear themselves any more.
The other strategy is to talk about lifting the working class out of their ignorance and apathy with education, as if elves would then move in to take the places of the former janitors and hospital aids, or working people would at last see the “real” beauty of scrubbing floors and return to their labor enlightened. There will, of course, be no willing flood of college educated people (using their connections) to menial positions.
There is a reason that working people aren’t lining up behind the “left” For one, they aren’t as dumb as they look to “liberals”. And they are perfectly aware that their boss at give them a check with which they can pay their rent. Being homeless does more to limit a person’s freedom and options than wonk legislation.
Posted by wileywitch on Feb 5, 2006 at 5:56 PM
...their boss at least gives them a check…
Posted by wileywitch on Feb 5, 2006 at 5:58 PM
Wileywitch,
You obviously didn’t listen to a single thing I said! People don’t show sympathy toward one another and are very individualist and unable to relate to the situation of one’s fellow humanity whose experiences are similar. This has nothing to do with ideology. People in other societies are far more class consciousness and get further because of it. They are less likely to identify with their bosses over some stupid check and more likely to bond with other workers. There class consciousness doesn’t stop in the work place but extends to their communities. Class in other societies means verything; certainly more than stupid, mindless, and stigmatizing political labels they hear on such penultimate pillars of high culture as Fox News!
Being atomized means being separated from one another in a very politically and culturally debilitating way such that we don’t identify with one another but with the inhuman values of silent and stoic suffering that the ruling classes want to put on us so we can’t even respond to one another’s need for solidarity and we lash out at each other more than at the system. How bad and unfair does it have to get before American individualism is seen for the fraud that it is and people join together. It works in other societies where people’s solidarity makes piggy share the fruits of society’s labors with the ones who actually work the hardest.
People should not be so obssessed with the so called elitism of the intellectuals and start focusing on the elitism of the elite. Besides, Wiley, what is more elitist, an intellectual’s plea for working class solidarity and a struggle for a better world or the CEO of a big fortune 500 firm who cuts thousands of good paying jobs and outsources them abroad while voting himself another million dollar raise for his trouble bringing the ratio of CEO to entry level pay to over 400? To me this is the real elitism?
Wiley, these are some things that you and the rest of the growing numbers of lumpenproletariat (like myself) need to think about. How can intellectuals be expected to walk the walk when no one walks with them?!
Cabdriverrinchicago, what I’m saying is that the activist left is responsible for a lot of that alienation. The Republicans have done an excellent job of exploiting it.
If anyone is going to help the working class and/or cultivate solidarity or any kind of understanding with the working class they are entering, they would be well advised to stop insulting the formally uneducated and start listening. The snobbery is often hidden in presumptuousness of what constitutes intelligence, and it is rampant.
I agree that radical individualism is extreme in our culture, but that’s not the whole problem. The attitudes that many on the left have about the formally uneducated masses make the term “effete liberal snob” too kind. It’s no different from the snobbery that apparently came with the brass in the military (28 years ago). I’ve been watching this for nearly thirty years, and as far as I can tell, it’s only gotten more pronounced.
It’s one thing when a working and unformally educated person confuses knowledge with intelligence. It’s snarky and mean when a person who has had the privilege of a formal education declares that most working people are idiots and suggests that anyone who doesn’t run off to protest anytime they get a chance doesn’t care. It’s the liberal version of let them eat cake, and it can be stated in a million different judgmental, dismissive, and imperious ways. Like,
“Oh my God, those children in the store were so badly behaved. Those parents ought to know better, and leave the children with their nannies.” I saw this on a chat board once.
Posted by wileywitch on Feb 6, 2006 at 1:12 AM
Cabdriverinchicago (can I call you “Cabbie”?) I am not harping on this for the sake of argument, I am persisting with this for the sake of reason and progress. I have seen people on the left alienate working people, ridicule people who showed up for a cause but weren’t dressed fashionably enough, and denigrate just about anyone who didn’t agree that the world revolved around their pet cause. I’ve also seen people in activists groups fall for the wolf in sheep’s clothing, because he said all the right things, which, btw, includes the denigration of people who don’t think that the world revolves around their pet cause.
People I used to know in a particular environmental group wouldn’t lower themselves by wearing what working people in a specific area would wear to an event, or what working people in a specific area would consider appropriate dress for a speaker at an event. They would go to a party naked, but wouldn’t put on a blue suit to talk to working class people. They could have had it in the bag—-most people in this country cared about the environment and people in this group were very knowlegable about the environment—-they had years of experience and field work, and great stories to tell. They could explain things to the layman very well. The environment was not a partisan or class issue except for the people who got rich screwing the environment, but most people would rather not learn about the environment from people who think they are superior to them—-especially people that they perceive as a bunch of dirty hippies. Who’s fault is that? Who decided that fashion was a greater priority than educating people about the environment?
Working people are too stupid to accept their own inferiority, I suppose. And so many on the left apparently feel that they are so superior that anyone who questions their proposals or their earth shattering significance, and the assertion that nothing matters by comparison, well, they are clearly just too stupid to get it, aren’t they?
Most of the anti-war crowd I met on the way up to D.C. were hideously rude. When a conservative gentleman I was talking to, said “listen—- “they just hate George Bush”, I had to admit that it certainly sounded that way. Most of the lefties I spoke to demonstrated almost no knowledge about this administration other than what they hated about Bush and war is bad. It also appeared that their were about three person per cause at the event. They couldn’t stick to one message.
You might want to consider the challenge of keeping an eye out for this snobbery and counteracting it. Solidarity starts with the assumption of equality. Think about it. If you assume that that assumption is there because liberals believe in equality, then you’ve probably already lost a lot of the working class, which has no need to uphold liberal pretensions. The idea that going to work instead of going to a protest is “selfish” shows a deep and cynical detachment from the value of “work”.
I am speaking in generalizations. Of course there are exceptions, but the trend hasn’t changed, as far as I can tell.
I read what you said, <b>cabdriverinchicago</i>, but I know the working class. I was born working class, and I will, in all likelihood die working class. But I’ve been immersed in the college world too, and I tell you—-If respect is not shown to working people in all aspects of a movement, don’t bother with a united front, because it’s not there, and they know it, they haven’t spent a lot of time learning how to argue it into existence without compelling evidence in the world they live in (and build, and clean, and stock).
Posted by wileywitch on Feb 6, 2006 at 1:53 AM
Wiley
You say that we “on the formally educated left” should stop insulting the very working class we want to organize against the system and “start listening.” Listening to what? Religous tirades, torrid tales about corruption in high places, wild conspiracy theories, astrological speculations? I’ve heard enough!!!!!!!!
I know many working class people that are highly intelligent and politically astute but most of them have tended to be much older and veterans of old struggles like the labor movement in the 1930s and 40s or the anti-war movement in the 1960s. Some were involved in the old 1960s era civil rights struggles as well. Most of these people I’ve met in Madison, Wisconsin or in Chicago at various meetings and marches. They’re quite active. Most of them read a lot.
In Chicago there is a wonderful, free-to-the-public, political program called the Open University of the Left which consistently features great educational programs that incorporate films, discussions, and lectures about a range of topics from the War in Iraq and the Occupation of Palestine to labor struggles in the third world and anti-globalization politics in US cities.
Like most of the working class I have almost NO time for this stuff due to my work schedual. My cab lease and gas expenses come to almost $3,000/month and it is tough to book even $5,000/month just to stay on top of a few of my bills! I work more than 12 hours a day often 6 or 7 days a week! It really sucks. The longer hours tire the workers to the point they cannot reflect on life and become fatalistic. This naturally helps to control their political views and limit their actions!
In any case, don’t be so sensitive! Taking things personally and mistaking criticism of the society for personal attacks on “certain types of people” is not only counterproductive but wrong. No body is saying the US working class is stupid. But it would be remiss to ignore the fact that so much of their energy is misdirected. They are often conplicit in their own suffering by trusting people like George Bush and the pundits on Fox News. One of the problems IS cultural. The intellectuals and the workers don’t relate to each other. Bridgeing this gap could be one thing that could be worked on as a common project. When I was in Madison studying over twenty years ago, this was the continual focus of much strategic discussion. We often felt hopeless. Talk of creating a “counter-hegemony” or a “counter-culture” often seemed a pipe dream and is surely one now with the monopolization of the media.
I have often thought that minorities and some immigrants will be the spearhead of tomorrows movements for change. The white working and lower middle classes in US society always seem to be moving hopelessly away from the real answers. Perhaps its to much religion?
I’m not talking about personal attacks, cabdriverinchicago. I’m talking about attitudes that very nearly define the left . There is a reason why Republicans are popular even with people they are hurting. Republicans don’t tell them that they’re morons.
<i>The intellectuals and the workers don
Posted by wileywitch on Feb 6, 2006 at 3:00 AM
Wiley,
I spent 14 years in Madison. Half the time I studied. Half the time I worked for a Cab coop called Union Cab. It had about one quarter activist-workingclass-intellectuals and half real working class people who grew up as working class folks. The experience of the coop being a workplace democracy was transformative for many people’s conscioussness. People had rights. We shared our earnings in the form of dividends and decisions were taken democratically. We showed solidarity with other workers in other businesses. I’m proud to have been part of this experience to show workers there are alternatives to the current economic model.
That having been said, many workers need more such experiences. They need to see the problems in US society not as corruption, chance, fate, or divine will but as the consequences of an unjust system crafted by people. There needs to be greater sophistication of thinking. This will lead to more effective activism. Reviving “hippy dippy” culture isn’t on the agenda by the way just broader thinking.
I don’t write off the white workers even though much of their community is beset with nationalism and racism (as well as sexism). I know that Latinos are conservatively inclined but this is because of religion. There is such a thing as liberation theology and we can import it from south of the border as well. Blacks and Latinos suffer a lot. Their churches are more socially inclined. Whites tend to react to oppression by becoming personally defensive and lashing out at people who are different and blaming others as a way of reacting to their threatened social position. This has historically been the basis of Fascism. Its very dangerous.
If what I’m saying was completely false, Bush wouldn’t be president, we wouldn’t be in Iraq, we would have a national health care system, and half the nations wealth wouldn’t be controlled by the richest 5% of the population.
I will get to the positive in a few seconds, but first, I challenge you to look at the way Whites appear to you to react to criticism and the way Blacks and Latinos appear to you to react, and ask yourself whether or not your perception may be slightly skewed in the direction of being more “tolerant” and understanding of minority anger. And if, perhaps, you have a tendency to assume that members of a minority group suffer from great forces working against them, and working class white people only suffer from the ‘little things’. Why, for instance, do you attribute conservatism to religion among the Latinos but not the Whites? Just asking. Feel free to challenge me on anything. I wouldn’t be here if I were not open to influence, challenge, and correction on factual matters. (I studied fine arts—-contrary to popular impressions it’s a tough major that would be unbearable for the thin skinned. Don’t worry about my reactions.)
I was not angry about personal cuts in my last posts. I am angry because I think the left is just as responsible for the Republican neocon backlash as conservatives are, and there are reasons why people react to things the way they do. If we’re going to pick up the pieces in this country and move, we have got to get over ourselves and our presumptions—- especially the presumption that this untested theory or that untested theory will fix everything if made into legislation, as if the fact that the top is sucking up all the gravy is an oversight and the game isn’t rigged that way on purpose.
Also, why in the world would any self-respecting person side with a political organization that showed utter contempt for them? People aren’t that stupid.
Tune change.
Now, that cab company sounds great. I spent a lot of time in student housing coops, opened one, started one with fellow coopers and had a lot of different leadership positions over the years. Worked in a grocery store coop, too. Working and living cooperatively and democratically is something else again. You probably have lots of stories to tell, right?
The fact that most Americans assume that coops are communist is almost amusing. When you are democratic in your home and your work, it is wonderful yet not romantic. Depressions are the best time to go coop. Naturally, people drift toward a more radical individualism in more prosperous times in a “capitalist” economy when family associations are not strong, but people <u>can</u> work together when it’s ridiculous not to, and can effectively pool resources, talents, wealth, and information.
Anytime now, the bottom of one or more sectors in our society, and our economy is going to bottom out. A crisis is brewing. A whole host of crises may be on the way. The fever will break. The spell will wear off. People will start questioning and, once the walls start coming down, people will probably start to see options they couldn’t see before.
It might be months away. It might be twelve years in the making, but one thing is certain—-passive aggressive imperiousness will be a waste of precious time. When teachable/open to learning moments</i> present themselves it’s useless and often counter-productive if not ruinous to stay mounted on the high horse. Utopianism is a recipe for disaster. Pushing a theory beyond it’s natural limits may result in tragedy.
Nobody has the great monumental ANSWER. Nobody.
Posted by wileywitch on Feb 7, 2006 at 12:31 AM
I think the facts are wrong in this article. As someone who lives in NYC (and relies on public transportation to work everyday) I can tell you that the strike completely disrupted my life and practically everyone else’s life in this city. I don’t know of anyone who was in “solidarity” with the strikers. I ended up having to walk about 20 miles everyday the strike was on, and I am too poor to afford a taxi cab or a car. Not to mention that it was FREEZING cold. This article fails to mention all the elderly, disabled, etc etc…who were unable to go to doctor’s appointments, go to the hospital or do any of the other necessary things they need to do to LIVE. I am a staunch Democrat and am totally in favor of workers rights and the right to unionize, but when it comes to holding an entire city hostage so that they can get a 30% raise (and their average salary already at 50 grand a year, benefits, pensions), that makes my blood boil. This is not about worker’s rights or solidarity, its about a few thousand people holding 8 million people hostage because they CAN. Greedy? YES. Thugs? YES. Personally I wish the whole lot of them had been fired AND thrown in jail. Please don’t preach about “solidarity” when these %#&@$#&% were HURTING others. Obviously, the person who wrote this article didn’t have to walk miles and miles in the freezing cold, or I’m sure he would have a different opinion.
Posted by garrett on Feb 7, 2006 at 3:00 AM
Wiley,
I don’t discriminate with regard to the effects of religion. It makes all takers conservative in general. In the case of minorities, there IS liberation theology (MLKing, Oscar Ramero etc.) that doesn’t exist in the US white community (some epochal examples of populism notwithstanding). White working classes historically tend toward fascism in situations of extreme crisis because of the way their consciousness has been formed by mythological notions of being independant yeomanry, racial superiority and national destiny. They also scapegoat others yet minorities do this as well. A real economic crisis in the US will be a political disaster and I am scared to death. I don’t trust the society to remained civilized if indeed it is at all!
Garrett,
I sympathize with your views. I admittedly don’t know all the issues in the NYC transit strike and was speaking about the general situation of US labor particularly the working poor of which the Transit Workers don’t seem to be a part. They seem to be part of the labor aristocracy (although $50,000 annual salary in NYC is probably not all that great especially after taxes) who didn’t give a rat’s ass about the public and probably coundn’t understand what they were putting people through. There was probably some racial hostility as part of the motivation as well. I heard one of the spokesman for the Union on the News and he Jew baited the Mayor of NYC by saying “...who is someone by the name of BLOOMBERG, a millionaire, to call us thugs for asking for a raise in this town?!” Oh, well. NYC is like the Tom Wolf novel the Bonfire of the Vanities, where ethnic innuendo and culture war is part of the code language of class struggle. The Union spokesman was returning hostility for hostility with innuendo!
It just shows how economic conflicts underlay everything. I know this is a cliche but it is true!
This is a great article—it completely encapsulates my experience as a currently striking member of GSOC/UAW 2110 (to learn about and to express solidarity with our struggle, see http://nerdsforgsoc.blogspot.com).
We are a small union and there are rarely more than 30 of us on the picket line on any given day. Picketing in the cold of a New York City winter, picketing when Bush has evicserated the National Labor Relations Act so that your employer is no longer even required to bargain collectively with you as a worker, is hard and demoralizing. But every time a passer-by honks (and ESPECIALLY when the Teamsters in their big trucks with that amazing horn sound honk, or when members of police and fire unions spin the sirens for us), it sends a wave of energy and—yes—solidarity through our picket.
As we are a union of well-educated professional employees who are not even asking for wage increases (only union recognition and a contract), we worried at first that the rest of the labor movement would not take us seriously. But they do. And they have given us the strength to go on—from the TWU workers who come to our labor rallies to the Sanitation guy who gave us strategy advice yesterday. Their struggle is our struggle. Our struggle is their struggle.
In solidarity.
Posted by maritov on Feb 7, 2006 at 9:10 AM
It appears as though the main grievances of the TWU were not wages but pension and health care benefits. A 1.5% contribution on the part of union members to the pension fund was made to offset retirement costs and I suppose there were contributions demanded to offset rising health care costs. Most union contracts now have some kind of contribution from the union member for health care. National health insurence anyone?! The members voted the contract down by 7 votes out of a total of 11,461 votes (11,227 for ;11,334 against). They returned to work anyway and now it seems as if their leader, Robert Toussaint of local 100 will be voted out in the upcoming union election. By the way the international leadership opposed the walkout as did many of the local rank and file. Gov. George Pataki’s negative remarks about the contract may have effected the voting to some degree. Pay was not a major issue. Appearantly, a law prohibiting public employees from striking was violated and the likelihood of another strike is about nil. This may be a setback for labor depending how the contract pans out. It looks like the TWU is still hanging in there but they are vulnerable to anti-labor laws and can easily go the way of PATCO in another real show down with the city. This would be most unfortunate, indeed!
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Feb 7, 2006 at 10:34 AM
I’ll get back to the race issue tonight (barring disaster), cabdriver. I think you are stereotyping whites. I’m not saying that there aren’t whites that can wear that shoe, but that most don’t—-not anymore than any other group of people.
Posted by wileywitch on Feb 7, 2006 at 11:53 AM
“or when members of police and fire unions spin the sirens for us), it sends a wave of energy and—yes—solidarity through our picket”
I
Posted by garrett on Feb 7, 2006 at 12:06 PM
Garrett
It sure seems as if the transit workers you run into are real a**holes! As many have claimed, life in NYC can be a real embittering experience all ‘round. People really aren’t reasonable. The story of the transit worker ignoring the mugging is incredible. I certainly would gotten as much information as I could on the guy and reported it to the police and if they didn’t care I’d go to the press. What kind of an a**hole would instinctively respond to something like a mugging.
As far as breaking the law is concerned you have to remember that the law and justice aren’t necessarily the same thing. Remember that the law never discriminates: it forbids both rich and poor alike from sleeping under bridges and begging for money in the streets. I’m not so sure the Taylor Law is any more just than Taft-Hartley or the law that forbids workers employed by a business or organization under Federal contract from striking. Public sector workers are by far the largest proportion of unionized workers currently in this country. If they lose the right to strike than that right is basically lost to American labor as a whole given that almost all the private sector workers (except for those who frequently work under government contract) belong to unions to weak to strike successfully. US labor really is flat on its back
Quite aside from this I really do think that there needs to be pressure on the city and the union to get transit workers to stop mistreating metro-riders. Here again I think a media campaign to expose and embarrass the worst offenders could help. Workers, especially well paid ones, have to live up to their obligations too. As a cabbie I earn crap but I don’t take it out on my passengers. If I made good money I’d be even nicer.
Wiley,
I don’t think you understand my point about the historic nature of white/european working class response to crisis. Economic collapse often triggers a profound sense of “pincer psychology” in such workers. They begin to feel squeezed between the poor and “degenerate” elements on the one hand and the parasitic “decadent” elites on the other. Their self conceptualization is that of a highly virtuous Producer class that is the locus of ALL wealth and value creation that is being fed upon by parasites high and low. They see themselves as epitomising certain essential and unique virtues absent in others like, integrity, honesty, thrift, industriousness, loyalty, and selflessness. They begin to see themselves as historically endowed with the legitimacy to lead the people of the nation. They see themselves above politics and epitomising these timeless and transcendental virtues as the only worthy ones. They demand a state that embodies this ethical ideal and that can lead the volk to their preordained divine destiny. The working class thus sees socialism and liberal democracy as the weak self-interested agenda of corrupt political and racial elements. Hey Wiley, don’t think the US working class is above the German, Italian, or Japanese ones of the early twentieth century. Our rednecks are an ideological disaster waiting to happen. Just add hysteria, fear, economic collapse, disorder, war, and chaos and mix to taste. Voila’
I’ve done a little research on the TWU strike in NYC in 12/05. It seems that the REAL issue was pensions after all. In a world of labor relations where workers are losing everything to companies reporting record profits and record compensation packages for CEOs, kudos to Toussaint for saving the TWU pension package. The MTA wanted to boost the retirement age by seven years from 55 to 62 while lowering the amount recieved at retirement through the creation of a second tier of employee for pension benefits. The union rejected this but accepted a raise in annual salary contributions to the pension fund from 2% to 6% for the first 10 years of employment by the MTA. This was the only change in the contract. This will still save the MTA millions at a time when they have announced a billion dollar budget surplus. The union also agreed to a 1% annual contribution to the health fund. Modest pay raises were accepted by the union at less than half the 8% per year of the three year contract originally demanded by the TWU (it will go 3.5%, 4%, 3.5% over the three years of the contract). The NYC residents didn’t have nearly the negative attitude toward the strike and strikers projected by the mainstream NYC press. Many supported the strike. The average Transit worker earns about $48,000/year-a modest pre-tax sum in NYC where the cost of living is twice the national average. The average train operator gets over $60,000.
Toussaint is said to be a “radical” and indeed he has shown great steadfastness in the face of threats by the courts, the mayor and the governor. Be it remembered that the Taylor Law, itself the consequence of the 1966 NYC transit worker walkout, also makes it illegal for the MTA to attempt to alter the pension terms of the contract through collective bargaining. Only the NY State Legislature can do that. The NYC transit workers have a long history of labor militancy. Previous strikes have also been bitter.
Cabdriverinchicago rather than lying and making up a disaster, I’ll just tell ya I am tired. When looking for some articles to help me compose a response to your last post, I found a couple of really cool blog sites and I just wandered off. Did get some material anyway. I guess I can ask—-do you have any information or study or any set of measures to back up this statement of yours:
<i>White working classes historically tend toward fascism in situations of extreme crisis because of the way their consciousness has been formed by mythological notions of being independant yeomanry, racial superiority and national destiny<i>.
Posted by wileywitch on Feb 7, 2006 at 10:29 PM
A billion dollar surplus? look at the chart in this article from this link:
http://www.gothamgazette.com/commentary/98.lewis.shtml
60% of the MTA
Posted by garrett on Feb 8, 2006 at 3:36 AM
Garrett,
It seems that over the past four years or so the MTA ridership and fares have increased faster than costs and MTA rate of employment. The debt is being paid down and the debt service ratio to revenue is declining. The MTA is vital for the jobs, services, incomes, and economic growth it generates for the NYC. The pension contribution increases from 2% to 6% and the 1% increase in health care contributions should lessen the deficit especially since they’re based on higher average earnings. Things like mass transit in cities need to be prioritized at a time when energy conservation is an issue. The Bush Regime cut communter rail funding when it needed to be increased in the federal budget. The tax cuts for the filthy rich could have resolved much of the problem with urban mass transit. I have a feeling that the NYC MTA crisis is much like the social security crisis. The systems are not that broke, could be fixed with some federal revenue increases, and are more or less political red herrings. After all, what do right wingers hate more than social security and New York City?!
Wiley,
In answer to your question I think you need to study some European history. We’re not that different at all.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Feb 8, 2006 at 11:26 AM
<b> I don’t need to study anything, love. In fact, that is a fine example of the imperiousness I was referring to earlier. Are you a man? Perhaps you tend toward domination because of the way your consciousness has been formed toward patriarchy? Where’s the crisis?
If you do not have any studies to back up this claim, then it isn’t even a fair hypothesis. Perhaps, you need to examine the not so well hidden Freudian and Marxist assumptions (with, perhaps, a little Jungian “collective unconsciousness” thrown into the mix) in your conclusion.
White working classes historically tend toward fascism in situations of extreme crisis because of the way their consciousness has been formed by mythological notions of being independant yeomanry, racial superiority and national destiny.
Do African American working classes historically tend toward slavery in situations of extreme crisis because of the way their consciousness has been formed by mythological notions of being slaves, racial inferiority and national destiny? Do they become janitors because it prevents current cultural and identity dissonance? Do they think, in the back of their brains where poetry forms that the ought to be slaves?
Posted by wileywitch on Feb 8, 2006 at 12:23 PM
Garrett
It seems that you are ranting hysterically about the size of the general debt of the state and city of New York. What is your point. The city workers are not at fault. Their demands and contract are reasonable. More and more of the debt is interest to bondholders. The system needs better funding from the federal government. Mass transit will save resources and make the economy more efficient in the end. What the pundits are angling for is leveraging the MTA and a privatization of the system which will mean big fare hikes to cover the privatization costs and attract investors.
Wiley,
The tendencies which I describe in the white/european working classes toward fascism in times of capitalist crisis is not essentialist, that is to say something inherent in their very nature as a class but one conditioned by how white workers experience class relations and the political culture that is created in the process. Class is not a trascendental or essential charactoristic of an individual but a social and historic category created by relationships formed around the mode of production in any given society at any given time.
Ruling classes tend to inbue workers with a deep sense of nationalism. Though the nation-state is merely the organizational form of capitalism from its incipient and competitive to late monopoly phases, the political consciousness that corresponds to this stage is one of national identity which often survives capitalism’s transcendance of its own national phase of development toward global patterns of accumulation. As Gramsci pointed out the national bourgeousie is unique in that it is not a closed caste and can extend its class sphere over the whole of civil society. It is this form of domination that Gramsci refers to as the “ideological hegemony of the national Bourgeousie” which creates consciousness politically while disguising ideas as natural, transcendant, and above political “bias.” The idea national identity is any more than a political contrivance is one such example.
Many historical studies have shown that workers can be vulnerable to nationalist appeals in times of crisis in order to support regimes that are harmful to their own best interests. Read Robert O. Paxton’s comparative study called The Anatomy of Fascism. Paxton, thought a liberal and not a Marxist, interestingly sees European Fascism as having cleared the decks of European society of militant labor and political organizations to prepare for the neo-liberal capitalist reconstruction of post-war decimated Europe under US tutelage. There is also an exellent study by the famous French Anarchist Daniel Guerin called Fascism and Big Business, where he explores the manipulation through patriotic mass organizations of formerly militant workers in Germany and Italy to support nationalist and racist goals to their own detriment. An old Frankfurt School study by Alfred Sohn-Rethal called The Economy and Class Structure of German Fascism deals with Fascism as a ruling class response to the crisis of German monopoly capitalism in the 1930s. Finally, there is George Mosse’s brilliant cultural/historical study Towards the Final Solution: A History of European Racism which situates the European Fascist phenomenon in two thousand years of European cultural development involving everything from greek notions of aesthetics to the fetishization of the nation-state to British 19th century anthropoloby and the invention of RACE, to later notions of national destiny and racial purity in the victorian age.
None of these studies really gives a focus on the US but I do believe it can happen here. We are far to sanguine about our democratic traditions which we see being eroded by fear and warmongering and lots of other political forces as time presses onward. You asked, “What Crisis?” Its developing slowly right under our collective noses!
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Feb 8, 2006 at 11:16 PM
Hey cabdriver, i’ll copy this stuff and look up some things. Right now I have to not post for a bit so I can get with a few of my own programs.
I’m not ignoring you, I will respond about two weeks from now.
Posted by wileywitch on Feb 10, 2006 at 10:58 AM
Gosh, Christopher Hayes! (Love the new board format, BTW. Much clearer!) The poting board is stll a bit “teeny”, though!
But I mean to say… you “progressive” New Left types just LOVE your linguistics, don’t you? Must be a post-modern thing. Yes, I liked the article. But…
... couldn’t we have just a bit more… well maybe in another article… you don’t seem to have done much on this vital issue, of strikes… something about the actual ISSUES of the strikes, linking it to OTHER labour disputes, nationwide… ideas on how workers could actually WIN these things.. and a wider background, not of just linguistics, but of the way in which the pay and benefits of the average American worker is being eroded, day by day, month by month, year by year… something like that!!! And please, DO advocate a socialist party/administration… unless you are one of these Dems who either thinks they can a) rescue the Democratic party (might have to try, as an interim tactic!) or b) is content to see another administration of Clintonesque, Republican Right… and we can all see what THAT did to social services and welfare….
More about worker’s struggles please!! And - to appease the ones who appear to misguidedly direct their anger at workers who earn more than them… how about some kind of advocacy of a genuinely useful, new kind of union… for low wage workers?? One that doesn’t demand impossible dues?
Posted by Liz on Feb 11, 2006 at 7:05 AM
Hey, wileywitch! Maybe you maean “house-elves”... like Dobby in Harry Potter, eh?? Maybe if we lived in a supernatural society we wouldn’t have an underclass - not a human one, anyway!
(Just a joke!)
Posted by Liz on Feb 11, 2006 at 7:09 AM
Cabdriverinchicago… you make some good points, but are too pessimistic, overall, I feel. One must not mistake pessimism for realism! People have to direct their anger, in today’s society, in the right direction!!
That is the important thing! Ie - upwards - and I don’t mean towards God!
>< Yes, I think you’re right!! People in other CULTURES, not the American one, are (currently) certainworld more into mutual co-operation than the Americans are. I’m not talking about rainforest tribes either. How about the Japanese - they have MUCH more of an ethos of “co-operation”. This is shown in their very pop culture: many of their computer games and even manga show this virtue, as opposed to American efforts such as “Sin City”. (Compare the work of Hayao Miyazake to Frank Miller’s garbage, and I’m sure you’ll see all over, who has the better idea of life and art!)
But… in the Japanese culture, they do not live in a socialist culture, though they do have socialists over there…. but I’ve never been able to find out much about their socialist parties! In their culture, they are good at co-operation (probably more so even than the Chinese, though I’m just guessing) - but their ultimate loyality is also, directed UPWARDS - it is towards the Company, now isn’t it - rather than to the union or their fellow workers - Japanese management have very successfully fostered the “illusion” of “we’re all in this together”! Still. Their version of capitalism, despite its occasional hiccup, seems to work better than ours. And… I don’t think they can be that stifled, creatively… because otherwise they wouldn’t HAVE all those manga and anime and things, would they now… some of which are just porn, but otherw which I think have better things to offer than our sorry comic book and “graphic novel” industry now has… And so on.
Posted by Liz on Feb 11, 2006 at 7:40 AM
Hmm… my internet isn’t working properly, otherwise it wouldn’t be posting all that spelling error garbage! Never mind, I’m sure you get the gist.
Posted by Liz on Feb 11, 2006 at 7:41 AM
How is a cabdriver a lumpen? (Is it calculated by how regular your salary is?)
Posted by Liz on Feb 11, 2006 at 7:44 AM
Oh, a little conspiracy theorizing, here and there, is a good thing, cabbie! (Just as long as it doesn’t go in the direction of Masons, or Lizards!)
Posted by Liz on Feb 11, 2006 at 7:49 AM
Garrett - no pain, no gain!! And I’m sure if they decided to cut your salary in half, you wouldn’t feel just the same way. Or to take away your medical benefits. Pity disabled people (as a group) can’t go on strike!
A really organised left, though, maybe could organise carpools and a sort of cheap “taxi” service for the elderly, needy and disabled, in the event of a strike. THAT might be a good kind of solidarity! (And wouldn’t it worry the New York Mayor types if they did!)
The Wobblies would probably do it. If they had as many members today as they did years ago. Their ideas seem very practical to me.
Posted by Liz on Feb 11, 2006 at 7:59 AM
Liz
You are completely insane! Nothing you said relates to the above postings. You are the first discussant to post seven of your own posts in a row and not once address the issue at hand! The issue, a serious one, is the right of public employees-over three quarters of all unionized employees in the United States-to strike over unacceptible working conditions and contract terms. This is especially vital as tax give backs to the super rich are narrowing support for much needed public services as more and more privatization puts these services out of reach of the poorest.
The NYC metro system is the largest in the world and serves an annual ridership twice the rest of the countries combined. It is vital to NYC as a piece of economic infrastructure and saves fuel, reduces congestion and pollution, and most of all generates jobs, economic growth, and technological innovation in rail transportation like the switch from fixed block signalling to moving block signalling. These benefits, which extend well beyond NYC, make it worth keeping the system around and financially solvent.
The solidarity issue, which stems from the C. Hayes article, relates to the future of unions in the US and thus the future of the strength of the US working class which is being ever weakened through outsourcing, casualization, downsizing, and a general restructuring of the economy which has been taking place over the last three decades. There are very serious issues at stake here about the future of US society, standard of living for the growing numbers of working poor, the viability of the economy, and even about the survival of US society as a democratic one! Let’s please be serious!
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Feb 11, 2006 at 10:18 AM
In the first paragraph above I meant more than the rest of the County’s (USA) combined. Not all the countries in the world! Very sorry—-cabbie.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Feb 11, 2006 at 10:21 AM
Sorry its the second paragraph. I’ve got Liz disorder! Yikes!!!!!!!—cabbie
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Feb 11, 2006 at 10:23 AM
The actual figure for current annual NYC transit ridership is just over one billion—-about half the US’s total annual urban commuter ridership. Still a pretty daunting challenge to any urban commuter transit system staff wouldn’t you say?!
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Feb 13, 2006 at 12:49 PM
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Reader Comments
Great article.
“The opposite of solidarity is dog-eat-dog, which, if we had to choose a motto for the last quarter century of American history, would work as well as any.”
Sadly, “looking out for number one” and “it is everyone for themself” apply too. However, that is the nature of survival.
Labor can never win without the sympathy of the general public or of other parts of the Labor movement which it once enjoyed. One of the problems is that we are now a selfish and hardnosed society; deeply unsympathetic to one another and full of self-defeating bitterness and resentment. Often we tell each other “shut up and just do your job.” This is no way to get a better deal for the growing number of us working poor with no rights whatsoever and no recourse or grievance procedure. Atomizing society’s lower half will make us weak in the face of our most daunting challenges!
Solidarity is needed now more than ever! We can quietly deal with our tactical disagreements in private but in public we must show a strong and unified front! As the quality job base shrinks and the distribution of society’s well skews ever upward toward the super rich, solidarity from below takes on an ever more important place in our values.
Cabdriverinchicago, who is this “general public”? Who are the “selfish” and “hardnosed”?
I work as in-home caregiver and am a union member. A strike would, for obvious reasons, be inappropropriate in this case.
When talking about “atomization” among people who consider themselves to be “liberal”, the topic of middle and upper class college educated people insulting working people rarely comes up. People on all sides of the political spectrum will react against having the topic of “class” introduced, as if it weren’t a pertinent issue.
Fact is, a large number of college educated activists are so accustomed to referring to the working class as “lazy”, “apathetic”, “selfish”, “unevolved”, “devolved”, and “Neanderthal”, that they don’t even hear themselves any more.
The other strategy is to talk about lifting the working class out of their ignorance and apathy with education, as if elves would then move in to take the places of the former janitors and hospital aids, or working people would at last see the “real” beauty of scrubbing floors and return to their labor enlightened. There will, of course, be no willing flood of college educated people (using their connections) to menial positions.
There is a reason that working people aren’t lining up behind the “left” For one, they aren’t as dumb as they look to “liberals”. And they are perfectly aware that their boss at give them a check with which they can pay their rent. Being homeless does more to limit a person’s freedom and options than wonk legislation.
...their boss at least gives them a check…
Wileywitch,
You obviously didn’t listen to a single thing I said! People don’t show sympathy toward one another and are very individualist and unable to relate to the situation of one’s fellow humanity whose experiences are similar. This has nothing to do with ideology. People in other societies are far more class consciousness and get further because of it. They are less likely to identify with their bosses over some stupid check and more likely to bond with other workers. There class consciousness doesn’t stop in the work place but extends to their communities. Class in other societies means verything; certainly more than stupid, mindless, and stigmatizing political labels they hear on such penultimate pillars of high culture as Fox News!
Being atomized means being separated from one another in a very politically and culturally debilitating way such that we don’t identify with one another but with the inhuman values of silent and stoic suffering that the ruling classes want to put on us so we can’t even respond to one another’s need for solidarity and we lash out at each other more than at the system. How bad and unfair does it have to get before American individualism is seen for the fraud that it is and people join together. It works in other societies where people’s solidarity makes piggy share the fruits of society’s labors with the ones who actually work the hardest.
People should not be so obssessed with the so called elitism of the intellectuals and start focusing on the elitism of the elite. Besides, Wiley, what is more elitist, an intellectual’s plea for working class solidarity and a struggle for a better world or the CEO of a big fortune 500 firm who cuts thousands of good paying jobs and outsources them abroad while voting himself another million dollar raise for his trouble bringing the ratio of CEO to entry level pay to over 400? To me this is the real elitism?
Wiley, these are some things that you and the rest of the growing numbers of lumpenproletariat (like myself) need to think about. How can intellectuals be expected to walk the walk when no one walks with them?!
Cabdriverrinchicago, what I’m saying is that the activist left is responsible for a lot of that alienation. The Republicans have done an excellent job of exploiting it.
If anyone is going to help the working class and/or cultivate solidarity or any kind of understanding with the working class they are entering, they would be well advised to stop insulting the formally uneducated and start listening. The snobbery is often hidden in presumptuousness of what constitutes intelligence, and it is rampant.
I agree that radical individualism is extreme in our culture, but that’s not the whole problem. The attitudes that many on the left have about the formally uneducated masses make the term “effete liberal snob” too kind. It’s no different from the snobbery that apparently came with the brass in the military (28 years ago). I’ve been watching this for nearly thirty years, and as far as I can tell, it’s only gotten more pronounced.
It’s one thing when a working and unformally educated person confuses knowledge with intelligence. It’s snarky and mean when a person who has had the privilege of a formal education declares that most working people are idiots and suggests that anyone who doesn’t run off to protest anytime they get a chance doesn’t care. It’s the liberal version of let them eat cake, and it can be stated in a million different judgmental, dismissive, and imperious ways. Like,
“Oh my God, those children in the store were so badly behaved. Those parents ought to know better, and leave the children with their nannies.” I saw this on a chat board once.
Cabdriverinchicago (can I call you “Cabbie”?) I am not harping on this for the sake of argument, I am persisting with this for the sake of reason and progress. I have seen people on the left alienate working people, ridicule people who showed up for a cause but weren’t dressed fashionably enough, and denigrate just about anyone who didn’t agree that the world revolved around their pet cause. I’ve also seen people in activists groups fall for the wolf in sheep’s clothing, because he said all the right things, which, btw, includes the denigration of people who don’t think that the world revolves around their pet cause.
People I used to know in a particular environmental group wouldn’t lower themselves by wearing what working people in a specific area would wear to an event, or what working people in a specific area would consider appropriate dress for a speaker at an event. They would go to a party naked, but wouldn’t put on a blue suit to talk to working class people. They could have had it in the bag—-most people in this country cared about the environment and people in this group were very knowlegable about the environment—-they had years of experience and field work, and great stories to tell. They could explain things to the layman very well. The environment was not a partisan or class issue except for the people who got rich screwing the environment, but most people would rather not learn about the environment from people who think they are superior to them—-especially people that they perceive as a bunch of dirty hippies. Who’s fault is that? Who decided that fashion was a greater priority than educating people about the environment?
Working people are too stupid to accept their own inferiority, I suppose. And so many on the left apparently feel that they are so superior that anyone who questions their proposals or their earth shattering significance, and the assertion that nothing matters by comparison, well, they are clearly just too stupid to get it, aren’t they?
Most of the anti-war crowd I met on the way up to D.C. were hideously rude. When a conservative gentleman I was talking to, said “listen—- “they just hate George Bush”, I had to admit that it certainly sounded that way. Most of the lefties I spoke to demonstrated almost no knowledge about this administration other than what they hated about Bush and war is bad. It also appeared that their were about three person per cause at the event. They couldn’t stick to one message.
You might want to consider the challenge of keeping an eye out for this snobbery and counteracting it. Solidarity starts with the assumption of equality. Think about it. If you assume that that assumption is there because liberals believe in equality, then you’ve probably already lost a lot of the working class, which has no need to uphold liberal pretensions. The idea that going to work instead of going to a protest is “selfish” shows a deep and cynical detachment from the value of “work”.
I am speaking in generalizations. Of course there are exceptions, but the trend hasn’t changed, as far as I can tell.
I read what you said, <b>cabdriverinchicago</i>, but I know the working class. I was born working class, and I will, in all likelihood die working class. But I’ve been immersed in the college world too, and I tell you—-If respect is not shown to working people in all aspects of a movement, don’t bother with a united front, because it’s not there, and they know it, they haven’t spent a lot of time learning how to argue it into existence without compelling evidence in the world they live in (and build, and clean, and stock).
Wiley
You say that we “on the formally educated left” should stop insulting the very working class we want to organize against the system and “start listening.” Listening to what? Religous tirades, torrid tales about corruption in high places, wild conspiracy theories, astrological speculations? I’ve heard enough!!!!!!!!
I know many working class people that are highly intelligent and politically astute but most of them have tended to be much older and veterans of old struggles like the labor movement in the 1930s and 40s or the anti-war movement in the 1960s. Some were involved in the old 1960s era civil rights struggles as well. Most of these people I’ve met in Madison, Wisconsin or in Chicago at various meetings and marches. They’re quite active. Most of them read a lot.
In Chicago there is a wonderful, free-to-the-public, political program called the Open University of the Left which consistently features great educational programs that incorporate films, discussions, and lectures about a range of topics from the War in Iraq and the Occupation of Palestine to labor struggles in the third world and anti-globalization politics in US cities.
Like most of the working class I have almost NO time for this stuff due to my work schedual. My cab lease and gas expenses come to almost $3,000/month and it is tough to book even $5,000/month just to stay on top of a few of my bills! I work more than 12 hours a day often 6 or 7 days a week! It really sucks. The longer hours tire the workers to the point they cannot reflect on life and become fatalistic. This naturally helps to control their political views and limit their actions!
In any case, don’t be so sensitive! Taking things personally and mistaking criticism of the society for personal attacks on “certain types of people” is not only counterproductive but wrong. No body is saying the US working class is stupid. But it would be remiss to ignore the fact that so much of their energy is misdirected. They are often conplicit in their own suffering by trusting people like George Bush and the pundits on Fox News. One of the problems IS cultural. The intellectuals and the workers don’t relate to each other. Bridgeing this gap could be one thing that could be worked on as a common project. When I was in Madison studying over twenty years ago, this was the continual focus of much strategic discussion. We often felt hopeless. Talk of creating a “counter-hegemony” or a “counter-culture” often seemed a pipe dream and is surely one now with the monopolization of the media.
I have often thought that minorities and some immigrants will be the spearhead of tomorrows movements for change. The white working and lower middle classes in US society always seem to be moving hopelessly away from the real answers. Perhaps its to much religion?
I’m not talking about personal attacks, cabdriverinchicago. I’m talking about attitudes that very nearly define the left . There is a reason why Republicans are popular even with people they are hurting. Republicans don’t tell them that they’re morons.
<i>The intellectuals and the workers don
Wiley,
I spent 14 years in Madison. Half the time I studied. Half the time I worked for a Cab coop called Union Cab. It had about one quarter activist-workingclass-intellectuals and half real working class people who grew up as working class folks. The experience of the coop being a workplace democracy was transformative for many people’s conscioussness. People had rights. We shared our earnings in the form of dividends and decisions were taken democratically. We showed solidarity with other workers in other businesses. I’m proud to have been part of this experience to show workers there are alternatives to the current economic model.
That having been said, many workers need more such experiences. They need to see the problems in US society not as corruption, chance, fate, or divine will but as the consequences of an unjust system crafted by people. There needs to be greater sophistication of thinking. This will lead to more effective activism. Reviving “hippy dippy” culture isn’t on the agenda by the way just broader thinking.
I don’t write off the white workers even though much of their community is beset with nationalism and racism (as well as sexism). I know that Latinos are conservatively inclined but this is because of religion. There is such a thing as liberation theology and we can import it from south of the border as well. Blacks and Latinos suffer a lot. Their churches are more socially inclined. Whites tend to react to oppression by becoming personally defensive and lashing out at people who are different and blaming others as a way of reacting to their threatened social position. This has historically been the basis of Fascism. Its very dangerous.
If what I’m saying was completely false, Bush wouldn’t be president, we wouldn’t be in Iraq, we would have a national health care system, and half the nations wealth wouldn’t be controlled by the richest 5% of the population.
I will get to the positive in a few seconds, but first, I challenge you to look at the way Whites appear to you to react to criticism and the way Blacks and Latinos appear to you to react, and ask yourself whether or not your perception may be slightly skewed in the direction of being more “tolerant” and understanding of minority anger. And if, perhaps, you have a tendency to assume that members of a minority group suffer from great forces working against them, and working class white people only suffer from the ‘little things’. Why, for instance, do you attribute conservatism to religion among the Latinos but not the Whites? Just asking. Feel free to challenge me on anything. I wouldn’t be here if I were not open to influence, challenge, and correction on factual matters. (I studied fine arts—-contrary to popular impressions it’s a tough major that would be unbearable for the thin skinned. Don’t worry about my reactions.)
I was not angry about personal cuts in my last posts. I am angry because I think the left is just as responsible for the Republican neocon backlash as conservatives are, and there are reasons why people react to things the way they do. If we’re going to pick up the pieces in this country and move, we have got to get over ourselves and our presumptions—- especially the presumption that this untested theory or that untested theory will fix everything if made into legislation, as if the fact that the top is sucking up all the gravy is an oversight and the game isn’t rigged that way on purpose.
Also, why in the world would any self-respecting person side with a political organization that showed utter contempt for them? People aren’t that stupid.
Tune change.
Now, that cab company sounds great. I spent a lot of time in student housing coops, opened one, started one with fellow coopers and had a lot of different leadership positions over the years. Worked in a grocery store coop, too. Working and living cooperatively and democratically is something else again. You probably have lots of stories to tell, right?
The fact that most Americans assume that coops are communist is almost amusing. When you are democratic in your home and your work, it is wonderful yet not romantic. Depressions are the best time to go coop. Naturally, people drift toward a more radical individualism in more prosperous times in a “capitalist” economy when family associations are not strong, but people <u>can</u> work together when it’s ridiculous not to, and can effectively pool resources, talents, wealth, and information.
Anytime now, the bottom of one or more sectors in our society, and our economy is going to bottom out. A crisis is brewing. A whole host of crises may be on the way. The fever will break. The spell will wear off. People will start questioning and, once the walls start coming down, people will probably start to see options they couldn’t see before.
It might be months away. It might be twelve years in the making, but one thing is certain—-passive aggressive imperiousness will be a waste of precious time. When teachable/open to learning moments</i> present themselves it’s useless and often counter-productive if not ruinous to stay mounted on the high horse. Utopianism is a recipe for disaster. Pushing a theory beyond it’s natural limits may result in tragedy.
Nobody has the great monumental ANSWER. Nobody.
I think the facts are wrong in this article. As someone who lives in NYC (and relies on public transportation to work everyday) I can tell you that the strike completely disrupted my life and practically everyone else’s life in this city. I don’t know of anyone who was in “solidarity” with the strikers. I ended up having to walk about 20 miles everyday the strike was on, and I am too poor to afford a taxi cab or a car. Not to mention that it was FREEZING cold. This article fails to mention all the elderly, disabled, etc etc…who were unable to go to doctor’s appointments, go to the hospital or do any of the other necessary things they need to do to LIVE. I am a staunch Democrat and am totally in favor of workers rights and the right to unionize, but when it comes to holding an entire city hostage so that they can get a 30% raise (and their average salary already at 50 grand a year, benefits, pensions), that makes my blood boil. This is not about worker’s rights or solidarity, its about a few thousand people holding 8 million people hostage because they CAN. Greedy? YES. Thugs? YES. Personally I wish the whole lot of them had been fired AND thrown in jail. Please don’t preach about “solidarity” when these %#&@$#&% were HURTING others. Obviously, the person who wrote this article didn’t have to walk miles and miles in the freezing cold, or I’m sure he would have a different opinion.
Wiley,
I don’t discriminate with regard to the effects of religion. It makes all takers conservative in general. In the case of minorities, there IS liberation theology (MLKing, Oscar Ramero etc.) that doesn’t exist in the US white community (some epochal examples of populism notwithstanding). White working classes historically tend toward fascism in situations of extreme crisis because of the way their consciousness has been formed by mythological notions of being independant yeomanry, racial superiority and national destiny. They also scapegoat others yet minorities do this as well. A real economic crisis in the US will be a political disaster and I am scared to death. I don’t trust the society to remained civilized if indeed it is at all!
Garrett,
I sympathize with your views. I admittedly don’t know all the issues in the NYC transit strike and was speaking about the general situation of US labor particularly the working poor of which the Transit Workers don’t seem to be a part. They seem to be part of the labor aristocracy (although $50,000 annual salary in NYC is probably not all that great especially after taxes) who didn’t give a rat’s ass about the public and probably coundn’t understand what they were putting people through. There was probably some racial hostility as part of the motivation as well. I heard one of the spokesman for the Union on the News and he Jew baited the Mayor of NYC by saying “...who is someone by the name of BLOOMBERG, a millionaire, to call us thugs for asking for a raise in this town?!” Oh, well. NYC is like the Tom Wolf novel the Bonfire of the Vanities, where ethnic innuendo and culture war is part of the code language of class struggle. The Union spokesman was returning hostility for hostility with innuendo!
It just shows how economic conflicts underlay everything. I know this is a cliche but it is true!
This is a great article—it completely encapsulates my experience as a currently striking member of GSOC/UAW 2110 (to learn about and to express solidarity with our struggle, see http://nerdsforgsoc.blogspot.com).
We are a small union and there are rarely more than 30 of us on the picket line on any given day. Picketing in the cold of a New York City winter, picketing when Bush has evicserated the National Labor Relations Act so that your employer is no longer even required to bargain collectively with you as a worker, is hard and demoralizing. But every time a passer-by honks (and ESPECIALLY when the Teamsters in their big trucks with that amazing horn sound honk, or when members of police and fire unions spin the sirens for us), it sends a wave of energy and—yes—solidarity through our picket.
As we are a union of well-educated professional employees who are not even asking for wage increases (only union recognition and a contract), we worried at first that the rest of the labor movement would not take us seriously. But they do. And they have given us the strength to go on—from the TWU workers who come to our labor rallies to the Sanitation guy who gave us strategy advice yesterday. Their struggle is our struggle. Our struggle is their struggle.
In solidarity.
It appears as though the main grievances of the TWU were not wages but pension and health care benefits. A 1.5% contribution on the part of union members to the pension fund was made to offset retirement costs and I suppose there were contributions demanded to offset rising health care costs. Most union contracts now have some kind of contribution from the union member for health care. National health insurence anyone?! The members voted the contract down by 7 votes out of a total of 11,461 votes (11,227 for ;11,334 against). They returned to work anyway and now it seems as if their leader, Robert Toussaint of local 100 will be voted out in the upcoming union election. By the way the international leadership opposed the walkout as did many of the local rank and file. Gov. George Pataki’s negative remarks about the contract may have effected the voting to some degree. Pay was not a major issue. Appearantly, a law prohibiting public employees from striking was violated and the likelihood of another strike is about nil. This may be a setback for labor depending how the contract pans out. It looks like the TWU is still hanging in there but they are vulnerable to anti-labor laws and can easily go the way of PATCO in another real show down with the city. This would be most unfortunate, indeed!
I’ll get back to the race issue tonight (barring disaster), cabdriver. I think you are stereotyping whites. I’m not saying that there aren’t whites that can wear that shoe, but that most don’t—-not anymore than any other group of people.
“or when members of police and fire unions spin the sirens for us), it sends a wave of energy and—yes—solidarity through our picket”
I
Garrett
It sure seems as if the transit workers you run into are real a**holes! As many have claimed, life in NYC can be a real embittering experience all ‘round. People really aren’t reasonable. The story of the transit worker ignoring the mugging is incredible. I certainly would gotten as much information as I could on the guy and reported it to the police and if they didn’t care I’d go to the press. What kind of an a**hole would instinctively respond to something like a mugging.
As far as breaking the law is concerned you have to remember that the law and justice aren’t necessarily the same thing. Remember that the law never discriminates: it forbids both rich and poor alike from sleeping under bridges and begging for money in the streets. I’m not so sure the Taylor Law is any more just than Taft-Hartley or the law that forbids workers employed by a business or organization under Federal contract from striking. Public sector workers are by far the largest proportion of unionized workers currently in this country. If they lose the right to strike than that right is basically lost to American labor as a whole given that almost all the private sector workers (except for those who frequently work under government contract) belong to unions to weak to strike successfully. US labor really is flat on its back
Quite aside from this I really do think that there needs to be pressure on the city and the union to get transit workers to stop mistreating metro-riders. Here again I think a media campaign to expose and embarrass the worst offenders could help. Workers, especially well paid ones, have to live up to their obligations too. As a cabbie I earn crap but I don’t take it out on my passengers. If I made good money I’d be even nicer.
Wiley,
I don’t think you understand my point about the historic nature of white/european working class response to crisis. Economic collapse often triggers a profound sense of “pincer psychology” in such workers. They begin to feel squeezed between the poor and “degenerate” elements on the one hand and the parasitic “decadent” elites on the other. Their self conceptualization is that of a highly virtuous Producer class that is the locus of ALL wealth and value creation that is being fed upon by parasites high and low. They see themselves as epitomising certain essential and unique virtues absent in others like, integrity, honesty, thrift, industriousness, loyalty, and selflessness. They begin to see themselves as historically endowed with the legitimacy to lead the people of the nation. They see themselves above politics and epitomising these timeless and transcendental virtues as the only worthy ones. They demand a state that embodies this ethical ideal and that can lead the volk to their preordained divine destiny. The working class thus sees socialism and liberal democracy as the weak self-interested agenda of corrupt political and racial elements. Hey Wiley, don’t think the US working class is above the German, Italian, or Japanese ones of the early twentieth century. Our rednecks are an ideological disaster waiting to happen. Just add hysteria, fear, economic collapse, disorder, war, and chaos and mix to taste. Voila’
I’ve done a little research on the TWU strike in NYC in 12/05. It seems that the REAL issue was pensions after all. In a world of labor relations where workers are losing everything to companies reporting record profits and record compensation packages for CEOs, kudos to Toussaint for saving the TWU pension package. The MTA wanted to boost the retirement age by seven years from 55 to 62 while lowering the amount recieved at retirement through the creation of a second tier of employee for pension benefits. The union rejected this but accepted a raise in annual salary contributions to the pension fund from 2% to 6% for the first 10 years of employment by the MTA. This was the only change in the contract. This will still save the MTA millions at a time when they have announced a billion dollar budget surplus. The union also agreed to a 1% annual contribution to the health fund. Modest pay raises were accepted by the union at less than half the 8% per year of the three year contract originally demanded by the TWU (it will go 3.5%, 4%, 3.5% over the three years of the contract). The NYC residents didn’t have nearly the negative attitude toward the strike and strikers projected by the mainstream NYC press. Many supported the strike. The average Transit worker earns about $48,000/year-a modest pre-tax sum in NYC where the cost of living is twice the national average. The average train operator gets over $60,000.
Toussaint is said to be a “radical” and indeed he has shown great steadfastness in the face of threats by the courts, the mayor and the governor. Be it remembered that the Taylor Law, itself the consequence of the 1966 NYC transit worker walkout, also makes it illegal for the MTA to attempt to alter the pension terms of the contract through collective bargaining. Only the NY State Legislature can do that. The NYC transit workers have a long history of labor militancy. Previous strikes have also been bitter.
Cabdriverinchicago rather than lying and making up a disaster, I’ll just tell ya I am tired. When looking for some articles to help me compose a response to your last post, I found a couple of really cool blog sites and I just wandered off. Did get some material anyway. I guess I can ask—-do you have any information or study or any set of measures to back up this statement of yours:
<i>White working classes historically tend toward fascism in situations of extreme crisis because of the way their consciousness has been formed by mythological notions of being independant yeomanry, racial superiority and national destiny<i>.
A billion dollar surplus? look at the chart in this article from this link:
http://www.gothamgazette.com/commentary/98.lewis.shtml
60% of the MTA
Garrett,
It seems that over the past four years or so the MTA ridership and fares have increased faster than costs and MTA rate of employment. The debt is being paid down and the debt service ratio to revenue is declining. The MTA is vital for the jobs, services, incomes, and economic growth it generates for the NYC. The pension contribution increases from 2% to 6% and the 1% increase in health care contributions should lessen the deficit especially since they’re based on higher average earnings. Things like mass transit in cities need to be prioritized at a time when energy conservation is an issue. The Bush Regime cut communter rail funding when it needed to be increased in the federal budget. The tax cuts for the filthy rich could have resolved much of the problem with urban mass transit. I have a feeling that the NYC MTA crisis is much like the social security crisis. The systems are not that broke, could be fixed with some federal revenue increases, and are more or less political red herrings. After all, what do right wingers hate more than social security and New York City?!
Wiley,
In answer to your question I think you need to study some European history. We’re not that different at all.
<b> I don’t need to study anything, love. In fact, that is a fine example of the imperiousness I was referring to earlier. Are you a man? Perhaps you tend toward domination because of the way your consciousness has been formed toward patriarchy? Where’s the crisis?
If you do not have any studies to back up this claim, then it isn’t even a fair hypothesis. Perhaps, you need to examine the not so well hidden Freudian and Marxist assumptions (with, perhaps, a little Jungian “collective unconsciousness” thrown into the mix) in your conclusion.
White working classes historically tend toward fascism in situations of extreme crisis because of the way their consciousness has been formed by mythological notions of being independant yeomanry, racial superiority and national destiny.
Do African American working classes historically tend toward slavery in situations of extreme crisis because of the way their consciousness has been formed by mythological notions of being slaves, racial inferiority and national destiny? Do they become janitors because it prevents current cultural and identity dissonance? Do they think, in the back of their brains where poetry forms that the ought to be slaves?
Garrett
It seems that you are ranting hysterically about the size of the general debt of the state and city of New York. What is your point. The city workers are not at fault. Their demands and contract are reasonable. More and more of the debt is interest to bondholders. The system needs better funding from the federal government. Mass transit will save resources and make the economy more efficient in the end. What the pundits are angling for is leveraging the MTA and a privatization of the system which will mean big fare hikes to cover the privatization costs and attract investors.
Wiley,
The tendencies which I describe in the white/european working classes toward fascism in times of capitalist crisis is not essentialist, that is to say something inherent in their very nature as a class but one conditioned by how white workers experience class relations and the political culture that is created in the process. Class is not a trascendental or essential charactoristic of an individual but a social and historic category created by relationships formed around the mode of production in any given society at any given time.
Ruling classes tend to inbue workers with a deep sense of nationalism. Though the nation-state is merely the organizational form of capitalism from its incipient and competitive to late monopoly phases, the political consciousness that corresponds to this stage is one of national identity which often survives capitalism’s transcendance of its own national phase of development toward global patterns of accumulation. As Gramsci pointed out the national bourgeousie is unique in that it is not a closed caste and can extend its class sphere over the whole of civil society. It is this form of domination that Gramsci refers to as the “ideological hegemony of the national Bourgeousie” which creates consciousness politically while disguising ideas as natural, transcendant, and above political “bias.” The idea national identity is any more than a political contrivance is one such example.
Many historical studies have shown that workers can be vulnerable to nationalist appeals in times of crisis in order to support regimes that are harmful to their own best interests. Read Robert O. Paxton’s comparative study called The Anatomy of Fascism. Paxton, thought a liberal and not a Marxist, interestingly sees European Fascism as having cleared the decks of European society of militant labor and political organizations to prepare for the neo-liberal capitalist reconstruction of post-war decimated Europe under US tutelage. There is also an exellent study by the famous French Anarchist Daniel Guerin called Fascism and Big Business, where he explores the manipulation through patriotic mass organizations of formerly militant workers in Germany and Italy to support nationalist and racist goals to their own detriment. An old Frankfurt School study by Alfred Sohn-Rethal called The Economy and Class Structure of German Fascism deals with Fascism as a ruling class response to the crisis of German monopoly capitalism in the 1930s. Finally, there is George Mosse’s brilliant cultural/historical study Towards the Final Solution: A History of European Racism which situates the European Fascist phenomenon in two thousand years of European cultural development involving everything from greek notions of aesthetics to the fetishization of the nation-state to British 19th century anthropoloby and the invention of RACE, to later notions of national destiny and racial purity in the victorian age.
None of these studies really gives a focus on the US but I do believe it can happen here. We are far to sanguine about our democratic traditions which we see being eroded by fear and warmongering and lots of other political forces as time presses onward. You asked, “What Crisis?” Its developing slowly right under our collective noses!
Hey cabdriver, i’ll copy this stuff and look up some things. Right now I have to not post for a bit so I can get with a few of my own programs.
I’m not ignoring you, I will respond about two weeks from now.
Gosh, Christopher Hayes! (Love the new board format, BTW. Much clearer!) The poting board is stll a bit “teeny”, though!
But I mean to say… you “progressive” New Left types just LOVE your linguistics, don’t you? Must be a post-modern thing. Yes, I liked the article. But…
... couldn’t we have just a bit more… well maybe in another article… you don’t seem to have done much on this vital issue, of strikes… something about the actual ISSUES of the strikes, linking it to OTHER labour disputes, nationwide… ideas on how workers could actually WIN these things.. and a wider background, not of just linguistics, but of the way in which the pay and benefits of the average American worker is being eroded, day by day, month by month, year by year… something like that!!! And please, DO advocate a socialist party/administration… unless you are one of these Dems who either thinks they can a) rescue the Democratic party (might have to try, as an interim tactic!) or b) is content to see another administration of Clintonesque, Republican Right… and we can all see what THAT did to social services and welfare….
More about worker’s struggles please!! And - to appease the ones who appear to misguidedly direct their anger at workers who earn more than them… how about some kind of advocacy of a genuinely useful, new kind of union… for low wage workers?? One that doesn’t demand impossible dues?
Hey, wileywitch! Maybe you maean “house-elves”... like Dobby in Harry Potter, eh?? Maybe if we lived in a supernatural society we wouldn’t have an underclass - not a human one, anyway!
(Just a joke!)
Cabdriverinchicago… you make some good points, but are too pessimistic, overall, I feel. One must not mistake pessimism for realism! People have to direct their anger, in today’s society, in the right direction!!
That is the important thing! Ie - upwards - and I don’t mean towards God!
>< Yes, I think you’re right!! People in other CULTURES, not the American one, are (currently) certainworld more into mutual co-operation than the Americans are. I’m not talking about rainforest tribes either. How about the Japanese - they have MUCH more of an ethos of “co-operation”. This is shown in their very pop culture: many of their computer games and even manga show this virtue, as opposed to American efforts such as “Sin City”. (Compare the work of Hayao Miyazake to Frank Miller’s garbage, and I’m sure you’ll see all over, who has the better idea of life and art!)
But… in the Japanese culture, they do not live in a socialist culture, though they do have socialists over there…. but I’ve never been able to find out much about their socialist parties! In their culture, they are good at co-operation (probably more so even than the Chinese, though I’m just guessing) - but their ultimate loyality is also, directed UPWARDS - it is towards the Company, now isn’t it - rather than to the union or their fellow workers - Japanese management have very successfully fostered the “illusion” of “we’re all in this together”! Still. Their version of capitalism, despite its occasional hiccup, seems to work better than ours. And… I don’t think they can be that stifled, creatively… because otherwise they wouldn’t HAVE all those manga and anime and things, would they now… some of which are just porn, but otherw which I think have better things to offer than our sorry comic book and “graphic novel” industry now has… And so on.
Hmm… my internet isn’t working properly, otherwise it wouldn’t be posting all that spelling error garbage! Never mind, I’m sure you get the gist.
How is a cabdriver a lumpen? (Is it calculated by how regular your salary is?)
Oh, a little conspiracy theorizing, here and there, is a good thing, cabbie! (Just as long as it doesn’t go in the direction of Masons, or Lizards!)
Garrett - no pain, no gain!! And I’m sure if they decided to cut your salary in half, you wouldn’t feel just the same way. Or to take away your medical benefits. Pity disabled people (as a group) can’t go on strike!
A really organised left, though, maybe could organise carpools and a sort of cheap “taxi” service for the elderly, needy and disabled, in the event of a strike. THAT might be a good kind of solidarity! (And wouldn’t it worry the New York Mayor types if they did!)
The Wobblies would probably do it. If they had as many members today as they did years ago. Their ideas seem very practical to me.
Liz
You are completely insane! Nothing you said relates to the above postings. You are the first discussant to post seven of your own posts in a row and not once address the issue at hand! The issue, a serious one, is the right of public employees-over three quarters of all unionized employees in the United States-to strike over unacceptible working conditions and contract terms. This is especially vital as tax give backs to the super rich are narrowing support for much needed public services as more and more privatization puts these services out of reach of the poorest.
The NYC metro system is the largest in the world and serves an annual ridership twice the rest of the countries combined. It is vital to NYC as a piece of economic infrastructure and saves fuel, reduces congestion and pollution, and most of all generates jobs, economic growth, and technological innovation in rail transportation like the switch from fixed block signalling to moving block signalling. These benefits, which extend well beyond NYC, make it worth keeping the system around and financially solvent.
The solidarity issue, which stems from the C. Hayes article, relates to the future of unions in the US and thus the future of the strength of the US working class which is being ever weakened through outsourcing, casualization, downsizing, and a general restructuring of the economy which has been taking place over the last three decades. There are very serious issues at stake here about the future of US society, standard of living for the growing numbers of working poor, the viability of the economy, and even about the survival of US society as a democratic one! Let’s please be serious!
In the first paragraph above I meant more than the rest of the County’s (USA) combined. Not all the countries in the world! Very sorry—-cabbie.
Sorry its the second paragraph. I’ve got Liz disorder! Yikes!!!!!!!—cabbie
The actual figure for current annual NYC transit ridership is just over one billion—-about half the US’s total annual urban commuter ridership. Still a pretty daunting challenge to any urban commuter transit system staff wouldn’t you say?!
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