Not Your Parents’ Labor Movement

• subscribe to print magazine

• stay in touch with our email newsletter

  Subscribe to our regular weekly e-mail newsletter. It's packed with updates on recent and upcoming stories, events, campaigns and things every progressive should be informed about.

   

• email this article to a friend

  Your Name Your Email Recipient Email

  Personal message Thought you might be interested in this article from In These Times.

   

  Please help us prevent spam by verifying the word you see in the image above

  Send to multiple recipients. Just separate each email address with a comma.

• Reader Comments (6)

  Page 1 of 1 pages

  One of the main reasons for lack of militancy is the false assumption that Barack Obama is some kind of “friend of the people” and that he is some kind of liberal or progressive just “waiting to make his move.”

  Many working people are still convinced Barack Obama and the Democrats are going to solve their problems. How did they come to this conclusion? It’s kind of simple to determine how working people got this impression with all the liberals, progressives and much of the left intentionally obscuring the fact that Barack Obama is nothing but a Wall Street charlatan out to implement the policies of U.S. imperialism. These supporters even ignored Barack Obama’s own written words in “Foreign Policy Magazine” published by the ultra-right, reactionary voice of U.S. imperialism—- the Council on Foreign Relations.

  It is the responsibility of liberals, progressives and the left to teach working people the truth about candidates and the positions of all political parties. Instead of doing this, many liberals, progressives and the left intentionally lied about Barack Obama and the fact he works for Wall Street when they could have told the truth about him and the Democrats and still called for the election of a “lesser evil.”

  Now, the working class is in a real mess as Barack Obama and the Democrats controlling the presidency and both houses of congress (without any help from the Republicans) are forcing the working class to pay for the problems created by this economic mess… and, to make matters even worse, these same liberals, progressives and leftists who the working class needs for guidance if some kind of united people’s front is going to come into being to bring forward a real progressive alternative to what Obama and the Democrats are doing, are once again telling lies to cover up Barack Obama’s thoroughly reactionary agenda by calling for compromise on health care reform and even pushing Barack Obama’s thoroughly and completely reactionary and anti-labor “green” economic agenda.

  And you wonder why the working class hasn’t taken a more united and militant stand in defense of its own rights and livelihoods.

  And, in fact, at the very head of these pro-Obama, pro-Democrats is the entire labor leadership on every level from the locals to the area labor councils to the state feds right on up to the very top with Sweeney, Trumka and Stern… with very few exceptions… and these people are all playing the same game right over again putting Barack Obama’s and the Democrat’s political futures and fortunes before initiating any kind of struggles aimed at protecting and defending the standard of living of the working class and the rights of all working people.

  Under these circumstances, I don’t understand why you need look for any reasons why there is a lack of united militant action on the part of the working class since the only other way the working class is going to get direction if its liberal, progressive and left in leadership are not going to provide this clarity and direction is from the ground up through rank-and-file and grassroots community initiatives—- and with these same liberals, progressives and leftists being as anti-communist as they are pro-Obama and pro-Democrat it will take considerable time for these rank-and-file and grassroots efforts to form and take hold… they will take hold because workers have no choice but to fight back… but, it is going to be a while in coming since even what is left of the CPUSA—- its top leadership—- is still slobbering over Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid while extolling the virtues of these labor fakers at the helm of the U.S. labor movement who don’t even know what class they represent who don’t even have any concept of socialized health care and probably never heard of Eugene Debs much less Tommy Douglas… they think they represent the middle class even though the working class pays their middle-class salaries.

  Look at how these same “labor leaders” and their middle-class liberals, progressives and leftists have sold us out on health care reform and remained silent as Israel slaughtered the Palestinians in Gaza Strip—- almost alone among the world’s labor unions.

  Really, should we expect that there would have been more “Republic” type sit-ins? Under the circumstances, we should consider ourselves fortunate there was even the “Republic sit-in” to kind of begin to point the way.

  Now, what is going to happen with this huge St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant powered by clean, green hydro employing 2,000 workers that Ford wants to close so that it can begin importing Ford Rangers from its brand new plant in Thailand as soon as Barack Obama and the Democrats provide Ford the deal the company wants?

  Shall we all wait to see what John Sweeney, Richard Trumka, Robert Borosage and Sam Webb intend to do? No doubt they will be tooling around in Ford Rangers imported from Thailand filled with campaign literature to re-elect Barack Obama.

  Alan L. Maki
  Director of Organizing,
  Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

  amaki000@centurytel.net

  http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

  Posted by alanmaki on Aug 4, 2009 at 2:30 PM

  And you wonder why the working class hasn’t taken a more united and militant stand in defense of its own rights and livelihoods.

  Posted by Daniel Adams on Aug 4, 2009 at 9:35 PM

  And then there’s the self destruction of the labor movement as evidenced by the factional strife between Unite and HERE.

  Posted by Michael Rothman on Aug 6, 2009 at 4:10 PM

  On July 7th about 300 workers and supporters marched on the Grand Hyatt in downtown San Antonio. For the first time in San Antonio’s history hotel workers stood up for themselves. Facing a very negative anti-union labor consultant the workers voted to boycott the NLRB sanctioned election. (they had previously signed up 62% of the work force) In my view there will be a growing labor militancy as the democrats and their so-called opposition from the GOP continue oppressing worker’s rights and wage increases!

  I do not think that either Change To Win or AFL-CIO leadership has the vision or cojones to divorce themselves from the Democrats. This is another reason why America’s working class gains are so minimal. Workers in their own local unions and through local conflicts will have to pave the way for more militant actions! The leadership cannot be counted on to “take the lead!”

  While I agree with the author to some degree, the fact is things are heating up and workers are being forced to take action. This will not result in hundreds of job actions across the nation, but there will be more activity than in previous years!

  What is truly needed is for the left to come together and organize a viable alternative to the Democrats and Republicans. At present we are much too divided and going in too many different directions! The current “healthcare reform” movement is living proof of this. HCAN diluted the movement for single payer and has only served to confuse the people. Perhaps this was their intent, I don’t know. I do know that allowing the HMOs to remain in control of our healthcare is a serious mistake!

  Posted by Frank Valdez on Aug 10, 2009 at 4:24 PM

  There’s a pretty simple reason there isn’t more labor militancy in the United States: because the Taft-Hartley act made it illegal.

  Posted by Tom Agnew on Oct 31, 2009 at 11:21 PM

  Great post! It’s very nice. Thank you so much for your post.
  __________________
  Watch Anime Episodes

  Posted by Anna Lee on Nov 24, 2009 at 6:34 PM

  Page 1 of 1 pages

• register a new account »Posting Security

  To participate in our forums, please register for a free account.

  Username Password

    Remember me
  

  Retreive lost password »

Also by David Moberg

• Timeout for Labor in Florida
  Union leaders huddle to assess alliances, propose jobs program.
• Too Important to Fail
  The feds saved Goldman Sachs and other banks deemed ‘too big to fail,’ but Park National was left to swing in the wind.
• Gross Inaccuracies
  The debate over why the GDP is flawed is about more than numbers.
• Out of Control
  Too big to regulate, the banks need to be broken up.
• Labor’s New Leader
  The AFL-CIO stakes its future on Richard Trumka.
• The Retail Devolution
  Two new books explore corporate evil.