Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Mike nailed it.

Speaking of sellout institutions: been following the OWS v Trinity Church contretemps? Deelish. Story tells everything you need to know about elite liberal institutions.

I know a well meaning Episcopal minister who was posting daily suggestions of what OWS should protest and where. But when they trained their sights on Trinity: well, wait a minute, what's going on here? And the smarmy sanctimony of Trinity's clergy....

Yeah. An Episcopal priest I know recently told me that "Trinity is acting more like a landlord than Our Lord." And the Bishops have been pretty awful too. Except for retired Bishop Packard, who got himself arrested with the Occupiers of Duarte Square the other day, and has generally been a stalwart advocate of the Occupations.

People who are better-informed about this subject than I am tell me that ILWU may not deserve to be tarred with quite the same brush as the AFL-CIA. Observations, anybody?

Fadduh Smiff sez on 12.21.11 @12:12:
People who are better-informed about this subject than I am tell me that ILWU may not deserve to be tarred with quite the same brush as the AFL-CIA. Observations, anybody?

Well, I've read the article in Labor Notes which you posted a link to the other day, and which, in fact, inspired this cartoon.

The Occupiers cited in the article had a good point about how the union needed to pull off some fancy footwork to avoid being busted for violating a no-strike clause in their contract, although given the current context of events, my money is on the ILWU "leadership" being craven and dickless and more concerned with the needs of the bosses.

Besides, just what is the goddamn' deal with no-strike clauses, anyway? What the hell kind of labor union would negotiate away the one sure-fire tool the workers have for grabbing the bosses by the balls and squeezing until they cry like little girls? ...and make no mistake -- these days, it's high time the bosses were made to feel some pain.

Personally -- given the current situation -- I think that any union "leaders" who agree to a no-strike clause should be strung up by their ankles and used as piñatas.

(Mind you, I'm no expert on labor relations; I'm just watchin' the shit go down and calling 'em as I see 'em.)

"just what is the goddamn' deal with no-strike clauses"

thanx flug you are an honest fellah

union militants often question this contract provision

usual one step before they question the whole "legal strategy "

the question

what worker bee right is really enforceable in "the man's court " anyway you know once push comes to shove

i note this :

for our left but anti syndicalist comrades
her's the locus classicus:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1900/reform-revolution/ch03.htm
-------------------------

i hesitate to suggest you review that unions history since say 1933
but well it ain't the carpenters union

i wish this site's regulars
had as much interest in harry bridges as george orwell

Rather than vindicate the reformist, strike free union the article Owen effectively makes the point unions are basically useless. I agree. I did get a chuckle out of the suggestion-an argument popular among libertarians these days-if unions got too much power the unions got too much power the consumer would suffer; as if are whole ceconomy weren't already based on swindling the "consumer" at every chance!

But it lost me with the conclusion: that we should sit on our asses and wait for the Revolution and jsut be grate that were it not for the unions the wage spiral would be even, all be it just a little bit it seems, worse. Isn't the lesson instead: we need something new because the trade union can't get the job (if ever intended to) done?

By the way, its ammusing how pissed off the "anti-syndicalists" get at us militants

My phone caused me to post prematurely!

In conclusion I think it amusing we are on the one hand told there is little we can do collectivley or individually to change the course of history yet at the same to have it implied being too militant is in some way harmful. If history does what it wants inspite of or bungling efforts then of course the agitations of militants are in vain...but so too are the arguments levied against them. And anyway are the militants just as much part of Clio design.

The no-strike clauses came from Taft-Hartley and the wider Red Scare II galaxy.

I find it more than ironic that OWS, insofar as it has stated its aims, has been quite awful about labor issues. Why isn't it demanding a pro-labor, post-Cold War modernization of the rules, one that reflects the fact that a majority of employees say they would like to belong to a union?

Meanwhile, there are ongoing struggles inside the unions, as everybody here must know at some level.

Ironic, then, that the "militants" are dumping the very notion of unions overboard, as you strike a pose at the ports for some unnamed and unnameable end.

Typical left behavior, alas...

i've run into this difficulty with you before
mr ward

your basic hostility
to text comprehension

of course rosa isn't
making
"the point unions are basically useless"
nor is she suggesting ass sits
nor is she without
a recommended
higher organization then a union

if you don't agree
read the text again
with a finer toothed comb comrade

don't project cow spot black and whites
on to this
its unbecoming

---------------------------

" the principal function of trade unions ... providing the workers with a means of realising the capitalist law of wages "

a full understanding of what marxists mean by the law of wages
hardly suggests this function
is a trivial activity

so what does this mean ??
you might read marx hizzseff on this
in wages price and profit
http://www.marx2mao.com/M&E/WPP65.html

but here goes :

" the sale of their labour power at current market prices. Trade unions enable the proletariat to utilise at each instant, the conjuncture of the market"
conjuncture of the market ??

well one might want to recognizes
the implications of this
there is a non zero elastcity
to the outcome of inter class bargaining
wages etc travel in a potential channel
to simulate this
imagine actual wage rates bounce around
inside this channel chaotically

the union trys to hit the ceiling of the wage channel and stay up there
not passively lie on the channel's floor
----------------------------------------
how thick is this bargaining channel ??
well it has several dimensions each with some thickness

u know
one has wage rates
working conditions
staffing levels
weekly daily and yearly hours

not trivial matters right ???

all of which unions can impact

but here's rosa's point

unions can not bring forth
the end of exploitation
for that one must build
a quite different class mechanism

a mass workers party
that is also a revolutionary party
a party prepared to build a new type of state
a dictatorship of the proles

unlike the anarcho syndicalist
roas recommends
building an organization
ready and able to act explicitly
within the political struggle against the existing state
not just indirectly thru job site activity
and
unlike the reformers
rosa "knows" from her marxist beliefs

the only route to world historical
social transformation
is thru a series of class based revolutions

-------------------------------

" its amusing how pissed off the "anti-syndicalists" get at us militants "

anti S ers versus militants ??

that strikes me as not
a clean distinction

but at any rate
to return to the overly personal

"us militants " ??

us as in u militant ??

u a job site militant ??

if so
great to hear it !!!!

really

fill me in mate

i'd love to hook you up with a few souls in need of a hardened vet militant
for their sake of course

you live in new york right ???

------------------
u got "a chuckle " ??

that word like "cheers"
strikes me as a "tell"
too much self contentment
feigned or real doesn't matter
better a cackle then a chuckle

md

"there are ongoing struggles inside the unions, as everybody here must know at some level.

Ironic, then, that the "militants" are dumping the very notion of unions overboard...."

aren't a lot of em just wanting a real fightin' union ???

unfortunately they often look to models like the IWW without reading about
that noble enterprise's full arc

i wonder if lewis and his years at the helm of the cio are fighters enough for em ??

-----------------------------------

but if they're just striking ".. a pose ...for some unnamed and unnameable end."

forgive em their raw souls time and struggle
will temper the best of em
and flush the worst of em too

repeal taft hartley
i'd rather that then restore crass beagle

or public funding of elections or ending corporate personhood
or setting up a liberal wpa gulag

" as if our whole economy weren't already
based on swindling the "consumer" at every chance"

yes mr ward but that in the absence of unions is purely a capitalist undertaking

but rosa suggests further
the wage class
under present institutional arrangements
using its unions spontaneously
can share
in the surplus extracted by corporate capitalists
share the spoils of a society
based on the exploitation
of wage paid actual producers
a surplus extracted
from our present system of markets
and even then
shared out if at all
only among a sifted lucky minority of organized wage earners

"Trades Unions work well as centres of resistance against the encroachments of capital."

" They fail partially from an injudicious use of their power."

" They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class, that is to say, the ultimate abolition of the wages system "

The Case of Occupy and the Longshoremen's Union: A Reply toCritics by Cal Winslow ZNetDecember 17, 2011 http://www.zcommunications.org/the-case-of-occupy-and-the-longshoremen-s-union-a-reply-to-critics-by-cal-winslow

On December 5, 2011, Znet published my piece, "The Case ofOccupy and the Longshoremen's Union." The article both inits introduction and its conclusions was highly favorable tothe Occupy Wall Street movement and its achievements thusfar. It did, however, raise questions concerning OccupyOakland's use of the term "General Strike" to describe itsNovember 2, 2011 demonstrations at the Port of Oakland andits subsequent call for a West Coast "General Strike" onDecember 12. The article asked what we mean by a "strike," and what wemean by a "General Strike" specifically, and it offered somedefinition as well as historical examples of each. It arguedthat the issues involved were not semantic but importantbecause strikes are important and that strikes, therefore,"are not to be taken lightly." The article then turned to the problematic nature of theDecember 12 call for a "General Strike" on the West coastdocks, a strike for which there was apparently little or nosupport among significant numbers of dock workers or theirunions. In the event organizers renamed the action a "blockade" andthen "community pickets," an improvement though these twonew appellations concealed as much as they revealed. Nevermind. The project, however, was pressed forward asoriginally intended - a "shutdown of the entire West CoastWaterfront - from Anchorage to San Diego." And why? Thereasons abounded, nearly all quite valid in themselves: tosupport the Longview ILWU members; to retaliate for policebrutality in Oakland; to show the power of the 99%; toenergize the working class; as a manifestation of "hatredfor capitalism." Thus the problem remained - the blockade was to beundertaken despite the fact that the International Longshoreand Warehouse Union (ILWU) took the position that it opposedthe blockade: Robert McEllrath, the president of the ILWU:"Support is one thing, organization from outside groupsattempting to co-opt our struggle in order to advance abroader agenda is quite another and one that is destructiveto our democratic process." Neither was support forthcoming from other dockside unionsnor did significant rank and file support emerge. TheOakland teachers' union (OEA) was the exception. Hence my criticism of the call and my concern that itdisplayed a kind of substitutionism that I could notsupport. That is, especially insofar as Occupy Oaklandprojected itself as striking in support of the Longview, WAlongshoremen, it was an attempt to substitute Occupy Oaklandfor the workers involved and their unions - without theirapproval. And that represented in my mind a serious tacticalerror and one that might have long term consequences in avery new movement. The event itself and replies to my article have onlystrengthened this belief. I will mention just a few: anemail from Jay contended "...occupy is... the larger workingclass movement..." A Portland, OR writer responded toCounterPunch, which also published the article: "this actionis conducted by and for the entire working class in order tosend a rebuke to the 1% who own and control distribution andtransportation." Steve D'Arcy replied with this in Znet, "Itis not the ILWU apparatus -- dutifully enforcing the termsof its collective agreements -- that represents the workers'movement here. It is the General Assemblies of the westcoast Occupy movement." (my emphases) I can only respond that, no, Occupy is not the "largerworking class movement" and that it does not "represent" theworker's movement here. It may aspire to, it may attempt toorganize and lead that movement. But it does not do thatnow. And the diminished turnouts, including by workers,speak for themselves. Another set of responses seemed not interested in the notionof "substitutionism" but with the facts concerning theshutdown as I reported them, arguing that the shutdown didindeed have significant working class and labor support. I had written: "I confess to knowing little about theofficers of the ILWU, the same for the rank and file. Butnow, for better or worse, the case is that neither theofficers of the ILWU nor any significant section of itsmembers support the December actions planned by OccupyOakland." Readers will have to judge for themselves. Ibelieve this was in fact the case. Lee Sustar, writing in one of two responses to me featuredsimultaneously in Socialist Worker quoted the above and thencountered with this: "I think people [on the docks] do havesympathy and feel connected with Occupy as a whole," saidAnthony Leviege, an ILWU member for 11 years who is activewith Occupy Oakland. Working alongside other Occupyactivists to leaflet the docks in recent weeks, he estimatedthat about 50 percent of the workers he's talked toexpressed some sympathy for the December 12 action." I also think there are people on the docks who have "somesympathy... with Occupy as a whole" but sympathy is onething. Support and involvement is another. To offer asevidence in rebuttal to my concerns, this utterly vague"about 50% ...express some sympathy" is breathtaking! Sustarthen retreats to the contention that the mis-treatedtruckers who work the southern California docks represent anarea of support. Perhaps, but activism amongst these workers(and they are certainly unfairly treated) significantlyoutdates Occupy and again, in the event, very few, if anyparticipated in the blockades. So Sustar is wrong. An aside: on a personal note I was happy to see Sustarcommend Rebel Rank and File: Labor Militancy and Revolt fromBelow During the Long 1970s, a book I edited with Aaron andRobert Brenner. It contains an excellent collection ofaccounts of the last significant upsurge of workers in theUS and should be of interest to Occupy activists. I mustadd, however, contrary to Sustar's implication, thatparticipation in the movements of that decade in fact hashelped me to be able to distinguish between workers'movements and others. One last point. I was surprised to see Labor Notes, longassociated with rank and file movements and the fight fordemocratic unions report without comment "most strikes areinconvenient for someone, including other workers." This ofcourse is true, but it seems a bit cavalier to me. Whatabout the longshoremen and the truckers themselves? Hasanyone - besides the mainstream press, of course - askedthem? They've been reduced to objects in this wholediscussion, sometimes less. It's my impression that theunion views this episode as representing more than"inconvenience;" its response was that "The ILWU is notsupporting the action at all... (Occupy organizers) havebeen very disrespectful of the democratic decision-makingprocess in the union and deliberately went around thatprocess to call their own action without consultingworkers." (By the way, Craig Merrillees, ILWU communications director,has been roundly denounced for this and as a result has beenlumped in with "the city's business and politicalestablishment" and other "enemies" of the movement. Myquestion is this: does the union have a right to freespeech? Is it allowed to defend itself? Or must suchstatements first be vetted?) There is nothing wrong, in my view, with developing acritique of the unions and the structures of industrialrelations. It is hardly news, however, that the leadershipof the unions in this country leaves much to be desired,that there is such a thing as a labor bureaucracy. I saidthat right at the start of my piece. It is not news that thelaw is used to restrain and confine workers and theirunions. The problem is how to find a way out of theseconstraints, to find a way to workers' power. This has beena project for some time. The ILWU is by all accounts apretty democratic union; it allows dissent, debate,opposition. It's small, so it doesn't cost a fortune tochallenge incumbents. And officers, all longshoremen intheir division as far as I know, have term-limits and mostreturn to work. We're not talking about Andy Stern, Mary KayHenry and David Regan here. Still, it's not perfect nodoubt. So I suggested that Occupy should work in collaboration withthe longshoremen and their union and I still hope this willhappen. There are battles to come. It's good that labor'sresponse to Occupy Wall Street has been overwhelminglypositive. It's good that Occupy wants to support workers.It's inspiring to see the courage of the young protesters.Now let's use this winter to better understand the strengthsand weaknesses of Occupy so that in the spring we will bestronger. And "calm down." And this brings me back to the conclusion of my Counterpunchpiece: there are fundamental issues here, including thefoundational place of self-activity - "The emancipation ofthe working class must be the act of the workersthemselves." Perhaps few now remember that not so many decades back therewere those who argued in the movement that the revolutionaryimpulse would come from outside the working class, or thatsocialism could be imposed from above, or, quite consistentwith this, that black people would gain their rights "comethe revolution," same with women. Therefore, no specialdemands, no self-activity - no principle of self-emancipation. And no reforms. It was no small in thosecircumstances to raise the banners of self-liberation andsocialism from below. But we did. Let's not go back.

[Cal Winslow is the author of Labor's Civil War inCalifornia, PM Press and an editor of Rebel Rank and File:Labor Militancy and Revolt From Below during the LongSeventies (Verso, 2010). He is a Fellow at UC Berkeley,Director of the Mendocino Institute and associated with theBay Area collective, Retort. He can be reached atcwinslow@berkeley.edu ].

Michael Dawson sez on 12.22.11 @14:51:
Ironic, then, that the "militants" are dumping the very notion of unions overboard, as you strike a pose at the ports for some unnamed and unnameable end.

Well, I won't speak for any other militants or Occupier types, but I never suggested to anybody that we should do away with unions per se; I'm suggesting that the current crop of old-skool trade unions and their leadership have become too feeble and ossified to do the job of standing up for the workers anymore, and that workers need to start organizing among themselves on their own behalf, and that we need new unions, rebuilt from the bottom up -- or, perhaps, to work at reinvigorating the old IWW. In fact, at the end of the blog post accompanying my cartoon, I provided a link to the IWW as a final thought on how to deal with the ragged-out, toothless old-skool unions who are incapable of fighting for the workers anymore and seem these days to only exist to prop up the Left Wing Of Capital, aka the Donkeycrats.

All you oldsters out there -- that is, those of you even older than I (a mere lad of 54) -- might have a bit more to say from your own experience, but I myself am rather enamored of the idea of One Big Fucking Union fighting for the interests of all workers, be they longshoremen, mechanics, bricklayers, truckdrivers, electricians -- or cartoonists.

Flug, I like you and I like your cartoon under consideration here. But the explanation pisses me off. Why do the OWSers earn a pass from you, while you are so damned dismissive of the unions? Have you seen the 20 principles? They are hardly worth chucking organized labor.

The unions sold the game off, under extreme duress, 50+ years ago, and have been trying to survive and cope ever since. If you think they haven't been fighting at all since then, that's your problem. i belong to a union, and have been active in it. It is far from easy to make that mean adequate action. But it isn't the complete joke you see, either. So stop being so flippant on the topic.

You don't cross picket lines and you don't take workplace actions without the support of the local workforce, especially when its utterly pointless. OWS needs to pull its head out on its dealings with unions and their (our) issues.

One big union is presently illegal, under Taft-Hartley. You can pooh-pooh that and say unionists should ignore it, but that's a belling-the-cat story.

Call me when OWS is calling for repeal of Taft-Hartley. Not to mention Landrum-Griffin.

Michael Dawson sez on 12.23.11 @12:08:
Flug, I like you and I like your cartoon under consideration here. But the explanation pisses me off. Why do the OWSers earn a pass from you, while you are so damned dismissive of the unions? Have you seen the 20 principles? They are hardly worth chucking organized labor.

C'mon, man; where do I say anywhere that we should toss the idea of organizing workers? Check it out; the point should be pretty obvious. The structure and leadership of unions today has become ineffective and useless and needs to be dismantled and rebuilt from the bottom up. That the leadership of outfits like the NEA and SEIU would agree to support the Quisling Democrats and the bloody-handed, corporate brown-nosing Barack Obama over the objections of their rank and file -- and, in the case of the SEIU, not even bothering to involve their rank and file in the decision -- should be clear evidence of that. Instead of protecting the rights of workers, the job of the unions has mutated into that of keeping the workers in line. Like the Democratic Party, they've become corrupt and decrepit institutions which can't be reformed and aren't worth the energy it would take to try and reform them, and should instead be pushed aside to make room for new institutions that represent and protect the rights and interests of the workers.

We've reached a point where the unions need leaders who are willing to fight like there's nothing to lose, and the current crop just isn't up to the job.

thanx flug you again provide meat to chew

the prospect of joining a new syndicalist project is one we really can discuss usefully i think

look the IWW was like a heaven sent moment

like a blast of holy ghost power
..that is like as in really
it didn't fall from the sky
it built itself from the continental congress of the working class moment
in the early 00's to the war years

big bill haywood joe ettor st john
sister flynn
these are wage class heroes

lawrence is a landmark struggle

the free speech movement was path breaking
the anti racism the fearles monents in dixie
..oh the list is long and glorious

but its all more then 90 years old flug baby !!!!

a new iww might well be on the docket

yes i prefer the notion of a new CIO
but we are at an embryonic stage here
where pilot models need building and testing

lets get to it !!!

any open call
for cashiering the existing set of unions
on the other hands
strikes me as class dividingly harmful
not to mention
a prodigal waste of up and running outfits

if possible
wouldn't they make better movement allies then enemies ??
if not flug

then...show me the whys

review of a recent narrative
on "the strike"

http://jacobinmag.com/winter-2012/the-strike-and-its-enemies/

"Burns published his book last May — four months before the occupation of Zuccotti Park. Since then, a radical mobilization that many of us doubted we would see in our lifetimes has erupted. If we, as activists, students and intellectuals are serious about challenging capitalism, we will ask how we can help to foster a militant rank-and-file led workers’ movement. Because there are millions of them and far fewer of us. And without mass radicalization within the working class, sooner or later the oppressive curtain of capitalist realism will descend on us once again."