California’s warm weekend weather is not the only good news the big business press announces this Monday morning. The corporations representatives in the state legislature, Democrats and Republicans, also had a very productive weekend in their efforts to close the state’s $26 billion deficit. It would have been a pleasure to witness their goings on; to feel the warmth and comradeship that must have permeated the air.
When workers stick together, when we go on strike or challenge the boss on the job, or when we overcome our superficial differences to defeat the predatory landlords or other sections of the capitalist class, it feels very much the same way.
The politicians in Sacramento are very much united. “Lawmakers on both sides warned that severe cuts to many state programs were unavoidable.” Says the Wall Street Journal. “We’re all going to get through this, and California is going to come through it just fine.” Says key Democrat, Darrell Steinberg.
The “all” he is referring to are his friends in the legislature. He can’t be referring to the thousands who are living on the edge or who have already lost their homes and jobs or who are without health care.
Democrats, who receive hundreds of millions of dollars of donations from organized labor are on board with the program. The discussions Sunday between the millionaires focused on waste, “trimming spending on health and human services” say aides. Proposals discussed included one to reduce “CalWorks welfare benefits and limit the number of recipients eligible for child care and job training.”, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Another issue of some controversy is suspending Proposition 98, an amendment to the California constitution that guarantees a minimum level of funding for California’s public schools. “They haven’t discussed Prop 98 yet” says one Democrat, “They’re waiting for recommendations from lawyers.” There you have it, our fate is in the hands of lawyers. Cuts in pensions for public employees are also in the works.
Working people are faced with this double crisis; a crisis of capitalism and a crisis of leadership. We have no political voice of our own as the heads of the organized working class collaborate fully with the employers through the team concept on the job and the Democrats through the team concept in the political arena. The collaboration between the employers and the labor leaders present a considerable obstacle and are a major factor in retarding the development of a genuine resistance to this offensive of capital and its efforts to gains won over decades of struggle.
Some two million workers are affiliated to organized labor in California. Major sections are under attack along with the services many of them provide. The teachers Union alone has over 300,000 members. The transit workers in the San Francisco Bay Area are in contract talks and, as is always the case, the issues on the table are how deep the cuts should go. San Francisco city workers who rejected cuts a few weeks ago were publicly accused of confusion by the leaders of their Union (SEIU) and the head of the San Francisco Labor Council. The money is clearly there, the rich are ever richer; we must reject the ridiculous idea that there is no money and that cuts are “inevitable.”
Faced with this powerful combination of the employers and the heads of organized labor, opposition to the attacks is weak and delayed, limited to mild protests and pleas to the thieves for decency and justice. But this economic crisis is, as the Wall Street Journal commented last week, a “tectonic shift”. It is a crisis of historic proportions and the anger and hatred of the rich that lies beneath the surface of US society will break through the logjam at some point. The beginning of a generalize opposition may well occur outside the unions given the stifling nature of the officialdom, but organized labor will not stand passively outside such a development. Isolated resistance is beginning to occur and will likely increase, possibly over foreclosures, housing or health crises. Those of us involved with this blog and Labors Militant Voice have had some significant successes fighting with tenants against slumlords. Victories like these are important coming after years of defeats and an ebb in the class struggle in that we gain a much needed confidence in ourselves and our ability to give capitalism a bloody nose.
The present crisis has shattered the confidence that many workers had in the system and its ability to provide some sort of future. This is continuing and will take more organizational form as time passes, consciousness, as we say, always lags behind events.
Contact us if you are interested don’t want to simply be a victim of history but want to make some of it.
Become a "supporter" of this blog (see left column)
Subscribe to Facts For Working People and receive it every four weeks by PDF. Send a request with your e mail to: ffworkingpeople@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment