Madison rally a remnant of what could have been as AFL-CIO leadership's strategy works

Madison May 14th

It looks very much like the AFl-CIO leadership has successfully derailed what could have been the beginning of a Nationwide independent working class movement that would be able to drive back the capitalist offensive with an offensive of our own.  They hunkered down during the early days in the period when some 100,000 workers and youth took to the streets in a movement from below that terrified not only the bosses and their politicians in the Democratic Party but the trade Union leaders above all.

The they were able to limit the demands of the movement to two: collective bargaining rights  and dues checkoff.  The eliminations of both these provisions would have a serious affect on the trade Union hierarchy in their position as negotiators and "official" voice of the members by denying them a seat at the table entirely and making it much more difficult for them to collect revenue in the form of dues. The dues checkoff was also of serious concern to Democratic party whose candidates receive hundreds of millions of dollars in member's money at election time.

As both the Democratic so-called "friends of Labor" and, their allies atop the trade Union movement have no problem with concessions in wages, benefits, working conditions and jobs (their own excluded of course)  the issue of concessions was not a problem.

The potential movement has been derailed in to an effort to recall politicians who supported the elimination of collective bargaining rights and dues check off  in the hope that friendly judges might find the actions illegal. This is standard strategy for the tacticians of the organized workers' movement, rely on the courts and the Democrats. It is what has brought us defeat after defeat in Labor disputes and eliminated wages, benefits and a standard of living that took a century of heroic struggle achieve.

“We have to reclaim our moral outrage, our sense of indignation,” Mahlon Mitchell, president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin, said to the protesters yesterday. “We have to keep the pressure on and let them hear us.”  Well, they heard them earlier; they heard a lot more of them too but it didn't stop them.

The rally which was attended by seven to ten thousand by some estimates and fifteen to twenty by others was labelled the  “Fight Is Not Over” rally. The Union officials' hope is that if they can turn out protesters regularly, the bill to eliminate bargaining rights which has not been implemented due to court challenges, will be declared illegal by a friendly judge.  If judges were on our side we'd have built Unions without all the misery, murders, deportations and starvation that it took on the part of the American working class. If judges were on our side, discrimination on the basis of race and sex wouldn't exist because it's illegal and there wouldn't be two million of us in jail, some 50% of us black folks.

The strategy of the Union hierarchy to wear opposition down and drive it from the streets is working.  They apply the same methods in strikes, keep people on ineffective picket lines for weeks or months with no attempt to stop production or scabbing until they get so demoralized they just give up. Unlike the Unions' rank and file, officials and the staffers that are ever present to ensure the ranks don't get out of control, don't have to live on strike pay or under the same contracts as the people they are supposed to represent.  People can't stay on picket lines and out of work forever, this is America.  Strikes are designed to be nothing but 24 hour protests and then when they lose and folks give up, we are told strikes can't win and the members aren't ready  aren't willing to fight.

"Jim Lemens, a construction steamfitter from Monona, carried a sign that said, “I’m still here because it’s still a bad bill.” reports the Wisconsin State Journal  “I think it’s important to just show people we’re not giving up,” he said, acknowledging that the bill will likely be enacted eventually."

So for a moment there was the possibility of an independent workers movement developing that could have spread nationally and changed the balance of class forces in this country. It could have been the start of an offensive of our own, a reversal of years of defensive struggles with damage control as their goal. Another opportunity has been lost which will mean a harder struggle ahead, but these are the cards history has dealt.

Behind the scenes, the heads of organized Labor were terrified at the sight of tens of thousands of workers in the streets.  We all know that how they deter members form meetings  through a bland concessionary platform and suppression of any movement form below that threatens it.  Their support of capitalism and the market, a world view no different to the employers, is threatened by such a  development; it can only lead to chaos as we have said many times before.

It is the role they play and the absence of any legitimate, serious left current within the workers' movement that gives the bosses such confidence and leads to yesterday's rally in Madison  being a shell of what it could have been.