ckaihatsu
2nd May 2011, 23:47
Organizing a Labor-Community Fightback Against Concessions and Budget Cuts -- by the Editorial Board of The Organizer Newspaper
By the Editorial Board of The Organizer Newspaper
There is an urgent need today to promote a labor-community fightback against the bipartisan budget cuts and concessions, the union-busting, and the generalized onslaught against all working people and communities of the oppressed.
In an editorial statement following the November 2, 2010 elections, we wrote:
"The Obama administration and the Democratic majority in the Congress could not have carried out any of these attacks without the trade union leadership's unflinching support to the Democratic Party. The union leadership's continued subordination to the Democratic Party, in fact, remains THE central political obstacle facing U.S. working people today."
This failure to represent the basic interests of working people -- most specifically in relation to their back-tracking on their own AFL-CIO convention resolution on single-payer healthcare and the public option; their refusal to challenge Obama on immigration reform, corporate bailouts, EFCA or real job creation -- only helped to pave the way for the development and growth of the Tea Party and the defeat of the Democratic Party candidates in the November 2010 election.
We asserted in our editorial that the inroads made by the Tea Party and the right wing are not due to the rightward drift by the majority of the working class; they are due primarily to the crisis of leadership of the organized working class. We wrote:
"The Tea Party is a significant -- and potentially very dangerous -- political force that has grown largely as a result of the default of the Democratic Party and the political void it has created. And the Tea Party, with its racist message, will continue to grow to the extent the labor movement does not spearhead an independent fightback movement, in collaboration with its allies, in defense of the interests of the working-class majority and all the oppressed."
Emergency Labor Meeting in Cleveland
In early March 2011, a coalition of trade unionists convened an Emergency Labor Meeting (ELM) in Cleveland, Ohio, to begin organizing a fightback campaign within the organized labor movement.
The ELM was an overwhelming success, with 96 union leaders and activists present. There were representatives and leaders from National Nurses United, the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, Communications Workers of America, and there were also leaders from Chicago AFT Local 1, National Union of Heathcare Workers, Black Workers For Justice, and the Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Graduate Student Union. It was a united front gathering, with unionists at all levels. The fighting spirit of Wisconsin -- particularly the "No Concessions, No Cuts!" campaign promoted in Wisconsin by National Nurses United -- infused the gathering.
The final ELM report, with its adopted 15-point "Perspectives" programmatic planks, underscores the independent, fightback character of the meeting. [See the full conference report at www.laborfightback.org.]
One of the important decisions of the meeting was the decision by the participants to recommend to the incoming Continuations Committee of the ELM that it convene an open national Labor-Community Fightback Conference in the not-too-distant future.
"No Concessions! No Cuts!"
Two weeks ago, the renamed Emergency Labor Network issued a call to convene a National Labor-Community Conference to Defeat the Corporate Agenda and Fight for a Working People's Agenda. The conference will take place in Kent State, Ohio, on June 24-26, 2011.
The Organizer newspaper supports this effort and urges all our readers and supporters to build it widely within your unions and community organizations and on your campuses. We also urge you to attend.
Given the new attacks that will be coming down the pike on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- and given the huge battles across the country, in "blue states" as well as "red states," against the budget cuts -- we fully support the conference organizers' decision to focus attention on the demand first put forward by the National Nurses United of "No Concessions! No Cuts!" In our view, an independent fightback movement of labor and its allies can emerge around this cutting-edge issue of "No Concessions! No Cuts!"
We also support the other central demands that are raised in the Kent State conference call in conjunction with this demand, such as "Tax the Rich and the Corporations!" and "End the Wars and Occupations and Redirect the War Funding to Meet Human Needs!" A fightback movement will also have to take up the struggle against the foreclosures and in support of "Organize the South!" and "Papers for All!"
New Challenges Ahead
We must also be mindful of the major roadblocks and challenges ahead resulting from the inevitable pressures that will arise to attempt to derail the development of an independent labor-community fightback movement.
Take the recent positions, for example, of both the AFL-CIO and Change to Win leaderships.
In Los Angeles, on March 28, more than 20,000 working people marched through downtown Los Angeles, "making it clear they will fight any attempt to launch a Wisconsin-like attack on workers in cash-strapped California," according to the AFL-CIO blog.
Maria Elena Durazo, executive secretary treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, told the crowd: "We are willing to make concessions. But you have to have two sides at the table to bargain." This message was echoed by other state trade union officials, including California Federation of Labor President Art Pulaski.
Proof of the unions' willingness to make concessions and "show how collective-bargaining works" -- thereby showing why the bosses should not seek to bust unions and destroy collective-bargaining agreements, as they are doing in Wisconsin -- was provided a few days before the March 28 L.A. rally when unions representing city workers and local officials reached a tentative agreement to help solve that city's budget crisis.
The employees agreed to pay more for their pensions and health care. They agreed to give up overtime temporarily. They also agreed to defer pay raises and take four unpaid holidays annually. In return, the city of Los Angeles agreed to end furloughs effective the date of the agreement and to drop plans to lay off 600 workers.
The agreement saved the city $400 million.
An Opportunity and a Challenge
Another opportunity -- and challenge -- is provided by the new SEIU-led national campaign titled "Fight for a Fair Economy."
The SEIU leaders, in an "Overview" document posted on their website, outlined the purpose of this campaign. The Overview includes the following points:
"We can't solve this crisis one bargaining fight, organizing campaign, or political election at a time. We need a comprehensive plan that tackles the fundamental imbalance of power in America and puts the needs of working families squarely at the top of our national priorities. ... We must:
"- Build broad coalitions with community groups and allies who share our goals of restoring fairness to the economy and creating good jobs for all.
"- Change the environment and national agenda by knitting city mobilizations together into a national movement for good jobs and influencing the debate in the 2012 elections."
This is an opportunity because the SEIU-led coalition has been compelled to give voice to workers' deeply felt aspiration for jobs for all, against the imbalance of wealth and power, and for justice for all working people -- regardless of race, country of origin, sexual orientation, religion, etc. The old strategy of the union officials of relying almost exclusively on the Democrats to get results has not worked, so they have to try something new. They have to go out and build grassroots coalitions and talk with a more militant voice. This is a significant development.
But herein lies the contradiction ... and the challenge: The "Fight For a Fair Economy" campaign is conceived fundamentally as a movement to win back the elections for Democrats in 2012 and to preserve Obama in the presidency.
For an Independent Fightback Movement!
This political problem is very similar to the problem we encountered with the AFL-CIO's October 2, 2010 "One Nation Working Together" mobilization. What we wrote in our November 2010 editorial of The Organizer newspaper in relation to "One Nation" also applies to the "Fight for a Fair Economy" campaign:
"Though the coalition of unions and community allies may call protest actions, these inevitably will be constrained by the policy choices and compromises that Obama and the Democrats feel they must make. The protests will therefore be reduced to little more than orchestrated and light pressure on the Democrats -- not the kind of independent working class mass action that is needed to impose a massive jobs-creation program or a mass redirecting of military spending to fund the public sector and meet human needs."
Without a doubt, there are today -- and there will continue to be -- contradictions at all levels of the trade union movement that we must understand and orient to. But this can only be done properly if done within the framework of a struggle for an independent fightback campaign. The National Labor-Community Conference that is now being proposed by the Emergency Labor Network offers this framework. It offers a unique and timely opportunity to dialogue with the participants in all these union-led campaigns to win them to an independent fightback pole and movement.
Placing the demands against the budget cuts and concessions -- and therefore organizing concretely to promote alternative programs to secure the funding needed to preserve and expand Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, as well as all our vital social programs -- is so essential to any genuine fightback.
And building this independent fightback movement, locally and nationally is critical to moving the discussion forward in an organized, structured manner on the need for a Labor Party today.
By the Editorial Board of The Organizer Newspaper
There is an urgent need today to promote a labor-community fightback against the bipartisan budget cuts and concessions, the union-busting, and the generalized onslaught against all working people and communities of the oppressed.
In an editorial statement following the November 2, 2010 elections, we wrote:
"The Obama administration and the Democratic majority in the Congress could not have carried out any of these attacks without the trade union leadership's unflinching support to the Democratic Party. The union leadership's continued subordination to the Democratic Party, in fact, remains THE central political obstacle facing U.S. working people today."
This failure to represent the basic interests of working people -- most specifically in relation to their back-tracking on their own AFL-CIO convention resolution on single-payer healthcare and the public option; their refusal to challenge Obama on immigration reform, corporate bailouts, EFCA or real job creation -- only helped to pave the way for the development and growth of the Tea Party and the defeat of the Democratic Party candidates in the November 2010 election.
We asserted in our editorial that the inroads made by the Tea Party and the right wing are not due to the rightward drift by the majority of the working class; they are due primarily to the crisis of leadership of the organized working class. We wrote:
"The Tea Party is a significant -- and potentially very dangerous -- political force that has grown largely as a result of the default of the Democratic Party and the political void it has created. And the Tea Party, with its racist message, will continue to grow to the extent the labor movement does not spearhead an independent fightback movement, in collaboration with its allies, in defense of the interests of the working-class majority and all the oppressed."
Emergency Labor Meeting in Cleveland
In early March 2011, a coalition of trade unionists convened an Emergency Labor Meeting (ELM) in Cleveland, Ohio, to begin organizing a fightback campaign within the organized labor movement.
The ELM was an overwhelming success, with 96 union leaders and activists present. There were representatives and leaders from National Nurses United, the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, Communications Workers of America, and there were also leaders from Chicago AFT Local 1, National Union of Heathcare Workers, Black Workers For Justice, and the Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Graduate Student Union. It was a united front gathering, with unionists at all levels. The fighting spirit of Wisconsin -- particularly the "No Concessions, No Cuts!" campaign promoted in Wisconsin by National Nurses United -- infused the gathering.
The final ELM report, with its adopted 15-point "Perspectives" programmatic planks, underscores the independent, fightback character of the meeting. [See the full conference report at www.laborfightback.org.]
One of the important decisions of the meeting was the decision by the participants to recommend to the incoming Continuations Committee of the ELM that it convene an open national Labor-Community Fightback Conference in the not-too-distant future.
"No Concessions! No Cuts!"
Two weeks ago, the renamed Emergency Labor Network issued a call to convene a National Labor-Community Conference to Defeat the Corporate Agenda and Fight for a Working People's Agenda. The conference will take place in Kent State, Ohio, on June 24-26, 2011.
The Organizer newspaper supports this effort and urges all our readers and supporters to build it widely within your unions and community organizations and on your campuses. We also urge you to attend.
Given the new attacks that will be coming down the pike on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- and given the huge battles across the country, in "blue states" as well as "red states," against the budget cuts -- we fully support the conference organizers' decision to focus attention on the demand first put forward by the National Nurses United of "No Concessions! No Cuts!" In our view, an independent fightback movement of labor and its allies can emerge around this cutting-edge issue of "No Concessions! No Cuts!"
We also support the other central demands that are raised in the Kent State conference call in conjunction with this demand, such as "Tax the Rich and the Corporations!" and "End the Wars and Occupations and Redirect the War Funding to Meet Human Needs!" A fightback movement will also have to take up the struggle against the foreclosures and in support of "Organize the South!" and "Papers for All!"
New Challenges Ahead
We must also be mindful of the major roadblocks and challenges ahead resulting from the inevitable pressures that will arise to attempt to derail the development of an independent labor-community fightback movement.
Take the recent positions, for example, of both the AFL-CIO and Change to Win leaderships.
In Los Angeles, on March 28, more than 20,000 working people marched through downtown Los Angeles, "making it clear they will fight any attempt to launch a Wisconsin-like attack on workers in cash-strapped California," according to the AFL-CIO blog.
Maria Elena Durazo, executive secretary treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, told the crowd: "We are willing to make concessions. But you have to have two sides at the table to bargain." This message was echoed by other state trade union officials, including California Federation of Labor President Art Pulaski.
Proof of the unions' willingness to make concessions and "show how collective-bargaining works" -- thereby showing why the bosses should not seek to bust unions and destroy collective-bargaining agreements, as they are doing in Wisconsin -- was provided a few days before the March 28 L.A. rally when unions representing city workers and local officials reached a tentative agreement to help solve that city's budget crisis.
The employees agreed to pay more for their pensions and health care. They agreed to give up overtime temporarily. They also agreed to defer pay raises and take four unpaid holidays annually. In return, the city of Los Angeles agreed to end furloughs effective the date of the agreement and to drop plans to lay off 600 workers.
The agreement saved the city $400 million.
An Opportunity and a Challenge
Another opportunity -- and challenge -- is provided by the new SEIU-led national campaign titled "Fight for a Fair Economy."
The SEIU leaders, in an "Overview" document posted on their website, outlined the purpose of this campaign. The Overview includes the following points:
"We can't solve this crisis one bargaining fight, organizing campaign, or political election at a time. We need a comprehensive plan that tackles the fundamental imbalance of power in America and puts the needs of working families squarely at the top of our national priorities. ... We must:
"- Build broad coalitions with community groups and allies who share our goals of restoring fairness to the economy and creating good jobs for all.
"- Change the environment and national agenda by knitting city mobilizations together into a national movement for good jobs and influencing the debate in the 2012 elections."
This is an opportunity because the SEIU-led coalition has been compelled to give voice to workers' deeply felt aspiration for jobs for all, against the imbalance of wealth and power, and for justice for all working people -- regardless of race, country of origin, sexual orientation, religion, etc. The old strategy of the union officials of relying almost exclusively on the Democrats to get results has not worked, so they have to try something new. They have to go out and build grassroots coalitions and talk with a more militant voice. This is a significant development.
But herein lies the contradiction ... and the challenge: The "Fight For a Fair Economy" campaign is conceived fundamentally as a movement to win back the elections for Democrats in 2012 and to preserve Obama in the presidency.
For an Independent Fightback Movement!
This political problem is very similar to the problem we encountered with the AFL-CIO's October 2, 2010 "One Nation Working Together" mobilization. What we wrote in our November 2010 editorial of The Organizer newspaper in relation to "One Nation" also applies to the "Fight for a Fair Economy" campaign:
"Though the coalition of unions and community allies may call protest actions, these inevitably will be constrained by the policy choices and compromises that Obama and the Democrats feel they must make. The protests will therefore be reduced to little more than orchestrated and light pressure on the Democrats -- not the kind of independent working class mass action that is needed to impose a massive jobs-creation program or a mass redirecting of military spending to fund the public sector and meet human needs."
Without a doubt, there are today -- and there will continue to be -- contradictions at all levels of the trade union movement that we must understand and orient to. But this can only be done properly if done within the framework of a struggle for an independent fightback campaign. The National Labor-Community Conference that is now being proposed by the Emergency Labor Network offers this framework. It offers a unique and timely opportunity to dialogue with the participants in all these union-led campaigns to win them to an independent fightback pole and movement.
Placing the demands against the budget cuts and concessions -- and therefore organizing concretely to promote alternative programs to secure the funding needed to preserve and expand Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, as well as all our vital social programs -- is so essential to any genuine fightback.
And building this independent fightback movement, locally and nationally is critical to moving the discussion forward in an organized, structured manner on the need for a Labor Party today.