Solidarity member censors left at TWU local mass meeting

[RedTrackWorker]

Steve Downs, open supporter of Solidarity and elected union official, took the initiative to tell RTW supporters at the afternoon session of Local 100's mass meeting Sat., Dec. 3 that they could only distribute outside and to inform other staffers that we should not be allowed to distribute. LRP/RTW supporters (and others) had distributed in the morning meeting without incident (and i.e. without "disrupting" anything) and had distributed for a while in the afternoon session as well (including to virtually the whole of the union's security team, which is composed of local 100 volunteers, who requested it themselves by and large). This is a bureaucratic "rule" that Steve Downs used to fight against years ago but now enforces on his own initiative with no gain for himself for enforcing or possible harm for not enforcing it.

Making sure Downs could hear, I told an elected Track safety officer standing there: "If I ever become a 'socialist' like that, shoot me."

The meeting itself I will summarize by quoting the most "militant" line spoken:
We need a class war...a class war for the middle class and to take back our country.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Did you really expect anything else though?

[RedTrackWorker]

Did you really expect anything else though?

From Downs or the meeting? (Do you know Downs?)

As for the meeting, I drafted a longer report to post here that included the phrase "Pathetic and predictable"...so no on the meeting.

But I could not have predicted that Steve Downs would've done what he did--but I'm not surprised. I was ready for bureaucratic resistance to distribution but it wasn't there and actually joked with some of the non-socialist bureaucrats and union security staff about being allowed to distribute...then along comes Downs on a mission!

I do hope that some Solidarity sympathizers might be surprised by what their comrades who are elected union officials are up to. Though when I tried to talk to a couple of young Solidarity supporters last year at Labor Notes on Steve Downs's role in covering up for the Local 100 bureaucracy which was busy at that time not building a fight against the first layoffs of permanent Local 100 employees that anyone can remember--well, I got a very cold shoulder, which surprised me. I still (being young) don't know how to deal with cynical young people--sure, don't accept what I'm saying as true, that's not the issue, but seem interested in looking it up (I pointed out Downs is on the Executive Board and his own reports that they could request of those meetings would show he has never raised a motion contrary to the wishes of President Samuelsen).

1000 layoffs and a failed union response? Not a peep from Downs. Distributing leaflets at a mass meeting? All kinds of fire and energy.

I do feel like I have a better grasp of how Noske's are created.

[RedTrackWorker]

Did you really expect anything else though?

Oh and I didn't expect to hear the phrase "class war" used positively at all and for a second did not know what was going on, until the speaker (an international VP) added "a class war for the middle class and to take back our country" part.

[RED DAVE]

It would be cool to get a response here from a Solidarity member or supporter.

RED DAVE

[syndicat]

Yes. But do they post on revleft? I've not noticed their presence before.

[workersadvocate]

I knew a bunch of middle class washed-up trots who sold themselves to the labor union bureaucrats for 30 shekels of silver, metaphorically speaking, during a newspaper strike in detroit, as they fused or entered this solidarity group. Fuck middle class phony saviors and their sellout bureaucrat friends.
They can't and won't lead our class forward from here, but they're glad to help stick the knife in our backs if it keeps them in the middle class and makes them "somebody" within bourgeois society.

[RedTrackWorker]

Just to be clear, if someone from Solidarity decides to respond, Down's doing to us what he used to get thrown out of meetings for doing is my least concern..
Above that is his participation in the "fight-to-lose" strategy in 2010 against layoffs, but above even that disaster is this that I forgot to mention:

Downs is the head of Local 100's Contract Working Group. And what has that group accomplished? Well, let me put it to you this way: if after OWS, if leading up what they call the most difficult contract fight in memory, if all that is happening to what should be one of the most powerful locals in the country,...if less than two months before the contract expires, if you have to ask what they're doing, they're doing it wrong.

Local 100 could be standing up for a united working-class defense against the attacks. It could be a key compoment of making the response to OWS into what it needed to become: a mass movement of the workers and poor. We could be turning bitterness and anger into action.

Instead, Downs as head of the contract cmmt. has accomplished a survey, a kick off rally that talked about how special we were and so wouldn't be treated like other workers and they have one more rally planned...which they almost forgot to even mention at the mass meeting, which shows just how important it is to their contract strategy. You don't need to ask Solidarity members about the layoff fight or the contract struggle, as that's all more or less publically available information. Further, the broad ranks of Solidarity may not know what Downs is up to, but if the leadership and the ranks in NYC don't know, it's because they don't want to--what other reason could there be? Could there be any excuse for being a committed political activist and not asking what a "comrade" in a key position in a key union is doing?

And Solidarity and Labor Notes public record on Downs is...letting Downs speak for himself. Shameful.

If revleft participants want a response, perhaps they should email Solidarity and Downs.

[khlib]

Err, I have quite a few comrades that are members of Solidarity, and I am thinking about joining. I don't really understand the problem. You weren't allowed to distribute pamphlets during a meeting?

[workersadvocate]

Khlib, before joining any group, read up on them and their politics, ask every question you think could be important, work with them where they are doing some good for our class or at least really trying to, and get to know what really motivates their active comrade. I'd recommend holding off of joining any Left group until you have done this for at least one full year's time, even if they beg you to join beforehand promise to give you the moon. Don't even join just because your friends have. Take youry time, work with them first, you'll be glad you took this advice, and you'll show you're serious, willing to learn, and not trying to be the "great leader" or "greatest intellectual" from day 1.
Taking your time doing activism and study and networking can help you avoid cults and false friends and dead ends.

[RedTrackWorker]

Err, I have quite a few comrades that are members of Solidarity, and I am thinking about joining. I don't really understand the problem. You weren't allowed to distribute pamphlets during a meeting?

Not during, before. Steve Downs personally enforced a policy that he used to fight against, that wasn't being enforced by othe bureaucrats there and that he was thrown out of a meeting for fighting at least once himself years ago. But as I said, that's a pretty minor problem compared to his support and leadership on the union's strategy in the layoff fight and contract struggle.

[RedTrackWorker]

What we were handing out is online now: http://lrp-cofi.org/TWU100/RTW/rtw54.html.