The AFL-CIO's endorsement of Obama is a conspiracy against US workers

[TrotskistMarx]

The AFL-CIO’s endorsement of Obama: A conspiracy against the working class
Statement of Jerry White, SEP candidate for president

20 March 2012

With its endorsement of President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign last week, the AFL-CIO union federation threw its support behind one of the most anti-working class and right-wing presidents in US history. In his statement endorsing Obama, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the president “has earned the support of working people for a second term.” To justify this, Trumka turned reality on its head, presenting the president’s policies in the first term, including health care reform and the auto bailout, as pro-worker. The AFL-CIO leader knows full well that health care reform is intended to allow corporate America to slash benefits and dump employer-paid medical coverage altogether. He is also aware that Obama plans, if reelected, to join the Republicans in slashing trillions from Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlements.

Nor are the leaders of the AFL-CIO, including the United Auto Workers, unaware that the White House used the auto bailout to push through an historic attack on the jobs and living standards of auto workers—including a 50 percent pay cut for new workers. This set the stage for a campaign of wage-cutting and speedup throughout private industry and the public sector, which continues to this day. As a result, the auto companies and other corporations have raked in record profits, the stock markets have rebounded and CEOs and Wall Street investors are once again pocketing massive bonuses.

What then accounts for the brazen lying?
Trumka and the other leaders of the so-called American labor movement do not speak for the working class. On the contrary, the upper middle class business executives who control the unions, by virtue of their decades of anti-communist and American nationalist policies, have fully integrated themselves into the structure of corporate America and the capitalist state. Their difference with Republicans has nothing to do with the attacks on the working class. When given the opportunity, the unions have fully collaborated with the Republicans. However, for ideological reasons the Republicans tend to reject the services of the union apparatus and have instead sought to undermine the unions financially and politically. Thus, the AFL-CIO has a huge stake in the reelection of Obama because, as Trumka says, the president “honors the value” of “solving problems together.”

In other words, the Democrats prefer to use the trade union apparatus to police the working class, impose wage cuts and suppress opposition. That is exactly what the White House did during the auto bailout. In return for its collaboration in the attack on auto workers, the White House handed the UAW a substantial ownership stake in GM and Chrysler. The high-paid union executives are not opposed to wage-cutting. On the contrary, they see closing the wage gap between American workers and our brutally exploited counterparts in Mexico and China as a critical means of attracting corporate investment and bolstering their faltering dues income. The same is true for the American Federation of Teachers, which has offered its services to the administration even as Obama scapegoats and victimizes teachers and has adopted the Republican policies of merit pay, test-based accountability and privatizing public education.

Appropriately, the slogan of the AFT is “school reform with us, not against us.” In their income and social status, those who make up the union apparatus are part of the wealthiest 5 to 10 percent of the population. This segment has enriched itself along with the explosive growth of wealth in the top 1 percent. While a typical union member earned $48,000 in 2008, one analyst noted, the number of union officials earning more than $150,000 tripled between 2000 and 2008. Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), took home $479,328 in salary and benefits in 2009. The American Federation of Teachers paid President Randi Weingarten $428,384 in salary and benefits. After decades of betrayed strikes and collaboration in corporate downsizing, the membership of the unions has fallen drastically. Workers increasingly look with contempt toward these organizations.

Even the AFL-CIO officials, lounging at their winter getaway in Bal Harbour, Florida, expressed fears that their endorsement of Obama would fall on deaf ears. Polls by the organization show a sharp drop in support for Obama among working class voters as compared to the months before the 2008 election. Between the working class and the leaders of the so-called American labor movement there is an unbridgeable gap of social and class interests. Workers have every interest in waging a struggle against the corporations and the government, while the unions defend the economic and political system—capitalism—that only benefits the corporate and financial elite. The AFL-CIO and all the liberal and pseudo-left organizations, which promote the myth that the unions represent workers, are engaged in a conspiracy to tie workers to the Democratic Party. They want to block the development of an independent political struggle of the working class that threatens the profit system, which they defend.

My running mate Phyllis Scherrer and I are running in these elections to provide the working class with a socialist alternative to both big business parties. As part of our campaign we call on workers to break with the corporatist unions and build new organizations of struggle, controlled by the rank and file, to fight the attack on jobs and living standards. Above all, we are fighting for the working class to break with the Democrats and Republicans and the entire structure of capitalist politics. Our campaign is aimed at the development of a mass political movement of the working class, which will fight for the unity of American workers with our brothers and sisters internationally and the socialist reorganization of economic and political life. Only in this way can workers defend their social rights to decent jobs, health care, housing and education and replace the profit system with social equality and the democratic control of the economy by the working class.


SOURCE: http://wsws.org/articles/2012/mar2012/aflc-m20.shtml


.

[Prometeo liberado]

Two things.First, preaching to the choir mean anything? I'm not trying to insult you but if you are an SP-USA member then I could see how the AFL-CIO backing the Dem's would be a surprise.
Second. Are you also secretly stumping for the SE here?

[escapingNihilism]

interesting fact I read the other day: back in 1947, when Truman was trying to implement a national health program (which would have been fashioned as an expansion of the existing Social Security system), parts of the US Labor establishment lobbied Congress against it, fearing they'd lose control of their workers as job mobility increased.

[zimmerwald1915]

Hands up, everyone who is surprised.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Why does anybody think that Trade Unions are anything to do with left-wing politics?

[Tabarnack]

Why does anybody think that Trade Unions are anything to do with left-wing politics?

Because they are supposed to represent the interest of the working class...:rolleyes:

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Because they are supposed to represent the interest of the working class...:rolleyes:

Within the confines of Capitalism.

So long-term they always represent the bourgeoisie.

No capitalism = no unions.

[Tabarnack]

Within the confines of Capitalism.

So long-term they always represent the bourgeoisie.

No capitalism = no unions.

So are you suggesting that unions cannot play a role in a revolutionary process ?

[Book O'Dead]

The AFL-CIO’s endorsement of Obama: A conspiracy against the working class
Statement of Jerry White, SEP candidate for president

20 March 2012

With its endorsement of President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign last week, the AFL-CIO union federation threw its support behind one of the most anti-working class and right-wing presidents in US history.
.


I went to the the SEP facebook thingy. The picture of what I presume is the leadership of this august body is, how shall I say it, scary?

Also, there are no chicks pictured. I mean, I see no women. I love to see women, especially heroic women that look chic, naked or dressed, doing heroic things like holding a hammer or a sickle or a wrench or a pencil or a rifle (dressed all in green or black t-shirts and cammie bottoms with a thin red-striped armband around her clearly defined feminine bicep, looking ready to assault the final redoubt of the deeply entrenched capitalist Fuhrer, only to find his lifeless body on the floor of his bunker, a smoking gun in his rigid hand, a still pool of red blood pockmarked with tiny white swastikas...)

Oh, and before I go completely out of control here, let me say that the treachery and "conspiracy" of the AFL is as old as the fucking hills; It dates back at least to the Knight of Labor and Samuel Gompers.

Why any properly educated socialist should now take umbrage at the deceit and fakery of pro-capitalist unions is, really, beyond me.

[Book O'Dead]

So are you suggesting that unions cannot play a role in a revolutionary process ?


Before he replies let me take a shot at this most important question:

Pro-capitalist labor unions cannot, in fact, WILL NOT play a positive role in a working class revolution.
It's because ideologically and organizationally they are structured to uphold the buyer-seller relationship between capital and labor.

The type of unionism that can and must play a decisive and positive role in a proletarian revolution is socialist industrial unionism as discovered by Daniel De Leon.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/deleon/bio/deleon.htm
http://www.marxists.org/archive/deleon/index.htm

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

I´m no expert on AFL-CIO policies or history, but I imagine the statement from SEP to be similar to if someone in western europe would speak with furious indignation against some large trade union federation supporting the social democratic party:blushing:

[zimmerwald1915]

Before he replies let me take a shot at this most important question:

Pro-capitalist labor unions cannot, in fact, WILL NOT play a positive role in a working class revolution.
It's because ideologically and organizationally they are structured to uphold the buyer-seller relationship between capital and labor.

The type of unionism that can and must play a decisive and positive role in a proletarian revolution is socialist industrial unionism as discovered by Daniel De Leon.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/deleon/bio/deleon.htm
http://www.marxists.org/archive/deleon/index.htm
Which, as long as socialist industrial unionism remains a utopia means exactly the same thing as saying that unions will not play a pro-revolutionary role.

[Book O'Dead]

Which, as long as socialist industrial unionism remains a utopia means exactly the same thing as saying that unions will not play a pro-revolutionary role.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean above so you'll have to forgive me if I make the wrong reply.

Let me reassert what I said above: no pro-capitalist union can play a positive role in any capitalist-worker confrontation as long as they hold firm to their various ideological and political doctrines and practices.

For example, almost from the very start, the AFL proclaimed a doctrine of "brotherhood of capital and labor"; a respectful and equal partnership between the workers and and their capitalist exploiter. A total myth.

Do you really suppose that any organization that has sustained that lie for over a century can suddenly play a good role for the workers when, up until the present, the have been accomplices in exploitation and agents of reaction, repression and deceit?

If advocating that we replace pro-capitalist unions with revolutionary ones sounds the same to you (utopian!), you'd better have your ears checked. While you're at it you might ask your doctor to look deep into your ears for signs of sectarian deafness.

[urstaat]

Two things.First, preaching to the choir mean anything? I'm not trying to insult you but if you are an SP-USA member then I could see how the AFL-CIO backing the Dem's would be a surprise.
Second. Are you also secretly stumping for the SE here?

I think he's just a biological RSS feed of wsws and IMT.

The title would be more accurate if it said "The AFL-CIO's existence is a conspiracy against US workers."

[CynicalIdealist]

It's not a conspiracy. It's just shit.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I think that unions can play a useful role, but only as a framework that ultimately gets acted outside of by it's members. Unions acting in their official capacity will always be reactionary institutions, but the forum itself serves as a useful way to exchange ideas or agitate within the specific working environment people find themselves in.

[RedZezz]

I went to the the SEP facebook thingy. The picture of what I presume is the leadership of this august body is, how shall I say it, scary?

You mean this photo? http://www.facebook.com/Socialism2012

That is not the leadership, it is Jerry White surrounded by workers in Findlay, Ohio when he made his presidential announcement.

The video is here:

kLyTaZncS94

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

In a time of revolutionary upsurge, there will be monumental shifts in the unions -- and revolutionaries will have to fight for the leadership -- or maybe at that juncture form new organizations. But the unions are where organized workers are -- so we do not give up on them -- just their leadership. And it is incorrect to view them as these static organizations that never change. That being said, the SEP are gits. There was another recent thread where I posted some stuff on their history of supporting bourgeois governments in exchange for money and even supporting the execution of Communists in Hussein's Iraq by the government because they were fighting against the Baathist revolution. And the idea of their being a "conspiracy" is retarded. What, is it a secret that the leadership of the AFL-CIO collaborates with the bourgeoisie? Gambling? I am shocked. Union bureaucrats make too much? Again, really a shocker. Of course SEP Head Honcho David "North" doesn't allow the workers that toil in his printing plant to organize -- Now there is a principled stand against those corrupt unions:rolleyes:.

[RedZezz]

As many have said, trade unions are institutions of capitalism. I believe that workers need to completely break away from these institutions and form their own rank-and-file committees in order for any hope of socialism to succeed.




That being said, the SEP are gits. There was another recent thread where I posted some stuff on their history of supporting bourgeois governments in exchange for money and even supporting the execution of Communists in Hussein's Iraq by the government because they were fighting against the Baathist revolution.



This would be more shocking if the SEP themselves didn't go into extensive detail about the treacherous policies of the WRP dominated ICFI themselves, or how the formation of the SEP stands in distrinct contrast to their betrayal of Trotskyism. In fact, the SEP is one of the few organizations which documents the reasons for the split and ramifications it has on the current program. The Historical and International Foundations of the Socialist Equality Party, The Workers League and the founding of the Socialist Equality Party, How the Workers Revolutionary Party betrayed Trotskyism, and The ICFI defends Trotskyism are some of that go into detail about the subject.


The principle of this split and the ramifications on the current progam are clearly shown. The SEP is one of the few organizations which hasn't theoretically attached itself to some petty-bourgeois movement.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

So are you suggesting that unions cannot play a role in a revolutionary process ?

I don't know too much about De Leonism, so i'll keep my reply independent of what Book O Dead said.

Unions can of course play a huge role in the revolutionary process. They are key, for obviously they are, even in their diminished state today, the only group (religion aside!) that can command a potentially revolutionary group membership of millions+. The only way Unions can become revolutionary is for the members to either act independently of their bureaucracy, or to exert enough pressure on the bureaucracy as to render it powerless, i.e. to wrest power back from the national TU bureaucracy.

But in their current form, with their current power structures, then no, I view Trade Unions as a hindrance, for whatever opportunities are there for them to strike at the heart of Capitalism, they will always settle for limited, industry-only strikes, negotiation and reconciliation.

[Prometeo liberado]

You mean this photo? http://www.facebook.com/Socialism2012

That is not the leadership, it is Jerry White surrounded by workers in Findlay, Ohio when he made his presidential announcement.

The video is here:

kLyTaZncS94

It makes me nervous when Im surrounded by big men wearing sunglasses on an overcast day. Just sayin.

[citizen of industry]

For all the criticisms of unions, I wonder how many here have attempted to join them, become labor activists, get elected to leadership positions and influence them in a revolutionary direction, or even to propose motions that ensure internal union democracy. Unions certainly have more revolutionary potential than a hundred man vanguard party discussion group.


There are plenty of militant or at least democratic unions. AFL-CIO is not one of them. In fact, their officials are dispatched by the government to other countries to "train" and neuter their labor movents.

[Anarcho-Brocialist]

I don't think American labor unions are fitted for Revolution, albeit, Unions are an essential role in the revolutionary process and even after. The state has never been pro-worker, rather it promotes the interests of those of power. Whether that's of opulence, political, or affiliation status. Something must regulate the forces that can decree legislation. In the USSR such institutions weren't allowed to be created unless it was with the Communist Party, which represses individual liberty. As the saying goes : "Socialism will be free or it will not be at all".

[citizen of industry]

Also not cool for labor activists to see socialists turning their back on them and not joining the movement and trying to influence it. It's basically giving up on organized labor and handing it over to beaurocrats. If socialists don't support and work with labor, why would organized labor support socialist parties? Makes syndicalism more attractive.

[Book O'Dead]

I don't know too much about De Leonism, so i'll keep my reply independent of what Book O Dead said.

Fair enough, but don't you think that not knowing "too much" about socialist industrial unionism is a disadvantange, especially when treating the all-important topic of the role of unions in a revolution?


Unions can of course play a huge role in the revolutionary process. They are key, for obviously they are, even in their diminished state today, the only group (religion aside!) that can command a potentially revolutionary group membership of millions+. The only way Unions can become revolutionary is for the members to either act independently of their bureaucracy, or to exert enough pressure on the bureaucracy as to render it powerless, i.e. to wrest power back from the national TU bureaucracy.

But even that would be insufficient if the entire union were not restructured on the basis of an unequivocal foundation of proletarian economics, the class struggle and the overthrow of capitalist class rule.


But in their current form, with their current power structures, then no, I view Trade Unions as a hindrance, for whatever opportunities are there for them to strike at the heart of Capitalism, they will always settle for limited, industry-only strikes, negotiation and reconciliation.

Here is what Marx said:

"At the same time, and quite apart from the general servitude involved in the wages system, the working class ought not to exaggerate to themselves the ultimate working of these everyday struggles. They ought not to forget that they are fighting with effects, but not with the causes of those effects; that they are retarding the downward movement, but not changing its direction; that they are applying palliatives, not curing the malady. They ought, therefore, not to be exclusively absorbed in these unavoidable guerilla fights incessantly springing up from the never ceasing encroachments of capital or changes of the market. They ought to understand that, with all the miseries it imposes upon them, the present system simultaneously engenders the material conditions and the social forms necessary for an economical reconstruction of society. Instead of the conservative motto: “A fair day's wage for a fair day's work!” they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: “Abolition of the wages system!"

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/ch03.htm#c14

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

How likely is it that unions can be completely re-arranged on the basis of proletarian economics?

Surely if workers are at such a high point of political consciousness then the need for such a move is either null and void, or has already happened outside of the existing union apparatus? It just strikes me as a bit idealistic (and i'm often called idealistic myself!).

Indeed, why would it make sense to have a Trade Union within capitalism that is based on Socialist/proletarian (don't know if you are using these terms interchangeably?) economic principles...surely the job of TUs within Capitalism is subject to the confines of Capitalism, defending already won reforms for their working members. So surely if you are going to have a working class group based around Socialist economic/political principles, it makes more sense to do this across industry lines, rather than having say, the railworkers' union or shopworkers' union separately forming a DeLeonist-style union.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

As many have said, trade unions are institutions of capitalism. I believe that workers need to completely break away from these institutions and form their own rank-and-file committees in order for any hope of socialism to succeed.


This would be more shocking if the SEP themselves didn't go into extensive detail about the treacherous policies of the WRP dominated ICFI themselves, or how the formation of the SEP stands in distrinct contrast to their betrayal of Trotskyism. In fact, the SEP is one of the few organizations which documents the reasons for the split and ramifications it has on the current program. The Historical and International Foundations of the Socialist Equality Party, The Workers League and the founding of the Socialist Equality Party, How the Workers Revolutionary Party betrayed Trotskyism, and The ICFI defends Trotskyism are some of that go into detail about the subject.


The principle of this split and the ramifications on the current progam are clearly shown. The SEP is one of the few organizations which hasn't theoretically attached itself to some petty-bourgeois movement.
What a bunch of baloney. The ICFI, which was dominated by the WRP, was the international group to which the Workers League belonged for its entire existence. For the SEP to distance itself from the Healy and the WRP is absolute bullshit -- I was around when North's group, the WL (predecessor of the SEP) held up Healy as the very embodiment of Marxist theory. And I would like anybody connected with the SEP to show any documents prior to Healy being thrown out of his own group in 1985, that suggest they opposed ANYTHING that Healy said or did.

I had the displeasure of reading the Bulletin in the late 70s when it was enthusiastically supporting Qadaffi and Saddam Hussein as revolutionaries. I don't know if the WL ever actually received any money from those tinpot dictators (the WRP/ICFI received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Qadaffi) but they fulsomely supported them in their pages. Of course that a group with about 100 members was producing a twice-weekly paper did suggest they were getting money from someone with deep pockets, but I certainly don't pretend to know any of those details.

The SEP is a shady group run by a union busting dirt bag. They lie about their origins and their history. They are not Trotskyists, they are con men.

[Ocean Seal]

So what you are telling me is that a union which hasn't done anything for class struggle since the 30's is endorsing a liberal President...
Please tell me more conspiracies. How about the one where capitalists make ownership of the means of production impossible for the working class in order to force them to sell their labor.

[Book O'Dead]

How likely is it that unions can be completely re-arranged on the basis of proletarian economics?

Surely if workers are at such a high point of political consciousness then the need for such a move is either null and void, or has already happened outside of the existing union apparatus? It just strikes me as a bit idealistic (and i'm often called idealistic myself!).

Indeed, why would it make sense to have a Trade Union within capitalism that is based on Socialist/proletarian (don't know if you are using these terms interchangeably?) economic principles...surely the job of TUs within Capitalism is subject to the confines of Capitalism, defending already won reforms for their working members. So surely if you are going to have a working class group based around Socialist economic/political principles, it makes more sense to do this across industry lines, rather than having say, the railworkers' union or shopworkers' union separately forming a DeLeonist-style union.


I'm not advocating the formation of socialist trade unions. Socialist industrial unionism recognizes that the days of trade unionism are long over. What is required is the formation of one great union that unites the entire working class on the basis of Marxian or radical economics (yes, socialist and proletarian are interchangeable in my mind), the principle of the class struggle and the revolutionary mission of the working class.

So, for that today's trade and business unions that presently represent portions of the divided working class are totally unfit.

[RedZezz]

What a bunch of baloney. The ICFI, which was dominated by the WRP, was the international group to which the Workers League belonged for its entire existence. For the SEP to distance itself from the Healy and the WRP is absolute bullshit -- I was around when North's group, the WL (predecessor of the SEP) held up Healy as the very embodiment of Marxist theory.

Yes, they did as Healy was one of the leaders of the faction in the Forth International that opposed Pabloism. Even the articles linked below make the case that they did uphold the WRP in high regards for a time. However, during the 1985 split in the ICFI, the faction that would form the SEP later would then criticize the actions of the WRP dominated IC, including what was written in the international press, on issues such as supporting the Hussain regime, Lybia, and Khomenei. To stop the discussion at 1979 ignores some of the most vital moments in the history of the movement, including the split and the actual formation of the SEP.



And I would like anybody connected with the SEP to show any documents prior to Healy being thrown out of his own group in 1985, that suggest they opposed ANYTHING that Healy said or did.


http://wsws.org/IML/fi_vol13_no2/fi_vol13_no2_index.shtml
http://wsws.org/IML/fi_vol13_no1/fi_vol13_no1_index.shtml

Not only does this give a thorough and principled discussion of the events, but also the origins, derailment, and dissoution of the WRP and why it happened. What lessons were learned from the experience of this and how it shapes the current policy of what would become the SEP.

If you are so sure that the fundemental position of the SEP is to support nationalist regimes, then you should have no trouble finding examples on the WSWS or any other organization's news bullitin. As I am sure you cant, you have no really leg to stand on.



The SEP is a shady group run by a union busting dirt bag. They lie about their origins and their history. They are not Trotskyists, they are con men


:rolleyes:

[x359594]

The AFL-CIO is a business union that acts on the premise of cooperation with the boss so it's no surprise that the union leadership would endorse Obama.

Until it merged with the AFL the CIO had the potential of being a revolutionary union, but the leadership sold out. Nothing in the National Labor Relations Act (the Wagner Act) of 1935 required CIO unions to put a no-strike clause in their contracts. Trotskyist organizer Farrell Dobbs showed that over-the-road truckers could organize successfully despite the fact that their first contracts did not give up the right to strike. The establishment of workplace contractualism, with the inclusion of no-strike and management prerogatives language in all but a few CIO contracts, was substantially complete before the passage of the Taft-Hartley amendments in 1947 and the expulsion of leftist unions from the CIO soon of afterwards.

The plain fact is that Lewis, Reuther and most of the other CIO founding fathers deliberately and voluntarily chose to include no-strike language in their contracts. They appear to have done so for two reasons: first, to show employers that they were "responsible" labor leaders who would help to maintain labor peace; and second, to control their own rank-and-file members.


So the first step to change this state of affairs is for the rank and file to take back the union from its collaborationist leadership. Next is to re-think organizing strategy and then develop a battle plan for use in negotiations with the bosses that is tactically flexible. And these are only beginning steps.


With US union membership down to 13% of the total workforce (down from a high of 36% in the mid 1950s) just in order to draw new members the unions will have to become more militant.

[citizen of industry]

The AFL-CIO is a business union that acts on the premise of cooperation with the boss so it's no surprise that the union leadership would endorse Obama.

Until it merged with the AFL the CIO had the potential of being a revolutionary union, but the leadership sold out. Nothing in the National Labor Relations Act (the Wagner Act) of 1935 required CIO unions to put a no-strike clause in their contracts. Trotskyist organizer Farrell Dobbs showed that over-the-road truckers could organize successfully despite the fact that their first contracts did not give up the right to strike. The establishment of workplace contractualism, with the inclusion of no-strike and management prerogatives language in all but a few CIO contracts, was substantially complete before the passage of the Taft-Hartley amendments in 1947 and the expulsion of leftist unions from the CIO soon of afterwards.

The plain fact is that Lewis, Reuther and most of the other CIO founding fathers deliberately and voluntarily chose to include no-strike language in their contracts. They appear to have done so for two reasons: first, to show employers that they were "responsible" labor leaders who would help to maintain labor peace; and second, to control their own rank-and-file members.


So the first step to change this state of affairs is for the rank and file to take back the union from its collaborationist leadership. Next is to re-think organizing strategy and then develop a battle plan for use in negotiations with the bosses that is tactically flexible. And these are only beginning steps.


With US union membership down to 13% of the total workforce (down from a high of 36% in the mid 1950s) just in order to draw new members the unions will have to become more militant.

The majority of the rank-and-file is not class-conscious.Barring some kind of major economic-social upheavel the rank-and-file isn't going to press for militancy. Motions are often brought to the membership to endorse "political" initiatives such as endorsing occupy and voted down by the majority for the reason of not embroiling the union in politics, which is ridiculous. Likewise much of the rank-and-file seeks collective bargaining contracts with management, because they seek better working conditions.

In any case, barring such an upheavel, likely the only way we're going to see more militant unions is if militant activists take leadership positions in the unions and push them in that direction.

[x359594]

...Motions are often brought to the membership to endorse "political" initiatives such as endorsing occupy and voted down by the majority for the reason of not embroiling the union in politics, which is ridiculous. Likewise much of the rank-and-file seeks collective bargaining contracts with management, because they seek better working conditions...

We'd have to look at this on a case-by-case basis rather than generalize.

First, motions are often not brought to the membership of certain unions but decided by the bureaucrats at the top, and when the rank and file moves in a militant direction, the union bosses try to check them by putting the local into receivership and similar tactics.

Concerning the endorsements for #Occupy, the ones that I know of on the West Coast came from the rank and file, and if not adopted, were vetoed by the bosses. And this didn't keep individuals members from supporting #Occupy actions (for example, the ILWU has a "no crossing" [of picket lines] rule, and when a line was up at the Port of Oakland last November union members didn't cross it.)

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Yes, they did as Healy was one of the leaders of the faction in the Forth International that opposed Pabloism. Even the articles linked below make the case that they did uphold the WRP in high regards for a time. However, during the 1985 split in the ICFI, the faction that would form the SEP later would then criticize the actions of the WRP dominated IC, including what was written in the international press, on issues such as supporting the Hussain regime, Lybia, and Khomenei. To stop the discussion at 1979 ignores some of the most vital moments in the history of the movement, including the split and the actual formation of the SEP.



http://wsws.org/IML/fi_vol13_no2/fi_vol13_no2_index.shtml
http://wsws.org/IML/fi_vol13_no1/fi_vol13_no1_index.shtml

Not only does this give a thorough and principled discussion of the events, but also the origins, derailment, and dissoution of the WRP and why it happened. What lessons were learned from the experience of this and how it shapes the current policy of what would become the SEP.

If you are so sure that the fundemental position of the SEP is to support nationalist regimes, then you should have no trouble finding examples on the WSWS or any other organization's news bullitin. As I am sure you cant, you have no really leg to stand on.

:rolleyes:
I will quote from the second document you referenced:

On February 2, 1979, in an article entitled "A Conspiracy Exposed," the News Line reported with favor the execution of 21 members of the Iraqi CP for "illegally forming cells in the armed forces." On March 8, 1979, in response to a readers' letter protesting this class betrayal, the News Line defended the executions in a full-page unsigned statement.
It declared that the "Arab Ba'ath Socialist Party of Iraq has played a hundredfold more progressive role in the Middle East than Stalinism" — thus abandoning the class criterion in its evaluation of political tendencies and forgetting that the Trotskyist criticism of Stalinism in the Middle East has always centered on its unprincipled and opportunist relations with the bourgeois nationalists. It was on this basis that the International Committee criticized the Communist Party of Sudan in 1971 — while protesting the execution of its leaders by the hangman Nimeiri. But in 1979, the WRP denounced the Iraqi CP and justified the murder of its members for just the opposite reason — their failure to fully abide by the terms of an opportunist agreement between the Stalinists and Ba'athists!
"The fact is that the CP members were executed according to military codes which the Iraqi CP discussed, approved and agreed to implement. To this day the Iraqi CP has not called for the repeal of tlte military laws which ban the formation of secret cells in the army. It has never contested the fact that the arrested officers were guilty [!] of the charges brought against them.
"This is a straight case of Moscow trying to set up cells in the Iraqi armed forces for the purpose of undermining the regime. It must accept the consequences...
"It is a principle with Trotskyists that we defend workers, whether they are Stalinists, revisionists or social democrats from the attacks of the capitalist state.
"But, as the facts show, that has nothing to do with the incidents in Iraq." (p. 10)
As if this was not enough, the statement went on to warn the reader who wrote the letter protesting the executions that he "should start from these revolutionary considerations, unless he wants to become a pawn in the cynical conspiracy of the Stalinists and imperialism. . . ."


That is true as far as it goes. But here's the joke of this stuff -- everyone on the left who had any interest in Trotskyism in the US, knew this was going on in the 1970s as it was happening. Where the fuck was David North? He just "discovered" many years after the fact that the WRP was giving unprincipled support to bonapartist capitalist regimes in the middle east? Where are his opposition documents about this -- when it was going on? Where are his outraged opposition documents about supporting the murder of Iraqi Communists? THERE WEREN'T ANY. Why did the Bulletin in the US publish the same shit extolling the revolutionary virtues of Qadaffi and Hussein? How is it that the Workers League leadership was SHOCKED, SHOCKED I TELL YOU, when the shit hit the fan and Healy was being ousted? They weren't. They were in on it all along. When Healy's stranglehold on the party came undone, THEN, there was David North to claim his share of the pie. Principles Schminciples, he ain't got none. It is the height of cynicism to feign outrage ten years after the fact.

SO SHOW US ANY DOCUMENTS OBJECTING TO THE WRP'S SUPPORT FOR THE ARAB REVOLUTION AND QADAFFI BEFORE 1984.

Healy got old, became a liability to the WRP and was fed to the lions. Those who followed him for decades in his epic career of political chicanery and viciousness, without having any meaningful political fights -- who carried out his horrid, anti-working class and anti-communist policies, like Banda, Wohlforth, North and Slaughter -- should have nothing but apologies to the working class for their vile role. They were all Toadies, until they decided that the king toad was weak. Then they grabbed a piece of the shrinking and stinking ICFI pie.