Labour Movement In The Us

[Enragé]

How is it that while the workers in the US are undoubtedly the most oppressed and exploited in the western world there really isnt any substantial labour movement, let alone strikes?
There was a strike a few months ago i believe in New York, the metro and all, which was the first in like what, forty years? And even then i believe they got screwed over in the end (they were dragged into court and had to pay the damage "the city" took because of the strike)?

so wtf? Is this all still just a legacy of rabid anti-communism, propaganda etc or is there more going on? Religion in some places (bible belt)? Division of the proletariat (in black-white-hispanic etc)? The perpetuating of the illusion that the US truly is "free" and everyone can "make it" as long as they try?

[violencia.Proletariat]

How is it that while the workers in the US are undoubtedly the most oppressed and exploited in the western world there really isnt any substantial labour movement, let alone strikes?

In a lot of the non service and real industry jobs the major unions are being more and more careful. They could get their jobs sent overseas if they stir up too much trouble.


Is this all still just a legacy of rabid anti-communism, propaganda etc or is there more going on?

In the south it's illegal for certain jobs to organize in the "right to work states." In my state teachers can't legally have a union.


There are gains being made though, however small they seem. The Starbucks Union in NYC is a good thing in my opinion because its hopefully the start of the unionization of the service industry. They can't ship your local starbucks overseas so if we get them there, they're screwed.

[rebelworker]

There is actually alot more going on than you think, although brutal anti union/strike laws and crushing of the unions in the 80's has a big role to play.

I also wouldnt negate the high levels of relegious fundamentalism among workers of european decent is also a factor (not such a barrier for latino christians, they organise anyway).

The leader of the Metro strike in New York was sent to prison for a while, and he was a bit of a sellout, so that gives you an example of how bad the laws are in the US.

My maoists side also thinks that the settler mentality, wide open spaces, lots of free land, has a minor part to play. In Europe the kind of upward social mobility, available to a small minority in the US, was never an option. Also people dont move around as much (same reasons, lots of space) so for hundreds of years you had really tight knit communities who stuck togeather.

Having said that there is alot of labour activity going on, and in a small scale, seen by groups like soldiers of solidarity, there is a radicalistaion of the rank and file going on. Hardly a mass movemnt of militant communists but an attempt to build rank and file democracy and get beyond the limits of buisness unionism.

Here is the best labour news site, it covers the whole world.

LabourStart, where unionists start their day (http://www.labourstart.org/)

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27 2006, 06:26 AM
How is it that while the workers in the US are undoubtedly the most oppressed and exploited in the western world there really isnt any substantial labour movement, let alone strikes?
Keep in mind we haven't always been "the most oppressed and exploited in the western world". Up til the 80s or so, the reverse was true.

Coming out of WWII, the U.S. capitalist class held a near monopoly of the world market in major manufactured items, with its rivals in ruins. Similar to what Britain had right after the Industrial Revolution.

This enabled it to housebreak the labor movement, use the witch-hunt to clear radicals out of it, and foster the growth of a large labor aristocracy and super-collaborationist labor bureaucracy. The labor movement became unused to serious fighting.

Even earlier, wages had long been higher in the U.S. than in Europe, I think. Certainly the workers' movement had been historically slower to develop.

The objective situation's now reversed - real wages plummeted in the 80s with the bosses' offensive led and symbolized by Reagan - but it takes a while for the subjective situation to catch up.

The labor movement was wholly unprepared for the bosses' offensive. A total rout developed in the early 80s, with workers voting to cut their own wages. Since then, resistance has tended to slowly grow. As other posters have mentioned, there's more going on than you might have heard about.

But the official leadership remains worse than useless. The process of a new, de facto leadership emerging from the ranks is gradual, molecular, subterranean, a thing of individuals getting to know each other in the course of small or brief strikes and solidarity actions.

The problems of racism, religion, etc, may also play a role - historically racism certainly played a huge role. It may be more of a "legacy" thing now - that in the past racism slowed the development of a labor movement and we're left with a weaker movement and less class-consciousness as a result. Certainly that's the best explanation for North vs South differences.

I don't really think racism's any stronger in the U.S. than in Europe today; the reverse may even be true.

[Dimentio]

It is a 19th century thing. The American workers had always to compete with new immigrants.