i would say that a sucsessful strike is benifical because it gives workers a sense of their own power.
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I work for a big, money hungry, capitalist corporation by the name of Kroger. Recently, in houston, workers for this company went on strike in protest of the lack of pay as well as the variable hours that can be harmful to your health and sleeping habits.
This, however, is besides the point. I just want to know what people believe are the pros/cons of winning a strike. Is it more of a detriment than a benefit? On the one hand, if the big corp. folds, then the workers are somewhat more relieved of their poverty. But could this placation just make the workers more docile and complient thereafter? I'm implying that they might be content with their situations afterwards and be less likely to rebel when, or if, the time came.
Thoughts?
"I will smack your face off of your face"
-Charlie Day
i would say that a sucsessful strike is benifical because it gives workers a sense of their own power.
What the fuck? A higher wage for worker has little bearing on their militancy. The militancy of the working class as a whole has the largest effect and the stimuli for this movement is the mere existence of capital. Only the sedative effects of hegemony and the global retreat of the working class numb militancy.
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--Lenin
Socialist Party (Debs Tendency)
Defeat in a skirmish rarely if ever leads to victory in a war - the logic of those who argue this (and they exist) is perverted.
"Dixi et salvavi animam meam" - quoted by Marx
"Things rarely work out well if one aims at 'moderation'..." - Engels
"By and by we heare newes of shipwrack in the same place, then we are too blame if we accept it not for a Rock." Sir Philip Sydney
"The most to be hoped for by groups who claim to belong to the Marxist succession (...) is for them to serve as a hyphen between past and future....nothing can be held sacred – everything is called into question. Only after having been put through such a crucible could socialism conceivably re-emerge as a viable doctrine and plan of action." - Van Heijenoort
As abbielives! suggested, victory in a strike shows workers that through collective action they are capable of winning improvements in their conditions. This encourages workers to put forward more aggressive demands in the future, which in the long term can evolve into a challenge to the system and a recognition of the question of state power.
In addition, the importance of solidarity in a strike encourages workers to overcome divisions that further the interests of the ruling class, such as nationality and sex, which is of vital importance.
However, in the absence of a revolutionary party workers are restricted to gianing improvements within the framework of the existing system - only an organised group of revolutionaries is capable of ensuring the development of a revolutionary class consciousness.
Alright, lets try not to get so worked up over this; it's not that urgent. Now, i never said anything about their militancy. I just offered a conjecture that, maybe, if the proletariat is appeased enough, they may be uninterested in revolution because they are content with their place in life. Marx refers to these sort of acts as conservative, or bourgoise, socialism. Is it really that farfetched?
And i do agree, abbie, that it does give them a sense of what they are capable of achieving; it also gives them a sense of solidarity, as bob said, but it's an isolated solidarity when it is just one store, or even one state, that has won a strike.
Agreed. That's partly why I asked for other people's opinions on the matter. I ,too, thought that without the help of this psuedo vanguard you refer to, that there is no progress toward revolution; the workers would be disorganised and without direction.
"I will smack your face off of your face"
-Charlie Day
Often times, a simple strike can escalate into something much much bigger, especially if they are not represented by bureaucratic unions and really have no rights to strike. In a wildcat strike, the workers don't have much to lose, but they have a world to win.
b.k.:I would not say "state power" but collective social power of the working class over the whole society.
Thus far we're mainly in agreement but the next part is a leap that doesn't follow:
The existence of revolutionaries within the working class movement is important, as an influence and sparkplug of its development, of its challenge to the dominant classes. but the power of the working class is not created by a minority grasping power over the class, but by its work in assisting the development of the power of the class itself.
The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the workers themselves.
Actually, I would think that a victory would give further momentum and self-confidence to the worker's movement. Workers actions help to provide valuable experience and builds class consciousness.
I couldn't have said it better myself.
Alright, i guess i'll rebut this. Although i completely understand what you are saying, and i believe it to be true, what good does it do for revolution?
So these workers go on strike, it escalates... and then what? The construction company they work for gives them a raise and it's over. Or it goes on for a while and they are appeased in some other way; or worse, they lose there jobs. Either way, everything is going back to normal after it's over.
"I will smack your face off of your face"
-Charlie Day
Not necassarily. If they're striking for higher wages, and they win, yeah, they'll get their wages and " Yay, hot shit, we won." But if there's something messed up in the company, or the people are being mistreated, then a strike could STOP the mistreating. The thing about strikes, to me, is people need to strike for bigger things, to make bigger changes. A pay raise? Come the fuck on. Corruption in the company? I'd strike for that. So it all depends.
And then afterwards, exposing that corruption could lead to your company losing alot of buisness, so they'll change up their shit. Alot of stuff can chain react to really benefit strikers, but only if they strike for something truly priority.
Victorious strikes and their threats INHERENTLY empower workers. If a company finds it doesn't like its workers, the benefits it gives them, etc... it threatens to fire them and arguably destroy their lives. It drums in to workers the notion that they, individually, are dispensable. This goes to the heart of inequity of power under capitalism.
But strikes are how workers FIGHT BACK. We let the corporate schmucks know that their business is only as good as the work we put into it. Work stoppages screw them. Workers need to be able to credibly communicate to the boss, "the hell with your pink slip threats; try making money with nobody around to man your operation." In the long run, only by WINNING strikes can we make good on our demands.
Workers fold to capitalist demands all the time (increase your overtime - or else!and the bosses don't stop demanding. Why would/should workers become docile?!
百花齐放
-----------------------------
la luz
de un Rojo Amanecer
anuncia ya
la vida que vendrá.
-Quilapayun
Undercutting workers wages is corruption in its self.
If you're saying that workers gain unity and empowerment from a strike, of any kind, then why wouldn't you strike for wage increase.
They might become docile because not everyone is inclined to revolution. Some just want their pay raise, or more hours. Why wouldn't they just go silently back to work if they got what they wanted?
"I will smack your face off of your face"
-Charlie Day
Absolutely not. A victorious strike is a positive towards revolution because it creates a precendent among the working class that action can work. Also it strikes fear into the hearts of the beourgiouse that the worker will not be defeated. Thatcher crushing the miners was the biggest blow to the British working class in living memory. We still never have recovered from it.
In the short term you're right. It's an empirical question whether workers call it a day and go quietly back to work for "long periods of time" when their specific demands are met. However, I think history suggests when people taste freedom and self-determination, they want more over the long-haul. Look at the civil rights movement in the U$A.
Most jobs are shitty, uncreative and dehumanizing. We rationalize it as "better than nothing" or "better than the previous wages/conditions."
But if the capitalists persistently acceded to the worker's demands, that sets the stage for us to demand better and better.
百花齐放
-----------------------------
la luz
de un Rojo Amanecer
anuncia ya
la vida que vendrá.
-Quilapayun
Sorry about my last post, i was a bit rushed and had no time to elaborate. Hope it wasn't too vague.
Thanks to everyone for your time and ideas.
"I will smack your face off of your face"
-Charlie Day
Which is state power.
The vanguard of the working class, the tasks of communists.
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