From NOEBIE.net
A Bunch of Union Organizers Explain What’s Wrong with Unions – Hamilton Nolan from In These Times asked the real experts about the gap between public enthusiasm for unions and the lack of actual union members.
Read More: https://inthesetimes.com/article/union-density-workers-organizing-staff-experts-public-enthusiasm
Personal Notes: I am a proud, card-carrying union member. Also, I once came dangerously close to being hired as an Associate Editor at ITT. 🙂
Late last week, President Obama issued a proclamation naming May 1st, 2016 as “Loyalty Day” in the United States. The proclamation reads, in part, “On this day, let us reaffirm our allegiance to the United States of America and pay tribute to the heritage of American freedom.”
Loyalty Day was first celebrated in 1921, during the First Red Scare. It was originally called “Americanization Day” and was created purposefully to replace International Workers’ Day, the worldwide celebration of worker solidarity. It was enshrined into law in 1955 by the U.S. Congress during the Second Red Scare, and has been proclaimed each year by every President since Eisenhower.
Throughout history, control of the calendar has been used to set the ideological agenda. One need not look very far into the history of Catholic liturgical calendar to see this. Samhain was transformed into the Feast of All Saints. The Vernal Equinox became the Annunciation. The Summer Solstice became the Nativity of John the Baptist. The list goes on and on.
This practice has not been lost on our own ruling class.
Utah Phillips said “Yes, the long memory is the most radical idea in this country. It is the loss of that long memory which deprives our people of that connective flow of thoughts and events that clarifies our vision, not of where we’re going, but where we want to go.”
In the years of struggle to come, it is more important than ever that we cultivate the long memory. Celebration of International Workers’ Day is the foundation upon which an understanding of what it means to be a true American rests. Our heritage as fighting working class radicals must not be undermined by the false consciousness imposed on us by the One Percent.
Below are a few links, highly recommended for the occasion. For a longer read, I would also recommend Sharon Smith’s excellent history of the labor movement in America, Subterranean Fire.
Today Is Our Day – by Jonah Walters at Jacobin – This May Day, we should celebrate the historic triumphs of the labor movement and the struggles to come.
The legacy of Haymarket – by Sharon Smith at Socialist Worker – Sharon Smith chronicles the hidden history of the Haymarket Martyrs, the movement for the eight-hour day and the origins of May Day.
In celebration of May Day – by Andrea Bauer at Freedom Socialist – A reflection on Karl Marx and the struggle for a shorter workday.
If a suspected terrorist sneezes in Europe, we see security camera footage repeated day and night with endless speculation and commentary on CNN, but there has been a virtual mainstream media blackout here in the United States of news about the French working class rising up over the past two weeks.
On March 31, thousands of French activists gathered at the Place de la République to protest French President François Hollande’s labor reforms, and they’ve been staying “up all night” ever since. The “Nuit Debout” protests are now spreading to Belgium, Britain, Spain and Germany.
Lee Sustar looks at the dynamics of the one-day Chicago teachers strike on April 1 while Chicago teachers, unionists and community members explain why they’re taking part in the day of action.
Read the article: What we’re fighting for on April 1 | Socialist Worker
On April 1, 2016, the Chicago Teacher’s Union is asking all concerned Chicago citizens to unite in a day of action.
I keep reading articles with teasers like this in the title, but none seem to actually lay out any semblance of a plausible strategy. They make the case for doing something, with hypothetical (and often frantic) questions about what people might have done during Hitler’s rise to power, but then are incredibly thin on actual advice for what we should do here and now. This left me frustrated and depressed, until I realized that I shouldn’t wait for someone else to tell me what I needed to do. I should think about it and come up with a plan myself. So I did, and I have.
First, the caveats. Although the strategy outlined here truly is simple, it’s not easy. Some of it will require a great deal of hard work, dedication and sustained resolve. Even with all of that, success may seem evasive if not elusive.
Also, it needs to be said that I’m not a sociologist, historian, data analyst or professional political strategist. All I can offer is the work of an informed and engaged mind.
Finally, do not read this expecting a foolproof plan for keeping Donald Trump out of the White House in 2016. That would be one desired outcome, but it’s not the main goal. The main goal is to defeat not only Trump, but “Trumpism.” If we can pull that off, then it won’t matter nearly as much who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, because we will also have ushered in a new era in American politics where the people call the shots.
I don’t know if Trump’s rise is really comparable to Hitler’s. He’s certainly brought some of the most despicable and frightening tendencies in the body politic of our nation into the light of day. Whether or not he is the Antichrist of our era, in the vein of Hitler and Napoleon, it is crucial that we stand up to the racism, religious bigotry, warmongering, red-baiting, anti-intellectualism and other assorted evils and asshattery he proclaims. We must stand up, we must fight, and we must win.
So, take a deep breath, grab a cup of coffee (or a tumbler of whiskey), and consider the following step-by-step outline for banishing The Donald to the footnotes of history.
Forget about the Presidential Election of 2016.
Okay, you don’t have to forget about it completely. But you do have to think beyond it. Part of the problem with our politics in this country is that every few years we get all wrapped up in election campaigns, we put all our energy into them, and that steals attention and resources from important things that we ought to be doing day in and day out in our own communities. If all you do is vote and encourage others to do so, we’ve already lost. Some of the most effective activists I know don’t vote at all, despite all of the hoopla and constant berating messages like “if you don’t vote, you can’t complain.” I vote, and I pay special attention to local and state races. I don’t discourage people from voting, but it is not the only thing. It’s not even the most important thing.
Do I really need to say it? CHICAGO.
On the evening of March 11th, the people of Chicago already showed us what to do. We will need to organize and mobilize thousands of people in all of our major cities who are willing to get out in the street and shut things down. This is important between now and November, but will be even more crucial after November should Trump prevail. Please note that what happened in Chicago was possible because of years of organization and struggle there, and because of the incredible spirit of solidarity in the town. Black Lives Matter supports the teachers. The CTU supports the Fight for Fifteen. Fight for Fifteen stands tall for immigrant rights. Each one of the significant social movements in the city recognizes the relationship between the other fights for justice and their own. This is why they were able to put their stunning demonstration together in less than a week. If you’re not organizing together with others in your community already, get to it.
Give the people what they need.
Donald Trump did not create his base. People know in their hearts that we’re all getting cheated and deceived by the ruling class in this country. We know that our political leaders present little but lies and empty promises. We know that they have no solutions. Neither the neoliberalism of the Democrats nor the corporate cronyism of the GOP offers a way forward to decent lives in the future. Defending the status quo or the lesser of two evils will not stem the current tide of lunacy. People who are frustrated and frightened are looking for real hope and real help.
Trump’s message is simple: authoritarian, nationalistic and populist. His mantra of “they’re killing us on trade” because our leaders aren’t strong and don’t know how to negotiate, resonates with people facing economic hardship (real or anticipated) after nearly four decades of neoliberalism.
Those of us who care about defeating Trump and his ilk must present a powerful, plausible alternative. More of the same won’t cut it.
Strike a blow for liberty. Screw the Democrats.
If we are to present an attractive alternative to Trump and his message, it will require an independent political movement of the great masses of working folks, and a willingness to break with the Democratic Party. Hillary Clinton’s campaign, in particular, is a dead end. Showing any support for Clinton, either now or in the general election campaign, will be counterproductive. Whether or not she might beat Trump in 2016 is one question, but in the long run she cannot defeat Trumpism. Supporting her candidacy is not only wasted effort, it is destructive. This goes for any other Democrat who isn’t campaigning hard for things that will make a real difference in our lives and in the lives of our children. Things like single-payer universal health care, free tuition at public universities, a $15 minimum wage, higher taxes on Wall Street, opposition to big oil and smashing the oligarchy are a damned good list, for starters – and that brings me to my final point.
Support the Anti-Trump.
Despite my reasoned and heartfelt condemnation of the Democratic Party, as long as Sanders is in the race for their Presidential nomination, he will have my support. As far as the election of 2016 goes, he has been the single visible Trump antidote. Every day that Bernie is out there railing against the corporate stranglehold on our lives, it’s another opportunity for people to wake up and to feel a sense of what might be possible if thoughtful, decent people came together in large numbers to demand thoughtful, decent government. Although his populist economic message is similar in some ways to Trump’s, his prescriptions are sound. It is obvious that the Democratic Party does not share his zeal for economic justice, and his own foreign policy framework leaves a lot to be desired, but Sanders is focusing the public’s attention on issues and solutions that would have been left out of the discourse entirely absent his campaign. We can build on that, and we should do what we can to see that his message continues to be heard.
More than anything else, our opposition to the darkness in American politics must be based on real solutions, and on a willingness to get off our couches and out into the streets in pursuit of those solutions. Our determination and steadfastness in this effort may literally be the difference between life and death for many of us – perhaps even for humankind. In some ways I’m thankful to Donald Trump for shocking us out of our complacency.
Now let’s go kick his ass.
Turkey v Islamic State v the Kurds: What’s going on? – BBC News – Although military affiliates of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) have been some of the most stalwart and effective opponents of Daesh (the Islamic State), Turkey has chosen to focus their efforts on destroying the Kurdish freedom movement. The United States’ support of these efforts is unconscionable. This article from BBC News from a few months ago gives a decent overview of the situation.
Thomas Piketty on the rise of Bernie Sanders: the US enters a new political era | The Guardian – French Economist Thomas Piketty writes that the Vermont senator’s success so far demonstrates the end of the politico-ideological cycle opened by the victory of Ronald Reagan at the 1980 elections.
Bernie Sanders’ Phantom Movement – Chris Hedges – Truthdig – Hedges argues that no movement or political revolution will ever be built within the confines of the Democratic Party. And the repeated failure of the American left to grasp the duplicitous game being played by the political elites has effectively neutered it as a political force.
China’s currency reserves plunged in January – BBC News – China still has the world’s biggest reserve of foreign currency holdings. But that has declined by $420 billion over six months and stands at the lowest level in nearly four years. This is the most underreported and significant economic news of 2016, thus far.
Can the U.S. escape the slump? | SocialistWorker.org – Lee Sustar looks at the prospects for the U.S. economy amid global instability.
Greatest Threat to Free Speech in the West: Criminalizing Activism Against Israeli Occupation | The Intercept – Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Fishman report that there is a coordinated and well-financed campaign led by Israel and its supporters to criminalize political activism against Israeli occupation, based on the fear that the worldwide campaign of Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment is succeeding.
The end of capitalism has begun | Books | The Guardian – Paul Mason posits that Capitalism will not be abolished by forced-march techniques, but by creating something more dynamic that exists, at first, almost unseen within the old system, but which will break through, reshaping the economy around new values and behaviors.
More money for Wall Street, more problems for Chicago’s schools | Chicago Reader – From Ben Joravsky: “It seems the mayor and his council allies remain defiantly determined to waste money, raise taxes, and plunge Chicago Public Schools into bankruptcy.”
EFF to Support Apple in Encryption Battle | Electronic Frontier Foundation – “For the first time, the government is requesting Apple write brand new code that eliminates key features of iPhone security—security features that protect us all. Essentially, the government is asking Apple to create a master key so that it can open a single phone. And once that master key is created, we’re certain that our government will ask for it again and again, for other phones, and turn this power against any software or device that has the audacity to offer strong security.”
Unless It Changes, Capitalism Will Starve Humanity By 2050 – Forbes – Drew Hansen, writing for that hotbed of Socialist thought, Forbes, says that corporate capitalism is committed to the relentless pursuit of growth, even if it ravages the planet and threatens human health.
The Detroit News reports on a public hearing held yesterday to allow comment on proposed benefit cuts to the Central States Pension Fund, one of the largest Teamster retirement funds.
One retiree spoke bluntly to reporters about prospects for himself, and for people being vested in the plan in the future.
“If they get this plan passed, who would want to join Teamsters when they just screwed 100,000 retirees?” said Fred Bora. “It’s going to have a bigger fallout. It’s really going to go down hill. We’re still going to get the short end of the stick.”
The fund is being reorganized under the Multi-employer Pension Reform Act of 2014, which was signed into law by President Obama. Obama’s appointee to oversee the cuts, Kenneth Feinberg, noted after the hearing that he had authority to impose the reorganization plan over any and all objections.
The trustees of many multi-employer funds used money from those funds to lobby for the Act, against the better interests of the rank and file union members and retirees they purport to serve.
Under the plan being considered, retirees could lose up to 70% of their monthly benefits, at a time when their employers (such as UPS) are reporting record profits. A typical pensioner would go from $3000 a month to $1200 a month in benefits.
Read more on the public hearing: Hundreds speak out on proposed Teamster benefit cuts
Read more at Teamsters for a Democratic Union: Treasury to Hold Town Hall Meetings
As the assault on union standards continues — wherever we still have them — glimmers of hope in 2015 came from grassroots resistance. Al Bradbury looks back on the year for Labor Notes.
Read More: 2015 Year in Review: Grassroots Resistance Points the Way Forward | Labor Notes
Over the past four years, as I began to awaken politically, it’s become important to me not only to try to recognize and understand the causes of injustices in our society, but to actually make a contribution to the struggles against them. The challenge has been to identify opportunities to make a difference, living in a small (and fairly conservative) metropolitan area. Outside the realm of party politics, which I have mostly rejected as a dead end, there is a decided dearth of organized activism in my community. This was even more the case when we lived in a small rural community in the southern part of the state.
I more or less stumbled on to a set of pursuits that form the core of my activism. I didn’t set out consciously or methodically, but simply started working on things that I thought were of value, and only realized in hindsight that they essentially comprise a political program that turns out to be just what I would have wanted to undertake. Here’s a quick list of some of those things. I share it not to pat myself on the back, nor to seek the approval or praise of others, but to spark the imagination of folks who face a similar predicament. I’d also love to hear about your projects, and what has drawn you to your own personal activism, so please feel free to comment below.
I joined a union. In another day, even the billionaires recognized the value of labor unions to democracy. None other than J. Paul Getty once said “I do believe in unions and believe that free, honest labor unions are our greatest guarantees of continuing prosperity and our strongest bulwark against social or economic totalitarianism.” Tyrants recognize this, and have routinely suppressed organized labor on the path to total power.
Although I was raised in a union home, I had never held a union card in my life. I worked in jobs where we were not organized, and it never occurred to me that we could be. Once I became more conscious, and began researching options, I was delighted to learn that the Industrial Workers of the World organize the worker, not the job. I joined the Wobblies in November of 2011. My location and the type of work I do precludes me from being a participant in most direct face-to-face activities of the union branch, but the opportunity to lend support and solidarity to my union sisters and brothers (and to learn from them) remotely has been wonderful. I’m now also a dues paying member of the National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981. The mere act of identifying as a union member has brought a new perspective to daily life, and has opened up conversations and opportunities to further the cause that were not possible before.
I became active in the NAACP. Much like joining a union, it had not occurred to me that someone like me could be a part of an organization like the NAACP. If you click on the “About” section of this site, you’ll see from the picture that I am a grey headed white guy. I didn’t know that the NAACP was open to people of all races, and didn’t know whether I would be welcome in its ranks. But when I read about some pamphleting that had been done in our county by the KKK, I felt compelled to do something formal and substantive to stand against racism. I found welcoming arms and the fellowship of kindred souls in Kankakee Branch 3035. I created a new website for the branch, got involved in the city council campaigns of some of our members, and am currently working to organize a community town hall on race.
I marched for marriage equality. This was at my wife’s prompting. It was a small demonstration, organized by the LGBT community and their allies, friends and family members here. We walked from the farmers market gazebo to the county courthouse, where we heard speeches and learned about the bills that were being considered in the state legislature. Besides showing solidarity by taking a visible public stand for justice, my wife and I also became acquainted with some of the local organizers. We joined them when they met with our state representative, and advocated for their rights under the principle of religious liberty. I also subsequently helped organize their tabling at the county fair. These efforts seemed almost trivial to me at the time, but thousands of similar efforts across the nation brought the movement to victory.
I started a community singalong and a radical reading group. Pete Seeger had great confidence in the power of song to change the world. He said this.
“Finding the right songs and singing them over and over is a way to start. And when one person taps out a beat, while another leads into the melody, or when three people discover a harmony they never knew existed, or a crowd joins in on a chorus as though to raise the ceiling a few feet higher, then they also know there is hope for the world.”
So on May Day of 2014, we held our first gathering of the Key City Singalong. We sing a wide variety of songs, in fact, everyone who attends gets to decide what we’ll sing. So it’s not all specifically songs about social issues, but we do sing our share of old union hymns and other songs of relevance. We are also creating a small community of people who demonstrate, each month, that there are things of value in the world that are not commodities.
This month will also mark the first meeting of the Chicago Southland Jacobin Reading Group. It’s too early to tell whether we’ll be successful in creating and sustaining any scale of interest in monthly discussions of explicitly socialist ideas in the area where I live, but I have hopes.
Both of these events are held at Feed Arts and Cultural Center, where I’m a resident artist. The place also hosts lots of other wonderful activities to build community and nurture the arts. We’ve even had concerts from notable singers in the political folkie tradition, like Matthew Grimm and David Rovics.
I help out at a food pantry. Pope Francis says this is how prayer works: “You pray for the hungry, then you feed them.” Although our family contributes funds to organizations that feed and care for others, I wanted to get involved directly in some work that helps to alleviate the effects of poverty and meets the basic needs of people in our community. After speaking with Sister Denise Glazik, who is a Pastoral Associate at our church, I began volunteering at the Center of Hope. It’s about an hour of honest work on Thursday morning, unloading trucks, sweeping and mopping floors, stocking shelves and such. I find it to be one of the most satisfying and rewarding activities of the entire week.
I’m working to organize against the military recruitment of our children. While attending a talk in Chicago last month about the realities of the war on terror, one question was stirring in my heart. What can I do about this? Our nation’s unrestrained militarism around the globe seems like just too big an issue to approach. Fortunately, the presenters mentioned in their talk that under the No Child Left Behind legislation, schools were compelled to give the personal data of students to military recruiters unless a parent explicitly opts out, and that groups formed to educate parents on the issue were springing up around the country. I’ve begun to reach out to school board members and others about this issue, and plan to make it a project in the coming months.
Will any of this matter? Considering the massive and daunting problems we face, we may not know for a long time, perhaps not even in our lifetimes, whether any of our efforts will be enough. I do know that each of these activities are concrete, practical and have potential. Beyond that, they make sense in terms of the grand narrative of our era. The principal menace in our world today is an ideology centered on corporate power, militarism, racism, anti-intellectualism and attacks on freedom and democracy. So to fight the good fight we join unions. We work against the war machine. We build friendships and unity across racial lines. We support the arts and cultural literacy. We engage in intellectual pursuits and discussions. We feed the hungry.
When we do any of that, we rise up against the forces of greed and death. Whether it will be enough to turn the tide in that struggle, I know not. But I must believe that it matters. There’s just no sense in believing that there’s nothing we can do.
