Solidarity Divided: A Welcome Return to Class Politics (Book Review)

[Hannah Bell]

What is the purpose of a union? How should unions respond to the oppression of Blacks, women, immigrants and gays? How should unions relate to the rest of the working class...? In "Solidarity Divided..." Fletcher & Gapasin insist that we need new answers to these questions...to reverse “the crisis facing organized labor – indeed the crisis facing the entire US working class.”

Unions are the most organized section of the working class...And without mass support, unions cannot prevail against an employers’ offensive that pits groups of workers against one another.

Here’s a good example. I recently heard a public radio report on a months’ long civic workers’ strike. The head of the union was interviewed...followed by the city's mayor (the employer).

The union leader focused on the fairness of the union’s economic demands compared with what other unionized workers in the city have won. The mayor talked about how the strike was an attack against seniors and children. He said that everyone was suffering from the recession, and city workers had no right to put their own welfare above that of others...The mayor presented himself as the guardian of the greater good...

The union had rejected a concession contract. It was fighting to maintain a standard of living that serves as a benchmark for other workers in the area – defending senior’s pensions and good jobs for tomorrow’s workers.

However, the union did not say that it was fighting for the rights of all workers. The union did not say that it was fighting against the unreasonable demand that workers should pay for economic problems they did not create. The union did not call on everyone who is suffering from the recession to join its fight and demand that business profits be taxed to provide more good jobs through expanded public services. It said none of these things...

So, after hearing both sides, the average person would be inclined to support the mayor against the “greedy unions”...demanding more than their share.

How can union supporters convince others that unions fight for everyone, when unions themselves refuse to make this argument?

Employers accumulate capital by paying workers less than the value of what they produce. As a result, the gap in wealth between the capitalist class and the working class keeps widening.

Capitalism denies that employers exploit workers. Instead, it promotes the view that employers and workers are economic “partners.”

On the other hand, capitalism encourages the belief that sections of the population who are better off have achieved this position at the expense of those who are worse off, i.e., that men benefit from the oppression of women, Whites benefit from the oppression of Blacks, straights benefit from the oppression of gays, workers in richer nations benefit from the exploitation of workers in poorer nations, etc. This idea is widespread, but untrue.

The belief that some workers benefit from the oppression of others causes the presumed beneficiaries of oppression to feel guilty around their oppressed co-workers who, in turn, feel resentful toward their more “privileged” brothers and sisters. This is divide-and-rule at its finest, and it benefits only the employers...

As the authors state,

' oppressions such as racism and sexism become battlegrounds to unite workers in the larger challenge for power, or they become battlegrounds in the intra-class struggle over resources.'

Solidarity Divided argues that the struggle against oppression must transcend the boundaries of workplace, union and nation...& calls for a return to the class-struggle politics that originally built the unions...

Fletcher and Gapasin disagree with the prevailing wisdom that all union problems can be solved by acquiring more members and building bigger unions. They argue that this strategy cannot succeed unless the push for growth is matched with a political strategy that acknowledges the fundamental conflict between labor and capital, challenges the supremacy of capital, and fights for working-class power.

Solidarity Divided advocates building geographically-based unions and workers’ councils that include union and non-union members. Such formations have traditionally provided a base for working-class power.

The authors support independent political action, but not political independence from the Democratic and Republican parties. Instead, they call for a neo-Rainbow approach – building an organization that can work both inside and outside of the Democratic Party...

http://susanrosenthal.com/articles/solidarity-divided-a-welcome-return-to-class-politics

[blindpig]

1. k&r n/t