A socialist program for labor
8,500 IUE members struck GE for three weeks and defeated attempts to bust the union.
The demands by employers for concessions are facing increasing opposition. In the first five months of 1985, there were 18 strikes by more than 1,000 workers. In the last five months of the year, this doubled to 36.
Cannery workers in Watsonville, California, print workers in Chicago, and meatpackers in Austin, Minnesota have been on the picket lines for over six months. They have been joined by workers at General Electric and train and bus workers in Massachusetts, transit workers in Philadelphia, and flight attendants at TWA.
The heroic resistance of the P-9 local in Austin has tapped a wide layer of support among union members. This reflects the rising anger and bitterness of workers who are looking for a lead to avenge the cuts and attacks they have been suffering. The strike of TWA flight attendants shows that new layers of workers not previously considered militant are now entering the struggle.
As workers see that concessions only lead to demands for more concessions, more and more of them are saying “enough is enough.” The lesson is learned – concessions do not work. These five years of intense attacks on labor, starting with the Chrysler deal in 1979 and continuing with the smashing of PATCO, have spread through industry after industry.
Concessions cause unemployment
In spite of the arguments of employers and their press and politicians the concessions wrested from labor since the Chrysler deal in 1979 have not saved jobs or solved the problems of the economy. The opposite is the case. Concessions weaken the ability of workers to buy back the goods they produce.
Cuts in the wages of TWA workers reduce their ability to buy an automobile. Cuts in the wages of GM workers reduce their ability to travel by plane. One worker’s wage cut is another worker’s job loss.
The bosses say that workers are pricing themselves out of jobs because their wages are too high. There was a bigger difference between the wages of U.S. workers and the wages of workers overseas in the 1950s and 1960s than there is today. If the high wages of U.S. workers are the cause of the crisis, then why didn’t the crisis happen in the 1950s and 1960s rather than now?
In 1980, U.S. workers were in first place! Reagan’s policies had increased the value of the dollar by over 40% over this period, and so raised the price of U.S. labor relative to labor in other countries.
Business Week, one of the serious journals of big business, explained it clearly in June 1982. “Labor costs are not the sole or even the important cause of the decline in steel, autos and rubber industry.”
Investment
The main reason for the crisis in the U.S. economy is the low level of investment by big business in new industrial plant and industrial capacity in the U.S. compared to its rivals. In the 25 years of the post-war boom of capitalism between 1950 and 1975, Japan invested 30% of its gross national products (GNP) back into production. In the U.S. the figure was only 14%. U.S. employers were squandering their profits in arms production, speculation, and the service sector. This left increasingly old and obsolete plants and equipment in the U.S. which was less able to compete with the modernized plants of its foreign rivals.
Setbacks
The failure of the labor leaders to answer the arguments of the bosses on concessions has led them in many cases to support the policies of concessions. As a result, labor has suffered setbacks over the past five to six years and been thrown onto the defensive.
The effects of this can be seen in the TWA strike, where flight attendants were willing to take a 15% cut in wages in an attempt to protect their jobs. The employers demanded a 17% cut in pay, and overall cuts in the region of 44%. In this strike, if these workers can gain a settlement with only a 15% cut they will consider it a victory! Even five years ago, this 15% would have seemed a major defeat and an insult by these workers.
Out of these attacks, workers are beginning to learn harsh and painful lessons about life in America in the 1980s. Karen Lantz, vice president of the Independent Federation of Flight Attendants, described the changes in attitude of TWA workers during the strike: “The membership have probably learned more in the last two weeks than in the last 20 years.” Bitter and often isolated battles are breaking out leading to a hardening of a layer of workers. Also, new, more militant leaders are being thrown up in a number of locals, like at P-9 in Austin.
Counter-offensive
The mood of bitterness and anger that is building among workers will at some stage lead to a major counter-offensive. All the traditions of militancy and struggle of American labor in the 1930s will re-emerge in the new movement. The great victories of the CIO in the 1930s themselves came out of the setbacks of the early 1930s.
The benefits labor has today were only won by the dynamic and explosive CIO movement of the 1930s. Mass picketing, open confrontation with scabs, mass industrial unions, and the sit-down strikes were needed to turn the tide in the 1930s. It is these tactics and traditions, a glimpse of which can be seen in the determined struggle by Hormel workers in Austin, that are necessary to win gains in this period of crisis of capitalism.
The unorganized
A movement of even larger proportions to that of the 1930s will develop in the future. This will engulf the millions of unorganized workers in the service industries, fast-food restaurants, sweat shops, small manufacturing plants and offices. Unions will sweep these workforces in a similar way to how the CIO took industry by storm in the period of 1936 and 1937. From 18% of the workforce organized today, it is likely to see 40%, 50% or even 60% organized in unions as has been achieved by workers in some countries of Europe.
Protectionism
Rather than prepare the movement for this fightback the labor leaders look for other alternatives. One of these is the demand for protectionism, or tariff barriers. They argue that by stopping foreign goods entering the U.S. markets, jobs of U.S. workers can be protected. However, what these arguments fail to take into account is that any protectionist measures taken by the U.S. would meet with retaliation from its rivals abroad. With one in six jobs in the U.S. now dependent on exports, this would mean layoffs for these workers. These workers would then be unable to buy the goods produced by workers for the home market and their jobs would also be lost.
Not only would protectionism fail to solve the crisis, but it would makeit worse. This “solution” was tried before. The Smoot–Hawley Act of 1930 increased tariff barriers. Agricultural exports fell from $200 million in 1922 to only $5 million in 1932. Auto exports fell from $541 million in 1929 to 76 million in 1932. Similar declines occurred in other industries. By 1933, a wage cut averaging 45% had been implemented through all of industry and there were 12 to 17 million unemployed. This would be equivalent to 30 million workers unemployed today.
Labor’s program
The Labor leaders must put forward a program that can defend wages and protect jobs and mobilize the power of labor. Companies who demand concessions must be met with the demand: “Open the books.” This means all the financial records of the company, including those of interlocking companies and banks.
Those companies who can pay decent wages and benefits must be forced to pay up. Those companies which are in difficulty must be taken out of the hands of their owners and nationalized under democratic workers’ control and management. Their owners have proved they are unfit to run them.
This must be linked to the struggle for a public works program to build houses, hospitals, schools, recreational facilities and the crumbling infrastructure. The working week for all must be reduced to 32 hours with no loss of pay and a national minimum wage of at least $10 per hour established. All working people must have the right to 32 hours work or 32 hours pay.
500 corporations
This is the program which can meet the needs of American workers and throw the concession period into reverse. The wealth in U.S. society makes its implementation entirely possible. What is necessary is that control and ownership of this wealth is taken out of the hands of the top 500 privately-owned corporations which constitute a dictatorship over U.S. society. These must be nationalized under workers control and management and a socialist plan of production implemented.
Labor party
Labor needs its own political party to implement such a program. It cannot rely on the Democrats and Republicans to look after its interests. Both parties are parties of big business, and will side with big business on all the essential issues. A labor party based on the trade unions can provide a solution to the horrors of a crisis-ridden capitalism and the devastation of people’s lives, hopes, and expectations.
The energy of the American people could then be channelled to building a society where the needs of the majority of the population would be cared for. It is only then that the horrors of unemployment, low wages, fear of illness and accident, bad housing and poverty could be ended, and the idea of the “American Dream” could become a reality.