Review
:
Greater than the might of Armies
Staughton Lynd & Alice Lynd (eds.) The New Rank &
File (Ithaca: ILR Press, 2000)
The election of John Sweeney and Rich Trumka to leadership of the
AFL-CIO in 1995 as a "reform" opposition to the moribund
organization's existing leadership led to a flurry of books,
publications and statements from the left- labour community filled
with a cautious optimism. A letter published in the New York Times
after Sweeney's election and signed by more than forty leftist
intellectuals, described the election as "the most heartening
development in our nation's political life since the heyday of the
civil right's movement." The effects of whatever substance the
authors of that letter were abusing appear to have worn off and all
now know what was clear to many at the time: had Sweeney been
qualitatively different from his predecessors he would never have
been elected.
That many would have been taken in by Sweeney is a reflection of
the way that many view the trade union movement in the United States
and Canada; as something which is essentially a democratic means of
defending workers rights and working conditions, but with a bad
leadership. Sweeney is only the latest in a long line of leftist-
supported labour leaders who turned out to be bureaucrats once, and
in many cases before they were elected to national office. Ed
Sadlowski, Arnold Miller, Ron Carey and of course Walter Reuther are
only a few of the dozens who could be mentioned. Even in the
cherished rank and file strategies of various and sundry leftists are
tainted
by myopia. National rank and file organizations such as New
Directions in the UAW and Teamsters for a Democratic union remain
loyal oppositions. It is not without reason that the Labor Notes
grouping, perhaps the most successful advocates of a rank and file
strategy, has been called "bureaucrats in waiting."
An alternate approach, even to the rank and file strategy, is
present in the oral history anthology "The New Rank and File" edited
by Staughton and Alice Lynd. The first volume of Rank & File,
which is still available from Monthly Review press, was published in
1973. In the 1970's the world appeared to be a very different place
for workers' struggles. A militant working class waged a war
employing such tactics as wildcats, walkouts, sit-ins against their
employers and their own unions in a massive "revolt against work."
Three decades later capital appears to have temporarily overcome the
terrifying spectre of Lordstown and similar insurgencies. Significant
defeats like PATCO, Caterpillar, Staley, and P-9, downsizing, plant
closures and relocation, have all contributed to this malaise.
Classical workers' struggles seem to have disappeared in favour of an
underground guerilla war. Yet the essential condition of capitalism
remains: As long as there is class, there will be class struggle.
The new collection of interviews takes as its cue four lines from
the old Wobbly hymn, "Solidarity forever." : the union's
inspiration,' the ashes of the old,' anywhere beneath the
sun' and In our Hands is placed a Power.' While a few of the
interviewees were members of ostensible revolutionary organizations
such as the International Socialists or with former Maoists, most of
the people interviewed belonged only to their union organizations.
Some came from union families, some not. But what was common to all
was a developed radicalism that came as a product of their everyday
lives. The New Rank and File is essentially that: Workers telling
their own stories. The tradition of oral history is one that is often
neglected. This is unfortunate, because stories that are told by
intellectuals or professional historians often reflect the biases of
the academic.
A number of themes emerge from this book. One is what Rick
Fantasia elsewhere called "cultures of solidarity." Workers in a
similar workplace tend to develop an identity of interests and bonds
with other workers in the same workplace. Mia Giunta, an organizer
with the United Electrical relates how when an apartment building
collapsed with workers inside, other workers dug through the rubble
in the cold April air while their hands ran red with blood until all
the bodies were recovered. Life long friendships were established
which overcame the racism which had existed. From that tragedy came
the beginnings of workers memorial day, commemorated every April 28
to mark the deaths of workers killed on the job.
Yet a more telling picture which emerges beyond this solidarity is
that of defeats. Even the most pro-union worker cannot be struck by
the number of times the story ends in failure. Not because of the
violence of the bosses but often because of the actions of the
workers leaders.'
In a revealing telling story Andrea Carney, a member of SEIU local
399 from which the famous Justice for Janitors campaign sprang,
explains that when she first ran for office in 1992 the union told
other workers she was a Communist who hated Mexicans. In case the
red-bating and slander was insufficient, ballot stuffing on a wide
scale was employed. Several years later Carney tried again as part of
a group called Change 95. They purposefully did not run a candidate
for President in order to avoid overly antagonizing the national
leadership, but targeted every other executive position. They were
100% successful. Yet within a week of their victory the local was put
into trusteeship by . . . you guessed it, workers hero John
Sweeney. In Marshall Ganz's account of the struggles of the United
Farmworkers in the seventies, he concluded that Cesar Chavez was an
amazing leader, but the more successful he was, the more he heard
only what he wanted to hear and became isolated from the union he had
built.
It would be easy to ascribe workers' continued allegiance to the
unions as a form of grandiose "false consciousness, " but this is too
simplistic. In his contribution to this anthology Martin Glaberman
notes that workers "have to deal with their own reality, and that
transforms them." When workers deal with that reality then the
possibilities for truly radical change move from the impossible to
the eminently practical. For a glimpse of that alternative readers
might consider reading another collection edited by Lynd We Are All
Leaders.
Dave Elswith/ April 2001
First published in Red & Black Notes #13 , Spring
2000
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