Ten thousand times the labor movement has stumbled
and bruised itself. We have been enjoined by the courts, assaulted by thugs,
charged by the militia, traduced by the press, frowned upon in public opinion,
and deceived by politicians. But not withstanding all this and all these, labor
is today the most vital and potential power this planet has ever known, and its
historic mission is as certain of ultimate realization as is the setting of the
sun (Eugene V. Debs).
After World War I workers believed it was time to
unionize everybody who worked. Some organizers came out of the American
Federation of Labor (AFL), some were enthusiastic followers of the Industrial
Workers of the World (IWW), some were members of the Socialist Party--
followers of Eugene V. Debs, and many were inspired by the Bolshevik
Revolution. Workers launched two nationwide strikes in steel and meat packing.
The ruling classes responded with force and fraud.
As to the former, they used a multiplicity of means to crush strikes and they
jailed and deported known radicals. The United States government participated
with other regimes to intervene in the Russian civil war and to isolate the new
revolutionary government diplomatically and economically.
As to fraud, corporations initiated various
worker-management schemes to mollify worker discontent: from sporting
activities, to counselor home visits, to the establishment of human relations
departments. Also businesses embarked on a huge campaign to stimulate
consumerism, including catalog purchases of products to buying on time to
creating an automobile culture. Force and fraud worked. Labor union membership
and worker militancy declined even though wages and working conditions did not
improve substantially.
But by the late 1920s strikes in textile and mining
occurred. With the onset of the Great Depression, radicals were organizing
Unemployment Councils in urban areas. Dispossessed farmers began their long
trek to the West Coast seeking agricultural work.
In 1934 alone, general strikes occurred in San
Francisco, Minneapolis, Toledo and Akron Ohio. In the late 1930s, workers in
South Bend, Indiana and Flint, Michigan added the “sit-down strike” to the
panoply of militant tools used by workers to demand the right to organize
unions, fair wages, health and safety at the work place, and pensions.
Many of their goals were achieved by the 1950s. 1953
was the peak year for organized labor. Thirty-three percent of non-agricultural
workers were organized. Then union membership began a slow but steady decline.
The Reagan “revolution” brought a return to many of the strategies of force and
fraud employed in the 1920s. Declining worker power was dramatic. Both
Republican and Democratic administrations used administrative tools,
out-sourcing of jobs, so-called free trade agreements, and outright banning of
rights to collective bargaining in various sectors to crush unions.
But as history shows, workers from time to time
fight back, regain the rights they lost in prior eras, and continue the process
of pushing history in a progressive direction. The last year is such a time for
fight back. Workers in Cairo, Madison, Madrid, Athens, and Wisconsin, Ohio,
Indiana, and all across the globe are rising up.
In the United States the most recent example is that
of the Chicago Teachers Union. Public sector workers have been hit very hard in
recent years. Government officials rationalized anti-labor legislation as
necessitated by fiscal crises. But these fiscal crises lead not to the end to
services but to their privatization. Teachers, librarians, fire fighters and
others are laid off and replaced or rehired at wages a third less than they
made as unionized public sector workers.
Chicago teachers have said no to this scam. They are
fighting against the privatization of public schools, demanding the maintenance
of job security for teachers so they can continue to meet the needs of
children, and are standing up for the principle that all children, not just
children of the wealthy, are entitled to the best education that the society
can offer. Throughout history workers’ demands have been beneficial for
everybody.
Revisiting history can provide useful lessons from
the past for the present. They are not specific roadmaps for action. But what
the lessons of the past, the militancy of the last year, and the mobilization
of Chicago teachers suggest is that now is a good time to think about all
workers--in factories, on construction sites, in offices, in universities,
everywhere—organizing unions. There is power in the union.
