An Update
Harry Targ
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 workplace, and pensions. These led
to four million workers joining CIO unions by 1940 in auto, steel, meatpacking,
electronics, mining, and other sectors.
Many of labors’ goals were achieved by the 1950s. 1953
was the peak year for organized labor. Thirty-three percent of non-agricultural
workers were organized. But then union membership began a slow but steady
decline. Red baiting destroyed labor militancy. The new medium of television
displayed images of enticing consumer goods. All this was exacerbated by the
Reagan “revolution” which increased the strategies of force and fraud employed
in the 1920s and late 1950s. 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 year, 2011 was such a time for fight back. Workers in Cairo, Madrid, Athens, and Wisconsin, Indiana, and all across the globe rose up.
Since then in the United States there has been a
steady increased labor militancy among teachers, service workers, and health
care professionals. Public sector workers in general have been hit very hard in
recent years. Government officials have 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.
Recently, Chicago teachers have said no to this scam.
They have been 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 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. They were particularly active
in protecting the health of workers and students during the Covid crisis. And
now just as before, 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 including Amazon and
Starbucks workers, nurses and teachers, suggest is that now is a good time to think about all workers--in factories, on
construction sites, in coffee shops and fast-food restaurants, in offices, in
universities, everywhere—organizing unions. There is power in the union.
