Currently viewing the tag: "Unions"
“If it depended on the inflammatory “propaganda” of revolutionary romanticists or on confidential or public decisions of the party direction, then we should not even yet have had in Russia a single serious mass strike. In no country in the world – as I pointed out in March 1905 in the Sächsische Arbeiterzeitung – was the mass strike so little “propagated” or even “discussed” as in Russia. And the isolated examples of decisions and agreements of the Russian party executive which really sought to proclaim the mass strike of their own accord – as, for example, the last attempt in August of this year after the dissolution of the Duma – are almost valueless.
“If, therefore, the Russian Revolution teaches us anything, it teaches above all that the mass strike is not artificially “made,” not “decided” at random, not “propagated,” but that it is a historical phenomenon which, at a given moment, results from social conditions with historical inevitability. It is not, therefore, by abstract speculations on the possibility or impossibility, the utility or the injuriousness of the mass strike, but only by an examination of those factors and social conditions out of which the mass strike grows in the present phase of the class struggle – in other words, it is not by subjective criticism of the mass strike from the standpoint of what is desirable, but only by objective investigation of the sources of the mass strike from the standpoint of what is historically inevitable, that the problem can be grasped or even discussed.” – Rosa Luxemburg, “The Mass Strike, the Political Parties, and the Trade Unions“, 1906
“A unionized public employee, a member of the Tea Party, and a CEO are sitting at a table. In the middle of the table there is a plate with a dozen cookies on it. The CEO reaches across and takes 11 cookies looks at the tea partier and says, “look out for that union guy, he wants a piece of your cookie.” via by my friend A at A Better World Is Probable
“After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with which he made a scab.
A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a water brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue.
Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles.
When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out.
No man or woman has a right to scab so long as there is a pool of water to drown his carcass in, or a rope long enough to hang his body with.
Judas was a gentleman compared with a scab. For betraying his master, he had character enough to hang himself. A scab has not.
Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.
Judas sold his Savior for thirty pieces of silver.
Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of a commision in the british army.
The scab sells his birthright, country, his wife, his children and his fellowmen for an unfulfilled promise from his employer.
Esau was a traitor to himself; Judas was a traitor to his God; Benedict Arnold was a traitor to his country.
A scab is a traitor to his God, his country, his family and his class.”
by Jack London, b. 1876, d. 1916
via M. Thanks!
With everything the Democratic Party has done over the last couple of years, you’d think liberals would have changed their strategy by now. But no. According to MoveOn.org, the valiant working class rebellion in Wisconsin was made possible by 14 Democratic Party apparatchiks. Not inspiration from Europeans, Tunisians, Algerians, and Egyptians. Not union organising. Not working class Wisconsinites themselves. All this is possible, according to MoveOn, because of 14 Democratic Party politicians.
This is opportunism of the worst sort. They are trying to co-opt a mass, popular, working class struggle and assimilate it into the Democratic Party establishment. We can’t let the MoveOn.org staff – or the dozens of other Democratic Party organs and nonprofits – have their way.
“We could be on the verge of losing in Wisconsin” signals a profound misunderstanding of how struggles are actually won. Only after they are won in the streets, only after the balance of forces has tilted in favor of democracy and justice, will politicians support our demands. They do this not out of righteousness but to prevent further demands – to stop the movement from going further. Parliamentarianism is an effort by liberal capitalists to get the working class to stop its own self-organised activity with the promise that politicians will pass reforms for them in return. Turn down the struggle, they say, and all will be fine. “Stand with us and we’ll stand with you”. Unfortunately thats never how it happens.
The rebellion in Wisconsin isn’t “on the verge of losing”. Far from it. Should the budget pass they have threatened a mass, general strike – i.e. a strike of all workers, in all industries, public and private. The return of the general strike to the U.S. among a broad sector of the population (compared to the righteous, but still more narrow general strike of immigrants that took place in 2006), will signal a significant advance of conscious, working class, self-activity and organisation. Should such a mass strike happen, the Wisconsin workers could win what they stand to lose should they give in – and potentially much more.
We should speak out against the opportunism and parliamentarianism which threatens to assimilate popular struggles into the Democratic Party – a party which has been the “graveyard of popular movements” throughout history. Only through organising, education, and mass political protests and economic strikes, can we win a new world.
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