The American ruling class continues to grapple with the political mess created by its botched election in 2004, which kept the wrong team in power and failed to achieve a corrective adjustment in imperialist policy. The disagreements within the ruling class focus on how best to handle the quagmire in Iraq, so that the U.S. will be able to continue to intervene militarily throughout the world in order to oppose challenges to its continued dominance as the sole superpower in the world. The problem that the bourgeoisie has with Bush is not that he took the U.S. to war under false pretences – no one in the ruling class has any problem with or reluctance about lying. Indeed lying and manipulation is the mainstay of ruling class politics.  No, the problem the capitalist class has is that the war has dragged on and on, turning into a quagmire and the population in general, and the working class in particular, is clearly aware that the government has been lying and support for the war has collapsed. This squandering of the political capital gained by the US government in the wake of 9/11 threatens to exacerbate the difficulties that the ruling class will face in launching new military excursions in the future, to which all factions of the bourgeoisie are committed on a strategic level.

Despite the strident polemicizing of the Bush administration against its critics, the intra-bourgeois dispute over Iraq is not a clash between advocates of immediate withdrawal and others who favor “staying the course,” but an important argument over how best to begin a partial withdrawal of American forces, which will reduce American casualties and ease growing political impatience at home.

 The corruption and political scandals that are daily undermining the political authority of the Bush administration reflect this discontent within the bourgeoisie over the administration’s refusal to modify significantly its disastrous Iraq war policies, which place American imperialism in the precarious position of being severely hampered in its ability to unleash new military interventions necessary to bolster its imperialist hegemony around the world.

The dissatisfaction with Bush has led to mounting criticism not only from the Democrats, but even from significant sections of the Republican party itself. Week after week, the media reports results of still another new public opinion poll that shows Bush’s popularity has fallen to yet another new low.  The last two months  have been catastrophic for the administration. The highlights of the political pressure campaign include, but are not limited to a series corruption and Iraq-related scandals: 

·         The indictments of Republican lobbyist Abramoff, accused of “selling” access to administration officials for campaign contributions.

·         The indictment of House Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay, on money laundering charges and his removal from the leadership position in Congress.

·         Indictment of I. Lewis Libby, Chief of Staff for Vice President Dick Cheney for lying to investigators and misleading the federal grand jury investigating the CIA   leak case. The name of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame in order to discredit her husband, former diplomat Joseph Wilson who had criticized publicly the administration’s misuse of intelligence data about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

·         Continuing investigation into the Wilson case, which may yet lead to the indictment of White House Deputy Chief of Staff and administration political strategist, Karl Rove.

·         Denunciation of a “Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal” that usurped control of American foreign policy by Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of state under Colin Powell at the State Department from 2001-2005. Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel and former director of the Marine Corps War College,  charged that the “dysfunction within the administration was so grave that ‘if something come along that is truly serious, truly serious, something like a nuclear weapon going off in a major American city, or something like a major pandemic, you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that will take you back to the Declaration of Independence.”(NYT Oct 21, 2005)

·         Bi-partisan Congressional support for a legislative ban on torturing prisoners proposed by Republican Sen. John McCain, which the White House threatens to veto, and which Vice Pres. Cheney has been leading the fight against. Cheney insists that CIA agents be exempt from the torture prohibitions. This criticism focuses on Bush’s open flouting of democratic and humanitarian mystifications that undermine U.S. political authority.

·         International uproar over secret CIA prisons operating in Eastern Europe.

·         A call by the New York Times for the president to break with Vice President Dick Cheney’s influence on Iraq policy and suggestion that Cheney’s activities for the remainder of the presidents term be confined to ceremonial duties, such as representing the president at funerals and other such meaningless events

·         Passage by the Republican controlled Senate of a resolution designating 2006 as “a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty” and requiring the president to report regularly to congress on progress in Iraq. The resolution stopped short of setting a deadline for troop reduction, but as the New York Times noted, “the proposal would never have gone to the floor if members of President Bush’s party had not felt the need to go on the record, somehow, as expressing their own impatience with the situation.”

·         Republican Doug Forrester’s complaint that he lost the gubernatorial race in New Jersey because of the president’s unpopularity.

·         Publication of a New York Times Op-ed piece by Richard N. Haass, former director of policy planning the State Department from 2001-2003 under President Bush and currently president of the Council on Foreign Relations, arguing that “America needs a new vision for a new world” and complaining that under Bush  the US is confronting serious foreign policy questions in Asia and Europe and   “right now Washington is trying to answer them without a compass.” (NYT Nov. 8, 2005). Haass calls for a doctrine of “integration,” which would be “based on a shared approach to common challenges,” which would require that the US “cooperate with other world powers to build effective international arrangements and to take collective actions.” In other words, he suggests retreat from the unilateralist approach pursued both by Clinton and Bush in recent years.

·         A storm of controversy unleashed by a hawkish Congressman John Murtha, Democrat from Pennsylvania, a  war hero veteran of both the Korean and Vietnam wars, and  previously a strong supporter of the war in Iraq, who  delivered an emotional appeal in Congress lambasting the Bush administration’s handling of the war and calling for an American withdrawal from Iraq over a six month period. While rightwing Republicans initially denounced Murtha as a defeatist calling for surrender to terrorists, Murtha actually called for a tactical withdrawal of US troops into bases in neighboring countries over six months, where they could be used in precision raids to support Iraqi government troops against the insurgents, and not for immediate withdrawal. He argued that the presence of US troops in massive numbers and their daily patrols was exacerbating tensions, fanning resistance, and making them unnecessary targets.

·         A recently published article in the New Yorker by Brent Scowcroft, national security advisor to Bush’s father, Pres. George H.W. Bush, in the early 1990s, renewing his criticisms of the administrations foreign policy originally made public last winter, and triggering speculation once again that Bush is acting contrary to advice from his father, who served as director of the CIA earlier in his career.

·         Other items, not linked directly to the war in Iraq, but aimed at the same goal of exerting pressure on the Bush to retool his administration and revise his policies for the next three years include:

·         A watchdog report by the bipartisan 9/11 Commission condemning the administration for failure to implement the policy recommendations proposed by the commission to improve American intelligence gathering and security procedures. Both Democratic and Republican members of the commission cited Hurricane Katrina as example of the Bush administration’s refusal to improve communications for first responders in emergency situations.

·         The unprecedented failure of Harriet Miers nomination for Supreme Court, who was forced to withdraw her nomination even before Senate confirmation hearings were convened, due primarily to criticism from the right of the Republican party – a terrible political humiliation for the administration.

·         A warning from Linda Chavez, a Republican who directed the United States Commission on Civil Rights under President Reagan called upon her fellow Republicans to abandon any strategy for stirring up anti-immigrant sentiment to achieve electoral victory in the Congressional elections in 2006 and the presidential election in 2008. As she put it, “immigrant bashing is not a winning strategy.”

·         Revelations by the Washington Post that the unanimous conclusion of six lawyers and two analysts in the Justice Department that the Republican-led redistricting of Texas congressional districts was illegal and unconstitutional in disenfranchising minority voters and essentially rigging election of Republicans, was overruled by political appointees supervising in the Justice Department.

The Bush administration responded initially to the growing pressure by launching a new offensive defending its disastrous policies, denouncing critics as defeatists, cowards, and unpatriotic, a tactic which has already begun to backfire. Meanwhile the Iraqis are feeding the flames. Despite the administration’s  rejection of proposals to reduce troop levels as “cut and run” and “outright surrender” to terrorism, 100 Iraqi Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish leaders meeting in Cairo under the auspices of the Arab League signed a declaration calling for U.S. withdrawal according to an undetermined timetable after the December elections. Interestingly, the document included language acknowledging the legitimacy of resistance to foreign invaders, opening the door to integration of the terrorist insurgents the U.S. seeks to kill and destroy into the new Iraqi state apparatus.

There are signs that the administration is beginning to see the writing on the wall. Despite the vituperative attacks against critics calling for a timetable for troop reduction and withdrawal as traitors, the White House has begun hinting that it might begin reducing troop levels after the upcoming Iraqi parliamentary elections, down to a level of 80,000 within sixth months. The President unveiled a new “plan for victory,” which the administration claims has been secretly guiding American policy for some time but has only been recently declassified so it could be made public. Even Bush’s supporters, however, can’t find anything particularly new in the plan or responsive to criticism. The bourgeoisie is stuck with George Bush for three more years and a lot is at stake. We can expect a further ratcheting up of the pressure on the Bush administration to modify its policies. But none of this should be mistaken for a fight between doves and hawks. It is rather a fight between hawks and hawks, on how best to pursue their hawkish objectives.

JG

An article like this has never appeared before in the pages of Internationalism. But this is a special situation, quite unprecedented in the 35 years that Internationalism has been published. Readers may have noticed that articles signed “EF” or “Eric Fischer” no longer appear in the pages of Internationalism, and have not for some time. In fact several readers have inquired if EF is still in the ICC. The answer is yes, he continues to be a militant of the ICC but under very difficult and tragic health circumstances and is no longer able to write for the publication.

For the past few years, the comrade has suffered from an early onset of Alzheimers disease, a condition which especially affects his short term memory. This is a degenerative disease and while medications temporarily slowed the rate of degeneration, there is no hope for recovery. He is on100% disability and no longer able to work.  His situation is particularly dismaying because he is comparatively young (57 years old on his next birthday), and has a strong thirst for life.

In the face of this great adversity, EF has demonstrated a revolutionary courage that has inspired many comrades. Four and half years ago he attended what we knew would be his last ICC congress in Europe. He discussed with comrades from many countries about the nature of his disease, how his condition would inevitably worsen, and his desire to maintain his militancy in the communist organization and to contribute as much as he can for as long as he can. As he put it, “I have been a revolutionary since I was 19 years old and the class struggle is important for the future of humanity. I may be losing my memory, but the last thing I will forget is that I am a revolutionary.”

Rather than surrender to the disease and succumb to depression and demoralization, comrade EF consciously grappled with the serious question of how a communist revolutionary should face such an affliction.  And in this he has been supported firmly by his partner, F, who has confronted this disease with him and supported his efforts both in medical treatment and in the struggle to maintain his political activity. In addition to maintaining his communist militancy, the comrade also participated in various Alzheimers support groups and fundraising efforts to support research and treatment. He also continues to write poetry, a lifelong interest. In New York, the section continues to meet with him to read and discuss political texts, which is a central aspect of militancy and an important part of his life. He also participates in the work of mailing out the subscriptions to readers.

The comrade’s situation has given concretization to the meaning of solidarity between militants in a revolutionary organization. Last Spring, the 16th Congress of the ICC discussed EF’s situation and sent a letter to him expressing its profound solidarity. In part the letter said:

“the [Congress’s] discussions on the organization’s activities made clear to all of us, if it was not so already, how important has been our difficult struggle in recent years to understand what it means to be a militant in this epoch. We understand far better than we did before the fundamental, critical importance of solidarity among the comrades. We understand better also, how important is the confidence of the organization and its militants in the possibility and necessity of the proletarian revolution. We want to express to you our immense respect for the example that you have shown in your own participation in the organization, despite your illness…. If the ICC is able to act as a pole of reference, then it is not just because of the political positions we defend, but also because of the example that we give of what it means to be communists. And in this sense, the whole congress wants to salute the example that you give us, in confronting your illness, of what it means to be a communist militant…We are proud to be militants with you in the ICC.”

At the National Conference of Internationalism in March 2005, comrade EF made an intervention as the conference drew to a close that deeply moved all the comrades present with his reaffirmation of revolutionary commitment and expression of confidence as a revolutionary in his class, in himself, and in his comrades. Fighting tears, the comrade said:

 “I always wanted to be a revolutionary and that’s what I want to do with my life. Thank you for that. I want to die that way. I remember being in another organization where if you couldn’t do something they would kick you out. The ICC is different. I have troubles with my life, my brain doesn’t work the way it use to. But this work has given me meaning in life. Since I was a young kid I wanted to be a revolutionary. I may not be able to do what I could before, but I want to contribute whatever I can. I told my wife I want to be with the ICC as long as I can. It’s been the most important thing in my life for a long time. I want to participate in this for as long as I can.”

Reflecting the solidarity felt by everyone present at the conference, one of the comrades responded, “There is no question about your commitment or your seriousness. No matter what happens, even if you are lying in a coma unable to move, you will always be one of us. You will always be with us and we will always be with you. You will always be a comrade of the ICC. No matter what. Someday, when the history of the workers revolution is written, there will be a chapter about your struggle. You will be remembered.”

Any readers wishing to send messages of solidarity to Comrade Dick, may send a webmail message [2] to Internationalism at the ICC’s website, Internationalism.org.

 

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Here are two poems by our comrade. 

Great Endeavors

Forgetting is only the flip side of remembering

But that being said just how do we collect memories

And how do we take the edge off painful dreams

Which reflect in fantasy fashion

Our dreams unfulfilled.

 

And our hopes and plans that have come to naught

As the challenges which we encounter are the ones

Which we have come to own and to take seriously

Fighting the odds to make

Progress and perhaps win.

 

The challenges undertaken in true pursuit

And in honorable circumstances without shame

To take up the hopes for tomorrow and beyond

And working toward realization of hope

And joyful freedom as a great endeavor.

 

Piece Parts of a Life

Left only with piece parts of a life

That had unsuspected twists and turns

Requiring a tune-up now and then

I keep trying to live out my life

With dignity and hope but sometimes

It is hard to keep trying to live productively

As the illness I have wears me down

In small increments from day to day

And I fight the best way I can

With medicines and doctors’ visits

As well as exercising routinely

But by now I doubt that

There will be a magic bullet

To make me whole again in my lifetime.

When I got the diagnosis

I had mixed feelings

First of all, I recognized that my problems

Lately, were not a sign of horrid

Hallucinations confronting me daily

But a medical condition which

Over time picks out brain cells and

Lets them die as if it was a war of attrition

Going on in my head where I can’t

See exactly what’s going on, but

The evidence is clear that by now

I am losing cells in my head

Which I would have much preferred

To have remained perfectly healthy.

The American unions have been in the news often lately.  The decision by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and several other unions to split from the AFL-CIO and set-up the new “Change to Win Federation” has many commentators predicting a new burst of union activism, as the split will supposedly force both sides to compete with one another and thus organize more workers and step-up their political activity.

Whatever the results of this split, it is clear that it will not benefit the working class at all.  While trade unions were originally working-class institutions as they emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries to win concrete reforms from a still expanding capitalist system, this is not the case today.  Ever since capitalism became a decadent social system in the early part of the 20th century, the unions everywhere have been integrated into the state apparatus as the capitalist system’s shop-floor police against the working class.  This is true no matter what policy, focus or direction the union’s leaders claim to embody.  Whatever ideological gleam they use to mask their role as capitalist institutions, there is no mistaking the fact that today the unions serve the interests of the ruling class.

As the unions’ role in the architecture of the capitalist state is to “speak the language of the working class” in order to prevent the proletariat from developing its own critique of the capitalist system, confronting their lies and exposing their nature is one of the most important tasks revolutionaries face today. The attempt to rehabilitate the image of the unions comes at a time when the deepening economic crisis and growing attacks on the working class standard of living are pushing workers to defend themselves. Recent strikes at Northwest Airlines, Boeing, and Philadelphia transit, and the current strike threat in New York City transit are notable examples of this trend. This revival in class struggle makes it all the more important that workers are clear on the nature of the unions.

As Marx pointed out, “the ideas of the ruling class tend to be the ruling ideas of the epoch.” It is thus very difficult for workers and even many revolutionaries to consciously articulate the reality of unions today.  Nevertheless, many workers, even if they do not yet openly identify the unions as part of the enemy class, express a certain intuitive indifference, suspicion or even hostility towards the very institutions that are supposed to speak in their name.  This is not surprising when one considers the nearly century long record the unions have of sabotaging workers’ independent struggles, mobilizing society for war, and forcing austerity on the working class.

Despite the recent political audacity of union figures like SEIU president Andy Stern or Teamsters head Jimmy Hoffa, Jr., today the unions face the same crisis of legitimacy with their members that politicians suffer with the public as a whole. Just as voter turnout reaches record lows, participation and activity levels for union members are bottoming out.  While there may always be a hard-core of “union activists,” members either who are enrolled behind the union ideology or who covet a possibly lucrative career in the union’s bureaucracy themselves, the majority of union members do not participate in union activities and many ignore its political recommendations.

As a result, the unions have been spending boatloads of members’ dues money on member opinion research, ostensibly to figure out how to best reach to members, get them “involved” and mobilize them for politics.  While the unions paint these efforts as attempts to learn how best to mobilize workers, in reality they are just seeking more effective ways to sell the myth of bourgeois democracy and the idea that unions are the workers’ voice in that system.

Not surprisingly, the results of these studies are usually the same.  Workers tend to reject the idea of the union as a political entity and tend only to look at it as a source of peripheral benefits such as health insurance and retirement benefits.  Like the population as a whole, union members are growing more and more indifferent towards bourgeois politics and many have long given up on the idea that the unions are a real vehicle for change. Therefore, to the extent that members pay dues, many of them without choice, they tend to see fringe benefits as the only real advantage to union membership.  Alas, for the unions, most members tend to rate the union’s performance in delivering these benefits less than satisfactory.

All this indicates that underneath all the rhetoric and confusions, workers are growing increasingly disillusioned with the unions.  While this is generally not expressed in a very conscious way right now, there is clearly a certain subterranean maturation of class-consciousness taking place, evidenced by the growing tendency among workers to reject unionism as a source of social and political change.

Due in part to the erosion of their legitimacy, but also due to the increasing tendency towards “every man for himself” in the arena of bourgeois politics, some unions have launched broad campaigns to “organize” more workers and bring them into the union fold.  A chief example of this is the SEIU’s campaigns to organize more service sector workers.  In fact, in the last decade, SEIU has won National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) elections to represent such peripheral sectors of the labor force as childcare and homecare workers in a number of states.  SEIU has painted these campaigns as part of a broad strategy to “organize the unorganized” and gain recognition for workers that have previously been ignored and even regarded as not part of the working class.

In reality though, the unions’ efforts have accomplished little other than increase it dues base.  It has generally been able to win these elections as NLRB rules state that it only needs to win a majority of votes cast to represent these workers in collective bargaining negotiations.  As generally only the most ideologically mobilized workers cast ballots, the unions have generally walked away with these elections.  However, once the elections are over, the unions then claim the right to collect dues from all workers in that sector, many of whom do not even know they are now in a union.

As many of these workers receive payment from the state to care for family members as an alternative to the expense of putting them in nursing homes or day care centers, the unions have generally been able to negotiate modest raises in the first contract.  However, imagine the surprise these workers have when they receive their paychecks only to learn that the raise has been cancelled out by mandatory dues reductions.

In reality then, the recent campaigns by SEIU and other unions to “organize the unorganized” has been of no benefit to the workers themselves.  Most still work for close to minimum wage, receive few if any benefits and work more hours than they are actually paid for.  On top of all this, they now have to pay dues to a union few recognize as their own and many find illegitimate.  While there is generally an initial upsurge in “appreciation” for the union after the initial contract, the unions generally find themselves in a rut shortly afterwards unable to communicate with its “members” or mobilize them for political action.

Therefore, far from the recent bourgeois propaganda regarding the revival of unionism today and all the academic chatter about “increasing union density” as a prerequisite for progressive change, what we are really witnessing is a subterranean maturation of class-consciousness, whereby many workers are slowly and subtly but clearly coming to reject the unions as a vehicle of political change.  While many continue to look to the unions as a source of fringe benefits, they are increasingly tending to look to them only for that reason, and many do not like what they find.  In the period ahead, as capitalism’s economic crisis deepens, it is likely the unions will be increasingly unable to offer these benefits, accelerating their crisis of legitimacy and making them ever less relevant in more and more workers’ eyes.

Nevertheless, exposing the unions for what they are - institutions of capitalist discipline- will remain a priority for revolutionaries in the period ahead.  As they claim to “speak the language of the working-class” while in reality seeking to sabotage its independent struggle, exposing their lies will be more important than ever in a context where the historic course is open to more and more decisive class confrontations and in which the unions will likely radicalize their discourse in an attempt to keep more workers under their sway.

Moreover, as the decomposition of the capitalist system increases, and the bourgeois political structure fractures, it is likely that we will see more and more radical sounding talk from certain unions.  Revolutionaries must be on guard for this and continue to patiently, but clearly, expose the nature of unions today.  Nothing less than the success of the proletariat’s struggle to build a truly human community is at stake.

 

Henk

A common tactic in the capitalist onslaught against pensions and medical benefits is the attempt to create “multi-tier” systems, in which new employees receive lower benefits or pensions, whether this takes the form of decreasing the value of benefits received by new employees or requiring them to pay in higher contributions to medical insurance or pension funds. Veteran workers are bribed with the promise that the cuts won’t affect them, but only the unknown persons who will be hired in the future. The unions traditionally help ram through these “deals,” hailing their efforts at having saved the benefits of the currently employed workers as “victories”. This tactic divides the workers against themselves, pitting the interests of longer employed workers against newer workers, the older generation against the younger – a recipe for disaster for working class unity – allowing management to divide and conquer.

It was precisely this attempt to divide the workers that was at the heart of the recent struggle in NYC transit. The Metropolitan Transit Authority, controlled by the governor, and to a lesser extent by the mayor, sought to increase the age of retirement for new hires, from the current 55 to 62 and to require that new hires would have to pay 6 percent of their wages into the pension fund. The 55-year-old retirement age (after 25 years service) had long been in place out of recognition of the extremely harsh working conditions under which transit workers toil in the 100 year-old subway tunnels, with foul air and fumes, rat infestation, and general lack of sanitary facilities. The government proposal would not have effected the retirement age of any currently employed workers.

But the transit workers were definitely NOT buying this bit of divide and conquer flimflam. On behalf of a working class that has been enduring a full scale attack on its pensions, transit workers essentially drew a line in the sand and refused to accept any change whatsoever in the pension. They struck to protect the retirement pension of workers who are not yet on the job, what they called “our unborn” – their future, unknown colleagues. As such, this struggle became the clearest embodiment of the movement to reaffirm working class self-identity and solidarity to date. It not only had a profound impact on the workers who participated in the struggle, but upon the working class in other sectors as well. The transit workers struck out of a sense of class solidarity with the future generation, those who were not even hired yet. It resonated with many workers in many industries, who can see that someone had finally stood up and said, “Don’t mess with pensions!”

The Significance of the Transit Struggle

The strike by 33,700 transit workers that paralyzed New York City for three days during the week before Christmas was the most significant workers’ struggle in the U.S. in 15 years. It was important for a number of interrelated reasons: 1) the international context in which it occurred; 2) the development of class consciousness amongst the strikers themselves; and 3) the potential impact of the strike on other workers. The significance of this strike should not be exaggerated; it cannot be compared to strikes in the 1980s which challenged the authority of the capitalist trade union apparatus that serves to control and derail workers struggles and posed the question of extension of the struggle to other workers. However, in the context of the difficult conditions in which the working class struggles today, it’s significance must be clearly understood.

Though it remained firmly under control by a local union leadership dominated by leftists and base unionists, the transit strike reflected not only rising working class combativeness, but also more importantly significant strides in the development of a renewed sense of working class self-identity and self-confidence, and understanding of class solidarity, uniting workers across the boundaries of generations and workplaces. The transit workers undertook this struggle even though they knew it was in violation of New York State’s Taylor Law, which prohibits publicly sector strikes and automatically penalizes strikers two-day’s wages for every day on strike, which means they would lose 3-days salary for each day on strike (one day for the day not worked and two-days penality). The city further threatened to seek a civil fine of $25,000 against each worker for going on strike, doubling each day -- $25,000 for the first day, $50,000 for second day, $100,000 for the third day. With such stiff penalties threatened by the bourgeoisie, the decision to strike was not taken lightly by the workers but represented a courageous act of militant defiance.

The International Context of the Struggle

The New York transit strike occurred in a context of an international tendency for the working class to return to open combat in defense of its class interests after a reflux in class struggle that has lasted nearly a decade and a half, since the collapse of the two imperialist blocs that had been in place since the end of World War II. In 1989, the collapse of the Stalinist bloc led by Russian imperialism, which was followed by disintegration of the rival western imperialist bloc, led by the U.S. and increasingly chaotic events on the international stage, opened up a period of disorientation for the working class on an international level. The changed historic conditions, the unrelenting propaganda barrage by the bourgeois state, including its mass media, proclaiming the death of communism, the triumph of capitalist democracy and the end of classes, took its toll on the proletariat. The process of clarification that had been going since the late 1960s became disrupted and gains in class consciousness had receded. This was particularly problematic in regard to the understanding that the trade unions which had once been organizations for working class self defense had long since been integrated into the state apparatus of decadent capitalism and now served as the shopfloor cops for capitalism, and in regard to the search for new forms of struggle that would enable workers to take the class struggle into their own hands. So deep was this reflux in class struggle and so thorough was the ideological attack of the ruling class, the working class showed signs of a loss of self confidence in itself as a class and a difficulty in even recognizing its own identity as a class.

However, the seriousness of the global economic crisis and the consequent escalation of attacks by the ruling class on the workers’ standard of living made it inevitable that this terrible period of proletarian disorientation could not last forever. In 2002 we began to see a turn in the international class struggle, which was characterized not by dramatic outbreaks of militant struggles, but rather by the beginning of a difficult, hesitating attempt to return to the historical center stage. The primary task posed by these nascent struggles in many countries was not the extension of struggles across geographic and industrial sector lines, but the reacquisition of consciousness at the most basic levels, of class self-identity and solidarity.

This process has been well underway in the U.S., as the examples of the grocery workers struggle in California, the struggles at Boeing and Northwest airlines, the transit strike in Philadelphia, and the graduate assistants strike at New York University demonstrate. What makes the New York transit strike so significant in this process is not simply that it is the biggest, most impactful strike in the sense that it paralyzed the largest city in America for 3 days, but on the level of progress in the development of class consciousness that it reflects.

As we have said, the main issue in the strike was the defense of workers’ pensions, which are under incredible attack by the bourgeoisie everywhere in the world but especially in the U.S. In the U.S. government social security pensions are minimal and workers rely upon their company or job-related pension funds to maintain their standard of living in retirement. Both types of pensions are in danger in the current situation, the former through the Bush administration’s efforts to “reform” social security, and the latter through outright financial default and efforts to reduce pensions payments. Since the collapse of the Enron corporation, in which thousands of employees lost their entire pensions, countless American corporations have reneged on their pension obligations. Most recently, in the face of corporate bankruptcy, major players in the airline industry defaulted on their pension funds. The federal government agency that assumes responsibility for these failed corporate pension funds can guarantee workers only 50% of what they would have normally been entitled to receive. So many pension funds have gone under, this agency is operating with an anticipated $24 billion deficit.

The automobile industry, with bankruptcies threatening at General Motors and Ford, has also put pension funds in jeopardy.

The Development of Class Consciousness Amongst the Strikers

The reaffirmation of the working class’s ability to see and comprehend itself as a class could be seen on many levels and in many manifestations in the transit struggle. Clearly the central issue itself – protection of the pensions for future workers – embodied this aspect. This was not just on an abstract level, but could be seen and heard on a very concrete level as well. For example, at a picketline at a bus depot in Brooklyn, dozens of workers gathered in small groups to discuss the strike. One worker said he didn’t think it was right to strike over the pensions for future workers, for people we don’t even know. His co-workers countered by arguing that the future workers affected by accepting the cuts in the pensions, “could be our kids.” Another said it was important to maintain the unity of different generations in the workforce. He pointed out that in the future, it would be likely that the government would try to cut the medical benefits or pension payments to “us when we retire. And it will be important for the guys working then to remember that we stood up for them, so they will stand up for us and keep them from cutting our benefits.” Similar discussions occurred elsewhere around the city, clearly and concretely reflecting the tendency for workers to see themselves as a class, to look beyond the barriers of generation that capitalism seeks to use to divide them against themselves.

Other workers driving by the picket lines honked their horns in solidarity and yelled cheers of support. In Brooklyn, a group of teachers at a nearby elementary school expressed their solidarity by discussing the strike with their students and brought their classes of students ranging in age from 9-12 years old to visit the picket line. The kids brought Christmas cards to the strikers with messages like, “We support you. You are fighting for respect.”

The children were assigned by their teachers to interview the strikers, and the kids asked the workers what kind of jobs they did and why they were striking.

The day after the strike was over, one of our comrades boarded a city bus and had a conversation with the driver that illustrated the strides made in this struggle. After he paid his fair he told the driver, a 35-year old Latino worker, “You guys did the right thing.”
The driver responded, “But we didn’t win. We went to back to work without a contract.”

“But what really matters is what you did. You said don’t fuck with pensions, workers need to stick together, no matter what. It’s an important example for other workers,” said our comrade.

To this the driver replied, “Yeah, it’s true. It was important that we stood up for the working class.”

Impact of the Struggle on Other Workers

The transit strike became a point of reference for workers in other industries. Alongside the displays of support and solidarity mentioned above, there were countless other examples. Non-transit workers were welcomed at the picket lines. In one instance, a group of striking NYU graduate assistants visited the picket line in Brooklyn, introduced themselves and discussed strike issues and strategies with the workers. In countless workplaces around the city, other workers in other industries talked about the importance of the solidarity being exemplified on the defense of pensions. Among municipal workers, many of whom had gone for 3 or more years without a new contract, the transit workers adherence to the slogan of “no contract, no work” showed the importance of struggle.

So strong was the sympathy for the strikers that the capitalist media’s own surveys showed that Roger Toussaint, the president of the transit workers union, scored a higher approval rating than the mayor of the governor on the first day of the strike. The existence of $1.02 billion Metropolitan Transit Authority surplus made management’s hard line appear particularly harsh and ruthless to other workers. The bourgeoisie countered with an all out campaign on day two of the strike to demonize the strikers. The tabloids, like the Post and the Daily News, called the strikers “rats” and “cowards.” Even the liberal New York Times denounced the strike as “irresponsible” and “illegal.”

The theme of “illegality” was picked up by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor George Pataki. Pataki declared that the strike was criminal and that no negotiations would occur until the strikers returned to their jobs. Bloomberg echoed this stance, denouncing strikers as “thugs” and “criminals.” The billionaire mayor suddenly championed the cause of poorer workers who were being inconvenienced by the strike, supposedly suffering at the hands of the striking, comparatively well paid transit workers. For his part, Toussaint denounced the mayor and governor for their outrageous accusations, and championed the transit workers against the “insults.”

Television news reports focused on the hardships inflicted by the strike on people trying to carpool to work or walking over the city’s East River bridges to get to work in Manhattan. But even after this media barrage, the city’s rulers knew working class solidarity with the strike remained strong. A local judge threatened to jail union leaders and fine individual strikers for defying a court injunction to stop the strike and return to work, but Mayor Bloomberg urged that the court should increase the fines, and not jail the union leaders, which would make Toussaint “a martyr” and risk provoking sympathy strikes by other public sector employees.

The illegality of the strike itself triggered considerable discussion within the working class throughout the city, and around the country as well. How could it be illegal for workers to protest by withdrawing their labor? asked many workers. As one worker said in a discussion at a school in Manhattan, “It almost seems like you’re only allowed to go on strike, if you won’t have any effect.”

The Role of Union in Sabotaging the Struggle

Many workers were painfully aware that the union’s new, militant leadership had capitulated three years ago to a contract that gave 0% raise the first year, and 3% in the second and third years. The union was thus pressured by the rising militancy and anger of the workers to act more militantly in the current situation. While the base unionist/leftist led Transit Workers Union Local 100 clearly controlled the strike, employed militant rhetoric and adapted the language of solidarity to maintain firm control of the strike, the role of the union was nonetheless to undermine the struggle and minimize the impact of this important strike. Early in the strike the unions abandoned the demand for 8% annual wage increases for three years, and focused entirely on the pension. The union meeting that voted on the strike authorization permitted no discussion or debate but was conducted as a union rally, featuring a demagogic address by Rev. Jesse Jackson.

The collusion between union and management was revealed in a post-strike report in the New York Times. All the vicious name-calling between the union and government officials was a sham. While the mayor and the governor were stridently screaming that a return to work was a precondition for the resumption of negotiations, secret negotiations were in fact underway at the Helmsley Hotel, and the mayor secretly accepted a proposal by Toussaint to have management withdraw the pension demands in exchange for an increase in worker contributions to their medical care coverage to compensate the government for the cost of maintaining the pensions for future workers.

This union-government orchestrated end to the struggle is of course not surprising, but simply a confirmation of the anti-working class nature of the trade union apparatus, and in no way undercuts the significance of the important gains made in the development of class consciousness. It reminds us of the important tasks that remain ahead for the working class in breaking free of the union straight jacket and taking control of the struggle into their own hands.

– Internationalism, December 2005