Harry Bridges again at the center of controversy

From: Alan L. Maki [mailto:amaki000@centurytel.net]
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 2:17 PM
To: 'SALYND@aol.com'; Michael Munk (lastmarx@comcast.net)
Subject: RE: Harry Bridges 20 years later

Mr. Staughton Lynd,

You engage in the same kind of anti-communism that Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn engage in--- you fail to educate about the real role of the Communist Party even though you are well aware of its role. While this kind of anti-communism may seem different than its more pernicious counterpart; for the working class it is just as deadly.

It is nice you write about Communists; but, the real story is about how those Communists worked through their Communist Clubs which makes the activities of these Clubs the central question needing to be articulated when it comes to what kind of grassroots and rank-and-file organizations are needed to create real change.

If one reads the books, “The Many and the Few” by Henry Kraus, “Organize” by Wyndham Mortimer, etc. the role of the Communist Party Clubs is demonstrated. Phil Raymond, who
you are aware of who built the very foundation of the UAW along with Nadia Barkan (the Communist whose name has been virtually wiped from history--- as has Phil Raymond’ for that matter) told me that he a Nadia traveled all over Michigan organizing all the Communist Party Clubs they could as a prelude to initiating the unionization drives in auto. The book, “Brother Bill McKie” also teaches about the role of Communist Party Clubs. The book that was the most widely read book of the 1930’s was, “The People’s Front” by Earl Browder which historians and writers like you, Chomsky and Zinn don’t even seem to want to acknowledge although the Communist Party itself is largely to blame for this lack of recognition of this book which would be so vital for people to read today in order to avoid many of the pitfalls you provide for people to fall into as you provided only part of the story as you seek to “explain” this dispute with Harry Bridges.

And, how is it that the work and writings of someone of such an important stature and standing in the left and progressive movements like Frank Marshall Davis has been ignored? And almost everything written about Paul Robeson these days is intentionally tinged with anti-communism yet, perhaps, Robeson’s greatest accomplishments were the hand he lent to building Communist Party Clubs all over this country.

These Communist Party Clubs have been central to all the work in labor and civil rights struggles in this country from 1919 on-ward.

It is not enough to tell the stories of these Communists without telling how they worked through their Communist Party Clubs--- even the Communist Party has largely not told this story but this does not excuse others like yourself from not telling this most important story.

I don’t say any of this to in any way demean the good work you have done; but, since you feel your point needs to be raised about Harry Bridges, I think the role of CPUSA Clubs needs to be broached, too--- since it is rather common knowledge, in spite of his denial for legal reasons, Harry Bridges was a member of the CPUSA, held a Party card and worked in a Party club… so, any problems you have with Harry Bridges is in fact a criticism of the CPUSA and his association/membership in it. Now, here you come, you want one side of a complex issue told… an issue that a book should be written about that gives well-rounded views from all sides. You want us to believe Stan Weir was merely a voice for the rank-and-file against union bureaucracy when this is far from the truth--- Weir was an opponent of “the people’s front” which gave Harry Bridges and others good reason not to work with him as he worked with Norman Thomas--- and this needs to be very clear… not only was Norman Thomas and his Socialist Party invited to participate in “the people’s front;” but, he was offered a shared leadership role in it--- as equals. Weir and Thomas CHOSE to work with the America Firsters which was nothing but a bunch of Hitler-loving fascists.

As for Finland… Hitler intended to use Finland in his plans to destroy the Soviet Union--- I’m glad Stalin was smart enough to understand what you and Zinn don’t/didn’t. Harry Bridges understood what Stalin understood, too.

There are any number of stories you could tell which would demonstrate the important role played by Communist Clubs which created the leaders of labor with untold stories--- from auto to steel to transportation to the docks to the raids against UE in communities like Benton Harbor/St. Joseph, Michigan to the foundries of Muskegon, Michigan to the hard-rock miners of Mine-Mill.

Let’s tell the real story of Stan Weir which is the story of his opposition to Communist Party Clubs and the working-class heroes like Harry Bridges who were able to lead these Clubs in a way that built strong rank-and-file led unions while defending his right to remain in the United States--- there might not have been any other worker in this country who has ever been singled out for a campaign of hate intended to silence him than Harry Bridges.

I’m glad to see you at least took a little poke at that worthless Trotskyite little pip squeak Emil Mazey… Stan Weir deserves the same.

Alan L. Maki
58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763

Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell Phone: 651-587-5541

E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Please check out my blog: http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/



From: SALYND@aol.com [mailto:SALYND@aol.com]
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 1:52 AM
To: amaki000@centurytel.net; lastmarx@comcast.net
Subject: Re: Harry Bridges 20 years later

Dear Alan, Michael and all,
In the book Rank and File, my wife and I included interviews with three rank-and-file women -- Katherine Hyndman, Vicki Starr, and Sylvia Woods -- all of whom had been members of the Communst Party. At my suggestion, these three were then made the subject of the documentary "Union Maids." They have now all passed on, Vicki only a few months ago.
Howard Zinn, who also passed on recently, had been perhaps my closest friend for almost fifty years since we were together at Spelman College in the early Sixties. Howard grew up in Brooklyn. He was a teenager in the late 1930s. He came out of precisely the political culture of "a popular Front led by the Communist Party." But as he describes in his autobiography You Can't Be Neutral On A Moving Train, step by step he developed an independent position. He opposed the Soviet invasion of Finland before World War II. He came to repudiate his own role as a bombardier in the Allied saturation bombing that was rationalized by uncritical support for World War II because it was viewed as defense of the Soviet Union.
So I don't think it works to attack me as a Trotskyist. I didn't criticize Bridges because of an alleged relationship to the Communist Party but on the merits. And as long as I can remember -- going back at least to 1950 -- I have criticized the Trotsky who told the Kronstadt rebels, "I will shoot you down like pheasants."

Staughton Lynd




----- Original Message -----
From: SALYND@aol.com
To: lastmarx@comcast.net
Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 2:55 PM
Subject: Re: Harry Bridges 20 years later

Dear lastmarx/Michael Munk,
I dissent from an unequivocally positive assessment of Harry Bridges.
1. Are you familiar with the protest of a number of African American longshoremen and Stan Weir to their exclusion from the union as so-called B men?
2. I was myself present at a national conference of "Labor For Peace" at the local union hall of Harold Gibbons' Teamsters local in St. Louis, in about 1970. A rank-and-file caucus presented a motion that there be a national day of protest against the war in Vietnam, each group of workers doing what made their sense in their locality: staying home from work, an extended lunch hour, a leaflet distribution, wearing anti-war buttons, whatever. I had the honor of seconding the motion. The conference sessions were chaired by a succession of national union bureaucrats. The gentleman in the chair when we made our motion (Emil Mazey) sneeringly said, "Let's take a vote on this ridiculous motion!" The vote was overwhelmingly in favor of the motion. Over the lunch hour the various honchos present got together with Bridges and persuaded him to make a motion after lunch to rescind the motion approved that morning. Sadly, intimidated by Bridges' radical reputation, the delegates complied.
Let's put aside the habit of looking for some national union leader (John L. Lewis, Philip Murray, Walter Reuther, Harry Bridges, Arnold Miller, Eddie Sadlowski, Ron Carey, John Sweeney, Andrew Stern, Richard Trumka) to lead us out of the wilderness. Gene Debs knew what to say about that unfortunate strategy: If I could lead you into the Promised Land, someone else could lead you out
May I ask that you circulate this response to your list?

Staughton Lynd
Dear Staughton,

Thanks for your comments. On the issue of exclusion of Blacks: that's what my paper is about. As I wrote:

I'm working on a paper about an exception to the ILWU's record on "equal
opportunity" the lilly white (until 1964) longshore local 8 in Portland. It
will be the subject of a panel at the Pacific NW Labor History Assn
conference in Portland June 11-13. Details available...Mike

But Harry himself busted his ass against racists who used the ILWU's local autonomy constitution to keep out blacks.His International was arguably the most militantly anti racist union.

On the Vietnam war: The unions ILWU's own history celebrates its opposition:: "In the early 1960s the ILWU was the first union to stand up in opposition to US military intervention in Vietnam in 1964. Over the next decade, the union joined with a host of regional and national anti-war coalitions and demonstrations--and, led by Lou Goldblatt, helped organize Labor for Peace. The union's policy called for an end to bombing of civilian populations, the withdrawal of US military forces and a negotiated settlement of the civil war." The ILWU Story (1977) . So what was that St Louis episode about?

Although not "unequivocally positive" [some aspects of the M&M agreement, etc], I'd still consider Harry one of our most effective and principled union champions of the working class.

Per your request, circulating our exchange to my Labor list, which got the original post.

Cheers, Mike


visit my website www.michaelmunk.com

United Autoworkers and Foxwoods reach "agreement"

UAW sells out casino workers--- goes from "two-tier" wage structure to "three-tier" with a sub-minimum wage base pay and the opportunity to continue breathing second-hand smoke





Say, did anyone notice the new "contract" the United Autoworkers union (UAW) just signed with the huge Foxwoods Casino/Resort (an outfit run by a feudal tribal government for the profits of some mobsters)... a corrupt government put in place just like the puppet government in Haiti?










It's a union--- and a union contract--- management is thrilled about because the contract helps management "manage" the workers--- the dealers.










The agreement includes a sub-minimum wage for base pay.










The UAW has been busy "organizing" in Michigan, too, at two casinos we have been trying to organize--- Odawa and Island... their idea of "organizing" is to offer management "a better deal" than you can get "from a bunch of communists."










The "contract" includes a clause prohibiting workers from striking to "keep the contract in line with tribal traditions and laws."










No mention of the fact the feudal tribal government is the creation of the crooked and corrupt Indian Gaming Association.










Under the terms of this "contract" two-thirds of the workers covered by the contract will make less than $12,000.00 a year because the UAW did themselves one better and went from their "two-tier" auto contracts to a "three-tier" contract for casino workers.










Foxwoods is one of the most profitable capitalist enterprises in the world and this is the best the UAW can do for workers... but, its like Ron Gettelfinger has said, "We are going to have to pick up the dues we are losing in auto from some place else."










Workers at the Odawa Casino/Resort in Petoskey, Michigan told the UAW to get lost... at the Island Casino in Escanaba, Michigan workers weren't quite as polite.










The UAW has refused to join us in challenging the "Compacts" creating the Indian Gaming Industry for fear it might offend their "coalition partners," the Democratic Party which gets tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions from the Indian Gaming Associations and the UAW doesn't want to insult corrupt tribal governments which work together with the Indian Gaming Associations to assure a pool of cheap labor through the perpetual breeding of racist unemployment and poverty so there will be enough workers to employ in smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any rights under state or federal labor laws.










Rumor has it the lead UAW negotiator from the Foxwoods' "gentlemen's agreement" has been offered a job with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.










The UAW thinks its alright for workers to breath in second-hand smoke as long as it "doesn't bother them;" of course, the American Cancer Society and the Heart & Lung Foundation might take a different view of this as does the Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council--- no smoking in the workplace, period.










In Minnesota, with the help of State Senator Tom Bakk, now a candidate for Governor supported heavily by the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association; the UAW, USW and the building trades unions have joined with Bakk in looking after the rights of non-union employees in the hospitality industry by helping them save their jobs by freeing these workers from having the minimum wage enforced in the hospitality industry.










The UAW-Foxwoods agreement is the worst union contract in U.S. history; the washer-women in the Jamestown Settlement were able to negotiate a better union contract.










Alan L. Maki




Director of Organizing,




Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council










58891 County Road 13




Warroad, Minnesota 56763










Phone: 218-386-2432




Cell Phone: 651-587-5541










E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net










Check out my Blog:




http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

A response to Richard Trumka

Trumka: Obama Absolutely Right to Make Jobs Top Priority

By Mike Hall

January 29, 2010 - 8:31am ET

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Obama’s call this week to make jobs his No. 1 priority in his State of the Union message is the right message, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. As Obama said in his speech:

Jobs must be our number one focus in 2010, and that is why I am calling for a new jobs bill tonight.

Obama called for small business tax breaks to encourage hiring and infrastructure spending. He urged passage of tax incentives for larger business to keep and create jobs in the United States, and an end to tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. He also proposed taking $30 billion of the money Wall Street banks have repaid and use it to help community banks give small businesses the credit they need to stay afloat—a proposal similar to one in our AFL-CIO jobs initiative.
As Trumka said:

We must act on a scale that will be meaningful: We need more than 10 million jobs just to get out of the hole we’re in. We want health care fixed. We want our leaders to break the stranglehold of Wall Street and the big banks and make them pay to repair the economic damage they created.

Obama praised the House for passing a jobs bill last month and urged the Senate to do the same. And as lawmakers on Capitol Hill have slowed reform of health care, Obama urged Congress not to walk away from reform.
He also rightly pointed to how the steps his administration has taken have alleviated the economic suffering of working people. Steps that included the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which has ensured that 2 million Americans are working right now who would otherwise be unemployed. The act is on track to add another one and a half million jobs to this total by the end of the year. All this was done while cutting taxes for working Americans, Obama said.

We cut taxes for 95% of working families. We cut taxes for small businesses. We cut taxes for first-time homebuyers. We cut taxes for parents trying to care for their children. We cut taxes for 8 million Americans paying for college.

Saying that America’s workers are frustrated and angry, Trumka said, “the President was right to call out Republicans for obstructing change and putting politics ahead of progress.”

Now it’s time for all of us to get busy and work together to bring the big changes that are essential—starting with enacting a jobs bill that is big enough to create jobs for the millions of people who want to work and can’t find jobs. The time for small change is long gone. We were pleased to see that the President embraced two of the job creation proposals we have made—investing in infrastructure and helping small businesses get credit through TARP funds.

The AFL-CIO’s five-point plan to create jobs immediately would begin to put people back to work and ease the economic hardships on Main Street’s working families who, unlike Wall Street bankers and brokers, have borne the brunt of the economy’s meltdown. The plan, which Trumka says will soon be expanded, includes:

1. Extending unemployment insurance for the long-term jobless (due to run out next month) along with expanding food stamp assistance, and health care benefits (COBRA) for unemployed workers and their families through COBRA.
2. Rebuilding the nation’s crumbling infrastructure.
3. Increasing aid to state and local governments to maintain vital services and jobs.
4. Funding jobs in neglected communities.
5. Using left over bank bailout funds to get credit moving to small Main Street businesses.

Trumka also says the AFL-CIO is gearing up for a nationwide jobs campaign with allies and communities. While we “will not agree with every aspect of every proposal,” he says, we will

continue to be an independent voice for middle class Americans and fight for the change working families need—and we are ready to do more. This is the time for a broad movement of Americans demanding jobs and an economy that works for all, and we’re ready to put our energy and leadership into building that movement—taking the fight to the doorstep of the banks that are exploiting struggling homeowners, of corporations that are running away from communities and of lawmakers who choose to back them up.

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Support Local 6500 striking against Vale Inco

USW Local 6500 President John Fera & Sisters and Brothers of Local 6500,

Please find my blog posting in support of your struggle for justice.

http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/sudbury-ontario-nickel-miners-prepare.html

If there is anything further I can do to help spread the word in support of your struggle for justice and dignity against Vale Inco, don’t hesitate to ask.

Appreciative of the generous support and solidarity my family and I received from the USW-Canada, Mine-Mill/CAW 598, Sudbury and District Labour Council, New Democratic Party-Sudbury, Communist Party of Canada-Sudbury and workers of the Sudbury Region as I fought deportation from Canada.

Local 6500 will win!

For international working class struggle and solidarity!

Remembering those like Jim Tester and Ray Stevenson who helped build and shape the labour movement in Sudbury and Ontario among the hard rock miners into powerful working class organizations capable of standing up to the likes of Vale Inco--- an arrogant, ruthless, multi-national corporation not content in stealing the natural resources from Canadians; but, then, in pursuit of greater maximum profits, shamefully insisting on driving down the standard of living of the very workers who create all wealth.

I add my voice to the just struggle of the members of USW Local 6500…

Yours in solidarity and struggle,

Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell phone: 651-587-5541
E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Check out my blog:

Thoughts From Podunk

http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

Over two-million American workers are forced to work in smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages in the Indian Gaming Industry without any rights under state or federal labor laws as a result of the Democrats entering into racist and anti-labor “Compacts” with a bunch of mobsters designed to increase casino profits by denying casino workers their rights as Democratic Party politicians reap millions of dollars in campaign contributions while poverty soars out of sight on Indian Reservations.

Please boycott all casinos that are part of the Indian Gaming Industry.



Re: Support for USW Local 6500 in Sudbury, Ontario on strike against Vale Inco...

info@fairdealnow.ca

To: amaki000@centurytel.net
Thank you for contacting us at www.fairdealnow.ca to express your interest and support for United Steelworkers strikers at Vale Inco’s Canadian operations. As USW Canadian National Director, I will communicate your support to our Canadian strikers.

I encourage you to continue to keep in touch with us. And please encourage your friends to visit us at www.fairdealnow.ca to stay up-to-date on the strike and related issues.

In solidarity,

Ken Neumann
USW National Director for Canada

A great idea... is there a way to put this in action?

I came across this article in an obscure publication on the Internet.

No doubt it remains just an idea with no organizational effort behind it... but, this doesn't mean that a group of people couldn't put something together and start to make things happen. This is the way many successful movements begin.

I have included some thoughts of my own following the article.

Perhaps others could add their own thoughts, post it to their own blogs and websites, write some letters to the editor, do some leafleting with the idea and put everything together on-line and in pamphlet form.

Alan L. Maki

Needed: Constitutional Amendment for the Right to a Earn a Living Wage

By John Henry

________________________________________

11-02-09

Introduction

The goal of full employment and the highest quality of life for all is at the heart of our struggle to make human rights more sacred than property interests. To accomplish this goal in the United States will take a mass, organized movement that through progressive stages and leaps reforms and ultimately revolutionizes our relations of production. An important aspect of this movement will be the legal forms that come to crystallize and institutionalize the fundamental economic changes won by the People.

The tactics and strategy in the economic struggle always necessarily include political and legislative goals. As our efforts address the most fundamental political economic issues, it is important that we have goals, strategy and tactics concerning the most fundamental law of the land, the Constitution, no matter how much the ruling class is above even that authority for now.

Why a right to a job: a historical materialist perspective

Historical materialists focus on the working class and class struggle as keys to revolutionary social change in this epoch. This is the perspective worked out by Engels and Marx which holds that social ideas, ideals and laws reflect and are ultimately determined, limited and changed by changes in the relations and forces of material production; and not quite equally so vice-versa. Thus, historical materialism sees Constitutional changes, like all legal change, as ultimately reflecting underlying class struggles. In our era of the bourgeoisie, we herald the rise of the working class to emancipate itself and all of the oppressed groups and despised classes (though taking longer than we thought!)

This approach sees that the US, connected with most of the globe more closely than ever, has capitalist relations of production. We have wage-labor and private ownership of the basic means of production.

The institution of wage-labor makes the need for a job fundamental for the overwhelming majority of the population, for they must work for a living. This institution of wage-labor means most people must sell their labor power to obtain the basic necessities of life, and avoid personal and social ills. It is not possible for most people to employ themselves in small, self-sufficient economic units and survive as they did in earlier societies. The economic system is highly socialized. That is it consists of a large number of interdependent economic enterprises of all sizes. This socialization of labor, or division of labor has reached a new qualitative level and is in some sense global today, for example with "world cars" and other commodities assembled from geographically scattered points of production.

The right to a job is a mature universal human right now. This is already recognized in Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and indirectly in the United Nations Charter Articles 55 and 56 on promoting full employment and Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The right to a job, or to earn a living, in a world wide web of wage-labor is central in the struggle for economic and human rights and to ameliorate human suffering. For, unemployment is a root cause of our most personal and social tribulations – poverty, hunger, homelessness, urban crisis, crime, suicide, alcoholism, drug addiction, physical and mental illness, wife abuse, child abuse and so on.

With the institution of wage-labor, the right to a job is also fundamental because the exercise of all other basic human rights and freedoms is dependent upon, first, fulfillment of the basic needs for material survival – food, shelter, health care, etc. A job is key to obtaining these. Modern citizens cannot speak, think, vote or travel freely if they cannot eat. They cannot obtain equality before the law or due process without legal counsel at costs. A job at a living wage is a prerequisite for a decent life and for the exercise of all other human rights and liberties. Institutionalized, continuous denial of work to millions of people, permanent mass unemployment (even four percent is mass unemployment) is a violation of a most critical human right undermining all of the human rights of those millions unemployed.

Unemployment is not a necessary part of an efficiently functioning modern industrial economy as many apologists for the American system claim. Rather unemployment is the result of an unplanned economy in which basic production is carried out with the goal of maximizing accumulation of profit for private corporations and individuals. Permanent mass unemployment is also a key tactic for keeping wages down by keeping the demand for jobs high in relation to the supply of jobs. If there were full employment, the bosses would have no scabs to hire to break strikes.

We need a mass movement to do it

The masses of people have a basic and objective motivation and need to support establishing the general right to a job as part of the fundamental law, the Constitution. We will only have a movement if the great many become conscious that it is possible to win such a right, and only if the People wake up from their current Rip Van Winkle sleep.

Because of its place in production, the working class must lead any victorious struggle to institute progressive property laws, rights and the dependent other human rights. To lead, the working class must be class conscious and organized for struggle as a result of objective and subjective experience. That consciousness must include awareness of legal goals, the consciousness taking organizational form as elements of a political program. Because constitutional amendment requires 2/3 majority of the Congress or the state legislatures to propose an amendment and 3/4 majority of the states for ratification, it also requires building a mass movement to accomplish. It is a method for involving masses in making fundamental law as opposed to a few lawyers arguing before a few judges in courts. It is an inherently popular tendency in our jurisprudence. Without ignoring the slow pace of the left movement today and the somnolence of the People, we prepare this legal strategy for the day when again pro-working-class majorities reactive and conscious as in the 1930s.

Partial History of struggle for full employment

The famous People's struggles in the era of the Great Depression won a number of economic reforms. Symbolically, the success and highpoint of the historical political surge for full employment (the actualization of the right to a job) in the US can be measured by the fact that in 1944 President Franklin Roosevelt presented to Congress in his State of the Union address an Economic Bill of Rights and said among other things:
We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity an be established for all – regardless of station, race or creed – the right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries of shops or farms or mines of the Nation – but also to education, housing and access to all forms of public facilities and services.

According to writer Bertram Ross in "Rethinking Full Employment" (The Nation, January 17, 1987) "the result "of Roosevelt's thrust "was the introduction in Congress of a full-employment bill. But in 1946 a coalition of conservative lawmakers deleted the "right to useful and remunerative job" from the original proposal. When finally passed in diluted form, the Employment Act of 1946 expressed a commitment not to full employment but to avoiding depression through the growth of a warfare-welfare state."

In 1978 The Humphrey-Hawkins full employment act was passed which called for reducing unemployment to four percent. But these two laws are weaker than the goal that Roosevelt articulated in 1944. The movement for economic justice that had pushed Roosevelt so far has slowed down considerably in the decades since. Today one feels that the political pendulum has swung to the other extreme from the reforms and reformist atmosphere of the New Deal era. Humphrey-Hawkins is not the household name it was at one time; and in fact the full employment slogans and laws have been largely relegated to scofflaw scorn until neo-liberalism and globalism are overcome by a new movement.

Yet even in this period of ebb for the movement, the Labor Party is holding up the banner for economic rights, including a proposal for a Constitutional amendment for a right to a decent job as it's number one programmatic element. In my opinion, this is an important step forward in the labor movement's legal strategy for economic rights. If the movement had been able to use its large majorities from the 1930's to constitutionalize some of the fundamental elements of the New Deal, the rollback of the New Deal today might not have proceeded so far under Reagan and his successors.

Although we should not delude ourselves that a right to a job and decent living can be fully guaranteed under capitalist relations of production, the proposal herein is reformist in form, while radical in content. I offer it as a reform pregnant with revolution.

In sum, you have to have a job to live. The right to a job is a radical reform, a fundamental human right and a common sense necessity concerning which political activists should be able to get people's attention, for it is in the interest of the overwhelming majority.

On the other hand, as we would expect in a society where the bourgeoisie is the ruling class, the Constitution already reflects, protects and reproduces the critical bourgeois interests in capitalist relations of production, the right to private ownership in the basic means of production which implies the right to seek maximum private profits and private accumulation of capital through exploitation of wage laborers. Of course, the Constitution doesn't come right out and say it this way. I would say that capitalist powers are codified in the two Fifth Amendment clauses, the Due Process Clause and the Takings Clause. The Due Process Clause provides that no person (including corporations) shall be deprived of property without due process. The Takings Clause provides that no private property shall be taken for public purpose without just compensation.

Our radical legal goal, stated briefly, must be to establish through amendment a Constitutional provision on a right to a job and also provide that it has priority over the right to ownership and control of private property in the basic means of production. So, for example, the rights of workers to jobs would take priority over the corporate prerogative of private property ownership to close a plant, mine, shop or office.

Why a constitutional amendment?

This proposal for a Constitutional Amendment to protect jobs occurred to me in the context of the fight against plant closings in the mid 1980's. As General Motors announced the shocking closing of its Fleetwood and Cadillac plants in Detroit. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., drafted a bill for a moratorium on plant closings. Besides the fact that such a law had little chance of passing a Congress and President controlled by big business, if such a law did pass, I was sure that it would be challenged by General Motors as an unconstitutional taking of private property pursuant to the 5th Amendment. I undertook what seemed to me my duty as a people's lawyer to prepare a Constitutional Amendment that could be part of an effective program to protect jobs and win full employment.

The Constitution's Fifth Amendment Due Process and "Taking" Clauses make imperative the constitutionalization of the job creation and protection rights that so many workers have fought for and believed were theirs for so long. There seems little question that legislation that challenges the monopolies' prerogatives in use of their capital, a necessary element to guarantee jobs and full employment, would be attacked as unconstitutional based on these Fifth Amendment provisions.

The clauses are consecutive in the Fifth Amendment as follows:
No person shall... be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.

Throughout their legal history these clauses have been used as a shield for bourgeois private property. The clauses are used to prevent use of basic means of production for the general welfare, which today demands planned management and use of factories, mines, and offices in a way that everyone is assured an opportunity to do productive labor.

Remedy of this unjust interpretation of the two clauses is complicated by the fact that the Fifth Amendment clauses make no distinction between private property in general and PERSONAL property in the non-legal, lay sense. Personal property is appropriately protected by the wording of the Fifth Amendment. Personal property should not be taken without due process or just compensation.

The bourgeoisie and the monopoly media and education propaganda system exploit public confusion over the distinction between these two types of property. The capitalists, like wolves in sheeps' clothing, claim that socialists see individual, personal property (and freedom), and corporate/monopoly, private property (and "free" enterprise) as equivalent lambs to be slaughtered in the communist revolution. Yet, on the contrary, socialists seek to abolish only private ownership in the basic means of production not personal property in commodities for individual consumption, and in the process seek to establish the freer and fuller all-around development of the individual.

In fact, historically it is interesting to note that the bourgeoisie seemingly have from the time of the establishment of the Constitution played a game of hide and seek concerning private property rights. If as historian Herbert Aptheker argued there was unanimous agreement among the framers of the Constitution that the purpose of government was to protect private property then it is remarkable that provision for protection of private property does not appear in the Constitution before the Bill of Rights Amendments.

It would seem that protection of private property was thoroughly provided for in the judge made, common law, where it was hidden from mass consciousness, perhaps, and known mainly by the elite mandarin class of lawyers. For the framers of the Constitution, who overwhelmingly represented the propertied classes, to frankly and openly include it in the Constitution would have amounted to an unnecessary provocation of the masses, potentially exposing to the working classes a fundamental secret of the capitalist system of exploitation.

However, perhaps ironically, perhaps purposely, the private property protection was smuggled into the Constitution, Trojan horse style, by glossing over the difference between private and personal property, as described above, and by exploiting the masses' legitimate concern for protection of their personal property from unjust governmental seizure. The Fifth Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, one of the most distinctive imprints of mass popular strength on the Constitution at the time of its creation.

The "bottom line" is that the law has an hierarchical structure. Obviously, the Constitution prevails over Congressional legislation when the two are in conflict. Thus, the right to a job must be elevated to a Constitutional status to avoid being trumped by the Taking Clause and the Due Process Clause. Otherwise the vast resources and great energy expended in winning jobs legislation will be wasted as it is struck down by a single stroke of Mr. Injustice Rehnquist's pen.

The Constitution's provision for Amendment (Article V) was truly revolutionary for the time that it was enacted and even for today. It essentially recognized for the first time in history that fundamental social and political change is inevitable, and that these changes must be represented in fundamental law. The Amendment provision has even been termed revolutionary. As Herbert Aptheker says in The Early Years of the Republic:
The right of revolution is insisted upon in the writings of Madison and Jefferson and was stated at this time with particular clarity by James Wilson, a member of the (Constitutional) Convention, and later an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States: "A revolution principle certainly is, and certainly should be taught as a principle of the United States, and of every State of the Union. This revolution principle that the sovereign power residing in the people, they may change their constitution or government whenever they please, is not a principle of discord, rancor or war. It is a principle of melioration, contentment and peace…." These means to amend the Constitution are to be handled by future generations as the generation of the (American) Revolution and the Constitution handled urgent problems before them. Happily, however, and this is one of the significant results of that Revolution and provisions of that Constitution, legality is to be on the side of those seeking such change, be it as fundamental as it may, so long as it reflects the will of the majority of the people. That is , so long as it does not violate the basic precept of the Republic, namely, popular sovereignty.


This provision, used justly, makes the Constitution truly alive and revolution potentially legal. The Amendment provision is a time-tested, eminently lawful, patriotic American method which must be seriously considered and used as a good form for peaceful transition from reforms through democratic revolution. This is an important consideration when radicals, especially communists, have been falsely stereotyped as advocating violent and illegal overthrow of the government. An effort to make radical change through constitutional amendment is a fundamentally LEGAL radical act.

This provision can be used to make law not a fixed and eternal "truth", but an evolving developing system reflecting social development and collective mass action. Some of the most advanced aspects of US law came through this "revolutionary" process, of course: the Bill of Rights, the 13th, 14th 15th and 19th Amendments, et al. All progressives have an interest in
popularizing a dialectical/historical understanding of law and its specific manifestation in that form in the Amendment provision.

Isn't the right to a job already part of the law?

When I first undertook to investigate the right to a job, I thought it was well-settled in US law that there was none; and even more that it is well settled that monopoly corporations have a right to guarantee that a significant number of people will not have a job or decent income.

However, the former editor of The Guild Practitioner, Attorney Ann Fagan Ginger explained to me that the way to succeed in the fight to get full employment is to argue that full employment is not a new idea, that it is as old as the Constitution itself or at least as the concepts of the New Deal (as discussed above) which people desperately believed were establishing certain economic minimums forever. In other words, there is customary and legal precedent for a fundamental right to earn a living. Readers of The Guild Practitioner know that Ginger is also legendary for founding a new approach to progressive law which is to use international law especially the United Nations Charter, conventions, treaties and covenants in US domestic courts. Author Sam Rosenwein makes this argument based on extensive research into the precedential authority of US jurisprudence and history, as well as international treaties.

The current proposal for Constitutional Amendment must not be considered in contradiction to the approach of Ginger and Rosenwein. Their method gathers ammunition for progressive lawyers who a are fighting continuing battles on behalf of economic victims right now. In those individual cases, nothing should be spared in trying to persuade individual judges that precedent and reason demand protection of a right to a living. Furthermore, as Ginger has often explained, claiming that a right exists in morality and justice, and has existed for a long time in history as an idea is an important method of political education and persuasion of the population. Arguing that racial or gender equality or trade union rights or the right to earn a living are the "true" American tradition and spirit is important in many ways. It assures some that they are not doing something crazy or way out. It counters charges that we are importing a foreign ideology. It connects us with the majority in history as well as the present. It gives confidence that we can win.

There is a limitation to this approach, because in fact, racism/Jim Crow was the law of the land once, as were and are anti-union and anti-job right statutes and common law. Otherwise, why have we been struggling so hard all of these decades?

In considering the whole body and system of US law and the reality of the economic system which the law reflects, there is little question that the vast majority of courts do not recognize the right to earn a living (citation of General Motors Ypsilanti plant closing case) and the courts do recognize a private property right to deny earning a living. These legal principles are cornerstones of the capitalist system. To deny that these principles are part of our system of legal rules would be almost to deny that the US has a capitalist economic system.

But so what! In different circumstances we must emphasize different aspects of, even contradictory aspects of our legal ideology. As I say above, where arguing an individual case or even bolstering mass confidence in the morality and justness of the fight for a right to a job, it is important to emphasize those glimmerings of enlightened thinking that have appeared once in a while among judges and legislators in response to mass struggles. It is sometimes important to argue that the progressive provisions of the Constitution (including the Preamble) and Declaration of Independence logically imply although do not say directly and explicitly that there must be rights to earn a living and decent income (The draft amendment offered below specifically refers and relies on the Constitutional purposes, stated in the Preamble, to establish justice, promote the general Welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty). It is important to argue that the well settled international law in UN statutes is that there is such a right, and that these laws are part of US supreme law as treaties.

Yet in considering what must be done to bring mass popular support for statutory and constitutional change, we must emphasize that the overwhelming majority of US judges interpret the law as denying these rights, notwithstanding that this interpretation is contrary to the spirit of America's best traditions as Ginger and Rosenwein argue. In a word, we must not only reinterpret the law, but change it.

A Draft Amendment

Amendment XXVIII

Section 1. Every adult American able and willing to earn a living through paid work has the right to and shall have a free choice among opportunities for useful, productive and fulfilling paid employment at decent real wages or for self-employment.

Section 2. Every adult American unable to work for pay or find employment pursuant to Section 1 has the right to and shall be provided by the Federal and State governments an adequate standard of living that rises with increases in the wealth and productivity of society.

Section 3. Pursuant to the obligation to establish Justice, promote the general Welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty, the Federal and State governments shall serve as the employers of last resort in insuring fulfillment of Section 1.

Section 4. In a case where Section 1 is in conflict with the Amendment V provision or Amendment XIV provision reading "Nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation,” Section 1 of Amendment XVIII shall prevail

Section 5. In a case where Section 1 is in conflict with the Amendment V provision or Amendment XIV provision that no person shall be deprived of property, without due process of law, Section 1 of Amendment XXVIII shall prevail.

Section 6. The common law doctrine of employment-at-will is hereby abolished. All employment discharge shall be with just cause.

Section 7. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Time does not permit an extensive discussion of a number of issues and questions raised by this draft. I will do an abbreviated annotation of the proposed amendment.

The language in Sections 1 and 2 is based on The Income and Jobs Action Act, a bill introduced by Rep. John Conyers of Michigan and Charles Hayes of Illinois in the mid 1980's. Regarding that wording, Bertram Gross said in the second part of his two part article in The Nation on the Hayes-Conyers Bill ("Making an Issue of Full Employment) said:

"...First, it replaces the old "right to a job" with the "right to earn a living", as suggested by Ann Fagan Ginger of the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute. Income rights for those unable to work for pay or find a suitable job are defined in terms of "an adequate standard of living that rises with increases in the wealth and productivity of the society." In uniting job rights and income rights, it strengthens each concept."

I have merely proposed constitutionalizing the "Fundamental Rights" section of the Hayes-Conyers bill (The Quality of Life Action Act or The Income and Jobs Action Act).

This draft Constitutional Amendment for a Right to Earn a Living, pursuant to its Section 7 envisions comprehensive implementation by Congressional Acts, such as the bills of Hayes and Conyers (HR 1398 of 1986 and HR 2870 of 1987 the Economic Bill of Rights Act"); or former Congressperson Ronald Dellums' A Living Wage, Jobs For All Act of 1997 (HR 1050); or the Jobs Bill by Rep. Matthew Martinez, D-Calif. The Living Wage Ordinances now sweeping the country could even play a role in fulfilling the broad Constitutional mandate.

This draft might be expanded to a full 2nd Constitutional Bill of Rights, an Economic Bill of Rights, as President Roosevelt anticipated in his State of the Union Messages in 1941 and 1944.

Employment law Attorney Larry Daves suggested the inclusion of the provision abolishing the employment-at-will doctrine.

This is truly a draft and I welcome comments, criticisms and suggestions from readers of this article.

Conclusion

The jobs movement's legal aims must be well chosen. The substance of the movement has been shaped by US social and economic reality – the history of struggle and the development of the relations and forces of production. We are ripe for a right to a job. But the legal form must be as profound as the substance. In the US rights are made legally most binding not only by statute, but by making them part of the Constitution. When the people rise the next time, let the people's lawyers be prepared with our writs.

Sources:

Sam Rosenwein, "The Right to Earn a Living," The Guild Practitioner, Vol. 49 number 1 1987; "A Special Issue on New U.S. Human Rights Laws," The Guild Practitioner, Vol. 51, number 3, summer 1994.

Victor Perlo, Superprofits and Crises, International, 1988.

Herbert Aptheker, Early Years of the Republic, International Publishers, 1989.

James Lawler, "Freedom and the U.S. Constitution: Aspects of the Legal Theory of Mitchell Franklin," The Guild Practitioner, Fall 1987.

Franklin Roosevelt, State of the Union Message of 1944.

Prof. William P. Quigley, "The Right to Work and Earn a Living Wage: A Proposed Constitutional Amendment," Director of Gillis Poverty Law Center, Loyola University School of Law. www.loyno.edu/~quigley/Articles/nyclawrev.pdf

My comments:


Great article.

The right to a job is clearly articulated in the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, too.

In addition to, and along with, the right to a job comes the right to a living wage job with full protections under all state and federal labor laws.

Over two-million American workers have jobs in the Indian Gaming Industry. These workers are employed in loud, noisy, smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages; and, without any rights under state or federal labor laws as all other workers enjoy the protections of.

The minimum wage should be a real living--- non-poverty--- wage as you suggest here. You could incorporate this into your proposed legislation very simply by stating that the minimum wage should be legislatively tied to the actual and real cost of living factors as calculated by the United States Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics... as the real cost of living increases, so does the minimum wage. Same thing should be done with Social Security, SSI, workers comp., unemployment compensation, welfare.

The American labor movement, since 1948 or so, has refused to fight for demands that benefit the entire working class and this is more the reason why there has been a lack of organizing that any other reason--- most workers in this country take organized labor as a joke not capable of winning anything anymore and have lost all confidence in the AFL-CIO and Change To Win because of this.

One thing we can all do is promote the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the ONE primary question people always have after reading it is the same question Stalin had in opposing it at the time: Who enforces it?

The Soviet Union opposed the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights because there was no enforcement provision and this is what is wrong with capitalist democracy which has been noted from the times of the Jamestown Settlement when wash women and glassblowers went on strike to protect their right to jobs with rights and to have living wages.

We need to tell people when they as who enforces the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights is: YOU do.

And fighting for the kind of legislation you are suggesting is one way for people to fight back... which begs the question: Who is going to initiate activity across the country for such legislation?

Could a "kickoff" for this type of legislation take place on December 10, 2009 in celebration of the Anniversary of the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights by groups of grassroots activists all across the country... perhaps as an activity of CPUSA Districts and Clubs?

We really need a very comprehensive piece of legislation to bring together all working people based upon defending the standard of living of the working class which begins with the right to a job... a job with living wages and full rights and protections unless we want to see the proliferation of jobs like casino workers employed in the Indian Gaming Industry are now being subjected to through legislation enacted by the Democrats; this legislation is known as "Compacts" intentionally designed to exclude protecting the rights of workers.

Already, Obama's "green jobs" initiative has enabled Mariah Power (a green industry) to create jobs for workers building wind generating equipment under the same terms of employment as casino workers in McGregor, Minnesota--- poverty wages and no rights under state or federal labor laws. And organized labor has cheered this project on through the "blue-green alliance" and now the United Steelworkers union is pushing an anarchist Mondragon Co-op approach which will mean more poverty wages and lack of rights for workers.

Also, we have seen how American workers are losing jobs as manufacturing overseas using cheaper labor and resources is being encouraged by the Obama Administration and the Democrats with the use of tax-payer subsidies.

No contact information was included as part of this article so one can only surmise the idea has been presented with the thinking that someone other than the writer will act on his ideas so along with this article working people can begin to set up some kind of organizational network promoting this suggestion.

There is some suggestion that working people will need an alternative to either of the two corporate controlled political parties to actually achieve such an initiative.

Alan L. Maki
Co-chair,
Lake-of-the-Woods Communist Club
Members in Minnesota, Manitoba, Ontario

58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763

218-386-2432

E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

Working class ideas crossing borders...

There have been a number of interesting progressive developments in the North American labor movement in recent months which would seem to fit together except the initiatives are separated by the Canada-U.S. border.

Generally, the Canadian labour movement has been much more advanced than the U.S. labor movement in many ways and it would be helpful if U.S. and Canadian workers would start to share some of their more advanced concepts and ideas for taking on the bosses and Wall Street's and Bay Street's governments.

This is an interesting article from Canadian Dimension Magazine about the "Stewards' Assembly" in Toronto last spring which is followed by an article by Stewart Acuff of the AFL-CIO calling for all workers to become "warriors for justice." Combining these two ideas could prove to be a very powerful new development in organized labour/labor on both sides of the border and if workers were to join hands across the border in joint actions and activities, especially around auto and steel, this could be the beginning of working people struggling for real political power--- and quite possibly economic power--- and the opportunity to be a major part of the decision-making process for a change--- pun intended.

There are issue that would make for good battles with our enemies on Wall Street and Bay Street; battles that could be won: the minimum wage... could U.S. and Canadian workers mount a powerful campaign to win minimum wage legislation for minimum wages that are real living wages based upon the scientifically calculated figures of the two counties' departments of labor; and unemployment compensation based upon a real living wage from time of unemployment until time of re-employment.

This is something definitely worth mulling over and thinking about.

What would it take to organize similar "stewards' assemblies" where training takes place to turn each and every worker into "warriors for justice" as suggested by Stewart Acuff. The possibilities and opportunities are limitless.

What would be the results if Canadian and U.S. union stewards convened a cross border conference to discuss how to build the labor movement into real rank-and-file action where workers become "warriors for justice?" Perhaps convene such a conference in Detroit or Windsor hosted by the Detroit Labor Council and the Windsor and District Labour Council?

Something to think about.

Alan L. Maki



Read on... lots of food for thought in these two articles:


Toronto Labour Council Organizes Stewards’ Assembly
Herman Rosenfeld | August 26th 2009 |

Photos available at the Canadian Dimension web site:

http://canadiandimension.com/articles/2480/

Historic Toronto Labour Council’s Steward Assembly, May 7, 2009. Photo by John Maclennan.

Historic Toronto Labour Council’s Steward Assembly, May 7, 2009. Photo by John Maclennan.


In an environment where working people in Ontario have suffered major setbacks, organized labour’s response has so far been disappointing. Until the current round of public sector strikes, aside from a few workplace occupations demanding severance and demonstrations calling for pension protection and EI changes — there has been little resistance.

The May 7th coming together of over 1,600 stewards, workplace representatives, staff, and other union reps in Toronto around the necessity of fighting against attacks by employers and governments was an unprecedented and impressive exception that brought some hope for forward motion. It was organized by the Toronto Labour Council led by President John Cartwright. The meeting brought together a mix of workplace representatives from public and private sector unions from across all of the different factions within the labour movement. It was the first such meeting in living memory and was the result of an impressive organizing effort.

This was the latest in a series of projects by the Cartwright leadership of the Toronto and York Region Labour Council. Previous efforts included the electoral project to tilt the balance of the Toronto Board of Education in favour of those who wanted to challenge the Conservative Provincial government; a movement to raise the minimum wage — and engage different communities as well as unions in the process; fighting against water privatization; arguing for local sourcing rules for the city government; the more recent Good Jobs Coalition project and the ongoing support of labour struggles.

The meeting aimed, as Cartwright noted, to “reach deeply down into the labour movement and engage the true-front-line activists that are our stewards.” It’s important to note that rank and file leaders aren’t necessarily politically engaged. Efforts to involve them in larger struggles are extremely difficult but absolutely essential to building a response to the crisis. As an introduction to the crisis and the necessity of fighting back, this meeting was very important.

While most of those who attended the meeting felt extremely good about the experience (including me), the jury is still out on whether or not the assembly will actually contribute to developing the mobilizational capacity of the union movement, stimulating a larger movement to resist attacks by business and governments, building support for the current round of public sector struggles and challenging the ideological assault being waged against the rights of unions and working people.

The Meeting
The actual assembly covered a number of areas: a presentation on the origins and causes of the crisis; a series of testimonials from the floor by participants from different key union struggles in Toronto over the past few years and from individuals victimized by outsourcing, workplace closures, racism, and concession demands; speeches by CLC President Ken Georgetti, John Cartwright, Winnie Ng (a leader in the Good Jobs Coalition) among others; a short period set aside for small group discussions; speeches by leaders of major union affiliates pledging their collective resistance to the crisis measure of governments and employers; and a “surprise” visit by Toronto Mayor David Miller.

The assembly came away with a commitment to build support for EI reforms and pensions associated with the Canadian Labour Congress campaigns. It ended with a request that the stewards go back to their workplaces, circulate, and discuss the EI petition and mobilize for upcoming political actions demanding reforms.

What Did it Accomplish — and What Will it Contribute?
Walking out of the session, I couldn’t help but feel good about the potential there and hoped that it would be the beginning of an ongoing movement. But events that have unfolded in the three months since the assembly — raise a number of further issues and questions.

There were important limitations of the meeting:

Rather than being an actual assembly, with open discussion, debate, and space for the stewards to initiate points and ideas, it felt more like a process of conveying information. In order to encourage the creation of an ongoing Stewards’ Movement, a living, more participatory process is necessary.

The close ties to Mayor Miller, and the constant references to NDP politicians, showed that the politics of the assembly was confined within the “legitimate” institutional parameters of the labour movement. While some NDP politicians did play a positive role in the Minimum Wage Campaign, the party as a whole has notably failed to lead on even such basic campaigns as EI reform and has been absent from any discussions on alternatives during the crisis. Miller’s address to the assembly reflected the wide “popular front” like platform that has dominated labour politics in Toronto in the current period. This alliance has meant a modest political program that rests on lower business taxes and co-operation between labour and private investors. There was little mention of any vision of a different way of creating jobs and shaping investment, or the need for a political movement that might articulate such a vision.

Even the critique of the financial sector was limited to complaints about speculation and excess profits — rather than a real explanation about the way finance affects jobs, investment, and communities. We need to avoid one-dimensional populism that poses the problem as being “monopolies or financial speculators against the people,” pulling the movement into an alliance with industrial capitalists. The problem of that type of approach is all too evident in the auto sector. There was no mention of demands to control and shape investment through reforms such as nationalizing the banks.

Even more, the assembly begs another set of questions, based upon its success:

If the Toronto Labour Council was able to organize a Stewards’ Assembly, is this happening in other cities across Canada? If not, why isn’t it?

The CLC campaigns remains tied to uninspired and relatively ineffective forms of action. Since the assembly in May, there has been one demonstration in Toronto demanding action on EI reform and pension protection. The turnout was disappointing and wasn’t followed up (or preceded) by more militant actions, such as occupations of EI offices. Where will this campaign go?

Will there be any follow-up with this first effort to bring stewards together from across the city or was this a one-off activity? If there are plans to do it again and build on this initial assembly, what forms might that take?

Will there be efforts to build networks of resistance and solidarity between groups of stewards across the city? Are there plans to produce materials to help stewards explain the crisis to their co-workers and argue for new forms of collective resistance, led by stewards within workplaces?

Are there plans to discuss ways of uniting workplace representative with workers in communities and those not unionized who are also looking for ways to extend and deepen their struggles?

The Toronto Labour Council has taken the lead in a number of areas over the past few years. Once again, in the current context, the Stewards’ Assembly can represent an important counterweight to the defensiveness of Ontario’s labour movement. But the Council operates within the constraints of the official union structures, limited to a certain extent by the conservatism of the leadership of the affiliates and the political and economic structures of the city — even as it works to stretch the boundaries of those limitations.

In this instance, the Stewards’ Assembly needs to become a springboard towards a larger and broader effort to educate and mobilize workers across Toronto in resisting current attacks and developing political approaches independent of business-dominated projects that currently dominate the agenda.





America Needs Warriors for Justice

By:

Stewart Acuff

It is beyond doubt that we are living in a period of potentially great historical change in the United States.

Just a year ago we trade unionists, progressives, and Americans of good will made history with the election of an African-American President--something many of us never thought possible -- and large majorities of pro-working family Democrats in both Houses of Congress.

With the implosion of our financial services sector and the consequent economic crisis and recession, it has become abundantly clear that unregulated, unfettered free market capitalism doesn't work for anyone. We now have irrefutable proof that greed is not good, that the markets don't by themselves work for the common good in the nation's interest, that if all the money and resources go to the top, the middle and the bottom are starved. And speaking of the middle, we now know that the middle class is in peril -- endangered by the policies of free market economics -- unfettered corporate-driven globalization, illegal and immoral union busting, contracting out, working rat, privatization, benefit busting, wage thievery -- all the policies that have made up the 30 year assault on working families and unions. While some may have doubted these truths two or four or more years ago, these truths are beyond doubt today.

Those who once held themselves up to be leaders of our society and government are now scorned -- Wall St, Bush, Cheney, AIG. The recipients of the governments bailouts continue to shovel obscene amounts of our money to executives without a clue while we suffer 10 percent unemployment, continued loss of health care, and declining wages and a consequent declining standard of living, and a potentially frightening future for our kids and grandkids and beyond.

Most importantly, our people are ready for and even demanding change. By significant majorities, Americans want a public healthcare plan included in the larger health care reform package, and Americans want the Employee Free Choice Act to be passed to once again allow American workers to freely form unions and bargain collectively.

America is ready for change.

Why then is change so hard to achieve?

Those who've prosecuted and benefited from the 30 year financial assault on America's working families refuse to let go, to give up what they've come to see as theirs -- the insurance companies, the union busters, the ABC, the Comcasts, the Walmarts, Wall St and manipulators of our finances, the Radical Rightwing including Cheney and Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove and Dick Armey and the Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute.

It is clear that if we are to win the change we voted for last fall and many of us have worked for for years, we are gonna have to fight, fight hard, and fight outside the normal Washington lobbying box.

Washington politics and lobbying does not work for workers and working families.

We cannot forget that we've gotten to the verge of passing the Employee Free Choice Act by running the largest national grassroots legislative campaign in the history of the American labor movement. Over the six year course of this campaign we've put literally hundreds of thousands of people on the street and more than a million workers in motion. We delivered one and a half million signatures to the Congress, sent half a million emails, wrote 300,000 handwritten letters and made 200,000 phone calls to Senators.

That's a ton of good work. But it is more than clear that we have to do more of it.

While the Employee Free Choice Act has not yet passed, we have realized many benefits -- more than a dozen states have passed new public employee collective bargaining laws including majority authorization. Public officials from town and county commissions to city councils to state assemblies to governors and mayors to the Congress to the President of the United States now realize what hell workers go through when they try to organize and bargain for a better life. More public officials than ever have weighed in to support workers trying to organize.

We have got to ramp up our grassroots lobbying by our members.

But just as importantly, we have to ramp up our effort to engage and organize workers who don't have a union, to make use of the progress and allies we've made and enlist unorganized workers in the struggle to organize their workplaces and to fight and struggle in the public policy fight to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. Every organizing campaign is a direct and clear reason to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.

It is not enough to wait for the Employee Free Choice Act to pass. We have to demonstrate its necessity with struggle--old fashioned struggle right now, today not tomorrow. And by their actions, unorganized workers have to demonstrate the necessity for the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.

It is not enough to wait on the law to change.

History is not made and humanity is not advanced by those who accept the status quo. History is made and the human condition is advanced by warriors willing to struggle for a better life for their kids and grandkids, warriors who understand what they have was won by the blood and tears and sacrifice of our forebears.

America today needs warriors -- warriors to organize and struggle, to fight for change, to fight the Radical Right and corporate domination, to organize and struggle, to dare the rat bastards to stop us, to refuse to lose, to challenge the status quo, to tell those who've run our country and too many lives into the ditch that change is now, that we will fight in Washington but that we will also fight all across America.

The future is ours. Let's take it.

Baristas and Supporters from around the Midwest Converge on EGR Starbucks

-----Original Message-----
From: cole dorsey [mailto:grandrapidsstarbucksunion@yahoo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 1:47 AM
To: gvsustudentsforfairtrade@lists.riseup.net; michigan sds listserve
Subject: Baristas and Supporters from around the Midwest Converge on EGR Starbucks

For Immediate Release:

IWW Starbucks Workers Union

July 21, 2009

Baristas and Supporters from around the Midwest Converge on East Grand Rapids Starbucks in a show of Solidarity

Who: Current and former Starbucks baristas, and workers from around the Midwest.

Why: EGR Starbucks is the site of the unlawful termination of IWW member Cole Dorsey in 2008. Also, we will show our support for the recent public announcement of Quebec baristas membership in the IWW Starbucks Workers Union.

What: Informational Protest

When: Saturday, July 25th starting at 4:30 pm

Where: Starbucks
2172 Wealthy St. SE
East Grand Rapids, Michigan





###

For more information check out these links:

http://www.grsbuxunion.blogspot.com

http://www.starbucksunion.org

--- On Tue, 7/21/09, Alan Maki wrote:

From: Alan Maki
Subject: RE: Baristas and Supporters from around the Midwest Converge on EGR Starbucks
To: "'cole dorsey'"
Cc: debssoc@sbcglobal.net, beckj@msu.edu, jwojcik@pww.org, jrummel@pww.org, WCS-A@yahoogroups.com, "'David Shove'"
Date: Tuesday, July 21, 2009, 11:26 AM
Brother Dorsey and baristas;

I am sorry I can’t be in East Grand Rapids, Michigan to participate in your informational picket line on Saturday, July 24 because I have other commitments precluding my participation; however, what I have done, is forwarded this on to my Michigan e-mail list of about 4,500 people and I encourage them to continue distributing this communication and call to action.

I encourage anyone who can to participate in your Informational Protest to do so (details below).

I wish to affirm our commitment to your just struggle in quest of justice.

We encourage our members and everyone else to boycott Starbucks until management recognizes the IWW Starbucks Workers Union as the representative of Starbucks workers and a collectively bargained agreement has been reached and a contract signed.

Yours in struggle and solidarity,

Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell phone: 651-587-5541
E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Check out my blog:

Thoughts From Podunk

http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

Cc: Maggie Bird
President,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

-----Original Message-----
From: cole dorsey [mailto:grandrapidsstarbucksunion@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2009 6:32 PM
To: Alan Maki
Subject: RE: Baristas and Supporters from around the Midwest Converge on EGR Starbucks

Alan,
Thanks a lot for your support and solidarity. Through solidarity we will win. Good luck on your struggle.

For a Better Future,
Cole Dorsey