Chicago rail workers' dim view of contract

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CHICAGO-For the second time in three months, United Transportation Union (UTU) members of locals 528 and 577 on the Chicago Northwestern (CNW) railroad met here in October to discuss the proposed national contract.

Despite a campaign of intimidation by Chicago Northwestern, and pressure from the international union, members decisively rejected the concessionary contract. But the prospect that the contract would be ratified by the UTU general chairmen left some real questions for rail workers here. [The local membership does not vote on the contract. Only the votes of the local chairmen count. See article by J.D. Crawford-The Editors.] Back in July some one hundred members of the two UTU locals had met to discuss the contract. They heard UTU General Chairman Markgraf outline his opposition to the proposal. The vote in the two locals, by which the local chairmen were to be bound, was about 90 percent against the proposed pact. They also voted unani -mously to send a letter to UTU President Fred Hardin rejecting this "horrendous contract."

The letter said the contract would mean a substantial pay cut, eliminate craft divi - sions, reduce benefits, and devastate work rules. "In short," the locals concluded, "it would be a total disaster."

The contractual changes dovetail with the Chicago Northwestern's plan for "ration -alization," which includes laying off some 1500 employees. Chicago Northwestern demanded the contract changes to make it more competitive, despite a 54-percent rise in profitability since last year.

When the contract wasn't ratified, Chicago Northwestern's management, in preparation for a strike, began a sustained campaign against the rail workers. This included spreading rumors that the UTU strikers would be fired and permanently replaced, openly training company officials for UTU jobs, and sending letters to other craft unions threatening a possible lockout.

UTU members are now saddled with a contract they did not support. But the experience of the last few months, when a contract was voted down for the first time in quite a while, brought some questions into sharp relief.

Union democracy, including the right to vote on the contract, is an elementary requirement for defending one's bread and butter. One can only wonder what the fate of this settlement would have been had it been where it belongs—in the members' hands. international officialdom was dramatically revealed in the Oct. 5 issue of the UTU News, whose masthead by the way is "Progress through Unity."

This issue was received by members just days before the second ratification vote-which if rejected again would have posed the likelihood of an immediate nationwide rail strike. The issue contains not one word on preparing the membership for such a strike-a strike that could have developed into the most crucial in the UTU's history.

Instead the bulk of the issue was given over to a heated attack on the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (BLE) and its president, John F. Sytsma. Hardin refers to President Sytsma and the BLE officialdom as "drafters of rape and greed" and authors of "many poisonous, traitorous, detrimental suggestions and ideas."

In all my years of reading the UTU News, I have never seen rail owners and management described in such terms. On the contrary, despite sharply escalating attacks on rail workers and rail unions, they are more often than not spoken of in almost gentlemanly terms. Apparently the real heat and anger is to be reserved only for fellow trade unionists.

Union cannibalism-no solution What specifically provoked Hardin's wrath was a series of proposals called the "Lake Erie Plan," which was floated by the BLE officialdom to top rail management after the UTU general chairmen voted down It is this fact that leads to the only real difference of substance between Hardin and Sytsma. Their solution to the attack of the carriers and the government is a kind of union cannibalism.

If this was all that was happening in the rail unions, it would indeed be a pessimistic picture. However, that is not the case. Among the rank and file there are stirrings that make it clear they do not agree with Hardin and Sytsma's views.

One such development is the Intercraft Association of Minnesota (ICAM), which began on the Burlington Northern. They are convinced that a winning fight can be organized against the carriers. They are also convinced that one key to winning is solidarity between and among all the rail unions.

More will be written about these significant and hopeful developments in a future issue.

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LET THE TRADE WAR BEGIN!! 1659 The AFL-CIO convention, meeting in Anaheim, Calif., at the end of October, approved a gamut of resolutions presented by the top leadership. One of those was for the protectionist "Buy American!" cam -paign, which was unanimously approved by the delegates. It was a symbolic dem -onstration of the political bankruptcy of the labor bureaucracy.

The California AFL-CIO News reported that "a parade of delegates took the floor to speak for the resolution." One delegate sought to dress up the "Buy American!" slogan by adding the phrase "Buy union!" But these slogans inherently contradict each other.

In reality, the protectionist policy favors U.S.-made products, whether union-made or not. The effect of a tax on foreign-made products is to mainly reduce imports from those producers with the highest production costs—primarily unionized producers with the highest wage levels.

The operative slogan, "Buy American!," in practice would favor non-union/lowwage producers, which would tend to negate the "Buy union" slogan.

The effective working-class approach to competition from producers with lower wage levels has traditionally been to support efforts by workers in every country to achieve the highest living standards.

But the "Buy American!" campaign, it -self, is a sham. No reasonably informed person believes that protectionism can pro -duce more jobs for workers in modern industrial countries. It is widely understood that protectionism is a two-way street, so far as major capitalist competitors are concerned, and would precipitate a trade war like the one that led to the 1929 depress -ion—and a vast increase in unemployment.

Poor excuse for a solution Why, then, do the labor bureaucrats, who are not uninformed, advance this poor excuse for a solution to unemployment?

First of all, the bureaucrats are well aware of the demands that the workers' movement has advanced in the past to fight the effects of capitalist unemployment. During the 1930s the shorter work-week, with no reduction in pay (the five-day, 40hour week), was fought for and won in big labor battles.

The labor movement also forced the government to institute massive publicworks programs to provide jobs and badly needed housing, schools, mass transit, etc. Unemployment insurance at union wages, a report on The Changing Situation Of Workers and Their Unions. In this document, the bureaucracy alleges that the trend toward a workforce with a smaller proportion of industrial workers is the primary cause of labor's difficulties.

The document also lists a series of so-called new tactics that are intended to paper over the fundamental failure of the AFL-CIO to provide a strategy to answer the attacks on the unions.

An alibi for setbacks The real program of the AFL-CIO bureaucracy in the current crisis is to bail out U.S. business at the workers' expense. The top labor officials hope that the U.S. capitalist economy will eventually be restabilized by giving in to concession demands.

They yearn for a new period of economic expansion and prosperity, at which time, they imagine, the concessions given away will be returned by grateful capitalists. But this is a delusion.

Chrysler Corp.'s recent action forcing auto workers out on strike illustrates the folly of this delusion. Enjoying the highest profits in years, due to the auto workers' ill-advised sacrifices, Chrysler has refused to give back what it took away-much less share its prosperity with its employees.

Democratic Party "friends"

The "Buy American!" campaign is intended to reinforce the illusion of parallel interests between workers and bosses.

Lane Kirkland, in this spirit, reaffirmed AFL-CIO support to the Democratic Party. He promised to continue "supporting the friends of labor and opposing the enemies of labor."

Kirkland, nevertheless, couldn't help touching on the open secret of the Demo -cratic Party's anti-labor record, complain -ing, "But it is getting harder and harder to tell them [i.e. Democrats and Republicans] apart."

His real concern, however, is that the union ranks can no longer tell "friend" from foe and increasingly refuse to follow union endorsements in the voting booths. The trend continues for workers to abstain or vote their perceived interests as atomized members of an ambiguously-conceived "middle class."

Kirkland hopes the "Buy American!" campaign will get out the votes to elect protectionist candidates and strengthen the labor bureaucracy's bargaining position for gaining a better deal from capitalist candi -dates.

But even this limited aim is unrealizeable. The capitalist politicians understand full well that the AFL-CIO's protectionist policies will only further atomize and demoralize the working class. While they gladly accept the help offered by the labor officialdom, there is no need for them to offer the labor bureaucrats any concessions.

More thinking workers are coming to understand that labor's problems are not primarily objective but that they derive from the class-collaborationist the labor misleadership.

It is becoming ever more apparent that the inescapable price of an alliance with a sector of the bosses is the sacrifice of this or that sector of the workers and their natural allies—this time the Blacks, that time the women, another time the younger or older workers...ad infinitum.

A class-struggle program The class-struggle methods that were so magnificently successful in the 1930s and 1940s are gaining new currency among layers of new fighters. A broad movement for a fighting program is inevitable.

Along with the previously mentioned measures against unemployment, such a program should include a repudiation of no-strike pledges, which are nothing less than a commitment to scab on someone else's It should include a call for defiance of anti-picketing injunctions, which violate basic democratic rights. If honored, court limitations on picketing will lead to the smashing of major strike confrontations and ultimately the union movement as a major force in American society.

A class-struggle program should include the principle of the escalator clause, peg -ging all wages to the real cost of living.

A fighting workers' program must give unqualified support to the rights of op -pressed nationalities and women and others whose democratic rights have been attacked Internationally, the labor movement must express its solidarity with the struggles of workers and farmers every -where; from Central America to Poland and from England and Ireland to the Philippines and South Africa. The labor movement has a special responsibility in the heartland of imperialism to vigorously oppose U.S. intervention against the world's toilers.

Finally, a class-struggle left wing must fight to break the union movement from the capitalist parties and to form an independent political party based on the unions. This would provide a general political form for the struggle for workers' interests and, ultimately, a workers' government.

But along with a new strategy, the unions need new leadership. This will come from these new fighters emerging from the still episodic fightbacks. They will join with the best of the union officials who have remained close to the spirit of the rank and file in constructing a class-struggle, left wing of the American labor movement.

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PROTECTIONISM Margulles