"Historically, restructuring has been capitalism's means

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working class help to explain why a national fightback has not yet emerged to challenge the concessionary drive.

First, the American working class is shackled by a bureaucratic misleadership. The labor bureaucracy is a powerful obstacle that blocks the self-action of the workers and keeps them politically disorganized. The bureaucracy completely subordinates the demands of the working class in order to maintain its political alliance with the capitalists.

Campaigns for protection against inflation are impossible as long as the labor movement continues to subordinate wages to profits and as long as it remains chained to the capitalist parties. The ranks of labor have been atomized, ripped from their past traditions, and disoriented by 50 years of reliance on their class enemies.

The labor bureaucracy will even physically intervene on behalf of the bosses against militant rank-and-file unionists. The most glaring example of this behavior is that of the UFCW bureaucracy against Local P-9.

Another factor delaying the fightback of the working class is the fact that material conditions have not worsened sufficiently to bring the rising anger and frustration to the levels necessary for an organized fightback. Not yet.

While the average real weekly wage of workers declined 10 percent between 1978 and 1986, the working class has been able to partially recover their lost wages by having two-person family incomes. Sixtytwo percent of women in couples 25-34 years of age work outside the home. Lost income is also recovered by working overtime or by taking advantage of the now-dwindling allocations of unemploy -ment insurance and other forms of social compensation.

These individual solutions have partially cushioned the economic decline in the standard of living of a significant number of workers.

We can summarize the current state of classical laws of capitalism, as Marx revealed, lead inevitably to a reduction in the size of the working class and its ultimate impoverishment.

This process is not new. During the boom period of capitalist expansion in the 1950s and '60s, "restructuring" was occurring. The longshore, printing trades, coal mining, and craft unions were seriously decimated by the introduction of new productive technology. In the 1950s, the membership of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) plummeted from 400,000 to 200,000 members.

Historically, restructuring for more productivity has been capitalism's means of maintaining its rate of profit. For example, between 1919 and 1925, productivity increased by 40 percent while the number of factory workers decreased by 7 percent. Yet, in that same period, white-collar workers increased from 11.5 million to 16.5 million.

This is exactly what is happening today. The growth in the number of service workers is a reflection of the growth in productivity of the industrial working class, even though the number of industrial workers has decreased.

While certain shifts in capital have decimated the power of particular unions, none of these shifts has displaced basic commodity production from its position as the source of all wealth.

These elementary Marxist observations have escaped many on the "left" who predict that the industrial working class will be replaced by the service and high-tech industries.

The workers will not passively accept being driven into poverty. Socialist Action retains absolute confidence in the ability of control over production and nationalization of industries when capitalists close plants because they can't make a profit.

Most importantly, we call on the labor movement to break with the Democratic and Republican parties—the parties of the bosses-and form a labor party based on the unions. Through this independent political instrument, the organized workers will be able to lead all workers and the oppressed in the inevitable fightback.

While no particular slogan stands out to campaign around today, our members regularly integrate the ideas of union solidarity, union democracy, and the need for a labor party into their-day-to-day union work.

By advancing, in a timely fashion, our slogans for a labor party, shorter work week, opening the financial books of the bosses, and workers' control of production-the interests of the working The antiwar movement The Nicaraguan Revolutior The fight against racism A woman's right to choose An end to apartheid The fight for socialist democracy in Eastern Eurc • An end to union concessions The need for a labor party A socialist America = you belong in Socialist Action!

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