Oil Workers prepare

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As oil negotiations begin, over 50 Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers (OCAW) union members picketed the Chevron Corp. headquarters in San Francisco on Jan. 25. OCAW's opposition to concessions has attracted many young workers to the union. Contracts begin expiring at the end of 6 SOCIALIST ACTION FEBRUARY 1988 January.

The following are major e xcerpts from the talk given by Laurie Har ipenen at the forum on "New England Labor vs. Corporate Greed," sponsored by the Boston branch of Socialist Action on Dec. 12, 1987.

Office workers are the sweatshop factory workers of today (and of the future). At least 85 percent of us are female, and it is seen as a job ghetto for women. A lot of us are single parents.

The stress of clerical work is nearly as high as that of assembly-line workers. VDT (video-display terminal) users report more stress on the job than any occupation ever studied—including air-traffic controllers. Female clerical workers experience coronary heart disease twice more often than other working women.

If the health risks aren't enough, some terminal users are frequently monitored by a supervisor and reprimanded if they make too many errors or don't work fast enough. And you thought computers were supposed to enhance your worklife! Instead, the boss can demand five or 10 draft revisions Joe Ryan/Socialist Action because "the computer will do it."

Fortunately, secretaries are beginning to see their jobs for what they really are. They are looking toward unionization as a solution to low pay, high stress, and no respect.

Clerical organizing is really nothing new, although every article written on it lately claims it is the latest rage in organizing. Anyone familiar with American labor history of the 1930s and '40s knows that massive union organizing took place, and the office was no exception. My union, the UAW, was organizing the white-collar sector 40 years ago.

But the more traditional and conservative unions didn't organize women, because they felt we were "unorganizable." Many union officials sadly still hold to this misconception-but they are hopelessly out of touch.

For example, in the 1930s, when the auto industry was first organized, wives of striking autoworkers organized the Women's Auxiliary Brigades. They kept the sit-down strikers fed and they picketed in support outside the plants. Although not Despite tremendous efforts, Guckenberg stressed, the Jay strikers "didn't do the one thing they had to dostop production at the mill. The longer the strike goes on, the harder it is to do this because support becomes dissipated and the membership demoralized."

A new strategy is needed Guckenberg then examined the conditions of the years during which the present labor leadership was "trained"-that is, the postWorld War II period of relative labor peace in the United States that was bought by business to ensure their looting of the rest of the world.

Now the U.S. capitalists are increasingly squeezed by foreign competition. They also face "the continuing spread of unrest represented especially by the Cuban Revolution and the Vietnamese Revolution." So they seek "to take away our past gains and convert them into cash for themselves.

"Their strategy has become clear, Guckenberg continued. "Where they can't destroy the union, they close the plant. Where a buck can't be made, people will starve. Where resistance is strong, bring in the National Guard!"

"And especially," he said, "they rely on those union bureaucrats who never had to fight, never learned how to fight, and have no intention of leading a fight."

A new generation of labor leadership will develop in today's climate of confrontation and struggle. "What we need," Guckenburg said, "is a new strategy. A strategy that recognizes that this is a class society, that the workers have interests that have nothing in common with those of the employers."

That goal demands an end to the unions' reliance on the Democratic Party and an end to their dependence on the courts to settle labor disputes. "We must get the unions out from behind the skirts of the lawyers and the politicians," Guckenberg said.

"We need new ways," he concluded, "and we need to rediscover the old ways to make our strikes effective and our voices heard."

union members as such, they made the strike a success, and this built the union Today we see images of flight attendants, teachers, nurses, and chambermaids fighting for their rights on the job and for their unions.

There is a move today to return women to the home. With the advent of personal computers, women will be able to work at home on a VDT, and there will be no "office" to go to every day. The boss will still be able to monitor her work via the computer.

This will "dis-organize" the workforce. Unions should soundly oppose this form of subcontracting out to women at home. At the same time, they should be organizing all office workers who remain unorganized.

Divisions between male and female, union and non-union, Black and white, should be opposed by all of the organized labor movement. We are all allies... White-collar employees have to realize that they are part of the working class, too. And the will, I'm certain.

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