Why employee 'ownership' is not in our interest

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Why I Joined Socialist Action A former leader of the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA) and member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) tells why Should employees at the second largest airline in the country, United Airlines, support our union's proposed takeover of the airline?

I say no.

As an employee of United Air Lines, Inc. (UAL) in San Francisco and a member of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) I will urge my coworkers to say no to the proposed ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) and labor agreement that District Lodge 141 UAL Executive Board has unanimously endorsed.

The proposed takeover of UAL by the three unions-the IAM, Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), and the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA)-was agreed to by the UAL Board of Directors on April 6. For $201 a share, or $4.38 billion, the employees will own 100 percent of the company. The takeover will be financed primarily by major employee concessions and bank loans.

The three unions have reached labor agreements, pending ESOP approval by the banks, that will lead to $2 billion in concessions over five years. The proposed no-strike contract is to run formally five years. However, under the IAM pact, the actual contract is longer. It includes a proviso that the new company and union will not seek a release from the National Mediation Board for an additional year after the contract By STEVE I'd like to explain why I recently resigned from the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and became a member of Socialist Action.

When I joined the SWP three years ago, I was committed to the fight for a socialist society, in which the working class runs the economy for human needs instead of the private profits of a capitalist minority.

I joined the SWP in agreement with its program and under the illusion that it was decided on collectively by the membership as a whole. During the first two years of my membership, however, I saw things that seemed to be abuses of internal democracy. But I was willing to give the SWP leadership the benefit of the doubt.

The last year of my membership in the Socialist Workers Party made it clear to me that democracy in the SWP is fake. Anyone in the SWP who doubts this statement will see that when they raise differences with the party leadership, they risk being expelled or driven out.

Socialist Action, on the other hand, is a democratic centralist organization with members in industry and on college campuses. That is one reason why I decided to join this organization. In addition, in the vast majority of questions where Socialist Action and the SWP have differences, Socialist Action has a better position.

Bosses' attacks

Over the past 20 years, the U.S. capitalist class has been on an all-out offensive against the working class. They've been busting our unions, driving our wages down, forcing us to work harder for longer hours, and gutting safety on the job.

While correctly aiming its main fire at the bosses' attacks, Socialist Action doesn't hide its criticisms of the union bureaucracy. We come right out and say, for example, that the Eastern Airlines strike will be defeated unless there is a change in the policies of the present union leadership. expires.

Key features of the proposal are an immediate 3.7 percent wage cut for "A" scale workers that "snaps back" in the second year. After that, there is a wage freeze for the duration of the agreement. "B" and "C" scale workers will get modest increases during the first and second years. Wage progressions will be evened out. Pensions are to be improved.

The new 15-member board of directors will include three union representatives—one from each union—while the majority of the board will be outside directors.

In our best interests?

The IAM leadership says the ESOP and concessionary labor agreement are in the "best interests of the membership." It will "protect our jobs," we are told.

John Peterpaul, general vice-president of the IAM and a key architect for the IAM in putting the ESOP together, said, "We have to put it [UAL] into employee hands.

We have to get involved so that we are taken out of the grip of outside interests."

Last fall Peterpaul and the IAM leadership had a different view of a proposed ESOP put together by top management and ALPA. That deal fell through at the last minute primarily because of IAM opposition. Peterpaul called the proposed $300 a share, or $6.75 billion, ESOP as "the most ludicrous transaction we have ever seen."

What changed his and the IAM top officials' view of the ESOP?

The Eastern workers need to stop the planes from flying in order to win. And in order to do so, they need the militant support of other workers.

The SWP's position that the strike-already one year old—is being won and is now "stronger than ever" is just another illusion placed in the way of workers' seeing what it takes to win.

I am now proud to be part of an organization that has some ideas about how to win a strike and that doesn't duck these questions in order to avoid coming into conflict with the mistaken policies of the present union officials.

I also disagree with the SWP's position of not allowing students into membership. This policy represents an ultraleft error. Students are an important part of the struggle for social justice. The fact that they are getting an education doesn't mean they are going to betray the working class when they get out of school.

Socialist Action, however, welcomes students into our ranks and we welcome the opThe economics. The IAM officialdom was never opposed in principle to an ESOP financed by the employees. It simply thought that UAL Chairman and President Stephen Wolf and ALPA's leadership gave too much to the shareholders while burdening the new company with massive debt. The IAM tops now believe their ESOP can work without too much "pain" for the unions.

Unfortunately, the IAM leadership is wrong. ESOP then and now is against the best interests of UAL employees. It is a fancy expression for major concessions.

In fact, what most airline experts and bankers applaud as good in the proposed ESOP are the labor concessions. These concessions, they say, is what Wolf and top management were unable to get in the past.

The weakness of the overall economy, however, makes the bankers jittery about any airlineeven the strongest-surviving while servicing massive debt.

Because of the cyclical character of the industry, airlines are extremely susceptible to sharp downturns in the business cycle.

Will we really own it?

The new ESOP is a con. We will own the "new" UAL as much as we own it today. Because you own a share of a company does not make you an owner. When you join a credit union you become a shareholder. But do you really own it? Of course not.

Under an ESOP, management will try to use "employee ownership" to justify attacks on working conditions and safety. Our "representatives" will function like other directors: to get the most from us for less; to raise the profits of the company. This is the way the capitalist system works.

The key to running a successful portunity to bring working-class perspectives to campus politics.

Trotsky and political revolution Today in Eastern Europe, the masses are rising up in the face of deepening economic problems. These movements open the possibility of the working class kicking the bureaucrats out of power to finally open the way towards real socialism.

Leon Trotsky was one of the outstanding leaders of the Russian Revolution during the time of Lenin and he exposed and fought against Stalin's betrayal of that revolution. Trotsky explained that a privileged bureaucracy had taken the revolution out of the hands of the working class and was running the revolution in its own interests.

He explained how and why that bureaucracy must be overthrown by the working class. What Trotsky explained then remains true today. His ideas, as expressed in the concepts of "permanent revolution" and "political revolution," will be an important part of the struggle for socialism in Eastern SOCIALIST business is to have higher productivity and lower labor costs than your competitors.

At least now we know who the boss is and why we have a union. If we fall for the scam of "ownership," we will weaken our ability to use our union to protect our jobs and working conditions. Our stance should be: No Concessions. No ESOP. If we take a firm stand, the deal can collapse and we will be stronger for it. The threat that if we don't go along an "outsider" will takeover is blackmail. CEO Wolf said the same thing before his deal fell apart last October and nearly brought the Stock Market down too.

The unity of the three unions is good and necessary. But that unity should be used to fight the greedy shareholders and top management—not to sell a bill of goods to the membership.

Europe. Revolutionary socialists have a responsibility to bring these ideas into Eastern Europe in whatever modest way possible.

The SWP disagrees with the importance of Trotsky's ideas. They think that the workers of Eastern Europe should look to the leadership of Fidel Castro in their present struggle. But, unfortunately, Castro has a wrong analysis of what is needed in Eastern Europe.

In Cuba, Fidel Castro is leading the world's only non-Stalinist socialist revolution today-but he is on the wrong side in Eastern Europe. Castro calls the movements in Eastern Europe fascist or near fascist and opposes the fight for national self-determination being waged by the oppressed nationalities of the Soviet Union.

The root of his wrong position can be seen in the fact that he doesn't understand that the Communist parties of Eastern Europe are not really communist, that these parties do not represent the interests of the working class in any way.

Despite the important positive example that exists in the Cuban Revolution, Castro is alienating the workers in the Stalinized countries from that example. Workers are not going to listen to someone who is calling their movements for basic democratic rights fascist movements.

The SWP was likewise mistaken when it completely and uncritically endorsed the policies and program of the FSLN in Nicaragua-even going so far as to characterize it as a "sister party." Only in 1989, when faced with the increasingly disastrous results of these policies, did the SWP begin to take its distance from the role of uncritical cheerleader.

The only future capitalism holds for workers and poor farmers is a future of more poverty, wars, and disastrous environmental destruction. This fact assures that workers are going to fight in massive struggles that will shake the foundations of this society.

Building a socialist society is the only lasting solution to our problems. Gaining the experience, knowledge, and numbers to lead that struggle is at the heart of what Socialist Action is all about. Anyone in the United States who wants to join this struggle and be as effective as possible should join Socialist Action.

ACTION MAY 15

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Socialist Achion

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