The meaning of the Carey victory

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The electoral victory of the Ron Carey/Teamsters for a Democratic Union slate registers a big change in the relation of forces in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. It is pregnant with new possibilities for breaking up the bureaucratic ship to honor the picket lines of all unions. This is highly unusual in today's labor movement. The importance of this fact must not be underestimated and augurs well for the future of the union.

The new Teamster leadership has set a course that, if followed through, will bring them into deadly conflict with trucking industry bosses and the old Teamster bureaucracy that fronts for them. The latter still has substantial control over the union apparatus on the local, regional, and national levels. They remain in position for blocking effective class action against the bosses.

Of course, the capitalist government, which for its own reasons gave a massive impetus to the democratization of the Teamsters, can also be counted upon to block the union from Closing date:

DEC. 30, 1991 taking the road to effective class struggle policies-and will try to smash it if necessary.

What road ahead?

The Carey/TDU leadership, consequently, will be sharply tested in the period ahead. We can expect that this will take some time to unfold. Which road the Teamsters take, and how fast they go, will be greatly affected in the first place by the deepening economic crisis.

But in the last analysis, the course of these events will be decisively affected by the role of class-conscious workers in the industry. The developing crisis of capitalism will give greater weight to the role of class-struggle militants, who can offer a clear alternative to Teamsters in opposition to the class collaboration strategy of the labor bureaucracy.

The certainty that class conscious workers will decisively affect the course of the class struggle in the period ahead is solidly based on historical experience. In every period of rising class struggle throughout American history, it was socialist-minded workers who led the class as a whole to make its biggest gains. This is primarily because revolutionary socialists reject restricting workers' needs to what capitalists can afford.

The subordination of workers interests to profitability-"to save jobs by keeping our employer in business"-has been imposed on the working class by the encrusted bureaucracy heading the AFL-CIO and other unions.

The top labor officials see the unions as a business providing them with a style of living worthy of a corporate executive. They see themselves, literally, in partnership with the bosses. They rationalize their class collaborationism by falsely insisting that workers and bosses have common economic interests.

Almost all workers are infected, to one degree or another, by this misconception. Even radicalizing militants, like many in the new leadership of the Teamsters, cannot help but be affected by the false notion that the interests of workers and bosses are linked by the relationship between exploited and exploiter.

But bitter experiences will multiply in the months and years ahead that will force more and more working people to see through the delusion that the welfare of workers is dependent on, and subordinate to, the good and welfare of the capitalists.

The role of socialists The role of class-conscious workers becomes most important in periods of capitalist crisis, such as the one now unfolding. Socialists have led every march forward by the working class.

In the 19th century and in most of the first half of the 20th century, socialists led the struggle for an ever-shorter workweek, higher pay, better working conditions, and industrial unionism-which was a giant step toward uniting all workers regardless of skill, race, sex, and creed.

Moreover, socialists from the time of Eugene V. Debs, have been, and are now in the front ranks of those who struggle for a break from the capitalist political parties and advocate building an independent mass revolutionary workers' party. Without such a political instrument, the workers