[It has now been over a year since…]

Scan page 11

It has now been over a year since its failure to actually run candida Labor Party Advocates (LPA) began its initiate "big" conferences, or e agitational campaign for a labor party improve its technical functioning. based on the unions. Its central leader if Mazzocchi were to act on these and public spokesperson, Tony Mazzoc- cisms, it is doubtful that his e chi, has spoken to union and citywide alone-he is the only prominent meetings across the country. With few official now promoting this g exceptions, his meetings have been or- would make any measurable differe ganized by various left or socialist There are several more readily ap groups. They have universally failed to reasons why the response to LP attract any significant sectors of the rank been so modest. and tile. First, and most important, LPA The meetings usually attract an assort- a product of a real fightback in the ment of left and socialist groups, a few of labor. Real moves in the direct officials who have given lip service to a break with capitalist politics a LA, and a few local activists involved advance toward a labor party will The small size of these meetings take the field of action in the eco essentially reflects the very low level of arena. Such a course of action wi working-class combativity. In most them from the outset into conflic cases, real efforts were made to publicize the capitalist state and all its repre Mazzocchi's meetings within the broad tives. labor movement. In New York City, a A fighting labor movement—a claimed distribution of 30,000 leaflets, ment that breaks with the deca many to union members, resulted in an class-collaborationist union pol overall retreat of the working class as a whole-and the unionized sector in particular-in the face of the employer offensive. With a few notable exceptions, the retreat occurred without a fightback.

Workers, stunned by the attacks, were at the same time cautious about entering the field of struggle-especially when it appeared there was still room to retreat and survive. But this "room" has narrowed considerably in the past period, as the ruling class—despite carefully calculated efforts to avoid big confrontations with the major industrial centers of working class power—is compelled to attempt to raise its rate of profits by further reducing the general standard of living.

The idea that concessions could be recouped in the future-perhaps with the next upturn or that the decline in wages and working conditions could be absorbed with perhaps a modest extension of the work day, a bit more overtime, working a few more days, a profit-sharing plan, or perhaps the additional income of a spouse or other member of the family unit all tended to militate against an immediate The decades-long relative stability of world capitalism, albeit marked as it was in several countries of Europe by occasional outbursts of working class struggle, tended to dampen the prospects for revolutionary socialists in the imperialist centers and in the United States in particular.

It appears that this period of relative stability is coming to a close. The capitalist margins for manipulation of the economy to postpone major confrontations with decisive industrial sectors of the working class have narrowed considerably.

Significantly, the hard-nose approach of the Caterpillar Corp. to the striking United Auto Worker (UAW) members last April, is one important sign that the U.S. rulers are preparing for a showdown with the still-powerful unions based in industry.

And the fact that the UAW misleadership capitulated to Caterpillar, when the employer threatened to hire replacement workers, is another confirmation that a LPA's Tony Mazzocchi in union affairs. audience of 100. Smaller meeting place in most other cities.

Meetings for Mazzocchi organiz local labor unions have resulted in est to good rank-and-file attenc depending on the caliber of those ists responsible for these meetings We note in this regard that thei vast difference between the express rank-and-tile sentiment tor a labor and a willingness to take the first nizational steps toward this goal one thing to record an affirmativ in an LPA-sponsored opinion poll a conversation at the union hall quite another to take concrete toward independent political action Socialist Action rejects the crit of Mazzocchi's "leftist" critics th minimal response to his efforts th is a product of LA's lack of a pr from the struggles of the ranks a

Scan page 12

ishington, D.C. on the first Solidarity reased attacks on working people.

new union leadership will have to forged if the capitalist offensive is to smashed.

But workers will not lightly enter the field of battle in decisive showdowns with the employers. They are aware of the stakes involved, of the power of the employers, and of the fact that they will receive little or no support from their misleaders. Yet, more and more, they will become aware that there is no alternative to struggle. To do less means being driven back further into despair and unacceptable economic hardship.

The trade union bureaucracy The 1991 AFL-CIO-sponsored mobilization of 325,000 workers in Washington, D.C., on Solidarity Day (Aug. 31, 1991) indicated both the deepening discontent of workers, and the still-existing capacity of the trade-union bureaucracy to play its historic role as the "lieutenants of capitalism" in the workers' movement.

In this regard, it should be noted that the current misleadership of the unions has achieved a level of betrayal unmatched in previous generations. Its still firm grip on the unions has been accompanied by unprecedented efforts to integrate the unions into the institutions of the capitalist state.

It will require a mobilization of the ranks on a scale matched by, if not greater than, the mobilizations that launched the industrial union movement and the CIO in the 1930s to remove this parasitic growth on the workers' movement.

The level of bureaucratization in the unions is accompanied by an unprecedented level of corruption. The ruling class is totally familiar with this phenomenon and in fact has consciously cultivated it for decades.

This corruption serves a two-fold purpose for the employers. First, it usually results in "sweetheart contracts" in which workers' interests are secretly traded for under-the-table payoffs to union officials. The short-term benefit to the bosses is always greater than the cost of the underthe-table payoffs.

But even more valuable to the employers is the longterm benefit resulting from the fact that the acceptance of bribes forever hangs over the head of bribe-takers. The future threat of exposure and possible imprisonment effectively locks the corrupt union official in the bosses' hip pocket.

In some construction trades, decades of class collaboration and givebacks have combined with the overall longterm depression in the industry to reduce the number of working tradespeople to a fraction of past union membership.

The spectacle of extremely high-paid bureaucrats presiding over union locals with many fewer members has become commonplace. It is clear that union dues are insufficient to pay their salaries. Union activity among these layers often consists of internecine warfare, such as raids on other unions, to retain their fiefdoms.

It is not unlikely in this period that many local unions will disappear outright or—as is more and more the case in the construction trades, rail, and elsewhere— the weaker locals will be absorbed in raids from larger union bodies. The result of the decades of relatively unchallenged rule by today's bureaucracy is a continuing decline in the percentage of unionized workers.

Industrial unions still decisive Despite this decline, however, the decisive power of the industrial unions remains intact. The industrial unions in the heartland of American industry retain full capability to bring the economy to a grinding halt, as was spectacularly shown during the first few days of the shortlived, and leaderless, railroad workers' stoppage last year.

The increase in the number of union officials getting the boot from the rank and file, highlighted by the wholesale ouster of the corrupt top national leadership of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, is another indication of growing discontent in the trade union movement.

Similar ousters were registered in the rubber workers union and in the rail unions following the capitulation of the union bureaucracy to the government's imposition of a rail contract granting the employers virtually all of their major demands.

The top leaders of the rail unions had been in office for decades. Last summer, the national conventions of the three major rail unions ousted their top leaders.

These events in rail, coupled with those in the Teamsters [see box on page 10] and elsewhere, have sent shockwaves through the bureaucracy. Their incapacity to offer any solution to the mounting employer attacks—other than reliance on the Democratic Party—is more widely understood than ever before by the rank and file.

But the eviction of a growing number of discredited bureaucrats in rail and in other unions has yet to be accompanied by the emergence of a fightback layer, or a class-struggle left wing. It is one thing to vote an official out of office; it is quite another to develop a class-struggle leadership.

The government/employer attack in rail is an instructive example of what they have in store for workers in the key industrial unions. In the epoch of imperialist decay, Trotsky explained, even the mere existence of independent trade unions cannot be tolerated by a ruling class that is ever more compelled to exercise total control over every aspect of capitalist production. The trade unions, he explained, become-through the bureaucracy-mere appendages of the capitalist state.

To the extent that the bureaucracy stands in the way of a real fight against the employers, increasing numbers of the rank and file will learn in the concrete about the bureaucrats' role as labor lieutenants for the employers.

Linking with natural allies In summary, the industrial unions will be decisive in the coming struggles. But a genuine class-struggle orientation means that every sector of the class must be brought into the struggle.

The industrial unions, powerful as they are, are not enough to overcome capitalist power. As the confrontation between the industrial working class and the employers heats up, a new leadership will emerge that realizes that they have to reach out to their natural allies-the unemployed, the unor-

----- pull-quotes -----

can workers 10 OW