What is a General Strike?

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5) Reduce the workweek to 30 hours with no cut in pay, and cut the retirement age to 55. Provide unemployment and retirement payments at We propose an EMERGENCY CONGRESS OF LABOR to discuss and 6) To combat inflation: A sliding scale of wages and pensions that match1) Bail out the people, not the bankers! Open the account books of the es the rises in comsumer prices. To combat high medical costs: A free, banks to full public inspection. Nationalize the banks to be supervised by 7) Immediate citizenship for all undocumented workers. No job discrimi2) No foreclosures! No forced evictions! Cancel usurious debt payments, nation; equal pay for equal work — regardless of gender, sexual orientaand reduce mortgage payments in proportion to their capitalist-caused 8) Nationalize manufacturing, big agribusiness, energy, and transporta3) Full employment at union wages! An emergency public works program tion corporations and place them under the control of elected committees to employ all jobless workers and youth! Employ people to build what we need — low-cost quality housing, efficient mass transportation, cheap and 9) To mobilize support for the demands it adopts, the EMERGENCY renewable sources of power, schools, clinics — and to conserve our water, CONGRESS should organize ACTION COMMITTEES in every workplace and neighborhood threatened by the crisis. These committees can draw up 4) Immediate and full withdrawal of U.S. troops and mercenaries from Iraq & Afghanistan! Close all U.S. bases abroad! No money for the military 10) To put all these measures into effect, we need a LABOR PARTY — — use funds instead for public works! Convert the war industries to mak- based on a fighting union movement and all people who are oppressed Socialist Action (ISSN 0747-4237) is published monthly by Socialist Action Publishing Association, P.O. Box 10328, Oakland, CA 94610.

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Lately, with the growth of the Occupy movement, there’s been a lot of talk about the general strike as a weapon of the class struggle. The Occupy Oakland port shutdown on Nov. 2 was referred to as a one-day general strike. And various Occupy sites around the United States talked about calling a general strike for May Day 2012.

We are all for the re-introduction of the general strike as a tactic in the working-class arsenal but must pose the questions—what is a general strike and how is it organized?

The general strike, as a tactic, is common enough in other parts of the world. For instance, there have been recent one-day general strikes in Greece, Spain, and Portugal (among others), plus the massive one-day general strike in India of some 100 million workers in February. There are examples in U.S. labor history too—the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, Seattle in 1919, or the San Francisco longshore strike in 1934.

Tom Kerry discussed the Seattle General Strike of 1919 as part of a series of lectures he delivered in 1976 on U.S. labor history. Kerry was a long-time socialist, trade unionist, and leader of the Socialist Workers Party.

Kerry pointed out that “a general strike is social dynamite with a burning fuse. The question immediately arises: Where does the power of decision reside in matters concerning the life of the city? Who is to police the city? The cops are not viewed as ‘friends’ of the strike; to the contrary, their role is that of chief strikebreakers for the boss class. The union strike committee must establish its own police force. How is the city to be fed? What institutions are to be permitted to remain open?

Editor: Michael Schreiber Canada Editor: Barry Weisleder Name Address Phone E-mail “And who is to supervise those permitted to operate? It is impossible to detail here all of the problems that are immediately posed.”

Ultimately, the general strike poses the question of • Ashland, Ore.: [email protected] • Boston: [email protected] (781) 630-0250 • Carrboro, N.C.: (919) 967-2866, [email protected] • Chicago: P.O. Box 578428 Chicago, IL 60657, [email protected] • Connecticut: (860) 478-5300 • Duluth, Minn.: [email protected]. www.thenorthernworker.blogspot.com • Florida: [email protected] • GRAND RAPIDS, MICH.: [email protected] • Kansas City: [email protected] (816) 221-3638 • LOUISVILLE / LEXINGTON, KY.: [email protected], (502) 451-2193 • Madison, Wis.:

[email protected] • Mankato, Minn.:

[email protected] • Minneapolis/St. Paul: (612) 802-1482, [email protected] which class holds power; it is a political as well as an economic strike. Kerry says: “Alongside the regularly established governmental power and its apparatus, there comes into existence the general strike committee with its apparatus, to establish a form of dual power. The dynamic of the dual power is that more and more the strike council is compelled to take over the functions of the state.

“A situation of dual power cannot, by its very nature, exist for long. It must be resolved by the hegemony of one or the other of the great contending classes. One or the other must prevail.”

In past years, unfortunately, we have heard the general strike tactic reduced to a formula that is repeated by left sectarians almost by rote: “A general strike to free Mumia,” or “a general strike to end the war(s).” While it’s true that a general strike could accomplish these tasks, you can’t just suck a major action by the working class out of your thumb.

A general strike is a serious matter for revolutionaries, as are all other methods of working-class mobilization. These include strikes, occupations of workplaces and public spaces, and mass marches. The general strike must be approached seriously and be prepared through patient, systematic work in the working class and its institutions. n Are YOU a new reader of Socialist Action newspaper?

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Another look at the ILWU Longview strike Real victories in today’s labor movement are few and far between. Indeed, there are none over the past 40 years or so, especially in the U.S., that were powerful enough to stop the crisis-ridden system of exploitation and oppression in its tracks and open the door for a labor offensive capable of inspiring millions to take on the bosses head on and win.

The very modest “victories” that we have seen have been at best partial. Most have consisted of defensive battles aimed at preventing the worst of the ruling-class efforts to roll back the major advances of the past and keep a semblance of the hard-won gains that were codified in union contracts.

To challenge the worldwide and all-pervasive capitalist offensive today requires a qualitatively higher level of working-class organization, solidarity, and leadership than currently exists or has ever existed. But history demonstrates time and again that, while no one can predict where or when the first major battles will take place, when they do break out they will involve a fundamental break with the past—including the formation of new working-class organizations, new alliances with the oppressed, a qualitatively revitalized and expanded trade-union movement born of splits and unifications, and the emergence of a new and fighting leadership armed with a program to win and dedicated to taking on the boss class and all its institutions.

The hammer blows inflicted today will inevitably give rise to an unprecedented fightback, which will shake the very foundations of the capitalist system itself. In the meantime, it is essential that socialists prepare the organizational and political ground to help lead the 99 % when their growing consciousness of the source of their misery begins to crystallize and real victories are within reach.

It is in this context that a second look is in order at the hard-fought battle of Washington state ILWU Local 21 members to defeat the concerted union-busting efforts of multi-billion-dollar grain exporters, local and state police, reactionary courts, and an Obamaordered Coast Guard military mobilization.

“ILWU Local 21 Victory! Longview port workers set an example for the entire labor movement” was the headline of an account by this writer of Local 21’s heroic struggle that ended in late February 2012 with a union contract. Unfortunately, when we went to press, the terms of the contract were still unknown. We did know that ILWU Local 21 had won a contract—one that the boss class sought to deny them as part of their long-term effort to challenge the unionization of West Coast ports. We knew that all scabs had been removed from the new $200 billion, state-of-the-art ENG Corporation’s grain facility in Longview and that the intended scab ship, its scab tug boat, and Obama-ordered Coast Guard escorts had departed from the region. We knew that Local 21 members were to be hired at the previously scab-operated facility.

Most important, we knew that this was achieved beginning with the mobilization of Local 21’s ranks, a small group of some 250 members, only some 40 of whom were slated to work at the new plant. ILWU members from the unionized ports in Seattle, Portland, and other nearby areas aided them.

These courageous workers gave an accounting of themselves that inspired sections of the labor movement and its allies. In pitched battles, scab-operated trucks and trains loaded with grain from the nation’s heartland were challenged and/or stopped dead. Tons of grain were dumped onto the tracks. The forces of repression were challenged head on, and sometimes with firm “movement away to safety” by the fighting union ranks. In court the employers later called this “kidnapping.”

The boss retaliated with mass force, arresting hundreds. Fines exceeding $1 million were levied. The workers responded with appeals sent nationwide for support and solidarity. Labor councils throughout the immediate area and beyond responded with reinforcements and financial aid, as did the ILWU top leadership—the latter mostly in toothless proclamations whose militant language often masked stern warnings against extending the Longview struggle to all West Coast ports.

Local 21’s fighters were given critical boosts when the Oakland Occupy movement twice shut down the Oakland port in solidarity and successfully mobilized to close ports in other cities as well. About 20,000 mobilized by Occupy Oakland closed that port for a day. The combination of union and Occupy forces, especially in Oakland, Seattle and Portland, proved to be decisive when a national mobilization was, in effect, jointly called to meet the government-escorted scab ship sent to load grain from the Longview facility.

It was only at this point that Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire, who had rejected union efforts to mediate some dozen times, decided, obviously in collaboration with the Obama administration, that it was not to their advantage to risk the spectacle of thousands of workers and their allies confronting federal, state, and local police and related militarized forces. In the context of an angry working class, with a clearer focus than in decades on the culpability of the ruling rich in their misery, government officials, headed by Gregoire, decided that their chances of inflicting a major blow against the ILWU were greater at the bargaining table than on the picket lines. In that manner, a negotiated “settlement” was reached.

It took weeks for the terms of the settlement to become widely known, and indeed, the details continued to be negotiated long after scabs were ordered from the plant, the union pickets were taken down, and the government’s forces of repression were removed.

The final contract, approved by the ranks (by all reports) under threat of reprisal from the ILWU bureaucracy should it be rejected, were quite different than most workers and their allies had expected. ILWU Local 21 was recognized as the bargaining agent, and a contract was signed, but it was far different and qualitatively weaker than the contracts of most ILWU locals in the grain handlers’ industry.

While most ILWU locals have a union hiring hall to dispatch workers in seniority order to the workplace, the contract was not at all clear about where final authority on this issue resided. The contract excluded ILWU members from working in the new facility’s central control room, a contract provision previously insisted on by Local 21.

The hated 12-hour or perhaps 12 1/2-hour shift was included in the new contract. While some locals had already acceded to this shift, it was far from the norm in the industry. Equally important, the new contract did not include an “amnesty clause,” the traditional agreement in ILWU contracts that all company charges against union members would be dropped. Worse still, the contract’s expiration date was set so as to not coincide with ILWU locals in the same industry. Thus, the bosses achieved their first fracturing of the bargaining unit. This always operates to the detriment of any union local because it is compelled to negotiate without the combined power of the entire union behind it.

The above concessions were extracted from Local 21 members under pressure from their “international” leadership, whose role in the long battle more Don Ryan / AP Tony Savino / Socialist Action (Above) ILWU striker Mike Fuqua speaks to UNAC national conference on March 24.

(Left) A union worker blocks a grain train in Longview, Wash., in September 2011.

often than not was to thwart the full mobilization of the ILWU ranks—citing their “obligations” under the “slave-labor” Taft Hartley law—in support of Local 21. This included warnings and threats of reprisals against ILWU locals that collaborated with Occupy groups. Some ILWU local officers went so far as to act as thugs in efforts to break up or disrupt Portland and Seattle Occupy meetings that had been called to mobilize solidarity for Local 21 when the scab ship was expected to arrive.

What Local 21 and its leadership had achieved on the picket lines up and down the state, and in Longview, was in significant part undone by ILWU’s hidebound bureaucracy. In the end, the significantly demobilized Local 21, threatened with million-dollar fines that the ILWU tops implied or stated would not be paid, saw no alternative but to accept the settlement, in great part negotiated by the international in collaboration with the anti-union Washington governor.

One of Local 21’s proudest and most courageous rank-and-file fighters, Mike Fuqua, was invited to be a keynote speaker at the recent Stamford, Conn., conference of the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC). The hundreds of activists in the hall accorded Fuqua a standing ovation. Virtually everyone saw him as the expression of a union local that had stood firm against great odds and at great risk to the bosses’ offensive. Fuqua, one of the few Local 21 activists who voted against the contract, was a living example of working people who stand up to challenge the insults that are inflicted daily, and who fight to win.

Fuqua termed the settlement a “partial victory,” stemming not so much from of the terms of the contract, but because of the fighting spirit and unity of the ranks, which was transmitted across the country. It was far better to have fought a good fight and lost than to have not fought at all—a maxim that will ring true in the initial skirmishes today that will lead to the major class battles ahead. n Minneapolis May Day march On May 1, people gathered in the Latino neighborhood of Minneapolis and marched through the main immigrant business sector, to end at a local park for a rally. Police estimated 2000 participants (compared to 400 last year). The crowd was probably about one-third Latino immigrants.

MIRAc (the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee) spent over three months organizing the march. There were over 50 endorsing organizations, including unions (AFSCME, HERE, SEIU, UTU, and others).

Aztec dancers led the march. The marchers made stops along the route to target local campaigns, including Kmart (where cleaning workers are organizing), Wells Fargo, the police precinct, and the local DMV (where immigrants are organizing a campaign for a municipal ID).

The rally included speakers from the Latino, Asian, and Somali immigrant communities, Occupy, Committee to Stop FBI Repression, unions, and other activist groups. — LISA LUINENBURG Socialist Action may 2012 3

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the Laborers Union, 1199 SEIU, the Professional Staff Congress, and the United Federation of Teachers. Activists on the ground saw the union leadership as giving May Day less than a full effort, despite pledges of The march ended with a short rally near Wall St. at an office of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). The MTA is threatening Local 100, Teamster commuter rail workers, and others with contract zeros, massive concessions, and possible layoffs. Last year, the MTA paid out over $2 billion in debt payments to Wall Street banks and wealthy owners of MTA Bonds, most of whom are paid in tax-free income by mostly Many of the May Day marchers were immigrant workers who are fighting discrimination and for full legalization. The crucial role of immigrants’ labor was on full display in 2006, when one to two million workers, mostly immigrants, protested or simply walked off the job on May 1—the biggest strike-protest in U.S. history!

Under the Obama administration there have been more deportations than ever. The limited immigrant turnout on May Day was due in part to NYPD and media-hyped threats of violence, stoking fears of deportation. Moreover, immigrant leaders loyal to the Democratic Party refused to mobilize. Nevertheless, hundreds of immigrant rights activists from many countries gathered for a noon to 4 p.m. rally and cultural event in Union Square sponsored by the May 1 Results fell short of the projected “99 Pickets” for May Day but there were dozens of militant actions. Protesters were dispatched from Bryant Park in Midtown, where OWS set up a home base for literature tables, food, and teach-ins. A morning picket at the Bank of America Tower, Chase Bank, and other symbols of the 1% drew hundreds. Rank-and-file postal workers, who face up to 200,000 layoffs nationally, held a modest Roving picket lines were organized by the Restaurant Organizing Committee (ROC) in support of the mostly immigrant workers who face discrimination and low wages. Demonstrators picketed several Midtown resTony Savino / Socialist Action money and resources. working-class riders. Coalition for Worker and Immigrant Rights.

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