20.10.2004

Learning lessons

In his regular column, Martin Schreader keeps us abreast of the US elections

In my previous columns, I have talked a lot about the capitalist parties, their candidates and positions. With less than two weeks to go before the election, now would seem to be a good time to talk about how independent and radicalised workers are reacting.

Last Sunday, October 17, the Million Worker March was held in Washington, DC. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union, the main dockworkers' union on the west coast, initiated the event, and organised it with the assistance of local unions and leftwing organisations across the country. The march put forward a series of concrete demands ranging from universal healthcare and abolition of restrictive anti-labour laws to democratic control of the media and the economy.

The immediate goal of the MWM, according to organisers, was to "gauge where workers are" - to see how many workers were open to a radical-democratic and socialist platform. The ultimate goal would have been to use the march as the basis for beginning to build a new political party of working people.

Thus, it is disappointing to report that, according to the most generous estimates, only about 50,000 people made it to the Lincoln Memorial for the event. But this is not the end of the story, and it would be a capital mistake to judge either the sentiment or radicalism of working people in the US based on this turnout. In fact, the story of the Million Worker March is a story of sabotage and betrayal. From the beginning the organisers had to fight not only the representatives of the two capitalist parties, but also the leaderships of the main trade union federation in the US, the AFL-CIO.

Shortly after the ILWU announced its intention to organise the march, an edict from the headquarters of the AFL-CIO was issued to all member unions. According to the AFL-CIO leaders, the Million Worker March interfered with their campaign to get the Democratic candidate, John Kerry, elected. Thus, unions were not only discouraged from endorsing and organising for the MWM, they were told in no uncertain terms that participating in the organising could jeopardise their standing in the federation. Nevertheless, hundreds of local branches, dozens of regional labour councils and a handful of national unions endorsed the march and assisted in the organisation.

As the day of the march came closer, however, and it looked like the MWM might be moderately successful, the AFL-CIO leadership took a harder line against those unions that were involved. According to several sources within local union leaderships, in the two weeks prior to the march, AFL-CIO functionaries were contacting union officials and threatening them with everything from financial strangulation to involuntary disaffiliation if they did not stop their activities.

The most sickening sabotage, though, took place on the day of the march itself. According to reports read from the platform at the event, dozens of buses bringing workers to Washington were diverted to Robert F Kennedy stadium, where agents from the Department of Homeland Security met them. Only a few of these buses bothered to continue on to the march; most of them simply turned around and headed back to their cities of origin.

While the level of conscious collaboration between the two is debatable, it seems more than a coincidence that the agents from Homeland Security knew which buses to stop. After all, the Million Worker March was not the only event happening in Washington on that day where people were coming in from across the country. Someone had to point them out; only representatives of the AFL-CIO could have done that.

This kind of collaboration, whether coordinated or merely parallel, however, is indicative of the political situation facing workers in the US today. Organising anything independently of the two main capitalist parties or the 'official' leaders of the labour movement is not only discouraged: it is actively opposed. And, as the experience of the Million Worker March shows, if it is something that looks like it could gather a mass following, it is sabotaged and attacked from all sides.

The lessons that working people can take away from the march are many. First, the position long held by revolutionary socialists and Marxists that the AFL-CIO leaders are wholly tied to the capitalist system - that the social-democratic leaders of the AFL-CIO are truly "labour lieutenants of capital" - was vividly confirmed. No long or storied lesson in the history of betrayals by the AFL-CIO was necessary for those who attended the march. Every worker present knew which side the labour officialdom was on - and it was not theirs.

The second lesson workers could take from the experience of the MWM is that the Democratic Party and its agents in the AFL-CIO are willing to work hand in hand with the most reactionary elements of the Bush regime and its armed enforcers to squelch independent action by working people. The fact that the AFL-CIO leadership was willing to go along with (if not endorse) the use of Homeland Security to stop working people from attending the march - especially a march organised by the only union to be threatened with imposition of the Taft-Hartley 'slave labour' law in the last 25 years - speaks volumes about whom they serve.

Finally, the best lesson those attending could take from their experience is that, even in spite of all of this sabotage and repression, working people will nevertheless stand up for their rights and interests. On this note, I am glad to report that the lesson was learned. The MWM coordinators met following the close of the event and have announced that there will be conferences organised in the coming spring, with an eye toward a second march next year.

The struggle continues, and this author is proud to be a part of it.