U.S. Labor Party?

Axl Van Sixx

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Recently I've been paying a lot of attention to the Campaign for a Mass Party of Labor. It was started by a bunch of American activists as a way to get the idea of a real mass labor party into the American consciousness. The organizers don't claim that the CMPL will be the nucleus of an eventual American labor party, they just want to get the idea out there.

I think it's a long-overdue concept and I was wondering what everybody here thinks about it. The United States government has reached record lows in terms of approval ratings. It's become more and more obvious to everyone that the Democrats and Republicans are both bought and paid for by Big Business, oblivious to the concerns of the vast majority of the population (while the Dems play the "good cops", pretending to care about health care, social inequality, etc., and the Repubs are the "bad cops", laying bare the real wishes of the business elite, it's all kabuki theatre designed to disguise the fact that they're working for the same people).

The labor unions have some hefty financial resources at their disposal - not much compared to the big banks and corporations, but enough to make a difference. Unfortunately, the corrupt union leadership has wasted its members' money by shilling for the Democrats every single election without fail. Given the complete failure of the Democrats to push for any of labor's concerns - starting with the Employee Free Choice Act - wouldn't that money be much better spent on a party that represented the real interests of labor? The beauty is that such a party would become a magnet for environmentalists, anti-war activists, and anybody else ignored by the two corporate-controlled legacy parties.

Thoughts?
 
Unions have already screwed us up enough over the past 2 decades.....god help us all, if they actually bring in another party to their ranks besides the Democratic party...
 
Unions have already screwed us up enough over the past 2 decades.....god help us all, if they actually bring in another party to their ranks besides the Democratic party...
 
Unions have a rather poor reputation in the United States to the point where a Labor Party would never get far. They are perceived as far too corrupt, incompetent, etc. Add in the fact that very little of the American workforce is unionized as opposed to the rest of the industrial world, that the Labor Party in the end represents the interests of very few Americans as opposed to the more broader Democrats and Republicans.

The biggest reason why the US has a two party system is often the Republicans and Democrats often absorb the party platforms of smaller parties and interest groups. It's why unions, environmentalists, etc. have gone to the Democratic Party and why libertarians, the Religious Right, etc. have gone to the Republican Party.
 
The biggest U.S. labour unions are corrupt and incompetent, but that's only because the leadership is happy with the current relationship with the Democratic Party. I have tons of complaints with the union bureaucracy, which - since it embraced anti-communism in the late 1940s - has indulged in the fantasy that workers and management somehow have the same interests. You can see how successful this strategy has been based on the seemingly never-ending cutbacks that unions have suffered over the last few decades.

Right now unions are on the defensive because the corporate media have successfully propagandized millions of Americans into believing that their economic problems are the fault of public sector union workers and their fat paycheques. Aren't we forgetting, you know, the Wall Street bankers who have received TRILLIONS in bailout funds from the U.S. government and used it to fatten their obscene bonuses? Unions are being made the scapegoat here.

The fact is that, whatever you think of unions, they are a net benefit for U.S. workers because they keep wages high and, indeed, push them higher for non-union workers as well. The problem of the corrupt leadership has to be dealt with, but don't be fooled into thinking that unions themselves are a problem. Without unions - and you can ask Scott Walker this, although I doubt he'd give you an honest answer - we'd be back in the age of the robber barons. Come to think of it, that's pretty much where we are now...
 
The biggest U.S. labour unions are corrupt and incompetent, but that's only because the leadership is happy with the current relationship with the Democratic Party. I have tons of complaints with the union bureaucracy, which - since it embraced anti-communism in the late 1940s - has indulged in the fantasy that workers and management somehow have the same interests. You can see how successful this strategy has been based on the seemingly never-ending cutbacks that unions have suffered over the last few decades.

Right now unions are on the defensive because the corporate media have successfully propagandized millions of Americans into believing that their economic problems are the fault of public sector union workers and their fat paycheques. Aren't we forgetting, you know, the Wall Street bankers who have received TRILLIONS in bailout funds from the U.S. government and used it to fatten their obscene bonuses? Unions are being made the scapegoat here.

The fact is that, whatever you think of unions, they are a net benefit for U.S. workers because they keep wages high and, indeed, push them higher for non-union workers as well. The problem of the corrupt leadership has to be dealt with, but don't be fooled into thinking that unions themselves are a problem. Without unions - and you can ask Scott Walker this, although I doubt he'd give you an honest answer - we'd be back in the age of the robber barons. Come to think of it, that's pretty much where we are now...

1. This is 2011, not 1911. Even without labor unions, society has evolved to the point where they wouldn't tolerate things such as unsafe working conditions, child labor, paying below a certain wage, etc.

2. You mention how labor unions keep wages high, and yet nowadays because we expect wages to be high, the American workforce has become uncompetitive in a globalized economy. Yeah, unions will keep wages higher, but in return corporations are just going to move those jobs to China, South Asia, and Latin America where workers there will work for lower pay. That is the biggest setback for unions nowadays, not because they went anti-Communist.

3. Unions are on the defensive now because of things such as high labor costs essentially causing the downfall of General Motors and Chrysler to the point where they were nationalized (and the government gave them shares in the new companies that succeeded them). And you have teachers unions protecting horrible teachers (Kel can go in full detail with that one) and being stubborn to reform in states like New York and New Jersey.

4. The media hasn't blamed unions for the economic downfall. They rightfully put a lot of the blame on the Wall Street fat cats that received trillions of dollars in bailout money. The American public hates them and deservedly so. Unions overall haven't been criminalized by the public. The general public doesn't have problems with the basic concepts of unions. The public has problems when public sector unions refuse to accept just as much hardship as the general public is while the general public are the ones paying their salaries and benefits, unions protecting incompetent workers, and of course unions such as the UAW causing and benefiting the auto industry's downfall.
 
And the history of unions going for lay offs rather than negotiating to salaries and benefits that companies and/or the state can actually sustain...

The Unions of today, ARE NOT the Unions of the early 20th century...not by a long shot.
 
1. This is 2011, not 1911. Even without labor unions, society has evolved to the point where they wouldn't tolerate things such as unsafe working conditions, child labor, paying below a certain wage, etc.

2. You mention how labor unions keep wages high, and yet nowadays because we expect wages to be high, the American workforce has become uncompetitive in a globalized economy. Yeah, unions will keep wages higher, but in return corporations are just going to move those jobs to China, South Asia, and Latin America where workers there will work for lower pay. That is the biggest setback for unions nowadays, not because they went anti-Communist.

3. Unions are on the defensive now because of things such as high labor costs essentially causing the downfall of General Motors and Chrysler to the point where they were nationalized (and the government gave them shares in the new companies that succeeded them). And you have teachers unions protecting horrible teachers (Kel can go in full detail with that one) and being stubborn to reform in states like New York and New Jersey.

4. The media hasn't blamed unions for the economic downfall. They rightfully put a lot of the blame on the Wall Street fat cats that received trillions of dollars in bailout money. The American public hates them and deservedly so. Unions overall haven't been criminalized by the public. The general public doesn't have problems with the basic concepts of unions. The public has problems when public sector unions refuse to accept just as much hardship as the general public is while the general public are the ones paying their salaries and benefits, unions protecting incompetent workers, and of course unions such as the UAW causing and benefiting the auto industry's downfall.

1. Depends what you mean by "society". Society is divided into classes. In the United States today you primarily have the working class, the small business owners, and the corporate elite - bankers, CEOs, politicians (Democrats and Republicans), and the leaders of what Chris Hedges called the "liberal class" - i.e. the heads of those liberal institutions such as the trade unions, the Democratic Party, the Church, the media and universities that have abdicated any kind of progressive leadership in favour of submission to and acquiescence in corporate power. All members of this elite are willing to make painful "sacrifices" on behalf of the workers they sometimes claim to represent (in this case, the union leadership). The only reason things came to a head in Wisconsin recently is because Gov. Walker threatened the right of collective bargaining, etc. which would have directly harmed the union leaders and their privileges. Otherwise, none of them had a problem with cutting wages of the rank-and-file during episodes like the auto bailout.

So right now we see the media, the union leadership, the corporate elite in general all willing to go along with the calls for austerity and cuts. The only counterforce are the workers themselves. I know you think these kinds of struggles are a thing of the past. But the truth is, everything that workers take for granted today - the eight-hour work day, no child labour, the minimum wage - they had to fight for. Big Business vehemently opposed the New Deal and, after the postwar Keynesian consensus evaporated in the 1970s, they were able to begin rolling back all the gains that workers had made, starting with Reagan's election. The U.S. political spectrum has moved ever rightward since then, and what were once seen as extreme right positions are now deemed "centrist". With Obama and the Republicans spearheading the latest assaults on workers, we're seeing rollbacks on everything, up to and including child labor laws.

2. This is the end result of globalization. By trying to bring U.S. wages down to a level comparable to their Asian counterparts, you're really encouraging a race to the bottom. The question is, why are wages on a world scale, in general, going down and not up? When the means of production are in private hands and everything is based on the generation of profit for a few people at the top, those owners will always want wages to be as low as possible in order to create more profit for themselves. If the workers themselves owned the means of production and produced goods for the benefit of society as a whole, you could enable a general rise in wages for the producers, i.e. the working class.

3. High labor costs didn't cause the downfall of the Big Three automakers; it was lousy management. While well-compensated unionized workers in Japan and Germany produced popular, fuel-efficient cars, the leadership of GM, Chrysler and Ford pushed gas-guzzling behemoths and failed to adapt. Their ineptitude led to the failure of their companies and the need for government bailouts (along with the fact that their financial divisions were heavily invested in the stock market and suffered from the general economic collapse in 2008).

The workers produced the cars, but they only made the cars the bosses told them to make. Who do you think knows more about cars, a worker on the floor at a GM plant or an Ivy League MBA who's never worked a job where he didn't wear a white collar? Put design in the hands of the people who actually make cars and I'm certain you'd get better results.

The teachers unions have been a scapegoat for a while. It's pretty ridiculous that in the era of the bailout, when billionaires swelled with the profit of bonuses paid by taxpayers can lecture workers on the need to make sacrifices and tighten their belts, we see "bad teachers" being targeted for their supposedly excessive wages and benefits. Because we all know your average first grade teacher only got in it for the big bucks, right? Please.

4. The media has moved on from the Wall Street fat cats. The dominant narrative since the initial shock of the economic collapse and the bailouts has turned to demonizing unions and powerless targets like the poor, immigrants, gays, etc. Obviously this is more true for right-wing media like Fox News, but the rest of the corporate media - until the tumultuous events in the Middle East and Japan forced them to cover real news - generally follows their lead (this includes "liberal" outlets like MSNBC...come on, what would all these commentators talk about if they weren't *****ing about Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, etc.?).

The idea of pitting private sector workers against public sector workers is a divide-and-conquer strategy. There's a joke that's been making the rounds lately that I think explains the actual situation pretty well:

A union worker, a member of the Tea Party, and a CEO are sitting at a table.
In the middle of the table there is a plate with a dozen cookies on it.
The CEO reaches across the table, takes 11 cookies, looks at the Tea
Partier and says:
"Look out for that union guy, he wants a piece of your cookie."
 
That is some strong kool aid you are drinking there...
 
That is some strong kool aid you are drinking there...

I get it, you're from Texas. But think about it, man. As imperfect as the unions obviously are, once you take away collective bargaining what's to prevent conditions from slipping back to an early 20th century level? Maybe you'll say government regulations, but again, those regulations are only a historical response by capitalist politicians to pressure from their organized and mobilized workforce.

A lot of people think of unions as a relic of the early industrial era. But I think we take for granted a lot of the rights workers enjoy today and which are currently being squeezed by the elite. I'll let the master himself explain it:

[YT]<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/acLW1vFO-2Q" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>[/YT]
 

koolaidoohyaicon949.jpg
 
I get it, you're from Texas. But think about it, man. As imperfect as the unions obviously are, once you take away collective bargaining what's to prevent conditions from slipping back to an early 20th century level? Maybe you'll say government regulations, but again, those regulations are only a historical response by capitalist politicians to pressure from their organized and mobilized workforce.

A lot of people think of unions as a relic of the early industrial era. But I think we take for granted a lot of the rights workers enjoy today and which are currently being squeezed by the elite. I'll let the master himself explain it:

[YT]<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/acLW1vFO-2Q" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>[/YT]

No, not all workers enjoy those rights.....I have been teaching for 20 years WITHOUT collective bargaining, most teachers do....it is not needed. The fact that a governor who simply wanted teachers to pay 1.5% more into their insurance is said to be killing the teachers in his state? REALLY???? I pay a hell of alot more into my own insurance than New Jersey teachers do....and guess what, I'm fine with it...I actually "SURVIIIIIVE" In the state of New York alone, 1,000s of teachers were brought before the school board because of ineffective teaching in the classroom, breaking of policy, etc....7......S.E.V.E.N. were fired.....I'm sorry, but I do not believe FOR ONE MINUTE, that only 7 of the 1,000s were actually viable complaints against the teacher. DOES NOT COMPUTE, and that little story, happens in ALL STATES.

You want to know what is wrong with our education system? Teacher's unions....OOOOOH, and then of course the Teacher's Unions that would rather have their teachers laid off, rather than pay 1.5 % more into their insurance plans....

AS FAR AS WOULD WE SLIP BACK INTO THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY FACTORIES.... damn man, have some faith in the people, who cares if you have faith in the corporation owners....
 
No, not all workers enjoy those rights.....I have been teaching for 20 years WITHOUT collective bargaining, most teachers do....it is not needed. The fact that a governor who simply wanted teachers to pay 1.5% more into their insurance is said to be killing the teachers in his state? REALLY???? I pay a hell of alot more into my own insurance than New Jersey teachers do....and guess what, I'm fine with it...I actually "SURVIIIIIVE" In the state of New York alone, 1,000s of teachers were brought before the school board because of ineffective teaching in the classroom, breaking of policy, etc....7......S.E.V.E.N. were fired.....I'm sorry, but I do not believe FOR ONE MINUTE, that only 7 of the 1,000s were actually viable complaints against the teacher. DOES NOT COMPUTE, and that little story, happens in ALL STATES.

You want to know what is wrong with our education system? Teacher's unions....OOOOOH, and then of course the Teacher's Unions that would rather have their teachers laid off, rather than pay 1.5 % more into their insurance plans....

-When you say insurance, are you talking about health insurance? Sorry if I'm unfamiliar with the concept, given my free Canadian health care...

-The hoopla with Scott Walker in Wisconsin was the result of his threats to collective bargaining rights in general. The 1.5% hike, if we're talking about the same thing, would be incidental.

-Are you trying to say that more than 7/1000ths of those teachers should have been fired?

-I laughed out loud (good-naturedly) at your blaming teachers' unions for everything wrong with education in America today. Again, the government has been cutting education funding for years or privatizing aspects of it (that's the big threat on the horizon with Arne Duncan's charter schools). Blaming teachers, especially overworked ones in tough schools, is passing the buck.

AS FAR AS WOULD WE SLIP BACK INTO THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY FACTORIES.... damn man, have some faith in the people, who cares if you have faith in the corporation owners....

My whole political worldview is based on the fact that I have faith in "the people" (the vast majority of the people, i.e the working class) and no faith in private owners of corporations. That means that if things don't slip back to 20th century conditions, it's because workers fought back, NOT because the owners halted the trend towards slave wages out of some goodness of their hearts.
 
Actually I didn't even mention Wisconsin.....I was talking about New Jersey.

I actually think Walker totally screwed up what he was trying to do in Wisconsin, not fix the problem....but he wasn't an example I was using.
 
Actually I didn't even mention Wisconsin.....I was talking about New Jersey.

I actually think Walker totally screwed up what he was trying to do in Wisconsin, not fix the problem....but he wasn't an example I was using.
 
Teachers shouldn't have to pay more into their insurance plans at all. Where's that money from that increase going, anyway? Just more profit for the insurance company. Even if you're fine with that, a lot of people might not be.
 
Actually I didn't even mention Wisconsin.....I was talking about New Jersey.

I actually think Walker totally screwed up what he was trying to do in Wisconsin, not fix the problem....but he wasn't an example I was using.

I realized this after I posted. But yeah, I stand by what I said after that. And Walker did screw up, but there'll be more attacks on workers to come.
 
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Teachers shouldn't have to pay more into their insurance plans at all. Where's that money from that increase going, anyway? Just more profit for the insurance company. Even if you're fine with that, a lot of people might not be.

Paying a higher percentage =/= more profits for the health insurance company.

My company pays 60% of my health insurance expense. I pay the remaining 40%. If my health plan costs $100 a paycheck, that means that I have $40 taken out of my gross wages, and the company incurs $60 in Health Insurance Expense. If next week, the company decides to pay only 50%, that means that they start paying $50 and I pay $50 . . . but the health insurance company still gets $100.
 
Teachers shouldn't have to pay more into their insurance plans at all. Where's that money from that increase going, anyway? Just more profit for the insurance company. Even if you're fine with that, a lot of people might not be.

It is a benefit that the district pays any at all into our insurance, the average worker pays their entire insurance premium. I'm happy with my insurance policy, I do not have any problem paying into "my" insurance policy...I also do not want it to change to a government sanctioned plan simply because the government plan is cheaper...
 
Paying a higher percentage =/= more profits for the health insurance company.

My company pays 60% of my health insurance expense. I pay the remaining 40%. If my health plan costs $100 a paycheck, that means that I have $40 taken out of my gross wages, and the company incurs $60 in Health Insurance Expense. If next week, the company decides to pay only 50%, that means that they start paying $50 and I pay $50 . . . but the health insurance company still gets $100.

Thanks for clarifying. I guess I was wrong saying that the extra money goes to an insurance company, but the whole reason that rates are going up during the recession is still a result of the particular logic of capitalism. If workers are getting squeezed right now and having to pay more in insurance, it's because the businesses that employ them want to cut costs - and why? So they can maintain their profit margin in tough economic times by shifting some of that financial burden onto their employees.

It is a benefit that the district pays any at all into our insurance, the average worker pays their entire insurance premium. I'm happy with my insurance policy, I do not have any problem paying into "my" insurance policy...I also do not want it to change to a government sanctioned plan simply because the government plan is cheaper...

If you don't mind my asking...why wouldn't you want a cheaper plan if it provides the same service? The level of service would probably be even better, because the government wouldn't be constantly trying to increase profits by ****ing you out of coverage (essentially how the private health insurance system operates).

By all means correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the feeling that your antipathy to government health care might be ideological in nature. You want to have "choice" in your health insurance, even if all those choices are worse than a government plan. You worry about rationing, wait times, etc., even though Sarah Palin's infamous "death panels" already exist - in the form of boards at private insurance companies that decide who is and is not worthy of coverage, based upon BS metrics like "preexisting conditions".

I used to think it would be cool to move to the U.S. someday, but honestly, I definitely wouldn't want to do that now, and a big reason for that (among others) is Obama's health care plan. The idea of the individual mandate - that the government can force you to buy a crappy product from a private corporation - is an obscene infringement on personal liberty. Oddly enough, I find common ground with the Tea Party in my opposition to ObamaCare. Of course, they oppose it for the wrong reasons - they're being played for fools by the insurance companies. But it's such a horrible law, it's actually worse than nothing. It kicks the possibility of real health care reform down the road for another generation and makes the insurance companies even more powerful and entrenched than they were before.

The possibility of single-payer, or Medicare for All, was off the table from the beginning, as Obama held his secret backroom meetings with insurance CEOs, because there is no genuine progressive party in the United States government. A Labor Party that represented the interests of the broad majority would be able to advocate progressive policies like that.

Unions have a rather poor reputation in the United States to the point where a Labor Party would never get far. They are perceived as far too corrupt, incompetent, etc. Add in the fact that very little of the American workforce is unionized as opposed to the rest of the industrial world, that the Labor Party in the end represents the interests of very few Americans as opposed to the more broader Democrats and Republicans.

The biggest reason why the US has a two party system is often the Republicans and Democrats often absorb the party platforms of smaller parties and interest groups. It's why unions, environmentalists, etc. have gone to the Democratic Party and why libertarians, the Religious Right, etc. have gone to the Republican Party.

I forgot to address this post earlier. The fact of the matter is - and anyone from a Tea Partier to a communist will tell you this - the two legacy parties don't represent the majority of the American population. Now, who do they actually work for? They represent the interests of their campaign donors - large corporations and the wealthy. That's why most Americans hate their government: because it doesn't work for them and doesn't care about their interests.

Union membership is at a historical low in the U.S. right now because of decades of union-busting policies in the wake of the neoliberal consensus. Hopefully that will start to change in these increasingly revolutionary times. But a Labor Party shouldn't represent the interests of only union workers, because you're right, that would represent a minority of the American population. Rather, it would represent the working class in general, including the unemployed.

A Labor Party would basically be what the Democrats used to be, except better, because it would have fewer ties to Big Business. It would be the progressive party, the one that looks after the interests of people and not corporations. Activists currently shunned by the legacy parties - environmentalists, anti-war demonstrators, women's rights advocates, etc. - would be able to find a home in the Labor Party. By the way, if you think that these groups have a home in the Democratic Party, you haven't been paying enough attention. The corporate Democratic Party tacks left during primaries and then treats its base with contempt the rest of the time. You know, Democratic politicians make no bones about calling their base "****ing ******s" (Rahm Emanuel) who "ought to be drug-tested" (Robert Gibbs).
 
Union membership is at a historical low because jobs that are traditionally unionized like manufacturing have been outsourced overseas or simply laid off because companies like GM just can't afford it anymore.
 
That is some strong kool aid you are drinking there...
Boy, If I had said something like that you'd be all over me telling me to stop insulting the persons opinion and to give a counter arguement with my opinion.

I guess it's "Do As I Say, Not As I Do" with you, Huh?
 
Union membership is at a historical low because jobs that are traditionally unionized like manufacturing have been outsourced overseas or simply laid off because companies like GM just can't afford it anymore.

So it sounds to me like we have a choice here. We can believe that the most important thing is for management to have fat profits by getting the cheapest possible labour, or we can forge international links between workers to battle for universally higher wages. There's a contradiction between the desires of the owners (who want the lowest possible wages so they can have the highest possible profits) and the workers (who want higher wages so they can, you know, feed their families and live comfortable lives).

If we were to take your point of view, the only solution would be cutting the wages of workers in North America and Europe to a level comparable with Asian sweatshop workers. This is what happens when you internalize the view of management and the capitalist class. If you were to take the view of the workers, you might start to wonder why the vast majority of the human race has to put up with worse and worse conditions, lower and lower wages, while a few obscenely wealthy individuals at the top see their incomes go even higher on this basis of lower labour costs. You know, companies like GM might have a lot more money lying around if they hadn't pissed so much of it away on fat bonuses and multi-million dollar golden parachutes for their top executives. So now the workers have to pay for management's mistakes? **** that.

Boy, If I had said something like that you'd be all over me telling me to stop insulting the persons opinion and to give a counter arguement with my opinion.

I guess it's "Do As I Say, Not As I Do" with you, Huh?

I'm glad somebody said it! I put a lot of work into my posts and that one-line "response" about Kool-Aid, to me, means I effectively won the argument. I do welcome a proper exchange of ideas, if you have any...
 

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