MidNotes on Jay, Maine

Alot of this I feel like we know--centralized, hierarchical unions will sell out their own members and stifle militancy on the ground to ensure their legitimacy in the eyes of the bosses or the law, the need for horizontal organizing and grassroots solidarity, the importance of stopping production during a strike (the sit down strike, sabotage!!!), need for industrial organizing and industrial contracts, union democracy, etc

Things I want to talk about:

1) How unions were fucked during the 80's and how this should inform our organizing now.

2) Working class environmentalism--pg 50, 51: In discussing environmentalism I come up against two arguments:
a)electoral politics - from the liberals
b)'direct action' earth-first arguments from leftists/activists/dirty primmos and hippies.
Of course the obvious response is that environmental issues are working class issues and that part of the class struggle is protecting the planet globally and protecting our communities locally. And that this must be done thru direct action. When pressed for examples of how and when this has occurred my immediate responses usually involve the Australian green bans or a vague notion of green syndicalism. But, the role of workers--or rather their wives--in this piece does make for some interesting discussion. Particularly, how can addressing environmental issues--from a distinctly working class perspective--help to re-invigorate and re-legitimize the labor movement.

3) The role of 'campaigns' in a labor struggle--pg 48: This one is esp important for the IWW and the contemporary labor movement in general. Granted, I get the feeling the Prol-piece is going to get into this, but is the 'campaign' tactic that many unions have undertaken in the past few decades a cause or a symptom of lull in explicit class consciousness?

4) Has anyone actually dealt with scabs? What it the scab mentality? Anti-union right-wingers? Desperate jobseekers? A broad question, I know, but as the union grows we will eventually have to face scabs again and having strategies for dealing with them--which means understanding them--is a good thing to have in advance.

5) Finally, on the author's note on pg 53, apparently Riker made a documentary about the strike. We should see where and if we can get ahold of that (I've already checked the internet). I e-mailed midnotes once already, but I'm going to try again and I'm going see if copies of the video are still floating around somewhere.

Scan read the article (been realy busy!) so have no in depth responce.

But in reply to ncwobs comments

1) It is worth considering again the nature of unions in the present day - i.e. fully intergrated into capitalism. The unions only exist to negotiate the terms of exploitation. This is the contradiction we have to deal with in the IWW.

Short of time but maybe point 3 can be addressed in the reading of prol-position piece.

PS. got new passwords for T&P so hopefully back up soon!

the article was superb, i enjoyed reading it. how the people live beside scabs after it is all over is an interesting thought. the union tried but failed the people by the end, they should have taken it out on the road sooner to other mills. i think the coming together of the people is an important result to.

Warning: this is kind of long and rambling

Agree entirely, but I was thinking in response to trying to convince people of the immediate benefit of joining unions. Example: in my own organizing I try to touch on the bread and butter issues first, i.e. we can fight together for better wages. Once you've reached someone on something they can directly relate to--their paycheck--it become easier to help them develop a bit more radical understanding of the world. You can't just jump into the "the problem with traditional unions is that they seek merely to negotiate the terms of exploitation under capitalism. If unions were not so fully integrated into the capitalist system, we would see that the true power of a union like the IWW rests in its revolutionary potential to free workers from the chains of wage slavery..." But, as the article points out, there was a time when even the integrated unions did see their members rec'd better wages and benefits. This is not so true today. The reasons for this are pretty obvious: the loss of militancy and democracy within unions themselves, the concerted union-busting campaigns of the last 30-odd years, and the loss of the manufacturing base most unions operated in. But this does make out role as organizers harder. I know here in the states they are really ratcheting up the anti-union propaganda (which in itself merits examination) and they love to point out that union jobs really don't pay much more than non-union jobs anymore. And they're not entirely wrong. The concessionary contracts accepted by business unions have undermined the most basic functions of unions: benefits and wages. And, for better or for worse, this the understanding many workers have of all unions. There is no memory or understanding of union militancy. So when people object to unions as just another business that wants money from their paycheck, you're in this awkward position of saying "Yeah, that's true with 90% of the unions in the US, but we're different." In a way you're having to counter company propaganda that is in a lot of ways true. And as much as I love my IWW, we haven't had any major organizing successes in quite a long time so it becomes hard to offer ourselves as a viable alternative to the business unions.

Anyway, not to make this all negative, I'm just being realistic concerning my own organizing experience. I also live in the most anti-union state in America. (North Carolina was recently called out by the UN for breaking basic worker rights regarding collective bargaining.) So, the point of my initial post was that if we should be able to demonstrate to prospective members that it took a concerted effort during the 80's--by both capital and the state--to undermine contracts that provided a "privileged deal" to the workers and the company. Once we do this, we could show that at one time unions--even non-radical ones--did provide a benefit to their workers. The IWW just goes way above an beyond that.

Got a few points in responce to ncwob, going to post them up on T&P..