The Activist

Written by former YDS National Organizer, David Duhalde

In a classic and underrated Simpsons scene, we find Bart Simpson, who has broken his leg at his new pool, in his room. Unable to do much activity during his summer vacation, he consoles himself that he will still have his favorite TV program, Krusty the Klown, to watch for the season. He turns on the television only to unfortunately hear Krusty explain that he is going away for the summer, and that kids should enjoy Krusty “classic” interviews instead of the usual kid’s show. As a child, I giggled as Bart groans when a 1960s black and white program appears with Krusty interviewing a fat man with a funny voice named George Meany. Later, as a teenager, I appreciated that Meany was actually an important figure in the American labor movement from the mid-1950s through the late 1970s as head of the trade union federation, the AFL-CIO.

It wasn’t until I was a labor activist that I understood the brilliance of the two-lined interview scripted by the Simpsons‘ writers. Krusty asked “let me blunt: is there a labor crisis in America today?” To which Meany replied “Well, it depends what you mean by ‘crisis’…” While at the height of union membership in American history and the push by President Johnson towards “a great society,” the conservative and Cold War(rior) AFL-CIO leaders saw their main task as preserving the status quo. The crisis for them was the rise of the left, both at home and abroad, and movements against white and male dominance in society, including inside the trade union movement. Meany and his like did not view the crisis, as many would today, as growing corporate power poised to cripple unions, the potential for a dramatic reactionary political shift dismantling an already weak welfare state, and the need to bring underprivileged segments of American labor (both organized and unorganized) into unions and their leadership. So yes, it depends what you mean by crisis.

Bill Fletcher Jr. and Fernando Gasapin’s collaborative work, Solidarity Divided, is clear about what “crisis” means. Their book addresses various opinions on what strategies the American labor movement should undertake. While the authors find trouble in the current state of organized labor and believe that it is incomplete as a vehicle for social justice and progressive change, Solidarity Divided is not a one-track attack on American union leaders. The book provides both praise for the social good unions have done, while critiquing their leaders’ historic inept response to addressing racial and gender oppression both in and outside the labor movement. The authors’ socialist political perspectives offer insights that I believe are of value to YDSers and other socialists. Two particular passages caught my interest because of their explicit analysis of the role of socialists in American unions. I will provide my reflection below each passage and I hope to hear from others as well. While not explicitly mentioned in the book, the message is clear to me that we need a viable socialist organization the United States. In addition, the trade union movements needs an explicit democratic socialist presence, namely that of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Young Democratic Socialists (YDS).

In the chapter “Restlessness in the Ranks” (pages 128-9) the authors write:

The ideologizing of organizing in the trade union movement is a response to the collapse or absence (depending on one’s point of view) of a Left Project. The crisis of socialism - uncertainty about the best path toward creating a progressive, postcapitalist society – has been significant not just to Marxist-Leninist or communist Left but also to the social democrats and other people with leftist tendencies. For those on the left who in the trade union work one of the fronts (if not the principal front) for building class consciousness toward a project for socialism or postcapitalism, a void opened up beginning in the late 1970s, when significant questions were raised, practically and theoretically about a postcaptialist vision. Instead of launching a Left project against capitalism and for social justice, the crisis of socialism opened up the question of whether anything is capable of replacing capitalism.

For those who either did not wish to face this question or succumbed to feelings of defeat, the next question was what course of action was possible for people committed to improving the conditions of the working class. In giving up on the possibility of a progressive, postcapitalist project, segments of the left wing of labor tended to treat the organization workers into unions as the central project. Indeed, although the attacks on workers by capital made the building of working-class organizations, including but not limited to unions, a critical task, the urgency of this work obscured people’ recognition of the larger challenge of social justice. Those who would ideologize union organizing seemed, at least, at the first glance, to be on the cutting edge of trade union politics. Yet in abdicating a Left project to focus on the purity if organization, those who ideologized organizing began moving down a slippery slope. They seemed to have put on blinders that forced them to look at the world from a very narrow perspective.

Young labor activists today can hardly remember a time when the Soviet Union existed and China was actually considered to be “socialist,” not merely “Market-Leninist.” Even though social democrats and democratic socialists opposed bureaucratic-collectivist regimes like the Warsaw Pact states, few understood how much the collapse of the Soviet bloc would affect the democratic Left. The crisis of Stalinist states coincided with a new attack on the labor movement by corporate elites. The authors are correct that the work of progressives in building trade unions is connected to achieving social justice, while the strategy of fostering working-class organization as a prerequisite for achieving a postcapitalist future has been seriously called into question. Once Social Democracy and Communism were both in crisis, the hope for a better future that acted as a driving force for many committed leftists in organized labor was itself also in crisis.

As democratic socialists we must collectively respond to this crisis. First, we must constantly build an anti-capitalist and radically democratic presence both in and outside the labor movement. We need to connect the work of trade unions, their members, and supporters to non-union movements for social justice and democracy in society. Within trade unions we must struggle for internal democracy and a left-wing orientation. Outside the unions we need to combat the dominant pro-corporate ideology in American society. As long as neoliberalism remains “common sense” trade unions will be viewed as special interests; our task is to make clear how trade union power lifts up the living standards of all workers.

Second, we must push for unions to work to empower the entire working class through  their own actions. Support, even tactically, of backroom sweetheart deals between labor and capital is what I found so problematic in Andrew Holt Williams’ review of A Country that Works by Andy Stern. Socialists understand that union members are more militant and committed to organized labor as a whole if the workers themselves win elections, contracts, and strikes. If labor leaders merely want to cut deals with businesses for union representation, they run the risk of alienating workers from active struggle and weakening the loyalty of members to their unions. If you are interested in building worker organizations that will be effective tools in fighting capitalism, you have to be serious about putting workers in the lead of organizing.

Thirdly, socialists need to move beyond the failures of Marxism-Leninism and Social Democracy. We need to articulate new plans and strategies for building a mass democratic socialist movement. While new hope comes from Latin America, we must remain conscious that U.S. politics, history, and culture do not allow us to simply duplicated the work (and success) of foreign comrades. But reviving the trade union movement, this time as an unambiguously progressive force, would do a great deal in developing helping us create a strong anticapitalist, socialist movement.

In the chapter “Realizing Social Justice Unionism” (page 201) the authors reference deceased DSA Vice-Chair and International Association of Machinists president William Winpisinger:

Transformation is a long-term effort and has no shortcuts. Effective and inspiring leadership may bring about changes and victories, but it does not necessarily lead to lasting change. Not until a significant portion of the membership embraces the new style of unionism can reformers say a union is on the road to social justice unionism. Consider, for example, the late Machinists president William Winpisinger, who was an open democratic socialist and a friend of many a progressive cause but oversaw a union with a complicated, if not ignominious, history in matters of race. Winpisinger was elected not because hew as a socialist or because members wanted to transform the International Association of Machinists into a socialist-led union. He was elected largely despite his politics and because he was a “good trade unionist.” Moving a union toward the embrace of social justice unionism ultimately calls for bring about international cultural and political change. And for this change to occur, reformers need to win a mandate for change form the members.

The authors are explicit: it’s not enough to get socialists into unions and leadership, it’s about changing union culture and the political consciousness of union members. This goes to the heart of DSA’s politics and our belief in Gramscian counter-hegemony. As is stated in the essay “Towards Freedom: Democratic Socialist Theory and Practice” by Jason Schulman and Joseph Schwartz:

“Antonio Gramsci better understood [than previous Marxists] how bourgeois ideology underpinned the ‘common sense’ of capitalist culture. The capitalist class not only disproportionately influences the state, but ideas of ‘consumer sovereignty,’ ‘freedom,’ and ‘choice’ also dominate public opinion in the institutions of civil society, such as schools, religion, and the media. Gramsci believed that the dominance of capitalist modes of thought could be countered by a conscious, ‘counter hegemonic,’ leftist cultural presence throughout civil society. The left would have to organize not only in the formal political arena, but also in the workplace, the neighborhood, the church, and the PTA. Though those who hold electoral state power set the boundaries within which political struggle occurs, organizing in civil society (at the grassroots) is critical for the growth of the left. Cultural, educational, and ideological work is as ‘political’ as are elections.”

As open democratic socialists we have to be not only in and building unions, but active in the unions’ cultural and social activities. The Christian Right succeed in changing the United States by doing exactly was Grarmsci suggested: working in civil society. Organized labor is the best and strategically strongest place the left can put our efforts. We should follow this model and change organized labor today if socialism is to have a future in the U.S.

Why Labor Needs a Socialist Organization and Why It’s DSA

In this essay, I make four major points: 1) Absent socialists articulating the importance of trade unions to democracy in the workplace and social equality, unions alone can not alter pro-corporate culture and will be viewed as a special interest group; 2) democratic socialists must push unions towards working-class leadership and involvement in rebuilding the whole labor movement (both organized and unorganized). Sweetheart deals between labor and capital disempowering workers, are undemocratic, and weaken trade unions in the long term; 3) absent a strong labor movement in the United States, any realistic hopes of achieving even a social democratic welfare state are dead in the water; and 4) socialists must also change the labor movement’s culture, lest we only exchange inept leaders and organizers with left-wing ones and leave the unions relatively unaltered. Each of these points present the interconnectedness that unions and socialists have for each other’s abilities to advance.

Why does the labor movement need one specific socialist organization, namely the Democratic Socialists of America, over any other? The authors certainly do not advocate for any specific anticapitalist organization in their book. But I believe DSA and its members offer the best hope for the labor movement because our perspective best matches with the four points above. We offer the best chance to ideologically train union activists, both elected leaders and rank-and-file members, to make unions vehicles of socialism and not merely social reform. Our view of American unions is balanced: neither holding back an incipiently revolutionary working class nor a wonderful movement in need of our constant defense and apologias. We are firm believers in democracy: in the workplace, in the union leadership, and government. We oppose the lack of decision-making transparency for both union and corporate leaders. Finally, we don’t want to build the labor movement for the sake of organized workers alone or a lost hope of a pure-and-simple Labor Party. We want to connect unions to a larger coalition of organizations for progressive change. Unions, because of their civic role, organization, and diversity, will play a central role in any movement for radical social change. However, we understand as socialists that not all oppression is class based. Fletcher and Gasapin clearly articulate this throughout their book, and we would agree, that blinders to race and gender oppression in the labor movement is morally wrong and organizationally damaging.

Simply put, it’s important to both build the democratic-socialist movement and the labor movement. I strongly encourage folks to become active in both. In DSA and YDS, you’ll receive the training you need to be a better and smarter labor activist. In the labor movement, you can use your praxis (putting theory into practice) to foster a better climate for social justice and ultimately an easier road towards socialist democracy. The challenge is ours, the benefit is for all.