Some thoughts on the strike wave
Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2022 11:09 pm
Detroit/Seattle Workers' Voice mailing list
February 11, 2022
Some thoughts on the strike wave
by Tim Hall, Detroit Workers’ Voice
“Striketober” has been an inspiration to many disgruntled workers and left activists. As strike waves go, it has been a bit small – mostly small plants and healthcare complexes. Only one strike, John Deere, involved over 10,000 workers, although the threatened (but not held) strike of nearly 60,000 at Kaiser Permanente health care workers on the West Coast was also large. (1) But workers and other ordinary people had suffered through nearly two years of the Covid pandemic and worsening climate news. Politically they were demoralized by Trump's violent circus and the weakness of the Democrats, their supposed friends. The masses were starved for any sign of positive change. Many felt they needed someone, not an individual but a force of people, to stand up. And then, beginning in mid-Summer and going on through the Fall, workers at a number of facilities did! The capitalist bosses had called them “essential workers,” only to work them almost to death. Heroes – but treated like zeroes. And so these wage-slaves decided to fight back. The strike movement developed.
Strikes took place in a number of locations all through the Summer and to the end of the year. Strikes are nothing new in the U.S., but a bit of a surge right then sent a message of rebellion to the workforce. And right away a notable element emerged in this movement – a frequent rebellion against the labor leaders, the union leaderships, for misconduct of the workers' struggles. It is not new for workers to vote down tentative contracts proposed by the leaders, but now this seemed to be happening in almost every strike. At certain hospitals the workers would not pass a contract until some of their precise goals on reduction of workloads were included in the agreements. At Kellogg and John Deere, workers declared that they would not accept compromises proposed by the union leaders on the controversial two-tier wage plans that the leaders had accepted in the past, and they voted down tentative contracts that featured two-tier. And in the Seattle carpenters' strike, workers formed a militant group, the McGuire Group, named after an early militant, and it led workers to reject several tentative contracts. The McGuire Group also mobilized other carpenters to march and call out workers from sites where the labor bureaucrats had signed no-strike, peace agreements.
The labor bureaucrats began to be on the hot seat more than in recent memory. These union big shots live comfortably and prefer peace with the bosses. They have repeatedly tried to limit and destroy the workers' struggle for the benefit of the capitalist bosses. (2) This article will detail some of the ways these bureaucrats have tried to undermine the present strike movement. The success of the workers' movement depends on exposing and defeating these roadblocks to the workers' movement. “Striketober” saw struggle against these obstructionists in a number of important strikes.
Full text at http://www.communistvoice.org/DSWV-220211.html.
February 11, 2022
Some thoughts on the strike wave
by Tim Hall, Detroit Workers’ Voice
- Striketober
- Voting down agreements recommended by labor bureaucrats
- Frito-Lay
- Nabisco
- Seattle-area carpenters
- Film production workers
- Kelloggg
- John Deere
- Elsewhere - Kaiser Permanente, Warrior Met coal, Worchester nurses
- Efforts to organize large corporations - Amazon, Starbucks
- Notes
“Striketober” has been an inspiration to many disgruntled workers and left activists. As strike waves go, it has been a bit small – mostly small plants and healthcare complexes. Only one strike, John Deere, involved over 10,000 workers, although the threatened (but not held) strike of nearly 60,000 at Kaiser Permanente health care workers on the West Coast was also large. (1) But workers and other ordinary people had suffered through nearly two years of the Covid pandemic and worsening climate news. Politically they were demoralized by Trump's violent circus and the weakness of the Democrats, their supposed friends. The masses were starved for any sign of positive change. Many felt they needed someone, not an individual but a force of people, to stand up. And then, beginning in mid-Summer and going on through the Fall, workers at a number of facilities did! The capitalist bosses had called them “essential workers,” only to work them almost to death. Heroes – but treated like zeroes. And so these wage-slaves decided to fight back. The strike movement developed.
Strikes took place in a number of locations all through the Summer and to the end of the year. Strikes are nothing new in the U.S., but a bit of a surge right then sent a message of rebellion to the workforce. And right away a notable element emerged in this movement – a frequent rebellion against the labor leaders, the union leaderships, for misconduct of the workers' struggles. It is not new for workers to vote down tentative contracts proposed by the leaders, but now this seemed to be happening in almost every strike. At certain hospitals the workers would not pass a contract until some of their precise goals on reduction of workloads were included in the agreements. At Kellogg and John Deere, workers declared that they would not accept compromises proposed by the union leaders on the controversial two-tier wage plans that the leaders had accepted in the past, and they voted down tentative contracts that featured two-tier. And in the Seattle carpenters' strike, workers formed a militant group, the McGuire Group, named after an early militant, and it led workers to reject several tentative contracts. The McGuire Group also mobilized other carpenters to march and call out workers from sites where the labor bureaucrats had signed no-strike, peace agreements.
The labor bureaucrats began to be on the hot seat more than in recent memory. These union big shots live comfortably and prefer peace with the bosses. They have repeatedly tried to limit and destroy the workers' struggle for the benefit of the capitalist bosses. (2) This article will detail some of the ways these bureaucrats have tried to undermine the present strike movement. The success of the workers' movement depends on exposing and defeating these roadblocks to the workers' movement. “Striketober” saw struggle against these obstructionists in a number of important strikes.
Full text at http://www.communistvoice.org/DSWV-220211.html.