LAYLA AL-ATTAR - June 27, 1993

LAYLA AL-ATTAR - June 27, 1993

"Artists and Workers Form One World without Borders!"

Academy of Fine Arts, University of Baghdad, Iraq

by Mike Alewitz

Assistance by Fatin Musa & Volunteers

IN 1998 an anti-war delegation from the US and Canada delivered several million dollars worth of much needed medical supplies to Iraqi hospitals, in defience of the US imposed sanctions. This mural project was part of the Challenge the Sanctions effort led by Ramsey Clark, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton and others. 

The central imagery of the mural consists of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers transformed into two figures: A North American worker clasping hands with Layla Al-Atal, a prominent Iraqi artist and Ddirector of the Iraqi National Art Museum.  On June 27, 1993, Layla, her husband and housekeeper were killed by a missile attack on Baghdad which was ordered by President Bill Clinton. The attack also left her daughter blind.

American bombers fly overhead, but as the bombs reach the clasped hands, they turn into loaves of bread and also roses. An aid package bonks Uncle Sam on the head. Participants in the project created a border of hand prints. An arabic inscription across the top reads: "Artists and Workers Form One World without Borders!"

The mural was painted over the course of two days with the assistance of students at the Academy. From the time I arrived at the wall I was surrounded by crowds of workers and students. We discussed art and politics and I showed slides of labor struggles in the U.S. They were intrigued to find out that I had been placed on the Attorney General's subversive list, while Ramsey Clark was the AG. 

Despite the great crimes of Washington, wherever you go in this world - if you extend the hand of solidarity - your fellow workers will welcome you.

CONN GAME IN CT

CONN GAME IN CT

by Mike Alewitz

 

 

 

Gov. Dannel Malloy and the Democratic Party of Connecticut are threatening massive layoffs as state workers seem headed towards a NO vote on a deal that would result in $1.6 billion in givebacks. The governor had claimed that the concessions were necessary in order to plug gaps in the state budget.

Originally Malloy threatened 4,700 layoffs - then raised it to 7,500. The governor casually tosses figures about, exhibiting an arrogance and contempt for those that put him in office, and little regard for the hardships such an action would cause.

 

In fact, there is no fiscal crisis in Connecticut, and there never was. The state is awash in money – in the hands of bankers, hedge fund operators, corporate executives and others that have benefited in recent years, from the largest transfer of wealth in human history.

 

To solve budget shortfalls, the legislature could simply impose a miniscule tax on the superrich, or cut off tax breaks to giant corporations, or take a similar measure - that would easily cover the so-called deficit.  

 

But this “crisis” was never about finding a couple of billion dollars. The real goal of this assault is political–the weakening of public employee unions. It is part of a bipartisan, nationwide, coordinated attempt to dismantle public education, Social Security, Medicare and other social programs. The employers intend to loot those vast resources  - and public workers unions remain one of the few obstacles that stand in their way. Ultimately, that is what these fights are about.

 

The strategies for union-busting vary by locale. In some states there has been a direct assault on legal collective bargaining, as in Wisconsin and New Jersey.  Here in Connecticut, the approach has been one of stealth. Here, the Democratic Party worked out a well-crafted deal with top officials of the State Employee Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC) that would undermine state unions while attempting to avoid a direct confrontation that might provoke organized resistance.

 

SEBAC

 

SEBAC officials were complicit in creating, and actively promoting, a deal that has little to do with collective bargaining and even less to do with union democracy. Officials refused to organize any opposition to massive cutbacks in wages and benefits. Lawyers and bureaucrats dealt in secret behind the backs of their membership. They acted as cheerleaders for the Malloy administration, whom they had supported in the last election. They withheld information and suppressed as much discussion as they could – not allowing comments on the SEBAC websites or related venues. They completely deserted the field of opposition to concessions, leaving it in the hands of right-wing, anti-union forces.

 

Malloy utilized a time-tested employer strategy to divide the ranks of the unions - appealing to a sizable percentage of the membership by maintaining more of their benefits, and dumping the worst cuts on younger, newer and future workers.  With the help of a compliant media they created the big lie: that the only choice possible was layoffs or concessions. At no point did SEBAC seriously raise the most elemental working-class solutions. Instead, they enthusiastically joined in the bullying, fear-mongering and guilt-baiting  - claiming workers, not the state, would be responsible for layoffs and cutbacks in state services.

 

The Vote

 

Faced with this situation, rank-and-file workers had little real choice in the concession vote. You could vote NO, knowing there was not a clear alternative plan and saddled with a union leadership that was unwilling to fight -  or - you could vote YES for what was clearly an unfair concession contract and another step in the slow death of our unions.

 

Many workers, battered from years of employer takeaways and complacent business unionism, were willing to accept the deal. Votes in unions like the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), buttressed with a promise of no layoffs or furlough days, were indicative of this.  Most AAUP members did not vote. Among those voting, it was lopsided in favor of the agreement.  Overall, among the 15 unions, the vote seemed likely to succeed.

 

But there was a different response from custodians, caseworkers and others in large locals of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Union (AFSCME) that deal more directly with those suffering during the ongoing recession. These workers voted NO.

Why? State workers, and those we directly serve, are fed up with the lies and intimidation. We are all sick and tired of watching the foreclosures, growing unemployment and tuition raises.  We are sick of watching billions go to the superrich while thousands of fellow workers are driven into deepening poverty.  So, despite incredible pressure from the state, the media and their own misleaders, workers are poised to reject the concessions.

Next Up

 

What will happen next? Malloy is threatening massive layoffs. Will SEBAC leaders embrace the decision of the members, develop backbones, start to act like union leaders and call for a fight back? Unfortunately, it seems more probable that they will simply repackage the deal and resubmit it to the members. There will be ever-increasing threats, until the ranks are pressured to agree.

 

Union officials will attempt to deflect blame for their own failed policies. This is what lies behind their last-minute publicity shenanigans of attacking the right-wing, antiunion Yankee Institute. They will blame the members for layoffs, instead of their own refusal to lead a fight to defend our rights.There is already an orchestrated media campaign blaming state workers for everything from closed beaches to hungry children.

 

In order to beat back the corporate offensive, we need to wage the kind of struggle beginning to unfold in places like Wisconsin. Policies of accommodation and concession bargaining can only result in continued failure. Fighting to defend our unions may not be simple or easy – but that is what has proven essential over the entire history of the labor movement.

- - - - - - -  -

Mike Alewitz is a member of CCSU Profs4Progress and the AAUP.  He is an agitprop muralist, working in the US and internationally.

CONN GAME IN CT

CONN GAME IN CT

by Mike Alewitz

 

 

 

Gov. Dannel Malloy and the Democratic Party of Connecticut are threatening massive layoffs as state workers seem headed towards a NO vote on a deal that would result in $1.6 billion in givebacks. The governor had claimed that the concessions were necessary in order to plug gaps in the state budget.

Originally Malloy threatened 4,700 layoffs - then raised it to 7,500. The governor casually tosses figures about, exhibiting an arrogance and contempt for those that put him in office, and little regard for the hardships such an action would cause.

 

In fact, there is no fiscal crisis in Connecticut, and there never was. The state is awash in money – in the hands of bankers, hedge fund operators, corporate executives and others that have benefited in recent years, from the largest transfer of wealth in human history.

 

To solve budget shortfalls, the legislature could simply impose a miniscule tax on the superrich, or cut off tax breaks to giant corporations, or take a similar measure - that would easily cover the so-called deficit.  

 

But this “crisis” was never about finding a couple of billion dollars. The real goal of this assault is political–the weakening of public employee unions. It is part of a bipartisan, nationwide, coordinated attempt to dismantle public education, Social Security, Medicare and other social programs. The employers intend to loot those vast resources  - and public workers unions remain one of the few obstacles that stand in their way. Ultimately, that is what these fights are about.

 

The strategies for union-busting vary by locale. In some states there has been a direct assault on legal collective bargaining, as in Wisconsin and New Jersey.  Here in Connecticut, the approach has been one of stealth. Here, the Democratic Party worked out a well-crafted deal with top officials of the State Employee Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC) that would undermine state unions while attempting to avoid a direct confrontation that might provoke organized resistance.

 

SEBAC

 

SEBAC officials were complicit in creating, and actively promoting, a deal that has little to do with collective bargaining and even less to do with union democracy. Officials refused to organize any opposition to massive cutbacks in wages and benefits. Lawyers and bureaucrats dealt in secret behind the backs of their membership. They acted as cheerleaders for the Malloy administration, whom they had supported in the last election. They withheld information and suppressed as much discussion as they could – not allowing comments on the SEBAC websites or related venues. They completely deserted the field of opposition to concessions, leaving it in the hands of right-wing, anti-union forces.

 

Malloy utilized a time-tested employer strategy to divide the ranks of the unions - appealing to a sizable percentage of the membership by maintaining more of their benefits, and dumping the worst cuts on younger, newer and future workers.  With the help of a compliant media they created the big lie: that the only choice possible was layoffs or concessions. At no point did SEBAC seriously raise the most elemental working-class solutions. Instead, they enthusiastically joined in the bullying, fear-mongering and guilt-baiting  - claiming workers, not the state, would be responsible for layoffs and cutbacks in state services.

 

The Vote

 

Faced with this situation, rank-and-file workers had little real choice in the concession vote. You could vote NO, knowing there was not a clear alternative plan and saddled with a union leadership that was unwilling to fight -  or - you could vote YES for what was clearly an unfair concession contract and another step in the slow death of our unions.

 

Many workers, battered from years of employer takeaways and complacent business unionism, were willing to accept the deal. Votes in unions like the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), buttressed with a promise of no layoffs or furlough days, were indicative of this.  Most AAUP members did not vote. Among those voting, it was lopsided in favor of the agreement.  Overall, among the 15 unions, the vote seemed likely to succeed.

 

But there was a different response from custodians, caseworkers and others in large locals of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Union (AFSCME) that deal more directly with those suffering during the ongoing recession. These workers voted NO.

Why? State workers, and those we directly serve, are fed up with the lies and intimidation. We are all sick and tired of watching the foreclosures, growing unemployment and tuition raises.  We are sick of watching billions go to the superrich while thousands of fellow workers are driven into deepening poverty.  So, despite incredible pressure from the state, the media and their own misleaders, workers are poised to reject the concessions.

Next Up

 

What will happen next? Malloy is threatening massive layoffs. Will SEBAC leaders embrace the decision of the members, develop backbones, start to act like union leaders and call for a fight back? Unfortunately, it seems more probable that they will simply repackage the deal and resubmit it to the members. There will be ever-increasing threats, until the ranks are pressured to agree.

 

Union officials will attempt to deflect blame for their own failed policies. This is what lies behind their last-minute publicity shenanigans of attacking the right-wing, antiunion Yankee Institute. They will blame the members for layoffs, instead of their own refusal to lead a fight to defend our rights.There is already an orchestrated media campaign blaming state workers for everything from closed beaches to hungry children.

 

In order to beat back the corporate offensive, we need to wage the kind of struggle beginning to unfold in places like Wisconsin. Policies of accommodation and concession bargaining can only result in continued failure. Fighting to defend our unions may not be simple or easy – but that is what has proven essential over the entire history of the labor movement.

- - - - - - -  -

Mike Alewitz is a member of CCSU Profs4Progress and the AAUP.  He is an agitprop muralist, working in the US and internationally.

ALBERT PARSONS - 6.20.1848

ALBERT PARSONS

June 20, 1848 - November 11, 1887

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Parsons

Sindicalismo Sin Fronteras

by Mike Alewitz 

Frente Autentico del Trabajo (FAT) Building

Mexico City, April 1997/ Approx. 8' x 30'

 

 

* * * *

 

On April 5, 1997, a public inauguration of two new murals was held at the auditorium of the Frente Autentico Trabajadores (FAT) in Mexico City.   The event was part of a cross-border organizing project of the FAT and the United Electrical (UE) union.  The following are excerpts from a dedication speech given by artist Mike Alewitz of the Labor Art and Mural Project (LAMP).  Alewitz and Daniel Manrique Arias of Mexico completed similar murals in Chicago in late summer:

 

 

...It was Emiliano Zapata who gave the greatest political expression to the Mexican revolution, and it is under his watchful eyes that our mural unfolds.  We have also included the figures of Albert and Lucy Parsons.  Albert was one of the Haymarket martyrs, framed up and executed for his leadership in the Chicago labor movement’s fight for the eight-hour day.  

Lucy was also a leader in that movement, and she continued her revolutionary activities until she died at an old age.  She was of African-American and Mexican ancestry, was an early leader of the feminist movement, and a founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World. 

The Parsons hold in their hands some bread and a rose.  “Bread and Roses” was a slogan of the Lawrence textile strikers; women who demanded not only the bread of the union contract, but the rose to symbolize that workers deserve a rich spiritual and cultural life.

 

The quotation in the painting is from August Spies, also executed on November 11, 1887: 

“If you think that by hanging us you can stamp out the labor movement...the movement from which the downtrodden millions, the millions who toil in want and misery expect salvation-if that is your opinion, then hang us!  Here you will tread upon a spark, but there and there, behind you-and in front of you, and everywhere, flames blaze up.  It is a subterranean fire.  You cannot put it out.” 
 

 

How fitting a quote for this land of volcanoes.  This is precisely what is happening today, as first a Los Angeles, and then a Chiapas explode, here and there, precursors of a generalized conflagration.  Our class is like the core of the earth, being compressed under ever-greater pressure, until forced to explode.

 

We are using this cultural project to illustrate our collective union vision.  Unions are the first line of defense for workers.  They keep us from getting killed or poisoned.  They allow us some basic human dignity.

 

Unfortunately, too often our unions resemble exclusive clubs, or worse, criminal gangs.  Even unions that pride themselves on being progressive are often bureaucratic and autocratic.  Without the full and active participation of the membership, all the weaknesses of our organizations emerge.  As workers, we often must not only battle the employers, but our own conservative leaderships as well.

 

This is a particular problem in the United States, where employers keep us stratified and divided.  They attempt to pit low-wage workers against the more privileged.  They use divide-and-conquer tactics to convince us to be for “labor peace.”  But labor peace is the peace of slavery, whether in the U.S. or in Mexico.

 

The Frente Autentico Trabajadores is helping to lead the struggle for genuine union democracy.  There have been, and will continue to be casualties in this historic fight.  And today we dedicate this mural to those who have been victimized in the struggle for union democracy.  This mural is the product of not only artists, but the thousands of workers who built our unions.  This is their mural.

 

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to denounce the criminal policies of the United States government.  In particular I denounce the economic sabotage of Mexico and the criminal embargo of Cuba.  

The gang in Washington does not speak for me, or millions of other American workers.  They are waging war upon our class.  They are my enemy and your enemy.  They represent the past - we are the future.  If we continue to forge these links of solidarity, they can never prevail.

 

Mike Alewitz

April 5, 1997

Mural Credits:

Assistants: Daniel Manrique Arias, Gustavo Diaz, Eduardo Candelas, Veronica Hernandez Martinez, Daniel Lopez G., Robin Alexander and numerous volunteers 

 

Robin Alexander, Christine Gauvreau, Benedicto Martinez and Gary Huck were instrumental in organizing the project

CHE GUEVARA - June 14, 1928

CHE GUEVARA 

June 14, 1928

CHE COMANDANTE

by Mike Alewitz

Sandinista Youth Building

Esteli, Nicaragua, 1989

Dedicated to the Cuban Internationalists in Nicaragua

- - - - - - - - - - - -

"For a long time individuals have been trying to free themselves from alienation through culture and art. While a person dies every day during the eight or more hours in which he or she functions as a commodity, individuals come to life afterward in their spiritual creations. But this remedy bears the germs of the same sickness: that of a solitary being seeking harmony with the world.

One defends one's individuality, which is oppressed by the environment, and reacts to aesthetic ideas as a unique being whose aspiration is to remain immaculate. It is nothing more than an attempt to escape. The law of value is no longer simply a reflection of the relations of production; the monopoly capitalists — even while employing purely empirical methods — surround that law with a complicated scaffolding that turns it into a docile servant.

The superstructure imposes a kind of art in which the artist must be educated. Rebels are subdued by the machine, and only exceptional talents may create their own work. The rest become shamefaced hirelings or are crushed.

A school of artistic experimentation is invented, which is said to be the definition of freedom; but this “experimentation” has its limits, imperceptible until there is a clash, that is, until the real problems of individual alienation arise. Meaningless anguish or vulgar amusement thus become convenient safety valves for human anxiety. The idea of using art as a weapon of protest is combated.

Those who play by the rules of the game are showered with honors — such honors as a monkey might get for performing pirouettes. The condition is that one does not try to escape from the invisible cage."

 

Che Guevara

Socialism & Man

March, 1965

CHE GUEVARA - June 14, 1928

CHE GUEVARA 

June 14, 1928

CHE COMANDANTE

by Mike Alewitz

Sandinista Youth Building

Esteli, Nicaragua, 1989

Dedicated to the Cuban Internationalists in Nicaragua

- - - - - - - - - - - -

"For a long time individuals have been trying to free themselves from alienation through culture and art. While a person dies every day during the eight or more hours in which he or she functions as a commodity, individuals come to life afterward in their spiritual creations. But this remedy bears the germs of the same sickness: that of a solitary being seeking harmony with the world.

One defends one's individuality, which is oppressed by the environment, and reacts to aesthetic ideas as a unique being whose aspiration is to remain immaculate. It is nothing more than an attempt to escape. The law of value is no longer simply a reflection of the relations of production; the monopoly capitalists — even while employing purely empirical methods — surround that law with a complicated scaffolding that turns it into a docile servant.

The superstructure imposes a kind of art in which the artist must be educated. Rebels are subdued by the machine, and only exceptional talents may create their own work. The rest become shamefaced hirelings or are crushed.

A school of artistic experimentation is invented, which is said to be the definition of freedom; but this “experimentation” has its limits, imperceptible until there is a clash, that is, until the real problems of individual alienation arise. Meaningless anguish or vulgar amusement thus become convenient safety valves for human anxiety. The idea of using art as a weapon of protest is combated.

Those who play by the rules of the game are showered with honors — such honors as a monkey might get for performing pirouettes. The condition is that one does not try to escape from the invisible cage."

 

Che Guevara

Socialism & Man

March, 1965

John L. Lewis (February 12, 1880 – June 11, 1969)

John L. Lewis 

(February 12, 1880 – June 11, 1969)

“I shall order the men to disregard your order, to stand fast. I shall then walk up to the largest window in the plant, open it, divest myself of my outer raiment, remove my shirt, and bare my bosom. Then when you order your troops to fire, mine will be the first heart that these bullets will strike!”

-  John L. Lewis’ response to the governor of Michigan, when he threatened to send troops against striking autoworkers during the 1937 Flint sit down strike

The History of the United Mine Workers Union

 

 by MIKE ALEWITZ

 7’ x 100’ Portable Mural/ 1990 

 

 

The 100’ History of the United Mine Workers Union was commissioned for the one hundredth convention of the union.  (It hung for a day and was then suppressed by the top officials). The mural begins with children working in the mines and ends with them on the Pittston picket line. 

 

The following is excerpted from Insurgent Images by Paul Buhle: 

 

Going back to the latter decades of the nineteenth century, American coal miners had an extremely militant tradition from Pennsylvania and Appalachia to Indiana, Illinois, and Kansas. The causes are not difficult to locate. Not only was coal mining the most dangerous occupation worldwide (it continues to be so today), measured by the number of deaths and injuries, but internally, that is, among workers themselves, it is one of the most democratic. By a centuries' old tradition of Welsh and English miners, young workers still learning the trade and old workers in their last years shared the least skilled jobs; to begin was to see the end in sight, at least for those fortunate enough to escape death or maiming in "the pits." Perhaps for these reasons, coal mining was also among the few racially integrated and unionized occupations of a century ago, although African Americans enjoyed fewer benefits and a constant threat of complete marginalization within the deeply racist American Federation of Labor.

 

But the UMW tended also, from its first decades, to be boss-ridden. The small coal-patch towns were an ideal political base for union grafting and for lucrative political trading with Democrats (and, on many occasions, Republicans). Taking office shortly after the beginning of the new century, John Mitchell, the first UMW president of wide reputation, quickly became known for his high living, his socializing with big businessmen, and his autocratic behavior in office. John L. Lewis, arguably the greatest American labor orator after Eugene V. Debs, came to power in the same tradition of double-dealing and frequent betrayal.

 

Lewis's career was marked by the acquisition of a personal fortune, but also by apparently wild swings against the Left, during which time he stuffed ballots and employed thugs to beat back radical threats to his power, alternating with swings toward the issues of the Left, as when he invited Communists into the new Congress of Industrial Organizations that he did much to bring into being. Lewis could also be more militant than the largest section of the Left, as during wartime when he called out miners in 1941, over Franklin Roosevelt's threats of injunction and over Communist demands that labor cease strikes for the duration. His threat to form a Labor Party in 1940 (he eventually supported Republican Wendell Wilkie) was the closest approach to national, independent labor politics for generations; his shifts, from the AFL to the CIO and back to the AFL, marked his frustrations with labor leaders' unwillingness to live up to the potential of the movement.

 

Lewis grasped as few American union bosses that his strength depended upon membership mobilization more than upon political trading-which as a registered Republican he did frequently, for his own purposes. From the early 1920s through the late 1940s, leading regional walkouts, he used his extraordinary vocal powers and capacity for organization to keep the union members and their families in struggle. He fearlessly denounced all opposition alike (employers. police, and the state) as the enemies of the miners and of the working class. In his later decades before retirement in 1957, while mines shut and automation cut further into the workforce, he traded struggle for retirement and health benefits. His immediate successor, the thuggish Tony Boyle, had all Lewis's defects and none of his virtues; democratic challenger Jock Yablonsky was counted out at a union election in 1969, and then murdered along with his family, apparently by Boyle henchmen. 

 

Arnold Miller, the reform candidate who came to power in 1972, brought the union real democracy but faced overwhelming odds. As the oil crisis of the 1970s brought back coal production, Miller faced a petition campaign to recall him from office. Disappointed with their president, miners nevertheless recognized the coal companies' deepest intentions: to weaken historic union control over work, and to strip away the health and safety benefits that kept coal towns alive. The strike that began in December 1977 awakened solidarity in a dormant labor movement. Even as leading 1 AFL-CIO officials dithered, more concerned with increasing the defense budget and pleasing a Democratic administration than with unions' steady decline, thousands of union members responded.

 

Heartened, UMW ranks turned down, at the bitter height of winter, a poor offer that Miller recommended for ratification. Even when the "pro-labor" Jimmy Carter ordered miners back under the Taft-Hartley Act that he'd promised to help repeal '' and as welfare officials refused food stamps to strikers, the miners held steady. After more than a hundred days on the picket line, they had won labor's most significant victory in an era of defeats. Oscar-winning Harlan County-USA (1976), a film made by documentarist Barbara Kopple, recorded the faces and voices of Kentucky miners and their families for millions of labor's sympathizers.

 

This was the background for events of the later 1980s. Pittston Coal, subsidiary of a giant conglomerate and a major coal exporter to Japan, withdrew in 1986 from the industry-wide labor agreement, attacking insurance, pensions, widows' benefits and the historic prerogative of miners to refuse the compulsory overtime work particularly hazardous in the trade. It was also a test for new miners' president Richard Trumka, elected in 1982 after a ferocious redbaiting campaign, to hold strong against what would have been a crippling defeat to the union. Hold they did. As the miners "worked to rule" (the old Wobbly tactic of staying at work and obeying regulations to the letter, hence slowing production) and organized a "corporate campaign" against Pittston management, the conflict escalated and in spring 1989 led to an explosive strike. Miners organized their families, neighbors, and communities, dressed in camouflage clothes like guerilla warriors, peacefully blocked scab trucks with their bodies and appealed for a wider solidarity.

 

The summer of 1989 saw the emergence of "Camp Solidarity" and the formal reaffiliation of the UMW with the AFL-CIO. Thousands of unionists from across the country came to stay for days or weeks, living out of tents and trailers, taking part in picketing, rallies and informal discussions. At one point miners occupied a coal processing center, the first time this sit-in tactic had been successfully adopted in generations. It was, in all, a historic moment that only the paucity of national press coverage and the phlegmatic character of labor leadership prevented from becoming a national cause celebre.

 

Mike Alewitz had special reasons for enthusiasm and involvement in this struggle. Not only the UMW traditions of militancy and commitment to winning the current strike, but the example of the P-9 strike all suggested that Pittston could become a kind of turning point for a broader shift within labor. He also helped to make a genuine cultural contribution, although his experience attempting to bring fellow artists to Austin had proved disappointing. Traveling to Nicaragua for the sake of workers and peasants obviously possessed more appeal than a trip to the midwest and its blue-collar (or rural) population, but Pittston might spark a collective artistic enthusiasm and insight. Besides, Alewitz's expulsion from the Socialist Workers Party intensified his determination to sink roots into New Jersey union activities. By dint of energy and good humor, he made himself the dean of the state's labor artists, the natural leader of an extended solidarity campaign with the prospect of raising strategic issues for the labor movement. His political comrade of a decade (and an early collaborator on murals), Bob Allen, had been a miner for some years before settling in New Brunswick, and Allen maintained friends and contacts among the UMW. Alewitz, Allen, and Gauvreau traveled to Pittston in summer 1989, bringing with them most of the art supplies (paid for by Alewitz's sign painters' local) necessary for a camp banner. 

 

Camp Solidarity quickly reminded the visitors that the mineworkers' union had in many unique ways retained its rich cultural traditions. Local union musicians exchanged songs with visitors around the country (and the world: Britain's Billy Bragg came to share music). Videos about the strike were quickly produced and widely shown in union locals elsewhere; camp dorms and trailers sprouted all sorts of popular art; and clog dancing broke out with amazing frequency. The mountain culture of the region could meld, as it had done so often in the past, with the contemporary struggles of the miners, releasing a collective creativity of remarkable proportions.

 

Behind the local color stood a rock-hard determination. The "Daughters of Mother Jones," a group of women miners, also spouses, mothers, and daughters, carried on a demonstrative support of the strike. Adorned in jackrock (a device made from mining nails that can blow out the wheels of scab vehicles—a practice which the UMWA officially discourages) earrings, they faced the police, went to jail along with others, but also traveled the country and spread the word ("jawsmithing"). The Solidarity Forever Camp banner was painted on site at Camp Solidarity in a day and a half, the design utilizing a drawing of miners that Allen had done in his miner's days for The Mineworkers Journal, showing a silhouetted line of miners with their hats aglow. The slogan is sufficient and expresses perfectly the favorite union song of the 1910s-1930s, a restatement of labor's creation of all value ("Now we stand outcast and starving midst the wonder we have made") and a deeply evocative rendition of the an-injury-to-one-is-an-injury-to-all Wobbly spirit. Allen remained in Virginia to paint walls and even a barn roof on behalf of the strikers.

 

Alewitz returned in the fall with a caravan of artists and unionists from the New Jersey Industrial Union Council. Traveling fourteen hours through a bitter winter storm and a highway strewn with disabled vehicles, they staggered into the camp to deliver toys to the strikers' children. The miners had built a large drawing table for the artists to work, where they quickly and spontaneously designed and painted a banner commemorating the event. The camp was still a place to meet with strikers and fellow visitors, to share their experiences about labor solidarity and about the role of art and the artist. 

 

In the end, the Pittston UMW, joined by the 47,000 miners from elsewhere, who traveled to the site to show solidarity, and the thousands of other supporters outlasted the company. By spring, the strike was settled, with benefits that continued into negotiations with Pittston Coal thereafter. It had been a memorable moment for labor artwork as well, in some ways the most memorable since the 1940s when mainstream giants like Ben Shahn still painted on invitation for labor solidarity. 

 

The artistic result of all this was a seven-by-one-hundred-foot historical panorama banner of UMWA struggles, mine disasters, and union victories created for the union's centenary convention celebration. The panoramic narrative begins with a "breaker boy" releasing a canary that flies over the surface of the mural to alight on the hands of miners' children marching the Pittston picket line. The mural sees the history of the UMWA not simply as a struggle for rights for its members, but as a catalyst for the construction of the CIO, thus showing a scene of sit-down strikers in Flint, Michigan.

 

The centerpiece of the work is "Mother" Mary Jones—the most famous personality of women in American labor—and inevitably, John L Lewis himself. The banner also boldly suggests, with its women workers, that solidarity has now outgrown the "manly" tradition (a verse of Solidarity Forever runs, "Union Men Be Strong") for something larger and better. Alewitz was assisted by Darlene Sanderson and numerous volunteers, with Bill Kane (president of the New Jersey IUC) personally painting the red tie on the visage of John L. 

 

The imagery sparked some discussion. Young staffers and rank-and-file members of the UMWA objected to the inclusion of a scene of the union's international officers being arrested at a Pittston demonstration. Alewitz, who rarely uses living people in his murals, defended his decision. Union officers were, for once, doing the right thing by leading the union to victory—at a time when most labor officials were complicit in concessionary contracts. Throughout the strike, UMWA officers like Cecil Roberts supported the mobilization of the ranks, and through their militant (often anti-racist) speeches helped forge a movement with the confidence to take and occupy a key mine.

 

The banner was only shown for a single day in a poorly lit room at the miners' convention in Miami, then promptly buried in the UMW basement. Once the creative impulses generated by the mobilizations at Pittston ebbed, the commemorative mural was set aside. With the ranks back at work, DC staffers turned to other things... 

CWAC! CWAC!

CULTURAL WORKERS & ARTISTS CAUCUS (CWAC) 

of the Labor Party

LABOR PARTY FOUNDING CONVENTION/  June 6-9, 1996

Over 1400 labor representatives met in Cleveland, Ohio in the most recent attempt to establish a voice for working people. Ultimately unable to survive as an ongoing organization, the Labor Party, and its predecessor Labor Party Advocates, made a significant contribution to popularizing the idea of independent political action.

One of the most exciting components of the new Labor Party was the Cultural Workers and Artists Caucus (CWAC). This is the original appeal and a report on CWAC that gives a flavor for its activities.

(CWAC logo design by Gary Huck/ Banner by Mike Alewitz)

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Artist's Appeal for a Labor Party

 

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

 

A historic opportunity is opening for artists concerned with the future of art and labor.

 

On June 6-9, over a thousand working-class leaders and activists will converge on Cleveland, Ohio, for the founding convention of a labor party in the United States.  The convention is called by Labor Party Advocates (LPA.)   LPA is firmly rooted in the trade-union movement.  It has the endorsement and active support of several important international unions and numerous district, state and local labor organizations, representing hundreds of thousands of workers. 

 

Our goal is a party which will challenge the employer's two parties in the streets, in the workplace and at the ballot box.

 

The formation of a labor party would mark a watershed for the progressive forces of this country.   It would provide a vehicle to address the struggles for international solidarity, for women's rights, for the rights of oppressed peoples, immigrant workers and others marginalized or demonized by the capitalist class.

 

As artists and cultural workers, we have a special responsibility to help illuminate that future.  The formation of a labor party would provide an opportunity for the organic linking of the struggles of workers and artists in a way not seen in decades.  It would mark an impetus for lively and critical art-making.

 

We issue this appeal to all painters, writers, poets, designers, architects, musicians, sculptors, film and video makers, actors, critics...to all artists and cultural activists without exception.  Join us for a special convening of artists in Cleveland, to help shape a cultural agenda, along with the convention itself.  Perhaps we can initiate actions which will inspire new generations of artists to use their art as a weapon for the transformation of society.

 

In Solidarity,

 

Mike Alewitz, Labor Art & Mural Project; CAC, IUC,  NJ

Rudolf Baranik, Artist, NY, NY

Elise Bryant, Artistic Director, Labor Theatre Project, Ann Arbor, MI

Brett Butler, ‘Grace Under Fire,’ Studio City, CA

Noam Chomsky, MIT, Cambridge, MA

David Craven, Art History Dept, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM

Thiago DeMello, Composer, Musician, NY, NY

Dagoberto Gilb, Writer, Carpenter, El Paso, TX

J. R. Horne, Actor, President, NY AFTRA, NY, NY

Gary Huck, Cartoonist, UE; Huck-Konopacki Cartoons, Pittsburgh, PA

Tom Juravich, Labor Center, University of  MA, Amherst, MA

Charley King, Musician, AFM, CT

Mike Konopacki, Cartoonist, Huck-Konopacki Cartoons, Madison, WI

Lucy Lippard, Author and Critic, Albuquerque, NM

John McCutcheon, Musician, AFM, VA

Betsy Salkind, Nat’l Chair, AFTRA/SAG Comedians Caucus, CA

Pete Seeger, Beacon, NY

May Stevens, Artist, NY, NY

Rachel Weiss, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Ill

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CWAC, CWAC, CWAC...ARTISTS BUILD SUPPORT FOR LABOR PARTY

 

by Mike Alewitz

 

Spearheaded by the Cultural Workers and Artists Caucus of the Labor Party (CWAC), activists throughout the country have begun organizing to build and energize the labor party.  CWAC was formed at the founding convention of the LP in Cleveland Ohio, in response to a call issued by a broad range of artists and performers.   Over the last several months, they have begun to organize and expand.

 

Building CWAC is an important building block for our new party.  “Workers express themselves through their art and culture.  If we don’t do the same thing we are doomed to be talking to ourselves,” says Mike Alewitz.  Alewitz has just completed a speaking tour of the west coast organized by CWAC, with the support of the Ca. Nurses Association, the SF Labor Council and the Los Angeles chapter of the LP, along with numerous other individuals.  The tour went to Seattle, and Olympia Washington, Portland, Oregon, Los Angeles and San Francisco Ca.  The meetings attracted dozens of activists who set up CWAC groups all along the coast.  Discussions were lively and serious, and a number of activities are already planned.

 

“Today there is a huge layer of artists and activists, which numbers into the millions, who can be drawn around the LP by cultural events,” explains Lee Ballinger.  Ballinger is a prime initiator of CWAC, and a central organizer in the Los Angeles area.  He also is an associate editor of Rock and Rap Confidential. “Vast numbers of workers will relate to the LP not by coming to chapter meetings or forums, but by expressing the LP program, as they interpret it through their poetry and music.  We need to take the LP program and get it into the hands of as many artists as possible, including celebrity artists, to make it part of a genuine discussion going on throughout society.”  

 

“We have a multi-layered approach to the organizing effort,” adds John Connolly.  John is a working actor, a Vice-President of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA,) and a CWAC leader.  “On the one hand we want to organize rank and file workers and artists into support for the Labor Party, but we also intend to build support within the entertainment unions themselves.”   This is no small task, for the entertainment industry is one of the main export industries of the US economy...a multi-billion dollar industry designed to disarm workers both abroad and at home.  

If anyone thinks that the lives of working artists has grown easier over recent years, Betsy Salkind a working stand-up comedienne and chair of the AFTRA-SAG (Screen Actors Guild) Comedians Caucus,  will be quick to point out that the entertainment industry grows more mercenary every day.  She explained the problem facing comics at a Los Angeles organizing meeting.  “Not only has the club scene changed to eliminate acts they must pay for, but in some instances performers have to ‘pay to play’ in search of an elusive recognition which never materializes.  The economic conditions facing comics can destroy their lives as well as lower the quality of comedy.”

 

“The proliferation of comedy on television cable in particular has killed the club scene.  And the use of non-0union production companies has made it extremely difficult for comics to make a living, even on television.  Very few have health insurance, despite the fact that you see them on TV.”

 

 Other artists joining in the new Los Angeles group included rapper

a leader of the micro-broadcasting movement.  Rose explained how he had learned to bring his militant politics to his audience:  “When I started I used to get into these long political diatribes, where I’d go on and on for fifteen or twenty minutes.  Then I realized that people were tuned out.  I had to bring out the politics with the music, in the music, and sometimes over the music.”

 

In San Francisco two successful meetings were held back to back at the meeting of the SF Labor Council.  Included in the audience were Susan Greene and Aaron Noble, who are currently involved with a group of mural painters creating a series of labor murals.  

Another muralist, and award-winning scenic painter, in attendance was Irish activist Edain O’Donnell who pointed out, “There are plenty of workers who have no illusions in the elections...we can make a difference in exposing what the bosses want to happen during the elections and throughout the rest of the year.”

 

“The CWAC can be a poll of attraction for a lot of artists who want to do progressive work,” points out Lincoln Cushing.  “Many of the progressive artists groups around the country have collapsed over the last several years.  The LP will provide a real link to the working class...one that will be here for a long time.” Lincoln is a leader of the Inkworks printing collective, and a graphic artist from Berkeley, who attended the San Francisco meeting with Doug Minkler, a well-know poster artist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

RESOLUTION ON CULTURAL WORK

 

Adopted unanimously by the Cultural Workers & Artists Caucus (CWAC) of the Labor Party, May 31, 1996

 

1. From the Paterson silk-strike pageant to the P-9 mural, labor history is filled with examples of art and culture inspiring and energizing working people's movements.  Cultural and spiritual needs play important roles in the struggle for economic justice. A labor party will only succeed in stirring people's hopes and imaginations if it embraces and promotes the arts.

 

2. The labor movement has traditionally embraced artists of many kinds.  From its inception, the labor party will recognize, support and welcome artists of the greatest possible ethnic, cultural and stylistic diversity. 

 

3.  The labor party will champion the cause of artists by working for comprehensive arts funding, for arts education in schools and workplaces, and for making culture accessible to working people throughout the country.

 

4.  Many in government and business fear and distrust art, and have attempted to divide artists and intellectuals from the labor movement. We, on the other hand, appreciate all inquiry, research, experimentation and imagination. The labor party will have no interest in dictating artistic styles or subject matter, or in any way interfering with artists' aspirations. The search for truth, and the attempt to awaken public imagination, can only strengthen the working class.  

 

5.  The labor party will oppose censorship in all its forms, including censorship of new technologies like the Internet. We reject attempts at censorship whether they arise from government halls, corporate boardrooms, or within the labor movement itself. If we are to win artists to our cause, we must stand--absolutely and without faltering--for total artistic and intellectual freedom. 

 

6. As we approach the 21st century, the struggle for working people's rights must take on a more international quality. As a way to develop more unity--and to share ideas and visions--across national boundaries, the labor party will strongly support international artistic and cultural exchanges.

 

7. Artists are workers. We support the efforts of artists to organize into unions, to earn decent wages and to fight for safer working conditions. We call for public arts funding to provide jobs for artists and to make culture more publically accessible. We encourage labor unions and all other progressive organizations to respect artists' endeavors, both intellectually and financially.

 

8. The labor party will encourage musicians, painters, poets, actors, filmmakers and all other artists to participate in strikes and organizing campaigns of working people. Interested artists will be invited to help build the labor party, to play a role in shaping its direction, and to participate in its decision-making processes.

 

9. The labor party will include art and culture in its campaigns at national and local levels.

 

10. As an initial organizing effort, we will establish a national network of artists interested in helping to build the labor party. We will attempt to organize meetings to promote and to shape these efforts in major cities throughout the country, as well as in other areas where interest develops.  We are particularly interested in involving young workers, artists and activists in these meetings.

 

11.  We recommend that the labor party establish a department of cultural affairs to develop policies and implement this resolution.

 

12. This resolution should be viewed as a draft to initiate further discussion, which must eventually include as many interested artists and workers as possible.