THE HISTORY OF THE OIL, CHEMICAL & ATOMIC WORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION
(OCAW was officially dissolved on January 4, 1999, becoming part of the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union (PACE), and later, the United Steelworkers Union)BY MIKE ALEWITZ5 Panels/ 7' x 10'/ 1994Text from Remember for Tomorrow, by the OCAW This first panel depicts the union-building phase of our history, going back to the very origins of our industrial union. The depiction of the earth with "IWW" (symbolizing "One Big Union" for all the workers) represents the Industrial Workers of the World, an early organization that planted the seeds of industrial unionism. The industrial union movement was a struggle for all workers within a given workplace and a given industry to be organized into one union. This was in conflict with the craft union concept which held that carpenters would be in one union, welders in another, etc. Our forefathers in OCAW were interested in building an industrial union as opposed to a craft union. The slogan of the industrial union movement was that "No worker shall compete against another worker anywhere within the same industry and thereby drive each other's living standards downward." Panel 1: Organize the Unorganized
Moving down the panel is a representation of an early industrial union leader, Eugene V. Debs. Debs is represented as a convict - - he went to prison for being opposed to World War I, and in 1920 while in prison he ran for President of the United States and received nearly a million votes (at a time when the voting population was much smaller than it is today). Debs, a secretary of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, was dissatisfied with the conservative craft brotherhoods which organized only skilled railroad workers. In 1892, he began organizing the American Railway Union -- an industrial union which represented all railroad workers regardless of skill.
Above Debs is the Spindletop oil field, where the Oil Field, Gas Well and Refinery Workers of America got its start organizing scattered local unions. To the right of the IWW is a representation of a chemical facility; below it are drawn two charters and a newspaper. The Guffy oil workers headline tells the story of the almost instantaneous formation of that union around a cut in wages and lessening of the work week imposed by Guffy in 1905.
Unionists, like the Guffy oil workers, struggled to build locals; however, there were severe hardships entailed in trying to keep locals together due to turbulent economic times and ever more powerful corporations.
Implicit in the attempt to keep local unions together is another one of the key struggles -- the effort to build a national organization. Such scattered local unions as represented by the Guffy oil workers many times had very short lives. Those early local unionists in the Texas, Louisiana, and California oil fields, as well as the gas locals in upper New England, were all aware of the fact that they needed a national organization to knit together scattered local unions to provide programs and a financial umbrella so that one or the other need not go out of existence when members were laid off.
It was not just any national organization they were looking to establish, but rather a national industrial organization that represented all the workers in their respective industries. So, in 1918 some oil workers sought a charter from the AFL (the American Federation of Labor), the federation of craft unions. The charter was for all oil field, gas well, and refinery workers in the U.S. That effort touched off a long-standing fight with the AFL over the industrial union concept.
That same story can be told about the United Gas, Coke and Chemical Workers. At a much later time (the mid-'30s), scattered local unions joined together and went to the AFL and sought a charter for all employees in the gas, coke and chemical industries. The AFL ignored their request for such a charter, and it was a couple of years later that John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers granted a charter for the gas, coke, and chemical workers under the auspices of the UMW's District 50.
In the mural, the two charters, the Spindletop oil fields, and the chemical plant represent those two principle struggles; that is, the struggle to build a national organization and the struggle for industrial unions. These types of early struggles occurred in all major new industries (auto, steel, rubber, etc.) and produced the modern industrial union movement represented by the building of the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations).
The CIO paper represents the CIO oil worker and the ever-present need to organize.
The central symbol in this panel, the ancient oil derrick encased in weatherboard with Edwin Drake who drilled the first well standing in front of it, represents the first oil well in Pennsylvania, the founding of the oil industry, and the turning of black gold into money and power. From this modest beginning grew oil and petrochemical transnational corporations influencing, controlling, and exploiting the globe. The birth of the oil industry created a whole group of robber barons (depicted by and on the sacks of money), who put together trusts and combines and became the financiers of renown in American history.
One such financier was John D. Rockefeller, symbolized by the Standard Oil truck behind the striking workers. Rockefeller founded the Standard Oil empire in the early twentieth century which was subsequently split up in the anti-trust movement. Most major oil companies today, such as Chevron, Amoco, Mobil, and Exxon, stem from that Standard Oil empire.
In another way, John D. Rockefeller influenced the development of the Oil Workers International Union and also the Gas, Coke and Chemical Workers as well as other unions throughout the industrial union movement. He pioneered the development of company unions to confuse the workers and make it more difficult for the industrial unions to organize them.
The machine gunner raining bullets on the tent colony at Ludlow represents that chapter in Rockefeller labor relations history. The massacre at Ludlow, Colorado, occurred in April 1914. The UMW organizing effort at Ludlow centered on an effort to win a wage increase from Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I). CF&I, owned by the Rockefellers, kicked the miners out of company housing so the workers and their families moved into tents. CF&I relied upon the Colorado State Militia to enforce their will on the strikers and to machine gun and set fire to the tents. Fifteen people were killed in the massacre itself; in all, 33 were killed and more than 100 injured throughout the course of the strike. Mother Jones marched in the funeral for those killed. "John D. Rockefeller, Jr., won the Ludlow Massacre. The women and children were no match for him," wrote Harvey O'Connor in his "History of Oil Workers International Union."
Ludlow, along with the killing of nine workers (and wounding of 50 more) in Bayonne, NJ a few years later, resulted in great public outcry and congressional investigations. Rockefeller recruited Canadian McKenzie King to assist in setting up a system of company unions. McKenzie King, who later became Prime Minister of Canada, is in the upper right of the panel, wearing the elaborate hat. Struggling against company unions became an ongoing battle in the foundation of the Oil Workers International Union.
The Klan figures represented behind McKenzie King symbolize the terror that always stands behind the formation of a subtle and sophisticated device like a company union. It is the iron fist over which the velvet glove of company unionism has been drawn.
The company union system was not confined to the oil industry; it spread throughout all industries. For example, DuPont in the chemical industry is as much a citadel of company unionism today as is Exxon, the inheritor of the Standard of New Jersey mantle. The foundation of company unions and the fight against them was a key part of the struggle to build industrial unions in the oil industry and the chemical industry in the U.S.
Panel 2: Union Democracy and Diversity
Contained in panel two are specific references to events in OCAW history dealing with the struggle for democracy and the foundation of the Oil Workers Union and the United Gas, Coke and Chemical Workers. It also includes symbolic references to the fact that the industrial union movement was, of necessity, founded upon uniting diverse groups of people to create the necessary solidarity and power.As background, there were several concepts of democracy that were part and parcel to the building of the industrial union movement, the building of the CIO, and the industrial unions that formed it. Those concepts of democracy included three aspects: first is the more familiar general political aspect (organized workers are more powerful politically); second is the concept of industrial democracy (having a voice and a say about conditions of employment); and third is internal organizational democracy (democracy within the organization).
Symbolizing the respect that industrial unionists everywhere have for diverse peoples, the rights of minorities, and the importance of civil rights struggles, Martin Luther King is portrayed. King was a strong supporter of the trade union movement in addition to his leadership of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. King learned that the enemies of black civil rights were often extremely hostile to the labor movement. He became an earnest crusader for labor, particularly municipal and hospital workers. At the time of his assassination, King was leading a strike of Memphis, TN sanitation workers. King, in the best tradition of industrial unions, represents a concern for organizing diverse groups of people.
Near Martin Luther King is the infamous silhouette of a policeman with raised club in the South Chicago Memorial Day Massacre of 1937. That massacre was a terrible event; some described it as a police riot in the building of the CIO in "Little Steel". It occurred during a rally held around the Republic Steel strike, and multitudes of strikers and their families were tear- gassed, brutally beaten and shot in the back at point blank range as they retreated from the surprise police attack. Patrol wagons were piled full of wounded and dying people. Ten men were killed and more than a hundred men, women and children were wounded and maimed. "Out of their deaths came the organization of Republic Steel and Little Steel, 10 percent raises for thousands of their brother unionists, recognition of the union and the five-day, forty- hour week.
Out of their deaths, and the deaths of others like them, out of the unity of millions, came the triumph that was the CIO." (Labor's Untold Story)
In the early days, as now, an operative strategy for employers is divide and conquer; for the industrial unions, racial unity meant victory. The lower left of this panel portrays the early racism in unions. It was common, even in the Oil Workers and Gas, Coke, to have black locals and white locals. When black locals supported white locals in strikes, employers would bring in the Ku Klux Klan and others to terrorize the black workers. J. Paul Getty in his top hat represents a common occurrence -- an employer hiding behind an up-front terrorist group, in this case, the Klan.
The Working Man's Advocate, an early labor newspaper, symbolizes early impulses to have a political party to represent working people. As such, it is a forerunner to our own historic efforts to found a Labor Party.
The workers with signs appear as a counterpoint to the Memorial Day Massacre symbols on the left. The signs call for black and white unity, fighting police brutality, and a seven-hour day and a five-day week.
When early unionists began organizing in the plants that were formed after the Civil War in this country, they found many women workers, immigrants, and newly-freed slaves that had moved up from the South. CIO organizers who were recruited and trained from the ranks of those they were attempting to organize, had to build the necessary unity among all these diverse groups in the workforce.
The woman holding the sign on strike against MidContinent DX and the CIO women strikers provide the recognition that women workers played a key part in the building of the Oil Workers International Union and the building of the Gas, Coke and Chemical union, as well as the building of the CIO.
At the 1936 convention there was much dissatisfaction with the way leaders of the Oil Workers Union had performed in years prior to that convention. Many rank-and-file members wanted to reform their union and make it more like a CIO union. Thus Local 210 from Hammond, Indiana, which had always been a key local union in the building of the Oil Workers Organization, spearheaded a move to reorganize the union. This reform movement is represented by the convention delegates' hands raised in support of a reform measure sponsored by Local 210.
A central part of that reorganization was the development of the rank-and-file executive board, a singular symbol of our internal organizational democracy, which we have today. That rank-and- file executive board was charged with the responsibility of overseeing the officers' operations in between conventions and making sure that the officers adopted programs and carried them out in the interest of the rank-and-file.
A corresponding singular event in the history of the other forerunner union, the United Gas, Coke and Chemical Workers, occurred with the exit of the Chemical Workers from the United Mine Workers District 50 in 1942. That event is characterized by John L. Lewis, president of the UMW, whose face is visible under the CIO charter to the UGCCW.
Again, this was a specific singular reaction on the part of the Chemical Workers to the fact the UMW District 50 did not afford them any internal democracy; they had no say within that organization and to rectify that, they petitioned Lewis for democracy, and when he refused to respond, they petitioned the CIO for their own individual industrial union charter.
How does this drive for internal democracy tie into the necessities facing the industrial union movement? Industrial unions have to rely on unifying diverse groups of workers in (1) every facility a company owns and (2) within all facilities of every company in a given industry. These groups must then be organized into a single, solid force to compel employers to agree to improvements in wages, hours and working conditions. The central tenet is the fact that workers must not compete with each other, thereby driving down each other's living standards.
Building such unity requires that people have a stake in the organization-- a democratic ownership in the entire process. Bringing people together against the corporations requires that people have a real voice in the union. That's the link between industrial unionism and internal democracy.
But where craft unions were concerned, internal democracy was not as much a requirement. Their source of power in dealing with employers was that they controlled the supply of skilled labor. The same was true in regard to diversity -- because there was no diversity. The skilled craft jobs were reserved for white, Anglo-Saxon men. The early craft unions represented no minorities, immigrants, women or children. Democratic, mass organization was thus not a part of their makeup and history. Unlike industrial unions, those were not things they had to do in order to be successful.
Panel 3: Union Power
This panel represents events in the history of the Oil Workers and the Gas, Coke and Chemical Workers in terms of their respective struggles with powerful employers. What is not depicted is the fact that a lot of organizing had to take place in order to develop the union power that is shown here.After World War II, technology for making chemicals shifted from coal-based chemical manufacturing to petroleum-based chemical manufacturing and so the Oil Workers Union and the Gas, Coke and Chemical Workers Union found themselves dealing more and more often with the same employers. In addition, both unions were members of the CIO; their leaders were acquainted with each other; and they took pride in the industrial union heritage of the CIO. Thus, this need to deal with common employers and a common industrial union background led in 1955 to the merger forming the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union, shown by the shaking hands of the two symbolic workers.
Both unions had been successful in organizing prior to the merger. However, during the 1920s and early '30s there were hard times aplenty for the workers in the oil fields. Not only did they have to contend with hunger, misery and degradation -- they also had to wage a desperate fight to keep their union alive. At one point, before the union was reborn in the New Deal years, the number of dues-paying members dwindled to a mere 300. Thousands and thousands of workers were organized during and right after World War II and, by 1955, it was reported that the Oil Workers had about 85,000 members.
The Gas, Coke and Chemical Workers, officially formed in 1942, had organized thousands of gas workers prior to the split from District 50. They organized heavily throughout the atomic industry as part of the buildup of the atomic and nuclear industry towards the end of World War II, but floundered somewhat in the post- War era due to internal problems stemming from the prevalent McCarthy-ism of the times. By 1955, they reportedly had about the same number of workers as the Oil Workers -- 85,000. The organizing effort in the atomic industryis represented in the top center of this panel.
All of this ties into other things shown in the panel. The power of the corporations that had become common employers for the Gas, Coke and Chemical Workers and the Oil Workers is depicted by the large tanker that's prominent in the central portion of the panel. That represents the power of the multinational oil and petrochemical corporations. Dealing with that power is portrayed in other parts of the panel.
The "52 for 40 or Fight" sign represents a tremendous battle waged by the Oil Workers in the aftermath of WWII. Harvey O'Connor called it "the great strike of 1945". The Oil Workers led the CIO unions into that struggle and set the pattern for settlement within major industry groups post-World War II. The sign means "52 hours pay for 40 hours worked or there's going to be a fight." During the war, workers put in 48 hours with time and a half for the sixth eight-hour day, making 52 hours pay. After the war, workers wanted to return to the 40 hour, five-day week without losing any of the pay. They felt they deserved this fair deal because the industrial work force had made tremendous sacrifices during the war, while corporations enriched themselves from taxpayers' money.
President Truman called in the U.S. Navy to break the 1945 strike. The Navy escorted tankers across picket lines, as the picket boatsymbolizes. The strike was eventually broken, but the union was victorious in other ways. Sinclair Oil, in an effort to repair public image in the aftermath of the Teapot Dome scandal, broke the pattern set by the company unions and offered an 18 percent settlement to the OWIU. The other companies then accepted the 18 percent offer, and according to Harvey O'Connor, the Oil Workers won the '45 strike making the following important gains:
The union survived the company's plan to smash it. Not a single local caved in under company/Navy pressure, and the International Union was intact--hardened by the struggle and bigger than ever.
The OWIU had for the first time wrested wage leadership from Standard Oil and broke its dictatorship over the industry.
The Oil Workers Union was not only the first union to win in the first round of post-War wage increases, but it won the highest increase, higher than the Steelworkers or the Auto Workers, and others.
The OWIU proved itself to be a first-rate fighting CIO union, able and willing to conduct the first national strike in the industry.
This "Great Strike of '45" would not have been successful had the Oil Workers not organized thousands and thousands of oil workers during the '30s and early '40s. By 1943, for example, President O.A. Knight reported to the convention that the OWIU had won 55 out of 60 elections that year. This success did not come cheaply, however, but both the CIO and the OWIU were up to the challenge in terms of commitment of resources to organizing. Throughout the early '40s, the CIO contributed $10,000 per month subsidy to the Oil Workers organizing campaign and by 1944, the Oil Union itself was devoting half of its income (some $15,000 per month) to organizing. Theseorganizing drives are symbolized by the group at Port Arthur demonstrating in the lower right-hand corner. This represents the Gulf Oil organizing victory at Port Arthur in 1943. It came on the heels of an earlier defeat in 1939 partly due to racist counter-drives by the company.
In 1948, the oil companies once again tried to bust the International Union. Having tried earlier with MidContinent, and having been beaten by the Oil Workers in the nationwide strike of 1945, the companies launched another attack in September of 1948. At that time, the California majors decided to bust the union in California. Initially, the solidarity among the local unions was 100 percent, but they were really not prepared for a long, hard struggle. In addition, the companies had a new weapon in their arsenal with the Taft-Hartley law, and injunctions were used right and left. Standard of California succeeded in busting the union at Richmond, and Union Oil severely weakened the locals at Rodeo and Long Beach.
Representing these attacks by the California oil majors is the worker choking the Union 76 company dummy.
The International lost 6,000 members in California during that fray. But by 1950, through valiant action on the part of the locals in California, the union bounced back and launched a reorganization campaign.
It was in the late 1940s that OWIU became a truly international union. American oil companies had taken over the oil industry in Canada decades before. Although Canadian oil workers organized the United Oil Workers of Canada earlier in the decade, by the late '40s they decided to affiliate with the OWIU to successfully counter the power of the U.S.-based oil companies. The first Canadian local to affiliatewith the OWIU in 1948 was in Clarkson, Ontario. By the early 1950s, several thousand Canadians had decided to affiliate with the OWIU. For 25 years, the Canadians were proud and progressive members of the OWIU and then OCAW. By the late 1970s, successive waves of Canadian nationalism made it necessary for the Canadians to seek autonomy. The separation was amicable and relations remain close and harmonious to this day.
The depiction of Karen Silkwood, the central figure in this panel, captures the essence of a genuine working class hero whose influence is still felt, and is a recognition of Silkwood's contribution to OCAW's struggle for healthy and safe workplaces. Karen Silkwood was an OCAW officer who died in 1974 while trying to alert the public about health and safety irregularities at the Oklahoma nuclear processing plant where she worked. The story of her life includes fighting a company attempt to decertify the union where she worked, escalating clashes with management, poisoning by radioactivity on the job, and death at age 28 while en route to meet an OCAW representative and a newspaper reporter. Panel 4: Union Action
Silkwood also represents at least one of the meaningful efforts in our history of the organizing model of unionism. In a recent column in the OCAW Reporter, President Bob Wages said: "We believe the story behind Karen Silkwood's involvement with her union, her efforts to bring education on nuclear industry health hazards to her follow workers, and her enterprise in working to defeat a decertification in her plant, are vivid examples of the organizing model of unionism at work."
This panel proceeds to symbolize some of OCAW's best moments when the organizing model was followed: the effort to pass OSHA, the Shell strike of 1973, the BASF struggle in the 1980s, the American Home Products tragedy of the 1990s.
The 1967 convention saw OCAW take the lead in calling for a law to protect worker health and safety. A health and safety resolution was passed which led to the formation of a community/labor coalition that was instrumental in the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, symbolized at the left bottom. It was a bitter labor/management political fight, continuing for over two years, which resulted in the OSHA legislation. OCAW's role in the early days of OSHA established the union as a strong advocate for worker health and safety. And, in fact, OCAW was the first union to file a complaint under the act and the first to request an imminent danger inspection.
The "Shell Don't Buy" billboard symbolizes a 1973 nationwide strike and boycott of Shell Oil over health and safety. Not only was this OCAW's first strike over health and safety, it was the first major corporate campaign in U.S. labor history. OCAW forged alliances with the scientific, academic, environmental, and labor communities to fight Shell's position that it would not bargain over health and safety. The Union spent nearly half a million dollars to advertise a nationwide boycott of Shell and to educate the public about the need to protect the health of the workers and the communities. In the face of public pressure, Shell eventually did bargain a compromise health and safety clause.
In 1984, BASF locked out 370 OCAW members at Geismar in what was the eighth BASF lockout in a decade. To recall that conflict, the panel shows a "Break the Lockout" button. This lockout, the longest in U.S. labor history, ended in 1989. In the five and one-half years in between, BASF hired hundredS of inexperienced and untrained contract workers to run the facility. In response, OCAW organized a corporate campaign that included forming coalitions with environmentalists; marching on the state capitol; placing billboards with "Bhopal on the Bayou" messages; organizing support from around the world; blocking a hazardous waste incinerator-chemical dump project in Indiana; stopping a planned Geismar works expansion, and generally frustrating and disorganizing BASF at every opportunity. The corporate campaign ended when a three year agreement was ratified, but the coalitions formed during this struggle continue to work in Louisiana to protect worker and community interests.
A more recent event, the American Home Products fight, is symbolized too. In July of 1992, American Home Products Corporation agreed to pay $24 million in damages and legal fees to former employees displaced when the company relocated mainland drug operations to Caribbean tax havens. Nearly 600 members of OCAW Locals 7-515 and 7-838 benefitted from the settlement, bringing to an end one of the hardest-fought plant closing battles in recent labor history. AHP headed for Puerto Rico for the same reason 50 other drug and cosmetic companies have left: U.S. Internal Revenue Code Section 936, the Possessions Tax Credit. Section 936 allows U.S. corporations to operate tax-free when they set up business in Puerto Rico. At that time, this loophole was worth an average $62,000 annually per worker hired in Puerto Rico. Efforts to amend Section 936 were successful in reducing the loophole by 60 percent.
"Hometowns Against Shutdowns" was the name of a long, intensive campaign in the mid-1980s by OCAW Local 8-760 to save 450 members' jobs at 3M in Freehold, NJ. The effort included support from musician Bruce Springsteen who is from Freehold, an extensive advertising campaign to convince 3M to reconsider, and a sympathy strike by South African 3M union workers. Despite these actions, 3M carried out its decision to shut down the facility.
The burning petrochemical complex represents all such disasters but especially the 1989 Phillips disaster near Houston, TX. Twenty-three were killed and many more injured when subcontractor maintenance crews using poor lockout practices caused the explosions and fire. The Phillips tragedy brought to a head industry practices of subcontracting and focused OSHA's attention on the use of unskilled contract labor and overtime in these exceedingly complex petrochemical facilities. In testimony before Congress, Bob Wages said that strong "Right-to-Act" laws are OCAW's "long-term solution to the growing number of catastrophes in the continuous process industry." Right-to-Act laws "will automatically mean a meaningful safety process standard."
The call to "Free Tom Mooney" symbolizes that our union has always been willing to take action to further our principles and beliefs, even at the very beginning. Tom Mooney was a San Francisco labor leader who was framed and sent to jail wrongly. The first resolution passed by the first convention of the Oil Field, Gas Well and Refinery Workers of America in 1918 called for the release of Tom Mooney. As a sign of the times, another resolution called for the nationalization of railroads, communications, and the oil, coal, electric power, and shipping industries. Also portrayed is a 1914 battle that occurred between union strikers, the police, and hired thugs in Bayonne, NJ. The cops and the hired thugs were working on behalf of Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company. Nine strikers were shot to death and at least 50 were wounded in a strike at Rockefeller's refinery in Bayonne, NJ. In July of 1915, the still cleaners had struck and within a few days the plant was down. The strike represented the men's rebellion against being punched, kicked and beaten by the bosses. Wages were so low that the workers' children worked in the child labor factories. Standard Oil mobilized an army of gunmen who rode up and down the streets of the slum-blighted city, beating and killing at sight. Once again, Rockefeller won. His refinery workers, leaderless and bewildered, were no match for his millions.
In October 1916 another strike convulsed Bayonne. The mayor, a Standard Oil attorney, and the sheriff again mobilized bands of professional killers. This time seven more were murdered and the number of wounded could never be accurately counted. These were ongoing fights for survival and the public reaction to the Rockefeller arrogance and cruelty exhibited at Bayonne (and earlier at Ludlow) ushered in the creation of the company union system as a response by the Standard Oil Company to that adverse public reaction.
The scene symbolizes the beginning of ongoing union action to overcome and win over oil and chemical company unions.
Panel 5: Keeping the Dream
The artwork on the top page, "Keeping the Dream," is panel five of a 50-foot history mural commissioned by the OCAW in 1994 and painted by New Jersey muralist Mike Alewitz. Alewitz is the Labor Artist-in-Residence for the New Jersey Industrial Union Council, AFL-CIO, at the Labor Education Department of Rutgers University and is the Director of the Labor Art and Mural Project.
OCAW's influence nationally and ability to move issues far outweighed our numbers in the past and still does today. Our agenda for the future, portrayed in this panel, once again provides the opportunity to advance the cause of working people by leading the fight for a national health program, a Labor Party, and a new political and social agenda based on economic security and social justice.
"Keeping the Dream by Organizing for the Future" incorporates the major programs of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union.
All of these programs, plans of action, and struggles represent the best in terms of our tradition as an industrial union. Those themes, starting with the struggle to build a national organization, the struggle to build a democratic organization, and the struggle to build an industrial union, all come together in this final panel, which represents the vision of our union for building a social movement.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Panel 1: Organize the Unorganized
Sunday, January 2, 2011
I WAS A TEENAGE SUBVERSIVE (Part 3) Texass
I WAS A TEENAGE SUBVERSIVE (Part 3 - Texass)
(According to the FBI)
"In view of the subject's position of leadership in the SWP it is felt he meets the required ADEX criteria and is, therefore, being recommended for inclusion on the ADEX of the San Antonio division." [ADEX was the secret government plan to round up and jail "subversives"]
Photo: May 15, 1971 antiwar rally outside Fort Hood Killeen Texas. This was one of the events documented in the film "Sir, No Sir" by David Zeiger. (Alewitz - far right in white shirt/ Zeiger far right in dark shirt)
(Recently I received the first 1,033 pages of my FBI files. Most of this is highly redacted (censored) material–information is blocked out that would actually reveal the secret methods and dirty tricks of the government. It is also safe to assume these thousand pages represent a fraction of what they actually possess.
Nonetheless, as I go through these documents, I will post some, in somewhat of a chronological order. Given the recent FBI attacks on antiwar activists, some people may find this of interest).
* * * *
Part 3/ Texass:
Following the shootings on May 4, 1970, I travelled around the country on behalf of the Committee of Kent State Massacre Witnesses. I attended meetings and spoke at numerous rallies as we attempted to spread and deepen the national student strike. I ended up moving to Austin, Texas - the following documents relate to some of my initial activities there.
This is the first part of Texas materials - there are a lot more I have to wade through.
Attached are:
- Police photo
- Memo from J Edgar Hoover berating the Cleveland FBI office for being late with my paperwork "Bureau will tolerate no further delay!"
- Snitches - (check out the last sentence)
- My arrival in Austin Texas is noted and I am designated Priority I
- An extraordinarily eerie report (pg 2) on a May 2-3 1970, conference at Ohio State University in Columbus. I had just returned from this conference to Kent State in time to witness the massacre of May 4.
- Memo regarding my arrival in Austin
- FBI Version of history of the Student Mobilization Committee
- FBI characterization of the Socialist Workers Party and the Young Socialist Alliance.
- More snitches
- Memo noting participation in demonstrations at Bergstrom Air Force Base, for Malcolm X and that I testified brfore the Scranton Commission (Presidential Commission on Campus Unrest)
- Apparently I continue to be Priority I
- Memo from Hoover to the Secret Service labeling me as dangerous
- Report on my participation in anti-war coalitions
- Reports noting activities with the student mobilization committee. I chaired the rally (Minister?!) for the October 31, 1970 antiwar demonstration was one of the largest in the country. It was led by thousands of antiwar GIs as we marched to the state capitol in Austin.
- Report noting that I was a speaker at the May 15, 1971 antiwar rally outside Fort Hood Killeen Texas.
- Documents reporting my participation in numerous meetings, rallies and demonstrations including Hiroshima and Nagasaki, August 6 commemorations.
- During this time I was subpoenaed and testified before the Scranton Commission–the Presidential Commission on Campus Unrest, which was reported in the Daily Texan.
- Also noted are activities to plan protests for the dedication of the LBJ library–during which time I was subjected to injunctions preventing my participation from going anywhere near the UT campus.
and
Friday, December 31, 2010
SHOW FORGIVENESS - SPEAK FOR JUSTIC...
SHOW FORGIVENESS - SPEAK FOR JUSTICE - AVOID THE IGNORANT
7’ x 40’ - Mural by the Fall 2010 Mural Painting Class/ Central CT State University
Jeff Glowa, Alyssa Lennehan, Brenda Marousek, Zoe Nicole Shaw, Jackie Sidor, Wiley Akin, Marissa Blaszko, Andrew Cusson, Ally King, Rachel CabaniolNEW BRITAIN HERALD - Friday, November 12, 2010 / Page1
NEW BRITAIN — About a dozen Central Connecticut State University art students used their paint brushes to bring attention to their frustration over what they see as society’s Islamaphobia, and their work was unveiled Friday.
Borrowing a quote from the Muslim Quran, “Show Forgiveness, Speak for Justice, Avoid the Ignorant,” the students used a combination of Arabic script and wild-style lettering to create a 40-foot mural for display at one end of the Student Center’s exterior. Designed as a portable banner, the artwork, promoting religious tolerance, can be used as a backdrop or display at other venues or conferences on or off campus.
“Their work speaks to an issue of building solidarity between human beings and not allowing ourselves to be divided by hatred or religious differences,” says Professor of Art Mike Alewitz....his students’ decision to focus on religious tolerance came from their discussion about the controversy over plans to build a mosque and Muslim cultural center near ground zero in lower Manhattan...
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
The Flint Sit-Down Strike - December 30, 1936
The History of the United Mine Workers Unionby 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. 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...
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Vladimir Tatlin - 12.28.1885
Monument to the Third International, 1920Vladimir TatlinThe Russian Revolution, and the founding of the 3rd International (to spread the revolution to other countries,) was an inspiration to working people and artists throughout the world. For a few brief years, before the rise of Stalinism, there was a great outburst of new and visionary art.One of the works that symbolizes this period was Tatlin’s Monument to the 3rd Communist International.His sculpture, which was also a group of buildings, was to span the Neva River. At 1,300 feet, it would be the tallest human-made structure in the world.Twin spirals symbolized the dialectic of the revolution and would contain vehicles to transport visitors around the structure.The main framework would contain four large suspended buildings, rotating at different rates of speed.At the base of the structure was a cube, designed as a venue for lectures, conferences and legislative meetings - it would rotate on its axis once a year.Above that was a pyramid - housing executive activities and completing a rotation once a month.Next came a cylinder - this would contain an information center, issuing news bulletins and manifestos via telegraph, radio and loudspeaker. It would rotate on its axis once a day.At the very top was a sphere, with a projector to beam messages onto the clouds.The buildings would all be made of glass, so that the workers could always see what their leaders were doing.The new revolution did not have enough resources to feed the population, and the monument was never built. But it became a symbol of the optimism and spirit of the revolution and workers carried models of it in demonstrations.- MA
PEOPLE'S ART TEARS THROUGH L.A. TINSEL
Alewitz has drawn on the agitprop tradition popularized by countless workers' movements. His work is a frank admission that all art takes sides.
By Eric Gordon
Special to the Guardian
May 1990
LOS ANGELES
South Central Los Angeles lies far from the towering decorator suites of television's "LA. Law." This part of town has a large Third World population, high unemployment, a big drug problem and a police department famous for riding roughshod over the rights of anyone who happens to be of the wrong color.
In the midst of this neighborhood, the Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research was founded in 1963. Its doors are open to readers and researchers interested in books, posters, films, recordings and all manner of archival material relating to the labor movement, the struggles for peace and social justice, the women's movement and other progressive causes.
For years, plagued by unsightly graffiti, staffers at the library had appealed for a mural to grace its walls. Such outdoor murals are a recognizable feature of the Los Angeles cityscape, thanks in large part to the Social and Public Art Resource Center.
Never having heard of the library. New Jersey painter Mike Alewitz, known in New York for the oft-desecrated Pathfinder Mural, and for his labor union projects with the United Auto Workers, the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, the United Mineworkers and other unions, applied to SPARC to paint a mural on the-dual themes of international solidarity with undocumented workers and organizing to protect the interests of all workers. Choosing Alewitz out of a hundred artists submitting proposals for this community, SPARC put his idea together with the library's request, and offered him the commission.
Alewitz worked on the 23-foot by 48-foot gessoed surface in April and May 1990, assisted by four students from nearby Manual Arts High School. The formal dedication of the library's north wall, at which numerous labor, cultural and community leaders spoke, took place May 15th.
The mural on the outside gives appropriate clues as to what is inside, for as William Doyle, president of the library, pointed out both the mural and the library exist to give the working class the knowledge it needs to gain power.
"In Los Angeles," Alewitz says, "we see a microcosm of world events. Millions are uprooted and driven from their homelands by economic and political repression. They seek a better life here, which for a great majority will remain unrealized. Instead, they will become victims anew, through other forms of economic exploitation, racism and the ghastly Hollywood culture which demeans and stereotypes their culture."
The mural depicts a mass of working people streaming toward the electrified, barbed-wire Mexican border from the distant, smog-shrouded city of Los Angeles. They wield a magnificent tool of their own creation, designed to cut through the frontier. On the right, the captains of local industry (grapes, wine, garment, pharmaceutical, machine tools, aeronautics, shipbuilding) look on in horror as their profits are threatened. Their mascot, the bloodsucking monster of imperialism, guards the pile of gold that has been created by labor. On the other side stand the legions of paper-shuffling bureaucrats, all of them plugged in to the middle-class conformity emanating from the TV monitor. Overhead, the sun that shines on all breathes out a banner held up by worker-angels, while a projector from the top of the tower spells out the title of the mural, "Labor Solidarity has no Borders," in English, Spanish, Korean and Farsi.
Clearly, Alewitz has drawn on the traditions of agitational propaganda (agitprop) popularized by countless workers' movements of the past. The influence of the Mexican muralists is self-evident.
His work is a frank admission that art— all art—takes sides. But he has also introduced many subtle references across space and time. He clothes his workers in modem garb: A woman in camouflage recalls the informal "uniform" of the Pittston miners during their militant 1989-90 strike, and the various headgear point up the multiethnic character of the working class.
Many of his figures reflect older sources. A female figure holding a jug comes from ancient Egypt: It is one of the earliest representations of labor in art. A male figure with a basket is Gustave Courbet's painting “The Stone Breaker.”
A Sandinista woman spreading seed recalls Jean Francis Millet's painting '"The Sowers." while a man at the wheel restates a classic image by the Soviet photographer Rodchenko.
If the viewer seems to recognize Marx, Lenin, Malcolm X and Rosa Luxemburg in positions of prominent leadership, this is not unintended. The hovering cartoon angels are new versions of baroque cherubs; one, wearing glasses, and unmistakably Leon Trotsky, sends down an energetic blessing. The tower from which the workers flow is modeled after Tatlin's visionary project for a huge monument to the Third International in the early days of the Russian Revolution.
In a gesture of self-quotation, Alewitz has recreated his monster of imperialism from the "P-9 Mural" he painted in Austin, Minnesota in 1985 for Local P-9 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, during the prolonged strike against Hormel. That mural, celebrated in song by folksinger Charlie King, was destroyed after only a few months when P-9 was taken into receivership by its international union.
Alewitz's mural is one of 15 commissioned through SPARC in its 1989-90 program of "Neighborhood Pride: Great Walls Unlimited." Funds for the project came from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council, the Arco Foundation and the Hitachi Foundation. So far it has been well received in the South Central Los Angeles community, whose residents well understand its message.
Though the U.S.-Mexican border is the immediate reference, it is impossible to ignore the wider implications North and South, East and West. Labor solidarity must extend around the world. Indeed, as Alewitz has observed, "The future of the labor movement ultimately depends on how it relates to all the world's unorganized and undocumented workers. Will it champion the most oppressed sectors of society?"
The Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research is located at 6120 S. Vermont Avenue, Los Angeles, Calif. 90044; (213) 759-6063. Its hours are Tues.-Sat. 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
Socialists & Social-lites
Socialists & Social-lites
It’s been over 100 days. I am now prepared to accept the apologies of those who worked to put Obama in the White House.
Remember your effusive praise, how you touted him as being different than Bush? You accused people of being a sectarian, and out of touch with reality, if they refused to vote for him. You said he was leading a progressive movement - the beginning of a bright new era of politics.
You owe an apology to me and everyone else that spoke the truth about Obama. We said he would continue the Bush policies. We told you so.
More importantly, you need to express remorse to the millions of working people in this country and around the world that you helped convince to vote for him. Unlike you, they have nothing to apologize for. They made a mistake, but they did it for the right reasons - they hated what Bush stood for and wanted to express their solidarity as a class – they voted to reject war and racism.
They did not understand that the elections are a charade - but you did.
So let me make it clear who I am addressing this to: the union officials, peace activists, staff people for progressive organizations and others who have argued and fought against independent political action – all the longtime activists that have supported one lying, miserable Democratic politician after another as the lesser of two evils – Obama, Kerry, Clinton, Carter, Johnson, ad nausea.
I’ve now been listening to your equivocations and apologies for over 40 years. You cannot see beyond your own little milieu of self-absorbed radicals. You have learned nothing.
Let’s review what your man Obama has accomplished in his first hundred days: revived the military tribunals; refused to address himself to the don’t ask don’t tell policy; decided to keep prisoners in Guantánamo; maintained troops in Iraq; refused to release the pictures of torture; supported the Israeli devastation of Gaza; maintained the US embargo of Cuba; named Cheney’s chief interrogator to head up the war in Afghanistan; refused to bring criminal action against widespread torture; expanded the war in Afghanistan to bomb civilians in Pakistan; given hundreds of billions of dollars to his Wall Street backers; given billions of dollars to the auto industry as a reward for massive layoffs; indicated support for doctor’s refusing a women’s right to abortion.
And as a special bonus: preventive detention.
You groveled at the feet of the democrats, begging for the Employee Free Choice Act, (a wimpy substitute for organizing for working-class power) – he’s not even going to give you that. He’s not giving you a damn thing. Not even the jobs you coveted.
I’ve probably forgotten some of the rotten things he’s done, but this is just the first hundred days. Obama has years to promote the Bush program, which is and always has been, the program of the ruling class - regardless of who sits in the White House. Like we told you, time and again.
Obama has proven himself the faithful servant of imperialism. He was selected to derail the antiwar movement and stifle social unrest emerging from the economic crisis. And you wagged your little poodle tails and helped him herd workers off the streets and into the voting booth. You helped mislead millions of anti-war people into supporting a militarist president. You covered up for him. You apologized for him. You fawned over him and gushed over his election victory.
Obama is being loyal to the class he represents – the employers. Obama didn’t betray his class – you betrayed yours. Now you should stand up and take responsibility for your actions.
If you still support Obama, you are supporting the ruling class against your fellow workers. You cannot be a progressive for Obama. You can either be a progressive, or you can be for Obama.
Please don’t take this personally. Some of you are friends. These comments are not directed at the many well-meaning people who got suckered in. They will learn from the experience and move on.
I’m talking about the pie-cards that have been hustling votes for the Democrats for years. I’m particularly talking about the most wretched, gutless, class collaborationist union bureaucracy that has ever existed. What a cesspool. At a time of growing economic crisis, when millions of workers would be willing to go into action and fight, you are hustling votes for the bosses and waging war with each other over dues money.
I’m not just referring to the millionaire pork-choppers like Stern, Gettlefinger, Wilhelm, etc – I’m including all the thousands of cogs in the bloated bureaucratic machinery that justify, apologize for, or remain silent about this dues money feeding frenzy. I don’t care whether you’re a hardened business unionist that’s been sucking our blood for decades or a pretentious young nitwit that hires out to lead the poor workers - you should all be ashamed of yourselves.
Your behavior is a dishonor to the proud history of the militant working class of this country – to the women and men of the Knights of Labor, the IWW, the CIO, the anti-war GIs, the millions of undocumented workers that took to the streets in fearless action on Mayday just three years ago.
Any union staff person with an ounce of self-respect should get up from their desk right now and in a loud voice proclaim that you will no longer be a part of this travesty. Tell them that you are no longer willing to participate in raiding operations and jurisdictional squabbles. Tell them you are unwilling to impose contracts that sell out the next generations of workers. Tell them that you are no longer going to crawl to the bosses offering concessions. Tell them you will not apologize for Obama and you will never, never, ever again support the candidates of the employers.
Then announce that you are going out to look for a job so you can help organize your class. If you do that, we would all be proud of you.
OK – so why my sudden outburst? After all, none of this is new. I guess the quantitative just became the qualitative. There was the straw that broke the camel’s back, the spark that led to this undisciplined outpouring and my years of self-control going down the tubes. This is what did it:
Basking in the glow of the ruling class electoral victory, some of you have begun to strut around, coming out as socialists. What’s more, having rediscovered socialism, you are redefining it. We are being "re-imagined." Lucky us.
This is much like the European discovery of America. In both cases, there were indigenous people that had little in common with the recent arrivals. Many of us have been socialists all along and I can say without qualification: you are not one of us. If you support Obama you are not any kind of revolutionary - you can hardly be considered a reformer.
You are not socialists; you are what I will call social-lites. Posers. Pretenders.
The rapidity with which your leader has revealed his real agenda has put you in an awkward position. Having helped deliver the working class vote to the bosses, you will now try to pose as the socialist opposition to Obama. You’ll put on a Marxist patina to hide your rotten deeds. Being shrewd careerists, you’ll start back peddling, distancing yourself from Obama’s atrocities. (Until you’re right back doing it again in the next elections.)
But we know what you are: frightened functionaries living off our labor. You didn’t believe us about Obama and you won’t believe me about this, but I’ll tell it plain: The workers that you have robbed and kept fettered in the face of the bosses offensive are going to rise up and roll right over you. When workers understand the depth of your duplicity, you are going to be booted so far that you will never be able to crawl back into your padded chairs.
Lest these words seem harsh, there is always room to change - it’s never to late. Big fights are coming. As the illusions in Obama disappear, there will be new upsurges in the anti-war movement, for immigrant rights and economic justice. We could use your help.
Break with Obama, apologize, promise not to do it again, and we will embrace you as comrades.
Otherwise, just get the fuck out of our way.
- Mike Alewitz/ 5.23.9
How to Tell Socialists from Social-lites:
I have composed the following guide to help recognize the difference between socialists and social-lites. (Not all of these characteristics may apply at all times.)
Social-lites get paid jobs with unions to organize workers;
Socialists are workers that organize unions.
Social-lites work in industry for a couple of years and then spend the rest of their lives writing about it;
Socialists work in industry their whole lives and then spend a couple years writing about it.
Social-lites have framed photos of themselves with Fidel Castro or Nelson Mandela;
Socialists don’t need such photos.
Social-lites speak at movement banquets and leave to get some decent food;
Socialists are glad to get some decent food at a banquet, despite having to listen to the boring social-lite.
Social-lites have titles that include the word executive;
Socialists have titles that include the word head.
Social-lites organize meetings that try to keep out the wackos, so things don’t get out of control;
Socialists are the wackos.
Social-lites try to get arrested at demonstrations to display their militancy;
Socialists try to stay out of jail so they won’t get fired.
Social-lites enjoy successful careers writing books or making art about workers;
Socialists write leaflets and paint banners with workers.
Social-lites speak at rallies that they didn’t organize;
Socialists organize rallies that they are not allowed to speak at.
Social-lites are invited to Danny Glover’s or Sean Penn’s for receptions;
Socialists go door-to-door selling papers.
Social-lites spend time lobbying, urging diplomatic initiatives and promoting time schedules;
Socialists stay in the streets and demand stuff now.
Social-lites support progressive legislation and courts;
Socialists tear up injunctions.
Social-lites receive awards from groups because of their activism;
Socialists get expelled from groups because of their activism.
Social-lites want to get the country back on track;
Socialists want to make a revolution.
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