September, 2005

Labor Day 2005: Workers in Fight for Their Lives Need Strategy for Victory

On this Labor Day, it is fitting that we stop and look at where we are as workers and as a nation. The world that gave birth to the great Labor Day celebrations of the past is rapidly fading. Labor – that vast expanse of people who live only through their ability to work – is barely recognizable. It is not simply that fewer workers than ever are part of trade unions. Labor has always been more than the trade union movement in any case. It is that the nature and character of labor is itself changing under the onslaught of new technologies, transforming forever the nature and character of the movement of labor in this country.

Where once the standard of living of the American worker was the highest in the world, advanced technology is destroying the value of labor and is giving birth to a workforce that is hardly a workforce at all, but a growing mass of people whose connection to the old ways of work and life is unraveling before our eyes. The life long job, the steady career, the generation after generation into the mill or the plant or the mine, these are all rapidly disappearing, or in some places are already only a distant memory.

From running cash registers in Walmart to slaughtering chickens at Tysons to cleaning rooms at the Super 8 to hustling on the street for cans or loose change, American workers are forced to scramble for work wherever they can. All kinds of people face problems in finding work, not just the laid off factory worker or the high school drop-out or the kid from around the way. College graduates, middle level managers with years of experience under their belts, and skilled workers in all fields are all thrown together in the same sinking boat.

As technology eliminates the need for labor the government as the main agent of the ruling class is increasingly divesting itself of all responsibility for society. Money is shifted to guarantee the capitalists’ profits and to service their needs. So not only jobs, but everything else is left to its own devices. Schools are allowed to fall into disrepair, hospitals are closed, city services are gutted, and a blind eye is turned to corporate polluters and corporate criminals of all kinds.

Some are simply hoping to wait out the storm. Yet, there are a growing number of others who are recognizing they are going have to fight against their worsening conditions. But how and to what end? With what allies, where do we make the compromises, and where to make the stand? And most importantly, how will we win? These are the emerging questions before the movement today, and it is not exaggeration to say that the future of the world depends upon the answers we, the workers of this country, come up with.

There are many questions to be answered, but we already know a few things that can help us in our deliberations. First, we have to begin to understand that the conditions we face form the basis of our common interests as a class. And more than that, our class interests are absolutely opposed to the ruling class that runs this country. This means that everything about us is different from them, including our values and morality, but also our power. They have it, we don’t.

Second, we have to organize ourselves politically to exert our interests in society. Politics is a struggle over power – which class has it and which class is organizing to take it away. Most immediately, it means we need a party which represents our class interests, not the interests of the ruling class as the Republicans and the Democrats do. This is available to us now in the form of the Labor Party, a party that is organized to represent the interests of the workers. Look for stories on the activities of the Labor Party in upcoming issues of the People Tribune You can check out the Labor Party at www.thelaborparty.org.

And finally, we need a common vision of what is actually possible. A world without want is the resolution that lies at the heart of every struggle today. This must be the banner that we carry everywhere we go, informing every strategy we devise and every tactic we develop.

A new world is being born. In such moments of transition, all seems confusion and chaos. But by keeping these elements uppermost in our minds — making them our North Star — we can keep ourselves and our class on course and devise the strategy and tactics that we need to win.