Sandy Reid of the People's Tribune interviewed Richard Monje, Vice President of Workers United, about the next step for labor. Part one of this interview was published in the August, 2011 edition of the People's Tribune.
People's Tribune: Richard, what is the step for labor?
Richard Monje: The next step for labor is to clearly determine the role labor will play. There are many indications that labor does not know where to go so they are constantly repeating the same old thing. They are hoping that some individual will come in and save the institutions that they had. So the faith was held in the Democratic Party institutions-that Carter, then Clinton and now Obama has the solutions-that there can be a new agreement made between the corporations (and the wealthy) and working people (and the poor) to form a new political coalition of forces. There is no indication that such a coalition can be built.
Brezinski recently stated that if the U.S. continued down the course it is heading, there would be deep social unrest. I agree. There are also a whole bunch of other people trying to figure out what kind of program could link together the social unrest, not just over job loss, but also over trade, and all of the issues that are affecting people's everyday life. There seems absolutely no interest on the part of the Democratic Party or the Republicans-nor among the groupings of capital that sought compromise with the anger and frustration in the 1930s and 1940s-to form that kind of coalition. On the contrary, they are putting institutions and laws in place to further control the anger and frustration.
The unions are going to participate in the construction of something extremely conservative and narrow on self-interests-or they can transform into a different kind of organization. Instead of simply negotiating contracts for the self-interests of the workers they represent, they could seek to represent the basic members as only a part of a broader section of people. They could utilize their resources to assist in identifying what kind of new economic models can be created. Take a look at a Wisconsin. There's social organization in all of the towns and rural areas that expressed a programmatic point of view of what should happen in this country on the budget crisis. They should have an opinion and they should fight for that opinion. I don't think the unions or the labor movement can do this by themselves. But we need to play a role in the reconstruction of the economic model that expresses a new way to distribute goods and services in this country and who pays for it.
PT: Is there motion toward a third party?
RM: There is a constant bubbling of interest towards building all kinds of parties. None of the "legitimate" institutions or organizations is a part of that process. Right now they are dedicated to the re-election of Barak Obama. So what is left is anger and frustration and a large mass of people who have no organizational expression, no leadership speaking on their behalf, and at any point can explode. The best example of this was the response in Wisconsin to the Republican's actions.It wasn't led by a national leader, by the Democratic Party or Obama. It was an expression of people who lived in small rural areas, of students and some union activists, but it didn't require leaders to say, "Let's do X, Y, Z." It was led by local leaders who were tied to teachers, who were tied to fire-fighters, who were tied to the other trade unions, who were tied to people who used to belong to unions in the Fox River Valley, where all of the paper mills used to be and have since closed. Literally tens of thousands of families are connected to that history, that union history, to an economic model of who is responsible and what do I contribute to society so that society can take care of me, my family and my community. I think this is a model of what can happen when we don't have a third party, an independent political expression outside of the Democratic and Republicans debating how much to do we cut, rather than solving the problem of a lack of jobs, health care and poverty. Right now there are organizations that are attempting to form parties. That is an important step, but right now it hasn't congealed. So it remains small isolated groups and the general broad base of mass social discontent is disconnected from the attempts to form that party.
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Rally in Lansing, Michigan to
protest budget cuts.
Photo/daymonjhartley.com
The Next Step for Labor
Why Teach About the Triangle Fire?
9th graders at IS 190, Bronx brought
their memorial posters to the Triangle
Fire centennial commemoration.
Photo/Robert Domingo, FDNY
By Andi Sosin and Joel Sosinsky, The Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition
Teachers shoulder responsibility to prepare their students with the skills and knowledge necessary to be productive citizens, yet they are continually criticized for their inability to overcome the effects of poverty and the myriad reasons for failure. As the desperate nature of the economic situation becomes more obvious, the neo-liberal effort to control education and suppress dissent has become even more vociferous. Schools are the medium for the transmission of values, which is contested territory: sugar-coating capitalism by calling it free enterprise, excluding labor from history books, and reducing what is taught to the bare minimum of skills and topics that are tested. In the much reduced social studies curriculum, labor is dealt with as ancient history, unrelated to our modern world. Teachers are constantly pressured to meet externally imposed standards and teachers unions are under the gun, losing control over their working environments from increasing encroachment of conservative political ideologies and private charter school operators. And the decimation of union membership in the US has greatly diminished the chances for parents to pass on union values to their children. All of these forces have successfully created ignorance about the popular movements that shaped this nation, especially of the labor movement. What can be done to counter this trend?
Those who care about social and economic justice have much to learn from the Triangle fire and the political revolution it is credited with inspiring. The Triangle fire took place in New York City one hundred years ago on March 25, 1911, killing 146 workers, mostly immigrant women, amidst labor upheaval in an ascendant industrial economy. The fire and its attendant exposure of exploitative factory working conditions across New York state galvanized the citizenry to come out in support of workers, which forced politicians to bend to the public’s will to support the workers and extend to them the safety and social protections that we now take for granted. In the style of popular education, lessons of the Triangle fire present a teachable opportunity that has the potential to engage people in exercising collective power for their own welfare.
The Triangle fire potently demonstrated capitalism’s disregard for human beings, and the necessity of government to care for all of the people, not only the wealthy and powerful. From Triangle came the social justice legislation that authorized unions, regulated workplace safety, and established the social safety net that is now in jeopardy. Despite that it happened one hundred years ago, Triangle’s lessons are about what can take place when people become aware of their own exploitation. This generation’s economic prospects are far different, but what has not changed since the Triangle era is that the ordinary citizen can only exert power through collective action.
The Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition (RTFC) organized the centennial commemoration of the Triangle fire. Its website http://rememberthetrianglefire.org, contains information about the fire and links to participating organizations, books, films and online resources, lesson plans, and advice to organizers. Courageous teachers marked the Triangle centennial by sharing these with students, and the RTFC is now leading an effort to create a permanent Triangle memorial, which will serve to honor social justice activism and potentially educate those who have not learned about labor’s struggles in school. In this way, the Triangle fire can create awareness of the value of collective action and highlight ways to achieve social and economic justice now hidden by corporate culture.
For more information about the RTFC’s efforts in education, contact the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition at
info@rememberthetrianglefire.org.
Teachers shoulder responsibility to prepare their students with the skills and knowledge necessary to be productive citizens, yet they are continually criticized for their inability to overcome the effects of poverty and the myriad reasons for failure. As the desperate nature of the economic situation becomes more obvious, the neo-liberal effort to control education and suppress dissent has become even more vociferous. Schools are the medium for the transmission of values, which is contested territory: sugar-coating capitalism by calling it free enterprise, excluding labor from history books, and reducing what is taught to the bare minimum of skills and topics that are tested. In the much reduced social studies curriculum, labor is dealt with as ancient history, unrelated to our modern world. Teachers are constantly pressured to meet externally imposed standards and teachers unions are under the gun, losing control over their working environments from increasing encroachment of conservative political ideologies and private charter school operators. And the decimation of union membership in the US has greatly diminished the chances for parents to pass on union values to their children. All of these forces have successfully created ignorance about the popular movements that shaped this nation, especially of the labor movement. What can be done to counter this trend?
Those who care about social and economic justice have much to learn from the Triangle fire and the political revolution it is credited with inspiring. The Triangle fire took place in New York City one hundred years ago on March 25, 1911, killing 146 workers, mostly immigrant women, amidst labor upheaval in an ascendant industrial economy. The fire and its attendant exposure of exploitative factory working conditions across New York state galvanized the citizenry to come out in support of workers, which forced politicians to bend to the public’s will to support the workers and extend to them the safety and social protections that we now take for granted. In the style of popular education, lessons of the Triangle fire present a teachable opportunity that has the potential to engage people in exercising collective power for their own welfare.
The Triangle fire potently demonstrated capitalism’s disregard for human beings, and the necessity of government to care for all of the people, not only the wealthy and powerful. From Triangle came the social justice legislation that authorized unions, regulated workplace safety, and established the social safety net that is now in jeopardy. Despite that it happened one hundred years ago, Triangle’s lessons are about what can take place when people become aware of their own exploitation. This generation’s economic prospects are far different, but what has not changed since the Triangle era is that the ordinary citizen can only exert power through collective action.
The Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition (RTFC) organized the centennial commemoration of the Triangle fire. Its website http://rememberthetrianglefire.org, contains information about the fire and links to participating organizations, books, films and online resources, lesson plans, and advice to organizers. Courageous teachers marked the Triangle centennial by sharing these with students, and the RTFC is now leading an effort to create a permanent Triangle memorial, which will serve to honor social justice activism and potentially educate those who have not learned about labor’s struggles in school. In this way, the Triangle fire can create awareness of the value of collective action and highlight ways to achieve social and economic justice now hidden by corporate culture.
For more information about the RTFC’s efforts in education, contact the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition at
info@rememberthetrianglefire.org.
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