Toward A New Politics?

After the CAW-NDP Divorce
By Sam Gindin
From Canadian Dimension
2006

On April 21, 2006, the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) broke with a tradition that extended over half a century, and voted to leave the New Democratic Party (NDP). A few CAW activists shrugged their shoulders: the impact of the NDP on their daily struggles had been minimal and so setting it aside did not seem to matter much. Others, including a significant section of the Canadian Left, were outraged: leaving was a mistake because electoral politics remains crucial to our lives. We must, they argued, focus our response on getting back in.

A third perspective, which may turn out to be the most lasting and important aspect of the CAW leaving the NDP, was that this exit created an opening for those frustrated with what has recently passed for ‘politics.’ The auto workers have a long history of independent working class activism inside and outside of electoral politics; the break with the NDP poses the question of how today’s activists, confronting new pressures and the disappointments with the NDP, might contribute to creatively and concretely building on that earlier legacy of the union. Before elaborating on this, however, it is useful to return to the CAW’s decision to leave its traditional political home and assess what that move was actually about.

The CAW Exit: A Move to the Left?
The ostensible reason for leaving the Ontario NDP was that the party had unfairly expelled the union leader, Buzz Hargrove, for supporting Liberals during the election. The NDP did indeed act inconsistently; numerous other party members had also supported Liberal candidates without sanctions. Yet, did it make sense to let a particular spat lead to a reversal of an historic commitment to social democracy? If the debate was only over some tactic, then why not, for example, protest the NDP’s decision by withholding dues or by mobilizing to reverse the rather intemperate and daft decision the party had made? The point of course is that something larger was in fact going on: the CAW leadership was clearly moving away from the NDP before the ouster of Hargrove, and the NDP conveniently gave the CAW president the incident to formalize the rupture.

The union did subsequently explain its position in broader terms. It suggested that it had shifted from support for a tepid social democracy and narrow electoralism, toward a more explicit ‘movement politics.’ But the most visible signs of CAW involvement in the election had little to do with education of the members and movement building; rather, the election will be remembered for the presence of Paul Martin at the CAW convention, the smiles and hugs as the CAW president bestowed Martin with a CAW jacket, and the extent to which this left the membership confused, divided, and cynical. In the eyes of many activists — both inside and outside the CAW — the union’s politics are increasingly driven by pragmatism, not an expansive vision. In the auto industry in particular, where the union put its main energy into lobbying for money for the Big Three, the union seems to have gotten uncomfortably close to both the corporations and the Liberals.

In defending his electoral role during the 2006 Federal election, CAW President Buzz Hargrove has been able to call on a resolution passed by national delegates to the CAW Canadian Council. The NDP’s response, Hargrove argued, was therefore not just an attack on him personally, but a direct challenge to the overall union and its democratic autonomy.

It is interesting to note, however, that while the actual resolution explicitly called on delegates to ‘endorse sitting NDP members’ as well as NDP candidates in ‘winnable ridings,’ it stated that in other ridings, ‘the CAW will not endorse any specific candidates.’ In this context, the support given to Liberal candidates Belinda Stronach of Magna and a Toyota executive — both representatives of notoriously anti-union companies — was not only politically questionable in terms of the union’s long-standing challenge to anti-union employers, but debatable even in terms of the wording and intent of the resolution.

The CAW leadership nevertheless insisted that it was in fact moving to the left and pointed to its new internal structures — Union in Politics Committees or UPCs — as the basis for ‘a new way of doing politics’. But the UPCs had in fact been established back in September 2004 (a further reminder that the tensions with the NDP were not new).

In the more than two years since, they have been disappointingly dormant. To be fair, there have been a number of well-received training sessions for these committees; the CAW’s commitment to membership education remains unparalleled, and local CAW activists continue to play impressive roles in specific campaigns such as those around health care. Yet, without a larger overall commitment to challenging the status quo and a clear turn away from elite-oriented politics, the stagnation of the UPCs is virtually inevitable (the staff member assigned to act as a catalyst for the mobilization from below tellingly ended up concentrating his efforts on acting as the union lobbyist in Ottawa).

A ‘new politics’ would have meant more than rejecting the NDP and replacing it with new but lifeless structures. It would have included: ** Actively engaging its members in the process of developing an alternative (anti-capitalist) vision. Overcoming the CAW’s isolation from the rest of the labour movement, without whom any new politics is fundamentally limited. ** Asking what it means to link up with ‘other movements.’ Are they simply ‘others’ or do they speak to other dimensions of our own member’s lives, such as health, the environment, war?

Putting union organizing into the broader context of building the working class as a whole and addressing how to ‘organize’ the members who are already unionized Moving to a platform that included coping with our relationship to the US — an issue that can’t be ignored in any serious reorientation of Canadian society. This would overlap international political issues (the US invasion of Iraq, Canada’s role in Afghanistan, challenging the US-supported Israeli denial of Palestinian national rights); domestic ‘economic’ issues (free trade, democratic control over investment, Canadian energy policy) and domestic human rights issues (immigration and civil rights in the context of the extension into Canada — with the support of the Canadian government - of the US ’security’ state).

In short, raising the possibility of a new politics can’t help but raise rethinking the place of unions within today’s local and global struggle against neoliberalism. And alongside this addressing (a) how unions think about their members and their member’s role in the organization and (b) the adequacy of union’s structures — including structures for democratic debate and participation — to the challenges currently confronting unions and working people.

It is true enough that the NDP had moved to the center. The irony is that in leaving the NDP, the CAW leadership was hardly breaking new ground on the Left, but rather also moving, in its own way, to the center.

Back to the Party?
The frustrations with formal politics are certainly understandable. But bad politics is not a reason to give up on any politics. We take it as obvious that electoral politics and the state are too important to leave to Canada’s elite. And we take it as equally obvious that single-issue lobbying or one-off mass events — as important as they are to an overall politics — do not in themselves really constitute a serious challenge to the status quo. Ignoring the question of political power is therefore suicidal in terms of social progress. The question of how we organize ourselves to simultaneously defend ourselves AND develop the kind of capacities that can eventually address state power is therefore the most important political question we can ask.

However, fighting to get back into the NDP represents a step backwards. The NDP has not and cannot address the political task we face. This is, to begin with, not just a shortcoming in the Canadian NDP but something much more general. It’s a failure that has characterized every social democratic party in the world. Coming to grips with that failure involves recognizing that social democracy is not a milder form of socialism which has lost its way or radicalism, but a political project rooted in a particular vision, ideology, culture, and set of structures and practices. The two inter-related cornerstones of social democracy are that, first, social democracy doesn’t really believe that capitalism can be transformed and second, even if capitalism could be transformed, social democracy doesn’t believe that the working class can ever develop the political will and capacity to play a central role in such a transformation. And so, social democracy is left with the cramped vision of administering neoliberalism with a human face, and the cramped politics of workers’ needing to only know who to vote for.

This failure has a long history but it has been particularly exposed in the neoliberal period. Policy options under capitalism have, over the past quarter century, been polarized: the middle ground has given way. Corporations and their representatives have come to understand this and have responded decisively and aggressively. Social democracy never reached such an understanding — or when it did, it was awed at the implications and retreated.

One result of this was that the political initiative over the past two decades shifted to the non-electoral actions of unions and the social movements (with the CAW playing a very prominent role). This was first seen in the fight against the Canada-USA Free Trade Agreement in the mid-1980s, where it was the unions and movements that led this most political fight with the NDP largely tagging along behind. The political leadership of the unions and the movements was further reinforced in the creative Days of Action in the mid-1990s against the Harris cutbacks, by which time no-one even looked to ‘labour’s political arm’ to lead any non-electoral political mobilization.

There are many on the left who would not disagree with the above analysis yet would insist that since the ‘most advanced’ sections of the working class movement remain in the NDP, that’s where the politics of all progressives must also gravitate. This is an argument that cannot be discounted, especially at a time when no alternative political party seems on the horizon. The NDP is certainly not the enemy and the activists that remain in the NDP must be respected enough to continue to engage them in discussions and debates, to join with them around particular campaigns, and even to vote NDP at election time given the options. But we must do so without any illusions. The reality is that to the extent that many committed activists are in the NDP, the NDP also serves to limit their expectations and to mis-educate them on social possibilities and political potentials.

Taking ‘A New Politics’ Seriously
The issue therefore is not to return to the NDP, but to start addressing how to go beyond the NDP. The political choices we confront today are not real choices because we don’t in fact have the political capacity to implement them and – more distressing — we haven’t figured out a way of developing such capacities. At some point we are going to have to build a new political organization. This doesn’t just mean another party, but a different kind of party. We need a party that addresses how we build our collective political capacities, to not only come to power, but to do so with the intent of using that political power to transform states so they are democratic in the fullest sense - supporting the continued development of our collective capacity to transform and democratize our workplaces and communities and contribute to genuine global solidarity. That is, to move towards replacing capitalism.

What kind of party might this be? What kinds of relationships, structures and struggles should we be creating and experimenting with now, so that kind of party might be possible in the future? How do we bridge our immediate needs for self-defence with such a longer-term project? Might it, for example, make sense to begin by setting up ‘People’s Assemblies’ — regular meetings of representatives of the various progressive groups, including union locals, in each community – to provide mutual support, share and expand resources, determine some common priorities, and work to the development of a common platform?

The CAW’s reasons for leaving the NDP may, as we’ve suggested, have had nothing to do with posing such questions. But the contradictions inherent in the CAW leadership’s determination to leave the NDP may have created an opening for going beyond a return to the NDP. We need to sustain this debate — in the pages of Relay, Canadian Dimension and elsewhere, for the politics of limited social coalitions, social forums, single-issue protests, organized Leninist groups, and hope for a spontaneous anti-globalization rebellion have not formed into alternatives to neoliberalism — and invite fuller discussion of new possibilities.

Sam Gindin is the Packer Chair in Social Justice at York University.





Labour Stands Up Against War

By Geoff Bickerton
Canadian Dimension
2006

The Canadian Labour Congress’s statement on Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan is clear and unequivocal; it calls for the troops to be brought home now. The statement marks a significant step forward for the labour movement concerning the development of policy with respect to the use the Canadian military.

Not only does the CLC demand the “safe and immediate withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan,” it also challenges many of the arguments used by those who would have our troops die and kill to support the American war in the Middle East.

The CLC states, “We do not support the argument that Canadian presence is intended to bring democracy to the people of Afghanistan. Nor do we accept the premise that our presence is intended to put Afghanistan on the road to sustainable development or improve women’s equality in that country. We reject the argument that our presence in Afghanistan will indirectly protect our safety here at home.”

For me, the issue of peace and war has always been a defining issue within the labour movement. In 1984, faced with NATO’s aggressive nuclear build-up and the development of a mass-based peace movement in Canada, the CLC passed a position paper entitled “Peace, Security and Dis-armament: A Canadian Labour Response,” in which the CLC and its affiliates rejected the use of force to resolve political and economic problems.

It has usually been easy for Canadians to be critical of the United States when it has intervened militarily in the affaires of others. But when Canada deploys troops, the debate has always been much more difficult and emotional. Torn between support for the troops and opposition to war, the labour movement has usually been unable to provide any coherent leadership.

At the 1999 CLC convention, there was a long and inconclusive debate on labour’s position concerning Canada’s participation in the NATO attack on Yugoslavia. At that time the convention was evenly split, half demanding an end to the bombing and half supporting the bombing as a means to protect the innocent people of Kosovo. In 2001, response to the involvement of the Canadian military in the invasion of Afghanistan was initially very muted, with a few exceptions. While the Canadian Labour Congress condemned the violent terrorist actions and the outbreak of racism in Canada and other countries, it initially declined to comment about Canadian participation in the war, using the excuse that it had not consulted with the affiliates.

While the CLC remained silent, a few unions did take positions against the war. The Canadian Union of Public Employees and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers both joined peace groups, churches, students and the Council of Canadians to launch The September Eleventh Peace Coalition, in order to oppose military retaliation for the terrorist attacks in the United States.

Now, in 2006, the CLC and the labour movement have taken a strong position against the deployment of Canadian troops in a foreign country. It has done so at a time when none of the major political parties and not one MP (prior to the May 17 parliamentary vote on extension of Canada’s commitment in Afghanistan) had been prepared to call for the withdrawal of our troops.

Sometimes it takes guts to do the right thing, and the CLC and the affiliate leadership should be commended for their stand.







The Dialectics of the Migrant Workers’ Movement

BY James Petras
Canadian Dimension
2006

Between March 25 and May 1, 2006 close to 5 million migrant workers and their supporters marched through nearly 100 cities of the United States. This is the biggest and most sustained workers’ demonstration in the history of the US. In all of its 50-year history, the US trade union confederation, the AFL-CIO has never been capable of mobilizing even a fraction of the workers convoked by the migrant workers movement. The rise and growth of the movement is rooted in the historical experience of the migrant workers (overwhelmingly from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean), the exploitative and racist experience they confront today in the US and the future in which they face imprisonment, expulsion and dispossession.

The migrant workers movement is engaged in an independent political struggle, directed against local, state and particularly the national government. The movement’s immediate objective is to defeat congressional legislation designed to criminalize employed migrant workers and a “compromise” designed to divide recently arrived workers from older workers. The key demand of the migrant workers is the legalization of all workers, new and old.

The choice of direct action methods is a response to the ineffectiveness of the legalistic and lobbying activities of established middle class controlled Latino organizations and the total failure of the labor confederation and its affiliates to organize migrant workers in trade unions or even build solidarity organizations.

To understand the dynamic growth of migrant labor movement in the US and its militancy, it is necessary to analyze the profound structural changes of the 1980’s and 1990’s in Mexico and Central America. NAFTA, Proxy Wars and Free Markets

Beginning in the 1980’s, the US via the IMF, and its client presidents in Mexico (Salinas, Zedillo and Fox) promoted a “free trade” policy codified in the North American Free Trade Area. This policy opened the door to the massive inflow of heavily subsidized US agricultural commodities undermining local small and medium size farmers. Large-scale foreign investments in retail enterprises, banking and finance led to the bankruptcy of millions of small business people.
The growth of free trade industrial zones (maquiladoras) led to the decline of protective social and labor legislation. Foreign debt payments, corrupt privatizations and large-scale growth of precarious employment led to an absolute decline of wage levels, even as the number of Mexican billionaires multiplied. Huge profits and interest payments accruing to US corporations and banks flowed back to the US, as did billions of dollars from corrupt politicians, money laundered by US banks like CITI Corporation.

Displaced and impoverished rural and urban workers soon followed the outward flows of profits and interest. The reasoning according to the “free markets” was that free flows of US capital to Mexico should be accompanied by the free flow of labor, of Mexican workers to the US. But the US did not practice the “free market” doctrine: it pursued a policy of unrestricted entry of capital into Mexico and a restricted policy on labor migration.

The free market policies created a vast reserve army of unemployed and underemployed Mexican labor while the legal restraints on free migration forced the workers to migrate without legal documents.

The huge influx of labor was not simply a result of Mexican or Central American workers seeking higher wages, it was a result of the adverse structural conditions imposed by NAFTA which expelled workers from their workplace. The Mexican free market structure was an ‘empire-centered model of accumulation’, and because it was empire-centered, it became a magnet attracting labor in pursuit of employment in the Empire.

The second major structural feature determining massive migrant worker movements from Central America was the US imperial wars of the 1980’s: the massive US military intervention via proxy armies in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras destroyed the possibility of social reform and viable economies throughout Central America. By financing death squads and promoting “scorched earth” counter-insurgency activity the US drove millions of Central Americans out of the countryside into the squalor of urban slums and overseas to Mexico, the US, Canada and Europe. The US “success” in imposing corrupt right-wing rulers throughout Central America, closed off all options for collective or self-improvement in the domestic economy. The implementation of neo-liberal measures led to even greater unemployment and a sharp decline in social services, forcing many to seek employment in the empire: the source of their misery.

Legacy of Struggle: Migrant Labor Militancy The first wave of immigrants in the 1980’s in the aftermath of the neo-liberal shock and the military terror sought anonymously any kind of work even under the worst conditions; many hid their militant past but did not forget it. As the flow of migrant workers gained momentum, great concentrations of Latino workers settled in major cities of California, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. This led to the creation of a dense network of social, cultural and sports clubs and informal organizations based on previous family, neighborhood and regional ties. New small businesses flourished, consumer power increased, children attended school with clear Latino majorities and numerous radio station were directed to the migrant workers in their own language. Quickly the sense of solidarity grew from the strength of numbers, the facility of communication, the proximity of fellow workers, and above all from the common experience of unregulated and unmitigated exploitation at the hardest jobs and the lowest pay, accompanied by racist attitudes from employers, white workers, police and other public authorities.

The decision by the Congress to add the further threat of imprisonment and mass expulsions occurred at the same time in which the social networks and solidarity within the Latino communities was deepening and expanding. The earlier militancy carried over from the mass popular resistance to the death squads in El Salvador, the taste of freedom and dignity during the Sandinista period in Nicaragua, the multiple militant peasant movements in Mexico came out of the closet and found a new social expression in the mass migrant workers movement.

The convergence of submerged or latent militancy and the demands for labor rights and legal recognition in the new exploitative/repressive context created the impetus for social solidarity of entire communities. Participation included whole families, entire neighborhoods and crossed generational boundaries: high school students joined construction workers, gardeners, garment workers and domestics to fill the streets of Dallas, Texas and Los Angeles, California, with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, much to the surprise of non-Latino observers ignorant of their historical legacy, their powerful social networks and their decision to draw the line now between social existence and massive expulsion.

In summary we cannot understand the massive labor migration from Mexico without examining the massive flow of US capital to Mexico, its destructive impact on the socio-economic relations and the unregulated outflow or remittance of profits and interests back to the US. Likewise we cannot explain the massive long-term flows of labor migrants from Central America to the US without taking into account the massive flow of US arms to the ruling classes of the region, the large-scale destruction of small scale agriculture, the restoration to power of the kleptocratic oligarchies and the reversal of social reforms, especially in Nicaragua.

Central American and Mexican labor migration is a direct result of the victory of the US-led counter-revolution in the region. The emergence of the mass movement of labor migrants, in a sense, is the replay of the earlier struggles between US capital and Mexican and Central American labor on the new terrain of US state politics and with a new set of issues. The continuity of the struggles, in Central America and Mexico and now in the US is found in the common demands for “self-determination” and the common methods of struggle, direct action. This is reflected in the strong working class or ‘popular’ composition of the struggle, and the historical memory of class solidarity. Significance of the New Mass Migrant Workers Movement (NMMWM) The emergence of the mass migrant workers’ movement opens a new chapter in the working class struggle both in North America, and Central America.

First and foremost it represents the first major upsurge of independent working class struggle in the US after over fifty years of decline, stagnation and retreat by the established trade union confederation. Secondly, NMMWM reveals a new class protagonist (“subject”) as the leading sector in the labor movement, the migrant worker. While in the past the dynamic sectors of organized labor in the private sector (auto, teamsters, steel, and longshore (West Coast)) have lost over 2/3 of their members and now represent only 9% of the private labor force, over 2 million migrant workers demonstrated and manifested the kind of social solidarity, unseen in the US since the 1930’s. Thirdly, NMMWM was organized without a big bureaucratic trade union apparatus, and with a minimum budget on the basis of voluntary workers through horizontal communication. In fact, one of the key factors accounting for the success of the mobilization was that it was largely out of the control of the dead hand of the trade union hierarchy, even as a minority of workers were members of trade unions. Fourthly, the leadership and strategists of the movement were independent of the two major capitalist parties, especially the deadly embrace of the Democratic Party. Because of their political independence, the NMMWM was in the streets, was critical of both Party policies of expulsion of labor migrants and did not confine itself to the futile action of ‘lobbying politicos’ in the corridors of Congress.

The mass migrant workers movement has served, to a certain extent, as a “social pole” attracting and politicizing tens of thousands of high school, community college and even university students especially those of Latin- American origins. In addition, a minority of dissident “Anglo” trade unionists, middle class progressives and clerical liberals has been activated to work with the labor struggles. The NMMWM struggle is political -–directed at influencing political power, national legislation and against the rule of ‘white capital’ directed at criminalizing and expelling ‘brown labor.’

The movement demonstrates the proper approach to combining race and class politics. The emergence of an organized mass labor-based socio-political pole has the potential to create a new political movement, which could challenge the hegemony of the two capitalist parties. The dynamic growth of the migrant workers movement in the US can serve as the basis for an international labor movement (free from the tutelage of the pro-imperialist AFL-CIO) from Panama to the US West, Southwest and southeastern states. Family and ethnic ties can strengthen class solidarity and create the basis of reciprocal support in struggles against the common enemy: the neo-liberal model of capitalism, the repressive state apparatus and legislation South and North.

The positive developments of the NMMWM however face political obstacles to growth and consolidation: First “from the outside” numerous employers fired workers who participated in the first wave of mass demonstrations. Latino workers who were trade unionists received little or no support from the labor bosses. Secondly, after the mass success of the movements, numerous traditional Latino politicos, social workers, professional consultants, non-governmental organizations and clerical notables jumped on the bandwagon and are active in deflecting the movement into the conventional channels of “petitioning” Congress or supporting the “lesser evil” Democratic Party politicians. These middle class collaborators are intent on dividing the movement to serve their purpose of gaining a political platform for career advancement. Finally the movement faces the problem of the uneven development of the struggle within the working class and between regions of the country. Most “Anglo workers” are at best passive while probably over half perceive migrant workers as a threat to their jobs, salaries and neighborhoods. The general absence of any anti-racist, class-based education by the trade union bureaucracy makes working class unity a difficult task. The challenge is for the migrant workers to reach out and build coalitions with black, Puerto Rican and Asian workers – as well as a minority of advanced Anglo trade unionists. There is also the pressure from the leaders of the capitalist parties to divide migrant workers, by passing legislation that favors ‘legal’ versus ‘illegal’ workers, ‘long-term’ versus ‘short-term’ workers, literate versus less literate workers, skilled versus unskilled workers. Finally there is the need to confront the new wave of large-scale police raids at workplaces and neighborhoods, where hundreds of Latino workers are rounded up and expelled.

Today, in Nazi style, entire Latino neighborhoods are closed and the police go on house-to-house searches. The Immigration police have recently escalated their mass ‘round-ups’ at work sites trying to provoke a climate of intimidation. During the week April 21-28, NeoCon Chief of Homeland Security Agency, Michael Chertoff directed the arrest of 1,100 undocumented migrants in 26 states. Despite these challenges the migrant workers movement is in the ascendancy: on March 25 hundreds of thousands demonstrated; on April 10 over 2 million marched and on May 1, millions more will join massive marches and workers strikes. While the reactionary politicians are holed up in Congress, scheming of new ways to divide and conquer the movement, the Latino people by the millions are in the streets…for their rights, their self-determination and their dignity.



Immigration issue draws thousands into streets

LAPD estimates 500,000 at protest
From MSNBC
2006


LOS ANGELES - They surprised the police, and maybe themselves, their T-shirts turning block after block of downtown Los Angeles streets white in a demonstration so massive that few causes in recent U.S. history have matched it.

Police said more than 500,000 people marched Saturday to protest a proposed federal crackdown on illegal immigration. Wearing white as a sign of peace, and waving flags from the U.S., Mexico, Guatemala and other countries, they came to show that illegal immigrants already are part of the American fabric, and want the chance to be legal, law-abiding citizens.

Police used helicopters to come up with the crowd estimate. “I’ve been on the force 38 years and I’ve never seen a rally this big,” said Cmdr. Louis Gray Jr., incident commander for the rally.