This Time Let’s Build a Mass Party
February 16—Boeing workers in North Charleston, South Carolina (USA) rejected the International Association of Machinists (IAM), the company’s blue-collar union in the Seattle area, by a wide margin. It was not unexpected.
The IAM doesn’t have motivated organizers like those who built the original industrial unions. Those workers were motivated by a vision of a communist future.
Highly paid union functionaries are a poor substitute. Trade unionism concedes power to the capitalists, fighting for only a few economic scraps. The futility of a trade-unionist strategy has become obvious as aerospace overproduction intensifies.
The bosses build planes if it is profitable and the market wants them. In communism, there will be no markets because we won’t produce things for sale. Corporate bean-counters and CEOs will not make production decisions.
Communism will give the working class real power. In communism, the International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP) will mobilize millions to make decisions about what needs to be produced and how to do it. Our livelihoods will no longer depend on profits, sales and markets. Now that’s real power!
To add insult to injury, Boeing bosses invited Trump to the rollout of the new 787 model. He crowed that the jet is an example of how to create American (low-paid) jobs. In fact, more of this plane is made by low-wage labor overseas than any other Boeing jet.
Trump offered a nationalist vision. What the workers got was a third of the pay of Seattle-area employees and fewer jobs than ever.
In communism, where planes are produced or who produces them will be irrelevant. We will no longer compete with other workers for jobs. Indeed, there will be no jobs, only necessary collective work.
We will also not compete for better wages because everyone’s needs will be provided for. Workers around the world can then welcome extra hands as equal partners.
Learn from Mistakes of Communists Who Built Industrial Unions
A communist vision like this inspired the Communist Party (CPUSA) members who built the first U.S. industrial unions. We have much to learn from their bravery and determination, but it would be an insult to their memory if we blindly repeated their mistakes.
At first, they built what they thought were revolutionary unions. Later, they allied with the very reactionary union leaders they had battled for over a decade. Their idea was to expand their influence among a larger number of workers.
John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers of America and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), had a different plan. Warned that communists were flocking into the CIO, he responded, “Who gets the bird, the hunter or the dog?” He wanted to use the communists as “dogs” for his own reactionary purposes. And that’s exactly what he did! (See below)
Even worse, the CPUSA squandered the revolutionary enthusiasm of party cadre. Dozens died with communism on their mind, building unions that only served to bolster a fragile system during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
“They sold out,” concluded a Boeing friend and active ICWP supporter, rubbing his thumb and first fingers together. In fact, it was more far-reaching than individual comrades being bought off. The whole party shop organization was scuttled for the sake of these alliances.
The CPUSA discontinued party industrial meetings of members and friends. Without responsibility to these collectives, party union officials were free to make any compromise they wanted to maintain their alliances with reactionaries like Lewis.
What Now?
The shop papers were also abandoned. There was no need for shop papers to advocate for militant reform when party union leaders did the same thing. If the papers focused on communist solutions, they put the alliances in jeopardy.
In contrast, our goal is to develop more communist leaders. For this, shop meetings of party members and friends can be very helpful. Even better, these Red Flag shop collectives can produce and distribute Red Flag leaflets.
For example, fighting anti-immigrant racism has moved millions. May Day demonstrations in the U.S. will focus on this issue. They promise to be massive this year.
A Red Flag collective at any job site, school or barracks could produce a May Day leaflet that brings the immigration issue home to the shop floor. It can carefully explain how only communism will eliminate this bosses’ weapon. Boeing workers in Seattle are working on such a leaflet.
On-the-job experience like this is essential. Writing, distributing and struggling over such leaflets will help develop more communist leaders. It’s much more important to our future than any union election.
Posted 3/17/2017
