=) GIL GREEN

Taking stock of U.S. labor

I enjoyed reading Gil Green’s
latest book, What’s Happening to
Labor, firstly, because it is a well-
researched and well-written book
about’ the American Labor
movement, and secondly, because
as a former trade union official, I
can appreciate many of the
problems with which he deals.

For example, where there is a
large composite local based on’a
number of work places, with dif-
ferent employers and many oc-
cupations, and with unique
problems in every unit, what can
be done to promote good at-
tendance at general meetings? If
the job problems of one unit are
continually discussed at these
meetings, members from other
units will tend tc stay away. On the
other hand, if there is no op-
portunity to discuss work-related
problems at membership
meetings, where can they be
discussed? On the job, you say?

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But that’s where many local unions
are weak, at the grass roots level.
Gil Green has some good ideas in
this connection.

But more important is Green’s
main premise. The American
labor movement, he emphasizes,
has come to the end of one postwar
period and the beginning of
another.

He traces the crisis in the
American trade union movement
as beginning with World War II,
being aggravated by the expulsion
of left-led unions in the cold war
period and coming to a head in the
current crisis of world capitalism.

He characterizes the merger of
the American Federation of Labor
and the Congress of Industrial
Organization as a .marriage of
convenience that proved barren;
and he explains why it failed to
produce an upsurge similar to that
of the CIO in the thirties. Instead of
growth, there was bureaucratic
stagnation and support of cold and
hot war policies of the ruling
establishment. ‘‘On the issue of the
cold war, the Korean and Vietnam
hot war, as on the question of
military expenditures, the top
officialdom was on the right of the
political spectrum. It was not
conservative but outright reac-
tionary.”

Despite the drastic shift in the
balance of forces internationally,
and despite the crying need for new
policies in the U.S., the top
leadership of the AFL-CIO has
changed very little in its outlook
these past thirty years. In
discussing the maneuvers that are
taking place to find the successor
to 80-year-old Meany, Green notes
that right-wing elements (and the
top building trades leadership in
particular) are fearful that the
more liberal elements in the AFL-
CIO executive council will suc-
cessfully field a candidate.

If we look at the leadership of the
Canadian Labor Congress—and
the differences between the two
countries should always be borne
in mind—we see a qualitative
difference in favor of Canada.
Whereas the leaders of the AFL-
CIO accepted wage controls, the
leaders of the CLC have organized
a general strike and day of protest
against wage controls in Canada.
The CLC recently sent an official
delegation headed by its president
to visit the Soviet Union and a
Soviet trade union delegation came
to Canada in return. It is difficult to
imagine George Meany leading an
American trade union deiegation
to the Soviet Union.

Moreover, on international af-
fairs, the CLC has generally taken
a better position in recent years
than the AFL-CIO.

Green’s book describes ‘the
difficulties in breaking the
monopoly of the two old-line
parties in the American political
process, and breaking the
dependence of the labor movement
on the Democratic party.

It is interesting to note that the
situation is different in Canada
because we have the New
Democratic Party. Despite
weaknesses and_ inconsistences,
the NDP represents a significant
shift from the capitalist political
parties. There is no such party in
the U.S. The NDP forms the
government in Manitoba and
Saskatchewan and is the official
opposition in British Columbia and
Ontario. It also has a substantial

group of members in the federal

parliament.

The NDP has the endorsement of
the CLC, and while certain
problems have arisen because
right-wing leaders have not
responded adequately to the vital
needs of working people, it must

WHAT’S HAPPENING TO
LABOR. By Gil Green. In-
ternational Publishers, 1976. 305
pp. Available at People’s Co-op
Bookstore. $4.95.

also be said that the NDP is not
integrated with the monopolies like
the capitalist parties. Its greater
dependence on working people for
its funds and active election
workers makes it more amenable
to persuasion by the labor
movement. The shift the NDP
made in coming out in support of
the October 14 day of protest is a
case in point.

Whereas in the U.S., the left is
grappling with the problem of how
Jabor can build a political party of
its own, the situation again is
different in Canada. The problem
here is to build a democratic, anti-
monopoly alliance that will include
the Communist Party, NDP, the
trade unions and other democratic
people’s organizations in English
and French Canada.

The book explains why the
question of the black people in the
U.S.A. is a central problem in
terms of political perspectives. It
is not so in Canada. Here we have
what the program of the Com-
munist party describes as “‘the
profound inequity and national
oppression to which the French
Canadian nation is subjected.”

According to Green, the starting
point for the left in American
unions is ‘‘winning internal
democracy and rank-and-file
control’’. While correctly em-
phasizing that pressure from below
for new policies does not exclude
“unity... with labor leaders’’ he
leaves the impression that such a
combination (unity from below and
alliances at the top) is less likely to
happeninthe U.S. at this time than
in Canada.

What the book has to say about
young people in the work force; the
need for a class approach to the
problems of women; the necessity
for new tactics and forms to defend
workers against multinational
corporations and the need for class
consciousness .in the labor

movement, should be helpful to
Canadian readers.

The question of whether the left
in the American trade union
movement should have pulled in its
horns during the late forties, in
order to avoid or minimize ex-
pulsions, is well covered. Ac-
cording to Green, this would have
meant surrender to war hysteria
and monopoly capital and a
betrayal of fundamental prin-
ciples. In short, the left would have
ceased being the left. While some
mistakes were made, a correct
policy was generally followed. The
attack against the left in the
Canadian trade union movement
was also very sharp. Here too, the
left fought back on a principled
basis.

If there is any weakness in the
book it is in dealing with the role of
the Communist Party, the Young
Workers Liberation League and
the Communist Press. ;

It would have been a more fitting
conclusion if the final chapter had
dealt extensively with this decisive
question. Instead there is a final
paragraph dealing with the rank-
and-file movement.

While the American rank- and-
file movement has played an
important role,
gives an example of its limitations.
It describes how a rank-and-file
movement took over the top
leadership from a_ bureaucratic,
corrupt and murderous clique in a
major union and how the new
leadership then opposed
nationalization of key industries
and retused to consider the
removal of anti-Communist
clauses from the union con-
stitution.

In short, it is a good book and
most informative about the
American trade union movement.
Still Green could have elaborated

more on the role of Communists in ~

the labor movement. In the long
run, that is the decisive question
for the left in every advanced
capitalist country, if there is tobe a
fundamental change in the position
of the working class viz-a-viz the
capitalist class.

—Jack Phillips

ALL-OUT WITH LABOR
TO FIGHT WAGE CONTROLS!
SCRAP BILL C-73 & THE A.1.B.!
FOR FULL EMPLOYMENT,
PEACE & SOCIALISM!

JOIN THE

COMMUNIST PARTY

OF CANADA

——— —— —— CLIPHEREAND MALL ————— —

To the B.C. Provincial Committee,
408 - 193 E. Hastings, Vancouver, B.C.
Communist Party of Canada

| would like information about joining the Communist

Party.

Please send me samples of literature.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 15, 1976—Page 11

the book itself —