A Labor Party?
Should It Be on Your Agenda?, by Millie Phillips
Are you disillusioned by the first several months of the Clinton administration?
If you're lucky enough to still be working, are you frightened by your future?
Are you sick of politicians' unkept promises on jobs, environmental protection,
health care and education? Have you given up on the Democratic/Republican
shell game? Are you ready for a political alternative-a Labor Party? There
is a growing movement among U.S. union activists to establish a labor-based
political party independent of the Democrats and Republicans.
A party based on U.S. trade unions? Aren't unions more concerned with fat
paychecks than with developing a sustainable standard of living? Should
organizations usually run by older white men be looked to for leadership,
especially given the history of race and sex discrimination in many unions?
With only 12-15% of the U.S. workforce organized, would such a party truly
be representative of working people as a whole? Would welfare recipients,
immigrants, the undocumented, lesbians and gays, peace activists and radicals
be welcome? If your image of organized labor is still white male "hardhats"
bashing anti-war demonstrators, then you need a little updating. In the
1970s and throughout the 1980s, labor took a drastic fall. Layoffs, plant
closures, concessionary contracts, rising health care costs, unproductive
attempts to "cooperate" with management, and the change from an
industry-based economy toward a service economy decimated labor's ranks
and left survivors bitter and angry. Women entered the workforce in unprecedented
numbers and have been joining unions at a rate of two-to-one over men.
Service sector unions-largely women-have grown even while the industrial
and trade unions have declined. A new spirit of militancy has arisen among
blue-collar workers; although the Hormel strikers lost the "good fight,"
for example, they inspired later victories such as the coal miners' 1930s-style
campaign against Pittston. Radicalized Teamsters risked their lives to successfully
throw out a corrupt, right-wing machine. The '60s generation is now in the
local union leadership and beginning to break into top national positions,
taking over from a generation who gained office during the McCarthy period
by driving Communists and Socialists out of the "house of labor."
Today, despite a bastion of conservative top leadership, union contingents
march proudly in anti-war and pro-choice demonstrations. We participate
in environmental coalitions. We have formed labor solidarity groups for
radical labor movements and liberation struggles throughout the world, often
in open opposition to the official AFL-CIO support of U.S. foreign policy,
whose goal is to crush left-wing, democratic union abroad through violence,
coercion, and bribery.
In this changed climate, labor is making a comeback as the progressive social
force it has been historically. The labor party movement is emerging as
a political alternative to traditional support of the Democratic Party,
as Democrats have linked arms with Republicans to slash social service,
mutilate labor law, limit the right to strike, and support "free"
trade.
Why a party of labor? Why not the Greens, a feminist party, a populist party?
Union activists want a party that represents working people as workers.
Unions are the only organizations in the U.S. based on a class identification
as workers. Thus, they are a natural base for a truly workingclass party.
The union membership is diverse: women and men and all ethnic groups are
represented despite the less diverse composition of the top leadership.
Even with present setbacks, unions still control more money and volunteer
resources than any other organized progressive force. Right now, these resources
continue to be used to elect Democrats, but they could be used to elect
independent working people.
An Overview of the Movement
1. Labor Party Advocates (LPA): LPA was founded three years ago by Tony
Mazzochi, a longtime progressive and former vice-president of the Oil, Chemical,
and Atomic Workers Union (OCAW), with the official endorsement of the OCAW.
Not yet a party, it seeks to recruit a large number of members and eventually
hold a convention to establish a party. LPA has no program, believing that
members should democratically determine a program at the founding convention;
today's goal should be simply to win people over to the idea of a labor
party. Nonetheless, the ranks reflect a cross-section of the most progressive
elements in organized labor, so it can be assumed that their future program
would be broadly progressive and definitely to the left of the Democrats.
Good points: LPA is the largest (est. 10,000) group and the most officially
endorsed. It puts out good educational materials and has done exhaustive
polls proving that the majority of union members would potentially support
a labor party. Some of its local affiliates, especially in the midwest,
are building excellent grass-roots networks. Drawbacks: LPA is not yet democratic.
Mazzochi largely controls it, both organizationally and tactically. Its
nominal steering committee, which is not yet functioning, is limited to
LPA members who are elected officers in unions, thus weighing the potential
leadership toward people who have not experienced past or present discrimination.
It fails to reach out specifically to women and people of color, and isn't
interested in building a coalition effort with those outside organized labor.
At this point, it is strictly non-electoral.
2. Labor Party Organizing Network (LPON): LPON was founded last year at
a conference for independent political action in San Francisco, largely
initiated by the San Francisco-based Labor Party Forum. LPON is not a membership
organization but an activist network that publishes a quarterly newsletter
covering all aspects of independent politics that affect labor. LPON's position
is that a labor party will most likely be built by forming local committees
that can sponsor public educational events and run independent candidates
for local office. Good points: LPON's leadership is highly democratic and
consists of union activists with solid local leadership experience in the
anti-war, environmental, women's, international solidarity, and other social
movements. LPON, as a group, is absolutely, on principle, opposed to supporting
Democrats, unlike LPA, which wants a break but feels it is okay to support
some Democrats in the interim. LPON seeks to build a coalition party based
on the superior resources of labor, but with the active involvement of other
social forces along a line of workingclass political independence. LPON
links up with international labor efforts such as the International Campaign
Against Privatizations. Drawbacks: LPON is still small. Given its greater
radicalism and lesser budget, it may have difficulty gaining the degree
of official support enjoyed by LPA.
3. Campaign for a Labor Party: This group has been most successful in New
York City. It is based on the resources of Labor Militant, a left tendency
in alliance with the British Militant. Because it relies heavily on the
resources of this tendency, thus functioning largely as a "front group,"
and takes a sectarian approach toward other labor party efforts, it will
probably not grow much further.
4. Labor Notes: This national labor magazine, a focal point for labor reform
movements, has recently begun covering the labor party movement positively.
At its last national conference, held in April in Detroit and attended by
around 1000 union activists, several keynote speakers spoke in favor of
independent labor political action. Among them were Bob Wages, president
of the OCAW and an LPA member; Elaine Bernard, chair of Harvard University
Labor Studies, and the former president of the British Columbia section
of Canada's new Democratic Party; Bernie Sanders, the independent congressman
from Vermont; and Matt McCarten, president of New Zealand's New Labor Party,
recently formed to counteract a move to the right by the old Labor Party
there. Though, in practice, none of these speakers really support absolute
political independence from parties that represent moneyed interests, one
wouldn't have known that from the radical-sounding speeches they gave. Whatever
their own views, their militant rhetoric at the Labor Notes conference gives
credibility to the effort. Two workshops were also offered on labor independent
politics. At Labor Notes' last conference in 1991, there was a large fight
just to get an informal workshop on the issue, so this is a significant
step forward, given how much authority Labor Notes has among the progressive
forces in the unions.
Unfortunately, the discussion at the Labor Notes conference was dominated
by supporters of the New Party, a small party based on the East Coast that
has attracted several prominent women labor leaders, including Elaine Bernard,
perhaps filling a void left open by the narrow focus of LPA and its image
of male dominance. But the New Party is not a labor-based organization and
does not advocate breaking with the Democrats. It sees itself as a pressure
group both inside and out of the Democrats, cross-endorses Democrats it
likes, and runs nominal independents in selected races or their own members
in Democratic primaries. Also undemocratic and having already purged many
left or working class-oriented activists, it is not an organization that
advocates class independence even as a longterm goal and some of its supporters
take openly anti-labor positions.
For an excellent exposé of New Party, read Left Business Observer,
#58, April 16, 1993. As a member of the editorial board of LPON, a co-chair
of Labor Party Forum, active member of LPA, and a distributor of Labor Notes,
I advocate participation in all groups with a genuine progressive labor
activist base not tied to sectarian left politics and that call for a labor-based
political party willing to make a decisive break with the Democrats and
Republicans. We have had enough of the parties of Big Business and the ruling
rich. It is long past time that we, the people who produce all the wealth
in this country, have a party truly our own.
To learn more, contact:
Labor Party Advocates, (800) 824-7300. Local Bay Area organizer, Leo Seidlitz,
(510) 527-7588. Labor Party Organizing Network and/or Labor Party Forum,
2940 16th St., Suite 304, San Francisco, CA 94103, (415) 641-4610. Labor
Notes, 7435 Michigan Ave., Detroit, MI 48210, (313) 842-6262. Other useful
resources: Left Business Observer, 250 West 85th St., New York, NY 10024.
The Organizer (a socialist paper that covers the issue well),
4017 24th St., #19, San Francisco, CA 94114.
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