Session 3 - Class Struggle Strategies in Unions

Written By East Bay DSA

Materials for Session Three

0:00 – 5 minutes

I. Check in

0:05 – 15 minutes

II. Theories of the Labor Movement

Large Group Discussion

We’ve talked about unions and what they do, but what particular unions do is not just accidental or historical – it is based on different theories of what unions are and should do. Before we look at our case studies tonight, it would be useful to look briefly at these theories.

Prompt: Looking at the table of theories, what descriptions and ideas here match our previous discussions, or your experience with union?

  • If possible, print copies of the table and distribute to participants.

0:20 – 5 minutes

II. Brief overview of readings

So far, we’ve looked at what the labor movement has done, at why unions are important for the working class and for socialists, and at some of what makes them effective or ineffective. 

This session, we’ll be looking at two case studies of how socialists in the past have oriented themselves to the labor movement and what ideas they brought to their organizing that we might apply today. We’ll be looking at a strike by the Farm Equipment Workers Union in which members of the Communist Party were key organizers as well as the socialists who in the 1970s became members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and helped to create Teamsters for a Democratic Union, which is still functioning today. 

0:25 – 25 minutes

III. Case Study #1: Farm Equipment Workers-CIO

Background: (5 minutes) This is an excerpt from the book, The Long Deep Grudge, by Toni Gilpin that tells the story of how workers at International Harvester, then one of the largest US companies, struggled to organize a union and then why that union was radical compared to other unions. The Farm Equipment Workers Union, “FE” for short, was part of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, or “CIO,” that split from the American Federation of Labor in 1936. The FE was one of the 10 “leftist” unions that later got expelled from the CIO due to McCarthyism and eventually absorbed into the United Auto Workers. The book looks at what workers accomplished and at what a union could really do.  If you like this excerpt and are interested in finding out more, you should read the whole book.

The struggle at International Harvester has particular historical importance to us, and to all workers, because the struggle at IH (then McCormick Reapers) directly led to the events in Chicago that gave us May Day as an international workers’ holiday.

Prompt: How did the FE's goals, demands, actions, and organizing show a class struggle orientation? How did these help them to win? (20 minutes)

Key Points

  • Elected a bi-racial militant leadership demographically representative of membership

  • Fought for anti-racist demands to bring black and white workers together.

  • Thought beyond their particular workplace – workers organized to make the pay in their factory in Louisville the same as the pay in the company’s other factories in the North.

  • Prepared and empowered members to act – education, 1:1s, raising expectations, petition and delegation.

  • Supported unexpected worker militancy rather than trying to dampen it.

  • During the strike, its tactics relied on members’ activity and militancy.

  • During the strike, members built community support. 

  • The national FE supported the local union and threatened to expand the strike.

0:50 – 5 minutes

IV. Break

0:55 – 55 minutes

V. Case Study #2: Teamsters for a Democratic Union

Background: (5 minutes) The story of the FE in Louisville, KY may seem far away in time and place from us, so now we want to look at another struggle that is still going on all across the US. In the 1970s when there were rank-and-file revolts in many unions, members of the International Socialists got jobs in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) and organized caucuses, campaigns, and newsletters in a number of cities and local unions. These groups became a national organization, Teamsters for a Democratic Union, which has now been a crucial organizing pole in the Teamsters for 45 years. We’ll watch a video and then discuss both the video and the article that you read.

The video was made by a rank-and-file-oriented labor video collective in 1978 and was used in organizing new TDU chapters. It focuses mostly on interviews with three workers with three different types of driving jobs; there is also a meeting with organizers in the canneries, which were Teamster shops with substandard contracts and mostly Latinx workers, and an editorial meeting for a local IBT opposition newsletter. 

The UPS driver who serves as the main narrator and most of the younger people in both meetings were members of the International Socialists; some of the cannery organizers were in the League of Revolutionary Struggle.

Video: Fighting for Our Union (25 minutes)

Discussion of video and LaBotz article (25 minutes)

Prompt: What makes the rank-and-file strategy a class struggle strategy? Why does LaBotz see it as an antidote to what’s wrong with many unions?

Key Points

  • The rank-and-file strategy:

    • Calls for confrontation with the employer rather than “deals.”.

    • Encourages union members to take control of their union rather than leaving it to the officials.

    • Member participation restores possibilities for collective action that official-controlled US unions have lost. 

    • Builds solidarity between different workplaces and local unions.

Prompt: According to La Botz, what is “the labor bureaucracy?” What did this look like in the IBT? Why were union officials an obstacle to rank-and-file organizing in the IBT?

Key Points

  • A layer of paid leaders and staff who run the union as “expert” rather than by mobilizing members.

  • Their interests overlap with those of the members in getting better pay and conditions, but their own pay and conditions are largely different from the members.

  • Unions must operate in a difficult legal and financial environment; officials come to prioritize maintaining the union as an organization over the actual interest of its members. 

  • It is easier for officials to make the decisions and run the union by themselves than to do the work of educating and organizing members; they often see members’ activity as a danger to their power and control.

  • When officials can act on their own without membership oversight, corruption and backroom deals flourish.

  • The IBT in the 1970s was one of the least democratic unions, controlled by top officials, corrupt at the national level and in many cities, and politically conservative (it endorsed Nixon for president!)

  • Because their control, corruption, and large salaries were at risk, IBT officials especially viciously attacked rank-and-file dissidents, organizing beatings and rigging elections.

1:50 – 5 minutes

VI. Feedback

1:55 – 5 minutes

VII. Assignments

East Bay DSA https://www.eastbaydsa.org
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Session 2 - Solidarity Forever: Unions and Socialists
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Session 4 - Socialists in the Labor Movement Now