FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
http://redstartimes.com/2010/06/10/...es+(Red+Star+Times)&utm_content=Google+Reader
The Coming Working Class Revolt
Thursday, June 10, 2010 12:45
Hard to believe, but it’s been a year since the Obama Administration forced General Motors into bankruptcy. This has resulted in a curious phenomenon: the first generation of auto assembly workers in almost a hundred years who cannot afford to buy the cars they manufacture. Given the context both nationally (the Massey mine collapse and the uncontrolled hemorrhaging that resulted from the BP / Deepwater Horizon disaster) and internationally (Greece seems always on the verge of explosion and the Chinese working class are waking from their 20-year post-Tienanmen slumber) the situation at GM points towards a very exciting and potentially explosive phenomenon.
The auto workers, along with miners, have a long and storied history of militancy in the United States. The Flint sit-down strike of 1936 along with the 1934 Auto-Lite strike in Toledo stand as exemplars of pre-WW2 working class militancy. Auto assembly is physically difficult, dangerous and thankless work. Workers who are now being paid poverty wages are also having super-profits extracted from their hides, with the full complicity of United Auto Workers brass. The idea that this new crop of young workers–underpaid, overworked, without benefits, laboring with other workers who remember a time when UAW acted as a defensive organization for auto workers rather than a management organization for the bosses and their cronies–will meekly mumble “please sir, may I have another” to mounting attacks ignores history and common sense.
Again, it is important to remember the context. Key sectors of the American economy are currently under enormous pressure from the ruling class. This ruling class seems to earnestly believe that it can manage the crisis with a few polite words from a transparently phony President who rarely even bothers to promise help for the working class anymore. We’re not talking about a revolution of store clerks and call center workers here, though I don’t have very many doubts that these workers will feel more inclined to fight back once someone takes the initiative. Auto workers, miners and oil rig workers are tough as nails people who work hard and rightfully expect safety, job security and jut compensation for their labor.
They will receive none of the above. Moreover, those sectors of the service economy which are highly organized and with a history of militancy (health care workers, specifically nurses) likely won’t need much in the way of an example to take their own initiative in fighting back. Further, it is important to remember the example internationally. The working class is an international class and when one national section fights back, history shows that others join in. The idea that a full-scale workers revolt–not an uprising nor a revolution, mind you–can be contained to a single country is laughable. As laughable as the idea that promises of the American dream and scapegoating foreigners will keep the American working class in line indefinitely.
Nothing is certain about where this revolt will go. Revolts in and of themselves mean very little. They’re not much different than breaking your own stuff because you’re angry. However, it is becoming increasingly certain that the international economic and political will not be the placid leading of the working class to the slaughter of fascism and war. In factories, mines and oil rigs throughout the United States and around the world people are beginning to talk very seriously about their situation. The necessary political conclusions haven’t even begun to be hinted at, but an analysis of the situation has a logic of its own.
The Coming Working Class Revolt
Thursday, June 10, 2010 12:45
Hard to believe, but it’s been a year since the Obama Administration forced General Motors into bankruptcy. This has resulted in a curious phenomenon: the first generation of auto assembly workers in almost a hundred years who cannot afford to buy the cars they manufacture. Given the context both nationally (the Massey mine collapse and the uncontrolled hemorrhaging that resulted from the BP / Deepwater Horizon disaster) and internationally (Greece seems always on the verge of explosion and the Chinese working class are waking from their 20-year post-Tienanmen slumber) the situation at GM points towards a very exciting and potentially explosive phenomenon.
The auto workers, along with miners, have a long and storied history of militancy in the United States. The Flint sit-down strike of 1936 along with the 1934 Auto-Lite strike in Toledo stand as exemplars of pre-WW2 working class militancy. Auto assembly is physically difficult, dangerous and thankless work. Workers who are now being paid poverty wages are also having super-profits extracted from their hides, with the full complicity of United Auto Workers brass. The idea that this new crop of young workers–underpaid, overworked, without benefits, laboring with other workers who remember a time when UAW acted as a defensive organization for auto workers rather than a management organization for the bosses and their cronies–will meekly mumble “please sir, may I have another” to mounting attacks ignores history and common sense.
Again, it is important to remember the context. Key sectors of the American economy are currently under enormous pressure from the ruling class. This ruling class seems to earnestly believe that it can manage the crisis with a few polite words from a transparently phony President who rarely even bothers to promise help for the working class anymore. We’re not talking about a revolution of store clerks and call center workers here, though I don’t have very many doubts that these workers will feel more inclined to fight back once someone takes the initiative. Auto workers, miners and oil rig workers are tough as nails people who work hard and rightfully expect safety, job security and jut compensation for their labor.
They will receive none of the above. Moreover, those sectors of the service economy which are highly organized and with a history of militancy (health care workers, specifically nurses) likely won’t need much in the way of an example to take their own initiative in fighting back. Further, it is important to remember the example internationally. The working class is an international class and when one national section fights back, history shows that others join in. The idea that a full-scale workers revolt–not an uprising nor a revolution, mind you–can be contained to a single country is laughable. As laughable as the idea that promises of the American dream and scapegoating foreigners will keep the American working class in line indefinitely.
Nothing is certain about where this revolt will go. Revolts in and of themselves mean very little. They’re not much different than breaking your own stuff because you’re angry. However, it is becoming increasingly certain that the international economic and political will not be the placid leading of the working class to the slaughter of fascism and war. In factories, mines and oil rigs throughout the United States and around the world people are beginning to talk very seriously about their situation. The necessary political conclusions haven’t even begun to be hinted at, but an analysis of the situation has a logic of its own.