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Title: Review: Strike! (Brecher) Author: Frutti Durruti Date: 2003 Language: en Topics: book review, strike, Northeastern Anarchist Source: Retrieved on March 24, 2016 from https://web.archive.org/web/20160324163707/http://nefac.net/node/1255 Notes: Reviewed by Fruitti Durruti, Class Action (NEFAC- Philadelphia). Published in The Northeastern Anarchist Issue #8, Fall/Winter 2003.
A classic and ‘must have’ account of the history of militant labor in
the U.S. from the “Great Upheaval” of 1877 to the infamous Teamsters UPS
strike in 1997. To anyone interested in a background check on the U.S.
labor movement, and/or enthusiastic about organizing in their own
workplace and community, this book is beyond inspiring. It
chronologically describes the high points of organized, self-managed
mass strikes and the unprecendented acts of solidarity seen between vast
sectors of the working class in the U.S.
First off, it’s a page-turner, marked with exciting accounts that are
quoted by strikers and strike supporters along with candid and revealing
descriptions of the enemies of militant self-managed labor:
strikebreakers, capitalists, federal and state military/militias,
governors, presidents, U.S. Congress, and even (surprise!) union
beaureaucrats themselves. One of the most beautiful aspects of the book
is its accessibility and readiblity for someone who has no formal
education in labor history or is new to the research. It flows more like
a series of stories, more so than a dry textbook style account. It
brought goosebumps to my skin, it had me laughing and crying. I haven’t
touched a book like this in years.
Most of the book reads as a ‘play by play’ focusing on the
cultural/economic/political/social ramifications of the most massive
strikes, their successes and failures, and the methods and strategies
used by labor and capitalists. The author goes further in analyzing how
these different events warranted a complete revolutionary
self-realization of huge sectors of the working class. He explores how
militant collective action and working class solidarity crossed state
lines, as well as the divisions between industries and trades
transformating the working person’s everyday social life. General
strikes, wildcats, sitdown strikes, sympathetic strikes, sabotage,
slowdowns, and social strikes are shown to be tactics used by massive
sectors of the working class throughout U.S. history, and not just by
the explicitly revolutionary unions and working class organizations like
the I.W.W. or communist parties. In fact, the actions of reformist union
members and non-union members organizing for their own interests in
democratic and councilist manners are the most remarkable examples of
revolutionary class struggle possibilities. These militant rebellions
managed to escape the limits of union bureaucracy and collective
bargaining for mere concessions, and were the most successful in
bringing labor close to the actualization of a classless, wageless
society.
Something the book revealed to me that I found to be of high interest is
how the major flashpoints were consistently ebbing and flowing, and held
a constant pattern throughout U.S. history after the “industrial
revolution.” The waxing and waning of militancy seems to attest to an
ongoing battle between labor and capital, from its very beginning.
Many of the extreme examples of struggle go as follows: They start out
as small rebellions within a specific industry, and most likely
originating in the strikes enacted by the pissed-off workers at one or
more jobsites. They are usually miserable, due to deaths on the jobsite,
lack of livable conditions and wages, etc. Scabs are then brought in and
protected by state militias. The strikers attack the scabs and the
militia. More than half of the time, the state militia and/or the
strikebreakers hand over their arms to the strikers, refusing to break
the strike and either go home or stay, fraternize with the strikers and
join the resistance. Either way, the strikers continue to defend their
right to strike, they become extremely self-conscious of their ability
to organize themselves, and they mobilize the towns around them to
defend the strike. The federal government sends troops in to restore
“law and order,” and capitalist business as usual, but are met with a
general strike, wildcat and sympathy strikes, and armed insurrection by
highly organized sectors of the working class. This usually leads to
regional and nation-wide labor solidarity, spreading to other industrial
cities and creating massive warfare between classes.
The outcome of the strikes were either decided by firepower and state
repression where the federal government always eventually wins, or the
capitalists give in to some watered down demands. In all of these cases,
there is an unprecedented level of transformation of the types of
demands the workers were fighting for. The struggle began with requests
for mere concessions, then developed into a forum where workers had a
growing class consciousness, and all-out self-management by working
people. There are by-and-large refusals of the old demands of “rights,
due process, and wages,” and the recognition that the fights have turned
into questions of ownership of property and production, the abolishment
of capitalism, and the organized working class administering goods and
services to each other in common without state, political, or union
beauracratic intervention of any kind.
This change is shown in the resolutions drafted by several facilitators
of mass insurrections, as well as the clear direction workers were
taking in their actions (The seizure of property, the democratic
councilist decision-making of workers from different industries, the
socialization of distribution). Yes, these things happened right here in
the U.S. Jeremy Brecher is not talking about the Paris Commune, Spain,
the Ukraine or Kwangju. He’s talking about cities such as Detroit,
Seattle, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis.
Most of the massive uprisings are separated by a decade and a half on
average, up until post-WWII. The book’s updated section focuses mainly
on the descent of militant labor, the decrease in strikes in general,
and the reasons for this direction. After the 1960’s it seems like
capital remained ten steps ahead of labor as far as being able to win
battles more frequently and consistently. They employed legal and
illegal political repression, beefed up street level policing, weaponry,
sneaky propaganda campaigns, and finally a massive capital
transformation into a globalized, international mode of labor
exploitation. These capitalist advancements, which benefited the U.S.
and the international ruling class, resulted in a tremendous loss of
even the smallest of demands made by the working class. Millions
drastically lost their job security, benefits, and rights they had all
fought so hard to maintain for decades. Their attempts at defending
these concessions led to an increased capitalist clampdown and tactical
changes to defeat the rising tide of labor resistance. The late 1970’s
and the whole of the 1980’s revealed the most atrocious anti-working
class, anti-union politics and economic restructuring done by
capitalists in the U.S. and abroad. The author tells of union’s shifting
gears several times in this era, in order to present new tactics like
internationalist solidarity or explicitly ‘non-violent’ marches and
demonstrations in reaction to often very violent police attacks on
picket lines. There are very few sucessful campaigns in this sad era of
capitalist globalization.
Brecher explains the shift in strategies inside the AFL-CIO in the ’90’s
that helped to redevelop a progressive and growing labor movement,
connecting communities and concerns like pro-immigration, women’s
rights, and equity for people of color into union organizing. There have
been successful campaigns for immigrant rights, like the Justice for
Janitors campaigns in Century City and elsewhere, as well as worker’s
centers in New York City organized by immigrant workers. Some unions
have organized respectfully and tactically, sometimes they did it with
degrees of ignorance to the concerns of these previously excluded
sectors of the working class. Some unions and locals have won back small
concessions, but by and large labor no longer displayed the kind of
militancy and refusal of wage and private property in the way it once
did.
Several times throughout Strike! I found a brief exploration into the
social and cultural roles that immigrants, women, and people of color
(especially blacks) faced in these manifestations of class warfare, and
the labor movement in general. I was disappointed that Brecher didn’t
explore these elements further, since he did take the time to very
lightly touch on these subjects. When he did, he barely wrote about the
reality of exclusion that existed for those who consistently weren’t
welcomed in the largely white, male dominated labor movement. He did
however, speak highly of instances during the most extreme examples of
working class control of cities and regions, around the turn of the
century. These instances stand as important insights into the organic
development of anti-racism and the dissolving of patriarchal gender
roles.
These examples are due to the self-organization of these sectors of the
working class during great labor and social crises.
In the largest social and class upheavals, black workers were quite
active and even started radical workplace rebellions. During the 1877
labor explosion, blacks organized as Virginia coal miners, Texan
railroad workers, and St. Louis steamboat workers. During the massive
labor movement of 1892, in New Orleans, three seperate unions formed a
city-wide “Triple Alliance,” which saw divisions in race to be an
obstacle to ALL workers. The general strike that followed showed extreme
examples of cross-racial solidarity and breakdown of longtime “Deep
South” racial divisions. Brecher points out several times when blacks
were excluded from the union and labor activity. At times, blacks were
historically unsympathetic with the strikes, due to their being barred
from joining many unions. Sometimes they felt no guilt in being a scab.
I’d have loved to have read Brecher dig into the roots of where these
racist union policies originated. Were the union leaders only organizing
white workers as a strategy specifically designed to be exclusive to
certain European nationalities? Often they did organize European
immigrants with great difficulty due to language differences, yet failed
to allow blacks and newly-arrived Eastern Europeans and Irish folk to be
members. How come Brecher doesn’t delve further into the instances of
racist actions taken by the Western European rank-and-file even in
opposition to their union leader’s policies? Though the theme of the
book does explore the significant developments of labor militancy, class
conciousness, and even cross-racial solidarity, ignoring blatant
examples of racism by the rank-and-file is a mistake. Later, after the
militant and highly organized black working class movements of the
1960’s and 1970’s, unions, on an institutional level, gradually started
to realize the importance of an organized working class that included
people of nationalities and races that were previously left out. Of
course this is due to the self-organization of working class people of
color and women, building movements for social change, and demanding
recognization by the union leaders as well as the acceptance by their
white male rank-and-file comrades.
According to Brecher, women have been integral in the development of
labor militancy. “Strike!” provides the reader with countless examples
of women acting in the forefront of strike activity. They provided
support drives, community awareness campaigns, as well as organized
economic and material resource collections. Often times, women have gone
on the picket lines with children in tow. They’ve consistently stood in
the front of labor marches and demonstrations, and have bravely
confronted armed Pinkerton thugs and militia men with babies in their
arms. Women have occupied factories, defended workplaces from scabs,
attacked troops, and helped to build worker’s centers. They enacted
organizations dedicated to educating women at large that a labor
movement is and should be a women’s movement. During the Depression Era,
women involved in the massive auto worker’s sitdown strike were breaking
out of gender expectations and passivity into militant self-organized
agents of feminist class struggle. They organized emergency brigades
that attacked strikebreaking police in the streets, first-aid stations,
welfare committees, childcare co-ops, etc. Against the protests of the
men involved in the strikes, they set out to prove that they too are
affected by capitalism, and have the right to take action against their
exploiters. After realizing the power they held, and the potential for
radical transformation of societal limits, women started to shed the
expectations forced on them by men. At one point, housewives were known
to go on strike against their lovers and husbands. They refused to cook,
clean, and have sex, until their male counterparts recognized certain
demands for equality. These, and many other cases of women’s struggles
were briefly explored throughout the book. After the civil rights
movement, the labor movement has slowly become pro-active in organizing
for women’s rights in the workplace and at home.
The role of unions in these moments of advanced struggle are explored
throroughly in Strike!. Brecher does great service to exposing the ills
of the history of the U.S. union’s top-down structure. He goes in depth
about how union leaders would either take control of strikes, or would
outright condemn the rank-and-file’s right to organize militantly and
democratically. In virtually every case where the rank-and-file broke a
contract or went against the will of union leaders to act on their own,
the union leadership systematically mobilized AGAINST the rank-and-file.
There are a few exceptions, and most of these rare exceptions where
attempts by the union leadership to seize control of the strike
committees, in order to de-escalate rebellion, stifle dissent, and spy
on radical organizers. Often, rank-and-file workers would denounce the
union leadership, claim the union as their own, and use the union
resources at their disposal for their own end. Other times,
rank-and-file unionists would tear their union cards up, and/or create
or join different unions (ex: industrial unions as opposed to trade
unions) that claim to be in line with the tactics the rank-and-file
would like to see employed.
Overall, Strike! was a treat to read. I felt that the areas I wanted to
be explored more may have been whole books in themselves, so despite
some concerns, I remained quite satisfied until the last page. It
provides real examples of hundreds of thousands of working people acting
in their own interests, organizing to feed themselves, work for
themselves, and throwing off all attempts to stop them by capitalists
and their reactionary allies. The events explored are windows into the
possibilities for the real abolition of class society free of political
bureaucracy and statist means. It is telling of the breakdown of social
divisions within the working class in the midst of extreme forms of
unconditional solidarity between workers. “Strike!” proves to be a
resource for any working class person interested in discovering the rich
history of class struggle right here in the U.S.