First Published: The Call, Vol. 7, No. 35, September 11, 1978.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
“Why would American business want to weaken the strongest anti-communist workers movement in the world?“ asked AFL-CIO President George Meany in his 1978 Labor Day address.
It’s a good question, but not all that hard to figure out. Big business is embarked on a major anti-labor drive the likes of which has not been seen in decades. Their aim is to squeeze every drop of profit they can out of the workers and at the same time crush their initiative and fighting capacity.
Meany, of course, understands this only too well, and his Labor Day speech was peppered with denunciations of the bosses for their vicious anti-labor attacks. Pressed to the wall by an increasingly rebellious rank and file, Meany has joined the section of labor leaders who are balking at the bosses’ attacks.
Meany’s question was really more of a plaintive reminder to the monopolists that if they keep up their anti-union barrage, he may not be able to keep the millions of rank-and-file workers under his anti-communist control.
As The Callpointed out in the first article of this series, the working class has suffered a serious drop in its living standards in the recent period. This is the result of a massive campaign of “rationalization“ by the bosses.
Through this campaign, the capitalists have stepped up their exploitation of the workers, boosted their own profits and achieved some partial recovery from the economic crisis.
This “rationalization” process is reflected not just in lower incomes and buying power, but in other labor indicators as well.
One such indicator is productivity-the output of each worker per hour on the job. Although the capitalists have been hypocritically complaining about lagging productivity, the facts show that they are getting much more out of the workers than ever before – and at a cheaper cost.
The auto industry is a good example. Hit by the severe slow-down in 1974, the auto giants threw more than 100,000 people out of work. But as the demand for cars slowly increased, the Big 3 began speeding up this smaller workforce at an incredible rate.
By 1976, auto workers were 8.7% more productive than the year before. And in 1977, productivity in the industry was 7% higher than in 1976. Besides that 7% increase in output per hour there was also an increase in the number of hours worked. This produced a staggering 14.5% rise in the total output.
Behind these statistics lies a situation on the shop floor which auto workers can only describe as hell. With 100,000 fewer employees, they have been forced to produce 14.5% more cars.
This forced jump in productivity has been matched by a general decline in health and safety on the job. About 1 in 11 workers are now injured each year at work, and the incidence of lost workdays due to injury rose between 1973 and 1976 from about 53 to 60 lost workdays per 100 workers.
In almost every industry now, there are examples of the bosses using the “anti-inflation” gimmick to cut back on safety standards for workers. OSHA’s dropping of 1,100 safety rules, and Carter’s gutting of brown lung standards for the textile industry are just two instances from this year alone.
The monopolists’ anti-labor offensive, however, is not confined just to the realm of economics and working conditions. The recent period has witnessed a sharp increase in attacks on the rights and social position of the working class.
Two months ago, the capitalists defeated an attempt to revise labor law so as to make union organizing somewhat easier. It was evidence of the viciousness of the anti-labor offensive that even this mild reform measure was blocked by the bosses. This was a blow that especially hit minority and women workers, who are almost all concentrated in unorganized shops.
Intensification of national oppression has, in fact, been a particular feature of the general anti-worker offensive. The bosses’ “rationalization” process has resulted in an increase in discrimination in hiring and firing, worse working conditions and more harassment on the job for Blacks, Latinos, Asian-Americans, Native Americans and other minorities in the workforce.
Take the Supreme Court’s recent upholding of the racist Bakke decision. While most of the media has down played the immediate results of this attack on minority affirmative action rights in schools and employment, many agree that it signals a new assault on the gains which minorities won through the bitter struggles of the 1960s. Already, Bakke-style law suits against affirmative action have been filed in steel, electronics and other industries.
In the field of employment, the increase in discriminatory practices can be measured statistically. Here’s how teenage unemployment for minorities was described in the Labor Department’s Report No. 78-621, published July 18, 1978:
“Since the second quarter of 1977, unemployment rates for white and Black adults have fallen substantially, while, for teenagers, only whites have shown improvement.“ [Emphasis ours]
And here’s another indicator of the worsening oppression of minorities. The Black unemployment rate today is 2 and a half times that for whites and the disparity has been increasing. This Black-to- white ratio of joblessness is now higher than it’s been in 12 years.
There are still other indicators that the current anti-labor offensive is taking a special toll on Black and other minority workers. Under California’s Prop. 13 “tax relief” measure, for instance, the ruling class is forcing layoffs of public workers. And as the lowest seniority, “last hired” workers, minorities are the first fired.
Not only minorities, but women workers as well have been the special targets of “rationalization” schemes. Employers have hired more women than ever in recent years, but at much lower rates of pay than men receive. By exploiting women as cheap labor, the bosses have been able to boost their profits.
Additionally, even the most minimal of the demands of women in their fight for equality have been blocked during the anti-labor climate of recent years. The Supreme Court’s refusal in December of 1976 to grant women pregnancy disability benefits was just one example.
For the whole working class, one of the most significant aspects of the anti-labor offensive has been the growing tendency of the government to actively intervene in labor struggles. This trend poses many dangers to the workers’ movement.
The recent miners’ strike demonstrated that the government – from Jimmy Carter’s White House on down to the local police – is the tool of the bosses in suppressing the workers’ struggle. Taft-Hartley injunctions, mass arrests, threats of federal troops in the coalfields, grand jury indictments of strikers – these were just a few examples of government “impartiality” during that historic labor battle.
But the miners’ strike was not some isolated example of government intervention. Carter’s entire “anti-inflation strategy” is nothing more than a blatant effort to put the weight and power of government behind the capitalists’ wage-cutting, “rationalization“ drive.
Clearly, the forces arrayed against labor are powerful, and, they are becoming bolder in their attacks each day.
In the face of this expanding class war, certain sectors of the workers’ movement – especially public employees – have made notable efforts at breeching the enemy’s battle lines. The current teachers’ strikes raging in eight states and the recent postal workers’ victory in forcing new contract negotiations stand out sharply in this regard.
But, in all frankness, it must be stated that labor’s fight back is still scattered and largely unorganized, The millions of rank-and-file workers have so far been unable to mount an effective challenge to mass layoffs, speed-up, wage-cutting or other capitalist attacks.
The blame for this cannot be laid on the rank and file. In union local after union local and across industry lines, rank-and-file discontent is brewing on a massive scale. One federal labor mediator even told reporters recently that, in his opinion, the average worker is “decidedly bitter, angry and militant“ and eager for a fight against the bosses’ offensive.
The real cause of labor’s relatively weakened state is the betrayal of the trade union bureaucrats. As capitalism’s agents in the labor movement, these mis-leaders wield tremendous power and have consistently used the union machinery which they control as a brake upon the rank and-file movement.
In Part 3 of this series on the labor movement today, we will examine the nature of the bureaucrats’ stranglehold over the workers’ movement and discuss the growing rifts within their ranks.