In the era of pre-monopoly or competitive capitalism in the U.S.A., trade unions were organized mostly by the skilled craft workers. In this earlier stage of capitalism, these trade unions generally played a progressive political role: many of their leaders recognized that bargaining for the price of labor-power was only a partial, temporary solution and that their long-range goal must be the abolition of capitalism itself. But, with the rapid advances in the development of the productive forces and the consequent emergence of monopoly capitalism or imperialism, this stratum of workers increasingly turned into its political opposite and came to act as more of a reactionary force within the working class as a whole.
Two complementary trends developed which had a major effect on transforming the stratum of skilled workers into avid supporters of the bourgeoisie. First, new methods of production were introduced to increase production, the Taylor system and the Ford system being prime examples. The effect of these new production methods was to vastly increase the division of labor within each factory. The skilled workers found that more and more of their jobs were being taken over, divided up, and performed in separate operations by unskilled or semi-skilled workers.
This trend still continues today, and it has reached the point in many industries that workers in the skilled trades have at best a very marginal relationship to the actual production process. This tends to be the case in the mass production industries, though there are still a few areas, like construction, where the percentage of skilled workers in relation to unskilled workers is quite a bit higher, and where skilled workers still play a vital role in the actual production process. The reason for this condition in industries like construction is that relative to the potential level of the productive forces, the methods of production are out-moded and backward. Over-all, a number of the key sectors of the labor aristocracy tend to be associated with the out-moded craft methods of production, and this condition leads to their reactionary political outlook since one of their prime motivations is to hold back the development of the forces of production which would eliminate the need for their jobs.
The situation is somewhat different with other newer petit-bourgeois stratum of the working class, such as scientists, engineers, and technicians who have arisen as a major force within the production process because of the tremendous advances in science and technology and their application to industry. There is a limited access to these kinds of skills because of the extensive education required, and this gives this stratum a privileged position relative to the rest of the class. But this stratum as a whole is not part of the labor aristocracy. The groups of workers in this stratum who should be considered part of the labor aristocracy are those who are able to “corner the market” on their skills and control to some degree the access of other workers. The general division between mental and manual labor, which is part of the material conditions of “bourgeois right”, provides the basis for reactionary political stands among this whole stratum, and this becomes a particularly sharp problem under socialism. But, as a countervailing tendency, this stratum is connected to the more advanced methods of production which only socialism can develop to their fullest extent, and thus this sector of workers has the potential to identify its own future with the revolutionary movement of the class as a whole.
The second trend which had a profound impact on the emergence of the labor aristocracy in its original historical form was the great wave of immigration into the U.S. by “foreign” workers and their placement in the numerous semi-skilled and unskilled jobs opened up by large-scale industry. Around 1900, these immigrants came mostly from Southern and Eastern Europe, with an ever increasing influx of Blacks from the Black Belt during and after World War I. This trend also continues today, with most of the immigrants coming from Mexico, Latin America in general, Asia and the Middle East. Women also started to enter social production in large numbers around 1900, and now it has reached the point where they make up almost half of the total labor force. Black emigration has reached the point where the majority of Blacks live outside the Black Belt area.
Both the above major trends resulted in the skilled workers being pushed out of the central place they had once occupied in the production process, and being replaced by people who included a large number of minority nationalities and women. The skilled workers came to see themselves as not only opposed to the capitalists, but to these new members of the working class as well, who they saw as “stealing their jobs.” It is understandable then how these skilled craft workers became an ideological base for virulent national chauvinism, racism, and sexism.
This division within the working class was custom-made to be taken advantage of by the imperialists. Buttressed somewhat by super-profits siphoned off from the new U.S. colonies and overseas enterprises in general, the imperialists gained some latitude in being able to maneuver to further split up the working class. This latitude involved being able to grant wages above the level of necessity to the decreasing stratum of skilled craft workers. The bribery of this stratum took shape over time, with the concessions being wrung out of the capitalists partly because this stratum was the most organised and cohesive in the defense of its narrow economic interests. But these concessions became part of a systematic relationship of class collaboration in which the capitalists expected and received a trade-off. The trade-off was that the trade unions of the skilled workers, represented by the AFL, would not organize the masses of workers in basic industry. The AFL leadership religiously upheld this deal, and forced those who were interested in organising basic industry to form their own trade union center from scratch, the Congress of Industrial Organisations (CIO). The CIO grew rapidly in the 1930’s and 1940’s, but with the end of World War II the capitalists turned their fire on it, and drove out the communists and radicals. The merger of the AFL and CIO in 1953 signified the capitulation of the CIO to the AFL-type of trade unionism.
The labor aristocracy has used this system of class collaboration to its own advantage by winning a series of political-legal favors from the capitalists. These political-legal concessions have allowed the labor aristocracy a lease on life that it normally would not have enjoyed. It is the labor aristocracy’s protectionist mentality, which can be militant in defense of its fortified positions of privilege, that leads to its reactionary political role. This protectionist mentality extends to its view of workers from other countries, with the labor aristocracy representing the most fiercely national chauvinist, pro-imperialist, anti-communist stratum of the working class.
The labor aristocracy remains overall the domain of the white male worker, who aspires to petit-bourgeois privilege and perceives the attainment of this privilege in contradiction with the improvement in condition of the great masses of the working class. Thus, although in its economic relation to the means of production the labor aristocracy can still be considered part of the working class, in a political and ideological sense this stratum has historically operated as a “fifth column” for the bourgeoisie within the labor movement.
The major trade union center of the United States, the AFL-CIO, is controlled by the labor aristocracy. It champions the interests of the U.S. capitalist class at home and abroad. A good example is provided by the work done by George Meany (the old AFL-CIO President) in the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), a CIA labor front group used for winning the workers in other countries away from communism and into good old American “business” unionism. An important aspect of the labor aristocracy is thus the interest it has in promoting the expansion of the American Empire. Within the working class, it has always provided the real base for national chauvinist ideology.
One of the central defining characteristics of the labor aristocracy, which helps to explain its national chauvinist, protectionist mentality, is its ability, through the political-legal concessions mentioned above, to maintain a controlled supply of its particular labor-power — carpentry, plumbing, tool and die work, etc. This control over supply takes the form of institutions like strict apprenticeship programs and closed shop hiring halls. The heart of the labor aristocracy is to be found in the craft construction unions, where the closed shop is legal, and the union has a great deal of control over how many people are allowed into the particular trade, and even how the work itself should be done, as stipulated by the building codes.
Under conditions of capitalism, no trade or sector of workers can hope to raise its wages above the level of necessity unless it can exercise a decisive control over the supply of labor-power. One of the basic principles of the trade union itself is to help to eliminate the competition among workers for jobs. The labor aristocracy can elevate its wages above the level of necessity on a permanent basis because its privileged economic position has official endorsement through special laws enforced by the state.
The greatest danger that the labor aristocracy poses to the revolutionary movement is its political and ideological influence over the whole working class. Although many production workers resent the special privileges of the labor aristocracy, many of them are conditioned to seek after the same privileges themselves, and accept the ideology of “business” unionism, anti-communism, national chauvinism, and class collaboration as means to achieve such narrow economic interests. Because the labor aristocracy strives to maintain its privileged position in relation to the rest of the class, it is less interested in ending the exploitation of the working class by the capitalists and more interested in making deals with the capitalists to maintain its privileged position.
One of our strategic tasks is to break the organizational stranglehold of the labor aristocracy on the trade union movement in the U.S. and counter-act its reactionary political and ideological influence on the working class. Although the ultimate interests of this bribed stratum lies in socialist revolution, its perceived interests make it oppose such a revolution and come to act as the main base for counter-revolution within the working class under the dictatorship of the proletariat.
This situation does not mean that there can be no possibility of some tactical unity with the members of the labor aristocracy, in terms of supporting their strikes or particular labor legislation, for example. In order to neutralize them as much as possible as a base for counter-revolution and win over those members who can come to support us, we should exercize some tactical flexibility in relation to them. They should be treated as part of the working class which is subject to some of the same common forms of exploitation, and as active members in the trade union movement which can be united with on occasion.
The extensive political and ideological influence of the labor aristocracy among the broad masses of the working class, most especially the organized sector, is partly explained in the U.S by the relative material benefits which sectors of the US working class have temporarily enjoyed, in particular since World War II. As with the British working class during the 19th century, the time of the pre-eminence of British imperialism, the U.S. working class has also been able to hold up the price of its labor-power for an extended period of time above the level of social necessity. This is a temporary phenomenon, which does not contradict the basic economic laws of capitalism, because this holding up of the standard of living is linked with the temporary rise of particular imperialist powers which are able to reap the superprofits from their increasing control over the under-developed colonial and neo-colonial countries.
The standard of living of the U.S. working class is high relative to the standards of living of workers in other capitalist countries because of the high level of the productive forces, which were greater able to develop on the basis of rich natural resources and a capitalist social system unfettered by feudalism. Therefore, the social level of necessity in the U.S. is also higher, to begin with. This high standard of living has also been buoyed by the rapid rise of U.S. imperialism as a powerful world power.
The results economically and politically have been that the U.S. working class has been pacified to a degree in carrying on the class struggle. Although strikes during certain periods have been numerous and militant, they have rarely led to the emergence of a significant revolutionary movement of the working class that would begin to seriously contest with the capitalist class on the political field of battle.
This relative pacification of the U.S. working class, which is most manifest politically, is undergoing change with the marked decline of U.S. imperialism relative to its unchallenged position right after World War II. Since the 1960s the real wages of the working class as a whole have been declining, and this decline has become more abrupt in the last few years, with the most devastating effects on the oppressed, unorganized sectors of the class. Although somewhat cushioned for a time against the worst shocks of the economic decline, even the organized sector of the class is now being dislodged from the accustomed grooves of bourgeois collective bargaining, as whole industries such as auto, rubber, and steel go on the skids. The potential is clearly growing for a revolutionary movement within the working class that can strengthen the economic, trade union position of the class and build the basis for overthrowing the capitalist system itself.