Organized labor in the USA lost its mission in the late 1940s. Actually, it abandoned its mission and replaced it with a different one: the building of a labor lobby within the context of the mainstream USA. More than anything else organized labor refused to accept the inevitability of class struggle and instead insisted that the elimination of the left-wing in labor helped to ensure that a productive relationship could be built with capital. The elimination of the left-wing was not only the elimination of people and organizations, but it was also represented by unconditional support for US foreign policy and the repudiation of any sense that organized labor had a direct responsibility to un-organized labor, i.e., to the rest of the working class.
Turning this situation around necessitates a reassertion of a mission focused on social and economic justice founded upon a cold appraisal of the realities of class struggle in 21st century USA, and for that matter the 21st century planet Earth. It is a mission that involves a level of global labor solidarity the likes of which most of us have not seen in our life-times. But it also involves the building of strategic alliances in the USA that aim towards winning power for working people.
The mission, however, is only as good as are those who are prepared to implement it. This means that within the unions and allied worker organizations, there must be a process of large-scale member education that helps to create the framework for understanding the dynamics of contemporary capitalism and the sorts of strategies that are necessary in order to address it. Too many organizations alter their missions only to stagnate due to the failure of the members to ‘own’ the result.
Organizational assessment and retooling/restructuring: In the aftermath of any major failure there must be an assessment. While part of that involves assessing strategies, organizational forms must be reconsidered. In the case of organized labor, the movement must assess how it is structured, including but not limited to its relationship with worker organizations that are not formal unions. To put it another way, organized labor must ascertain what is necessary in order to build a genuine 21stcentury labor movement. One example of this is that of the unemployed who, for all intents and purposes, most of organized labor has abandoned. Building a movement of workers necessitates organizing and mobilizing the unemployed, therefore, one must determine what that means at the levels of program and organization.
via logosjournal.com
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