REVIEW: SOLIDARITY DIVIDED: We have to change to survive

Abstract

REVIEWn SOLIDARITYDIVIDED We have to change to survive A reviewof SolidarityDivided byBillFletcher Jr.and Fernando Gapasin (University ofCaliforna Press, 2008) DAVID BACON isajournalist based in San Francisco Through we inour picketed Bay the Area 1980s ships labour I carrying was anti-apartheid a union South organiser African committee. and cargo, activist and As inour Bay Area labour anti-apartheid committee. As wepicketed ships carrying South African cargo, and recruited city workers to support theAfrican National Congress (then called a terrorist organisation by both the US and South Africa), Ilooked atSouth African unions with great admiration. TheSouth African Congress ofTrade Unions, banned in the1950s,hadfound waysto organise African and 'coloured' workers underground, to support a liberation struggle ina broad political alliance. Heroic SACTU leaders like Vuysile Mini gave their lives onthe scaffold for freedom. Then, as apartheid tottered andeventually fell, SACTU unions became thenucleus ofa newfederation, the Congress ofSouth African Trade Unions. With roots inthat liberation war, it declared socialism asits goal, and still does today. COSATU unions prize rank-and-file control overtheir elected leaders, andengage members inlong and thorough discussions ofthe country's development plans. Thelabour federation hasthemost sophisticated political strategy of any union in the world today - balancing a leading role in the tripartite alliance that governs South Africa with independence ofprogramme andaction, even striking toforce policiesthat put theneeds ofworkers before theneoliberal demands ofthe World Bank. Jacob Zuma owes hiselection as president ofSouth Africa today toSouth African labour. Asanorganiser during thesameperiod I worked with many others toforce our own labour movement torecognise that organising new members and changing our politics was necessary for survival athome. If wecould double our size (atleast), Ithought, we'd have more power, while the streetheat generated bytheintense conflict organising creates would setthe stage for political transformation. Needless to say, that transformation process turned out tobemuch more complicated than Iexpected. At the beginning ofSolidarity Divided, Bill Fletcher recalls a comment made by a healthcare unionist ata meeting in South Africa which sums upatleast part ofwhat makes COSATU so different from theAFL-CIO. "Comrades' they began, 'the role ofthe union istorepresent the interests of the working class. There aretimes when the interests of the working classconflict with the interests ofthe members of our respective unions". Fletcher andFernando Gapasin, Solidarity Divided's coauthor , usethe quote todramatise two important differences between ourmovements. South African unions talk about workers' class interests, using words that still frighten unionists here. And not only canCOSATU militants seethe potential conflict that cansometimes arise, but believe that when it does, unions should put the interests ofallworkers before their own institutional needs. There aremany differences between the USlabour movement andother union movements around theworld. In France inrecent months workers haveimprisoned their bosses intheir offices toforce them tonegotiate over the closure offactories andjobelimination. OnMay Dayhundreds ofthousands ofworkers poured into thestreets in Germany andRussia, andin Turkey unions had tobattle the police for the right tostand in Taksim Square. InElSalvador unions supported the guerrilleros during a civil war toupend Central America's most unjust social order, while their offices were bombed andtheir leaders killed. InthePhilippines workers commonly put uptents atthe gate ofa factory on strike, andlive there until thestrike isover. Even workers from Mexico and Canada usephrases like 'working class' as part ofordinary conversation. Bycomparison weseempretty conservative. Our labour movement hasresources andwealth that areenormous by comparison with most unions around the world. But our own existence andpower isjust as threatened as that ofmany others. Thepurpose ofSolidarity Divided isnot tocompare us unfavourably with labour elsewhere, ortomount anunrelieved criticism of our conservatism. Itistoaskquestions, so that wecancome togrips with the problems that endanger our survival. And theexperience ofunions andworkers in other countries, while itcan't betransferred orcopied, can atleast inspire uswith the courage toface our own situation with realism and the determination tochange it. Solidarity Divided hasbeen criticised by some activists for the dark picture itpaints of the situation faced by unions in the US.Itisnot a hopeless one, but itiscertainly sobering. Few would argue that with 12 percent ofworkers inunions there isnocrisis for USlabour. And the authors arenot saying that workers can't win inconflicts with employers today, orwith the political system. The continuation of the Bush era wasdefeated inlarge part byunion activists, money and votes. Workers canstill win...