Peace and Justice Can’t be Won Through Negotiations with Capitalists
In every sphere of workers’ struggles for peace and justice—for economic security, equality, an end to war—the capitalist class tells us that we must come to the “bargaining table”—in one way or other, they tell us that we need to lobby congress, collectively bargain with our bosses, appeal to and support capitalist politicians who claim they are on our side, and to depend upon them to carry out our demands.
What is completely off the bargaining table and not up for discussion is workers’ control over the profits we create through our labor.
Such discussions would inexorably lead us to questioning the profit motive and the economic and political system of capitalism itself—the dictatorship of the wealthy over the poor.
Instead, workers are taught from cradle to grave that the capitalist system is the highest and most democratic level of human organization that can ever be achieved—that the best we can hope for is a kinder and gentler capitalism if we elect more liberal politicians from among the wealthy elite of the capitalist dictatorship.
The absurd injustice of the
capitalist dictatorship
A February 12, 2022, New York Times article by Sapna Maheshwari and Michael Corkery is titled, “Business Booms at Kroger-Owned Grocery Stores, but Workers Are Left Behind.” They write:
“Kroger has one of the country’s starkest gaps between a chief executive’s compensation and that of the median employee. Rodney McMullen, Kroger’s chief executive since 2014, earned $22.4 million in 2020, while the median employee earned $24,617—a ratio of 909 to 1. The average C.E.O.-to-worker pay ratio in the S&P 500 is 299 to 1, with grocery chains like Costco (193 to 1) and Publix (153 to 1).…After more than a week of picketing, the union—Local 7 of the U.F.C.W. [United Food and Commercial Workers]—won large concessions, including wage increases and a plan to move at least 500 part-time workers into full-time roles within a few months. As successful as the strike was for workers in Colorado, Larry Cohen, former president of the Communications Workers of America, said the contracts covered only employees at specific Kroger chains, making it difficult for unions to gain broader leverage. ‘When all contracts are local, how do you deal with a giant national company?’ Mr. Cohen said. ‘Not very well.’”
Workers in each local area are on their own and must fight individually for the gains they deserve. In other words, workers must organize locally, while the bosses are allowed to bargain collectively—nationally and even internationally—as owners and rulers of the means of production.
In cases like Starbucks and Amazon, while the CEOs are in control of profits, labor costs and benefits for their entire industry wherever it exists in the world, the workers only have control over labor representation in their own locale. So that across the country, even if workers are able to get union representation, it will most likely be by different unions in each city or town—and their contracts will differ accordingly—some being much better than others, all for the same jobs within the same corporations.
Capitalist labor laws
Two significant labor laws were designed to gut the power of unions to effectively represent the interests of the working class.
First, the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 known as the Taft-Hartley Act, “amended the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), [to include] prohibiting unions from engaging in several ‘unfair labor practices.’ …Among the practices prohibited by [the addition of the] Taft–Hartley act are jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, secondary boycotts, secondary and mass picketing, closed shops, and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns. The [amended] NLRA also allowed states to enact right-to-work laws banning union shops.” —Wikipedia
Second, “The Citizens United ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, released in January 2010, tossed out the original NLRA corporate and union ban on making independent expenditures and financing electioneering communications. It gave corporations and unions the green light to spend unlimited sums on ads and other political tools, calling for the election or defeat of individual candidates.
In a nutshell, the high court’s five-to-four decision said that it is OK for corporations and labor unions to spend as much as they want to convince people to vote for or against a candidate.”
Of course, the corporations have unlimited funds to influence elections while the labor unions are dependent upon union dues from an ever-shrinking membership. But worse than that, it puts the focus of organized labor on the capitalist electoral system to resolve the economic and social issues workers face.
How these laws work in favor of the capitalist class
So, for instance, if the United Auto Workers in a particular auto manufacturing plant like Ford in Detroit, demands higher wages, first they must agree to collectively bargain with the bosses of that plant, then, if they cannot come to an agreement through arbitration, they can only strike in that one plant, and they can’t organize mass picketing to build community support for their demands.
Taft-Hartley makes it illegal for the entire membership of the UAW to go out on strike in solidarity with their fellow members in an individual Ford plant because that would give workers more collective power than the capitalist class. The law was designed to tie the hands of the working class from exercising our power in numbers.
The Citizens United ruling leaves the union seemingly with no options other than to appeal to capitalist politicians to pass more “progressive” labor laws.
And the labor bureaucrats go all out to convince the rank-and-file that spending union dues to promote and publicize Democratic Party or other so-called “labor friendly” capitalist candidates, is their only hope to win economic gains. This leads them straight into the hopeless trap of “lesser evil politics.”
The rank-and-file of the labor movement must take back control of their unions from the bureaucrats who are in bed with the Democratic Party because we can’t win our demands without breaking these anti-labor laws on a massive scale.
The Taft-Hartley Act and the Citizens United ruling have resulted in the percentage of American workers belonging to unions to decline from a high of 35 percent in 1954, to the low, today, of 10.8 percent.
Worker’s wages and working conditions are constantly under threat by the capitalists’ need to increase their rate of profit.
A strike of all auto workers in support of workers in a single plant greatly enhances the power of the union.
A general strike of all workers everywhere in support of workers in a single plant would challenge the very foundation of capitalism itself.
Unity and solidarity of the world’s working class acting in our own defense is real democracy as opposed to bourgeois democracy—an electoral process that ensures the rule of the rich over the poor.
Lesser-evil politics and cooptation of mass worker’s movements
Depending on the good will and generosity of the capitalist class to solve the dire problems that workers face only leads to defeat. The very structure of capitalism is designed to protect the private profits of the capitalist class by keeping workers from recognizing the real power they have over the capitalists.
Workers never had the chance to vote for or against either the Taft-Hartley Act or the Citizens United ruling. Those decisions were made by the capitalist politicians and appointed judges representing the commanders of capital.
The working class doesn’t get to vote on such laws. We only get to vote on one or another capitalist politician who promises to stand up for workers’ rights just to get the vote, then carries out what is in the best interests of capitalism.
The only effective way to win working class struggles are to break these laws and massively organize in opposition to them—by organizing strikes, and work stoppages nationwide, and worldwide across all industries—bolstered by mass, independent actions in the streets in solidarity with all workers everywhere.
We can no longer let our organizations be co-opted into support for the Democratic or any other capitalist party. It’s the only way we can win our right to live in a peaceful world, to end bigotry in all its forms, and to win equal rights and economic equality and justice for all.
Mass working class independent action and organization in opposition to capitalism is the only way to establish an economy based upon production for the needs of all and finally end production for the profits of the tiny few commanders of capital.
War or revolution
The United States’ capitalist class is embarking on more wars to preserve their superiority among the world’s capitalist class— wars for power and dominance over all the world’s wealth—and they intend to use the working class everywhere as their cannon fodder.
Organizing massive independent workers’ actions for equality, peace, and justice for all—and ultimately for socialism—is the only way we can put a stop to these endless wars that threaten our very existence.
The capitalists will do all they can to stop us because they have everything to lose.
We have nothing to lose but our chains and a world to win! Together, united in solidarity, we have the power to win it.