Vol. 77/No. 13      April 8, 2013

Below is an excerpt from The Changing Face of U.S. Politics: Working-Class Politics and the Trade Unions by Jack Barnes, national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party. The selection is from a February 1978 report by Barnes that was approved by the SWP National Committee. Copyright © 1981 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.

When we talk about the social and political responsibilities of labor we explain the need to combat the ruling‑class policy of imposing on the individual family the responsibility for social services that should be taken care of by society—the care of the young, the elderly, the sick and disabled. But that’s not the only way capitalism works.

The employers also try to impose upon the individual workers responsibilities that should be met by society. And more and more they try to establish that these responsibilities will be met only according to the profitability of each worker’s own boss. I leave aside the most grotesque single examples such as the public-employee unions’ officials sinking massive amounts of pension funds into city bonds in New York City. But more and more so‑called general fringe benefits—pensions, health‑care plans, supplemental unemployment benefits—all become contingent on the continuing profits of the boss you work for. We see this growing in industries like coal, steel, and auto.

These benefits are not won for the class as a whole, or even a section of the class. It’s almost like a march back toward feudalism, not a march forward toward socialism. These fringes are good in good times—for workers who have them—because they’re a substantial addition to everything else industrial workers can count on. But when the squeeze comes, this all begins to fall apart. Your pension funds are threatened. Your health‑care plans are dismantled. The supplemental unemployment benefits run out. And the squeeze is on.

This is the payoff when the debt of business unionism comes due. This is the price paid for the class‑collaborationist policy of refusing to fight for the real needs of the class—the social security of the class, national health care, for national unemployment insurance that’s real and high enough, for a shorter workweek at no cut in pay, for protection against inflation, and for independent working‑class political action. This is the price paid for a bureaucracy that says independent social and political struggles are secondary, and says the employers’ promises in the contract are decisive.

This is the payoff for the refusal of the labor bureaucracy to fight for the broad social needs of the working class and to build a political instrument to fight for them. And this is what raises the labor party question in a new way. This concretizes it in a new and more understandable way, because now these problems are immediately facing the section of the working class that thought they were the least vulnerable and had the best deal.

Another thing that is happening in this offensive is a conscious attack on trade union democracy. The right to strike becomes a special target of the employers. Other restrictions are institutionalized, such as lengthy probationary periods that give the bosses a chance to weed out union militants, “troublemakers” of all kinds. Speedup and the erosion of safety and health protection on the job, are more and more a factor. Incentive pay and piecework plans are introduced in one form or another. Schemes like the Experimental Negotiating Agreement in steel with its no‑strike pledge are generalized as much as possible. And arbitration procedures are put into every nook and cranny of every contract, tying the workers’ hands and leaving them without the right to use their strength to fight back. In this way class collaboration becomes institutionalized.

Class collaboration isn’t simply a program or an attitude of bureaucrats. Class collaboration takes the form of institutions that tie the individual worker hand and foot, that make a worker dependent on someone other than the power of his or her co‑workers and class. Trade union democracy of any kind, union control of conditions and pace of work, individual workers’ rights on the job, are more and more opposed by the employer. The right to know, the right to vote on contracts, the right to elect your stewards and officers—these things can less and less be afforded by the employers. And they can less and less be tolerated by the union bureaucracy as well.

Finally, of course, class collaboration is the total dependence on the political parties and social programs of the employers.

A third thing that happens as a result of the offensive is the growing need for solidarity. That’s become clearer in the struggles of the last couple years. Solidarity becomes crucial to success in the struggles that are breaking out. Each of these struggles, like the one on the Iron Range, like the coal miners today, turns into a political fight for the minds of the working class. Not only of the workers who are on strike but of the entire class. The strikers must appeal for support, and the employers, the government, must try to prevent that support, must whip up opposition.

This is not only the source of the need for solidarity, it’s also the source of the need for internationalism. Because ultimately class solidarity has to be worldwide. It has to take up and oppose ruling‑class policies such as protectionism, deportation of undocumented workers, chauvinistic “Buy American” campaigns, and so on.
 
 
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