The Strike that Refused to Die

Ron Lare Ford Worker, River Rouge plant, Detroit, Michigan

The Detroit news-paper strike is important to me, as a UAW member, as a Labor Party member (and delegate to the Founding Convention), and as a socialist. I have been active from the beginning of the strike, from fundraising appeals to my co-workers at UAW-Ford Rouge Local 600 plant gates, to spending a day and a half in jail and a year on probation following arrest for alleged felony damage to scab vehicles. I have been amazed repeatedly at the courage and determination of the newspaper strikers to keep their struggle alive, despite the vacuum of leadership at the local and national levels. In this contribution to the Labor Party e-mail discussion, I am speaking for myself, not for the strikers, the unions, or other strike supporters. First, I will summarize my argument, to place it roughly on the map of the discussion I have read on this list. Summary of Argument

(1) In order to draw the lessons of the strike, and to be honest and realistic, we must say that the strike has been defeated by the companies. The union leaderships have ended the strike and abandoned all the unions' contract demands. The leaderships are just trying to get their members back to work and maintain union recognition. The companies' refusal to grant even this has turned the strike into a lockout.

(2) We must also say that the local and national union leaderships are responsible for the defeat. The strike could have been won if the leaders had not backed down in the face of Gannett's and Knight-Ridder's intransigence and court injunctions against the mass picketing that stopped crucial production in Sept. 1995.

(3) However, looking forward, we must stress the basis for further struggle and the program for further struggle. The program includes action like the Sat. Mar. 1 demonstration at the Detroit News building in defense of strikers--including some 300 fired strikers, who can regain their jobs only if the movement goes far beyond anything the union leaderships plan to do. The program includes the National March on Detroit which the recent AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting in L.A. agreed to. This march coincides with the June 13-14 Windsor Days of Action across the border from Detroit.

However, I want to concentrate more on the basis for action than on the program for action. As for the program, many activists on this Labor Party e-mail list are at least as familiar as I am with the kinds of action needed. But they may not be familiar with some of the contradictions which face the companies and the union bureaucracies at this moment in Detroit. These contradictions may provide the basis for salvaging something more than one might at first think possible.

At First Glance.

At first glance it would seem as if, having defeated the strike, the two newspaper companies making up the Detroit Newspaper Agency (DNA), are in their strongest position ever, over against the unions. And at first glance it would seem as if, having succeeded in undemocratically imposing the unconditional offer to return, without provoking a rank and file rebellion, the International and Local bureaucracies of the six striking locals are in their strongest position ever, over against the union memberships. Yet both the companies and the union leaderships face serious contradictions and pressures, partly because they have overplayed their hands.

A Second Look

The companies face more political pressure now than they have at any time since the strike began. This notion is partly based on the fact that the U.S. ruling class as a whole still depends on unionization to control the working class. The DNA has gone beyond the current generally accepted bounds of capitalist labor policy in hiring replacement workers and now refusing to replace those scabs with the strikers, even after the unconditional offer to return. Please note that this is worse than what the companies did in the end at Caterpillar or Staley, where the strikers and locked-out workers--those who had not been fired and who wanted to return--for the most part were fairly rapidly back to work. As a union militant and a socialist I do not make this point at all in defense of the corporate owners, but only to point out that the position of the DNA has certain "weaknesses in victory" to recognize-- although not exaggerate--in order to exploit them on behalf of the strikers. The following example shows this.

"Helping" Unions Surrender

For several months, Michigan U.S. Senator Carl Levin, Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer, and Roman Catholic Cardinal Maida--a somewhat diverse cross-section of ruling class representatives--have claimed to be pressuring the newspapers to negotiate with the unions. Close observers knew this "pressure" amounted to only one demand on the newspapers: that if the unions offered unconditional return, the newspapers should accept the surrender and replace the scabs with the striking union members. In other words, these three phony "friends of labor" were doing nothing more than try to "help" the unions to...surrender.

Companies' Dilemma

But now that this has happened, there is real pressure on the newspapers at least to accept a Caterpillar or Staley-style surrender. Like Ford recently telling Johnson Controls that it was threatening to destabilize the auto industry by being ahead of its time in imposing exceptionally low wages on a unionized supplier workforce, the ruling class may be inclined to point out to Detroit newspaper owners Gannett and Knight-Ridder that capitalist policy in the U.S. is still generally to try to use unions as a safety valve, not utterly eliminate them. Yet the newspapers cannot bring back more than a trickle of strikers without breaking the newspapers' loud public promise to the scabs: not to obey the law by replacing the scabs, even if the unions offered unconditional return.. Furthermore, having won a war, the winner wants a "robbers peace" in which to exploit the spoils. The newspapers need to rebuild their circulation and profits. And if Detroit is not, in light of this strike, the union town we hoped it was, it is still a union town if any there are in the U.S. Therefore, the Detroit newspapers need to be able to cover labor news. They need enough peace with the UAW, for example, to be able to interview labor officials. They cannot now, because any union officer in Detroit will hang up on them. However, the newspapers probably can't afford to do what they need for peace with the unions, or what the union bureaucracies need for peace with their members and supporters. This tends to bring the newspapers into a confrontation with the entire union movement, ironically more so after the strike has been defeated. In effect, the union movement has given the mid-June March on Detroit as a deadline for returning at least non-fired strikers to their jobs. The newspapers cannot simply treat this as a bluff. The entire union movement is realizing that this is a battle for the very existence of unions at newspapers everywhere in the U.S., and that the battle did not end with the strike.

Union Officials' Dilemma

The union bureaucrats, despite the lack of a rank and file rebellion against the unconditional return, also face contradictions. The contradictions now drive the union officials toward some action, ironically somewhat more so now that the strike is over. Although there is not an overt rebellion against the unconditional return, there is a spirit of rebellion among the strikers which has grown as the betrayal of the leaders has sunk in. The very fact that the union leaderships were afraid to take a vote (apart from the Guild local) shows that they feared that a majority of strikers are opposed to unconditional return. And the officials are somewhat more permissive of action (such as Mar. 1 and June 13-14) now that the strike is over, since they face little danger that actions will escalate beyond modest demands like returning strikers to work. Further, although bureaucrats from Sweeney on down did not feel they had to have a victory, they need badly not to have a disastrous defeat. Sweeney declared this the most important in the U.S. What if the strikers generally do not regain their jobs? This would hurt Sweeney's reputation, which he needs for organizing new dues-paying members. Sweeney has been hated by militant strikers perhaps more than the International Presidents of the unions involved. He turned down the request for a National March in Detroit for the Labor Day 1996 weekend. Instead, he showed up briefly to get arrested in a small civil disobedience a few days before Labor Day, in order to claim he "did something around Labor Day." (As one union rep joked, "The cops brought two vans for those arrested--one went to the jail and the other went to the airport.") If the big majority of strikers don't go back, Sweeney's projects of organizing strawberry workers, Las Vegas workers, etc., will be damaged. He will look bad enough if "only" the 300 fired strikers stay fired. IBT President Ron Carey, too, needs damage control. Since last summer, the Carey camp discouraged activists from putting pressure on Carey to do more for the newspaper strikers, because Carey had to defeat Hoffa before Carey could act. Carey defeated Hoffa. Carey did not act. Carey surrendered. He imposed his decision on Teamsters, the big majority of the strikers, without even an "advisory" vote. Now, having run on a platform of union democracy, Carey has some pressure to act in the wake of the surrender. He needs to hold onto the Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) activists who got him elected, to carry out any reforms.

Not the Worst Situation

The unconditional return offer is not the worst thing that could have happened. Worse would have been an eventually sham "strike" lasting many years, coming to stand for nothing more than the hypocrisy of the leaders and the unacknowledged defeat of the members. This possibility was suggested in the fall of 1995, when Diana Kilmury, a popular Teamster Vice President, responded to a question from me and a few other picketers on the Detroit Riverfront plant picket line about why the Teamsters had not maintained the September mass picketing which worked so well. While I disagree with her conclusion, I admire her frankness, because she did not hide behind the usual bureaucratic excuse of the court injunction against mass picketing. She said that mass picketing does not work because the numbers cannot be maintained for very many days. She said the Teamsters leadership would, however, keep fighting, even, if necessary, for five years, as at Diamond Walnut. However, the strikers' Appeal for a National March on Detroit was too well done--too broad and aggressive--to permit the leaders the option of letting the strike slowly bleed to death over years, as at Diamond Walnut. The strikers forced Sweeney and the other top leaders to face the choices of (1) escalating the struggle, or (2) surrendering. That the leaders chose to end the strike is a defeat. But there is a small kernel of victory for the strikers in forcing the leaders' hand, saying to the leaders, in effect, "Put up or shut up!" Thus the strikers eliminated the option of a sham continuation of the strike. This has the advantage of exposing Sweeney, Carey, and the other leaders sooner and dramatically. It helps spotlight the need to oust the union bureaucracy as one of the key lessons of this struggle. But this is not just a moral or propaganda advantage. Compared to the option of a years-long sham strike, this outcome increases the chances that the contradictions outlined here can be used to get strikers jobs back while there is still some chance of that. Thus the companies face more public pressure as well as their own need for "labor peace" in the wake of the unconditional return offer. The unions face some rebellion from members and a greater need for damage control in the labor movement. While the most forceful headline may be "The Strike Betrayed", I think we should try to take advantage of these contradictions to make it into "The Strike That Wouldn't Die."

What Can Be Done?

We should build the announced actions as much as possible. Other UAW Local 600 strike supporters and I are, for example, mass leafleting local members this week for the March 1 demonstration. If there are enough demonstrators present at such actions, slogans and action will become more militant than the leaders want. We also need to expose the local and international leaderships somewhat in the manner of the Staley workers who denounced their leaders in the last issue of the Decatur War Zone newsletter and in the Labor Beat video, "It Could Have Been Won," neither of which I flatly endorse, but both of which everyone should be check out. We need to develop "Mike Griffins" in Detroit. Although I think the criticism of the betrayals by local and international leaders should not be softened, I think there should be more emphasis on building the actions. For a variety of political and material reasons, there is more potential for action following the betrayal in Detroit than there was at Staley. The strikers and their supporters can apply the tactic of the united front: demand before the entire labor movement maximum assistance in the avenues of struggle still open to them and for the goals still possible for them. More adequate strike benefits. Mass meetings of strikers and an elected Strike/Lock-out Committee. More AFL-CIO money for the "Detroit Sunday Journal," making it a daily. An effective international boycott of USA Today. Weekly or daily actions, well-publicized in advance, such as picketing--no doubt for now "informational" but still "mass"--at a site such as the Riverfront Plant or the Bridge to Canada, the latter to point toward the Windsor-Detroit Days of Action.

Build a Bridge to a Cross-Border General Strike

Based on the previous Canadian Days of Action, the Windsor Days of Action should mean a general strike in Windsor on June 13. Detroit militants could get union and other community resolutions passed, demanding a simultaneous general strike in Detroit, with Sweeney and all the relevant International Union Presidents present. The widespread mass picketing involved in anything approaching a Detroit general strike would include shutting Detroit News and Free Press facilities. We need to be creative like Canadian auto workers who have "cross-picketed" during the general strikes in Ontario cities: Chrysler workers picket Ford plants and vice versa, to minimize risk of recognition and repression of picketers. Relationship of Exposure to Action Sometimes workers expose and denounce only after they have concluded that nothing can be done. We should not fall into that trap, while not criticizing leaderships any less than the Staley militants did. Without the threat of exposure there would be no promise of a National March, and without more exposure, the March will likely not happen in a productive fashion. To pick one scenario: What if the big majority of strikers, but not those fired, are back to work by June? Sweeney must not be allowed to forget the fired strikers, but must be made to feel that canceling the demonstration or converting it into an indoor rally would be a public relations disaster for him. The UPIU/Staley workers picketed their International headquarters. There is no contradiction between following that example and building actions in Detroit, nationally, and internationally.

Fight for the Jobs, Draw the Lessons, Build the Labor Party

Something CAN be done to help the fired, other not-yet-recalled strikers, and the recalled strikers forced to work with scabs. The more public pressure on the bureaucracies and companies, the more will get their jobs back, and the less intolerable these jobs will be. How bad the pressures can be was demonstrated at Caterpillar. Not only some rank and file strikers committed suicide over the course of the strike, but a UAW-Caterpillar Local President committed suicide after supporting unconditional return. It is not only strike strategy that needs exposure. We also need political exposure of reliance on the Democrats during this strike. We must recruit to the Labor Party the strikers and supporters who heard liberal Democratic Congressperson John Conyers tell them, "The most important thing we can do to win this strike is re-elect Bill Clinton." (Oct. 11, 1996 speech.) This could still become the strike that planted the seed of a class-struggle union movement in alliance with the Labor Party. Even if these efforts fail more than succeed, they will draw the spotlight onto the lessons of the struggle, and thus lay the basis for future victories. The courage and determination of the strikers have already begun laying that basis.