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The Labour Movement and the Crisis
SEPTEMBER 7 (LABOUR DAY), 2009: A year after the shit hit the financial fan, with the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the subsequent recession, doesn't it seem strange that workers' organizations seem to be on the defensive in so many places?
After all, workers and unions didn't create this crisis... financiers did! So why are unions taking so much heat, as the recession does its painful work (including its side-effects on governments' fiscal well-being)?
I experienced this personally in recent months, with the incredible ideological attack on auto workers that was a main attraction during the bankruptcy restructuring of the North American auto industry. Direct labour accounts for 7% of the total cost of producing and selling a new vehicle in North America ... but it's safe to say that workers received about 99% of the blame for the crisis!
It's bitterly ironic that the architects of this crisis can take advantage of the fear and uncertainty it produces, in order to further reinforce their agenda. That's exactly what the brilliant Naomi Klein predicted in Shock Doctrine.
I stated in e4e that "The degree of unionization is one of the most
important factors determining wage levels, the incidence of poverty,
and hours of work. In my view, the ability of workers to protect
and strengthen their unions will be essential if they are to limit and
eventually reverse the negative economic and social consequences
of neoliberalism" (p. 110).
I think that conclusion rings more true every day -- which makes it all the more essential for unionists to find ways of successfully fighting back, despite the opportunistic assault against them. To that end, I have helped to coordinate a special forum of short articles on the labour movement and the crisis for the Canadian labour studies journal Labour/Le Travail. (I am a member of the editorial board for this journal.) The idea is to analyze the historical moment from the labour movement's perspective, to consider some successful examples of fighting back, and to identify the key challenges we must collectively overcome if we are to avoid having the tables turned against us.
Here's a sneak peek at the forum -- your comments are invited to stanford@caw.ca.