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to the very existence of unions. Even buying the bureaucrats off costs the bosses money. The bosses’ struggle against the unions, however, is as much about maintaining power as it is about immediate profit margins. The bureaucrats often take the bosses’ side. They may hold the union back, stop it from organizing new workers and encourage workers to participate in less-threatening political action. Much of the top leadership of the traditional AFL-CIO and Change to Win unions are unwilling to engage in a serious fight against the bosses. These leaders are often guilty of backroom deals with the boss that cut the workers out of the process and sell working-class interests short. Real rank-and-file leadership is still visible in some independent unions and at the local level of some of the traditional unions. The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, International Longshore Workers Local 10, United Steelworkers Local 8751 (Boston School Bus Drivers), and many others around the country offer a glimpse of what the labor movement could achieve if rank-and-file workers were empowered. The bureaucrats often support the bosses’ imperialist wars. For the labor movement, there is a real danger of drawing national chauvinistic and protectionist conclusions from objective developments that divert the struggle away from the companies. The labor bureaucrats do nothing to avoid this crisis; in fact, they usually fall prey to it by building campaigns around “American-Made” products and providing misleading information to workers about the benefits of supporting the antiworker, pro-war Democratic Party. Many resources are diverted from the organizing of workers into unions and put into canvassing campaigns to support Democratic Party candidates. How did these class-collaborationist labor bureaucrats get control of the unions, which were born out of the bitter struggles of workers for their basic rights? 62 What is Marxism All About
The main reason they were able to gain control was by winning support from the more privileged and skilled workers, who do not typically suffer from national or special oppressions. The bureaucrats, most of whom came from this more privileged section of the working class have been bought off by the extra money and privileges that the ruling class had to offer as a result of the super-profits they had made from imperialism. They used the unions to defend these privileges before anything else. So, indirectly, the ruling class was able to buy off a part of the workers. Still, without the unions the bureaucrats are nothing. With the growing economic crisis, the pressure is on them to act. And if they want to keep their jobs, they’re going to have to fight the bosses. Because if they can’t keep up with the struggle of the rank and file, they are going to be waiting on the unemployment lines like everybody else! The labor bureaucracy 63
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What Is Marxism All About? Written
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Table of Contents Introduction v Cl
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that change. Marx was more than a t
Page 10 and 11:
more. Most politicians in capitalis
Page 13 and 14:
Capital & Capitalism In every socie
Page 15:
The capitalist class owns all the m
Page 18 and 19:
How many times has a company announ
Page 21 and 22: Private Property Private property,
Page 23: In the struggle to secure personal
Page 26 and 27: Dialectical materialism can be brok
Page 29 and 30: Class Solidarity & the Class Strugg
Page 31: ample, that male workers must activ
Page 34 and 35: either expand or die in its quest t
Page 36 and 37: that peacefully spreads wealth and
Page 38 and 39: upward mobility of women in the wor
Page 40 and 41: note that in these societies men we
Page 42 and 43: In the U.S. there are still oppress
Page 45 and 46: LGBTQ Oppression Until recent times
Page 47 and 48: Self-Determination All workers, reg
Page 49: clude Blacks and other oppressed pe
Page 52 and 53: the constantly changing world and h
Page 54 and 55: ecause hip-hop in its early days wa
Page 56 and 57: Examining history through the scien
Page 59 and 60: The State Today The previous chapte
Page 61: profits of the few. The Soviet stat
Page 64 and 65: City. The media, which has a dispro
Page 66 and 67: sion of this workers’ control. It
Page 68 and 69: the crimes of capitalism are just a
Page 71: The labor bureaucracy Sometimes uni
Page 76 and 77: Fascism celebrates the nation, the
Page 79 and 80: Revolution The Bolshevik Revolution
Page 81 and 82: The counterrevolutions in the forme
Page 83 and 84: Socialism Socialism is a system in
Page 85 and 86: Socialist Countries Socialism, a sy
Page 87 and 88: Socialist Cuba has managed to survi
Page 89 and 90: Communism The latest scientific vie
Page 91 and 92: FIST Program We, working and oppres
Page 93 and 94: to students. 3. The right to health
Page 95 and 96: 6. The right to a job or an income
Page 97 and 98: what is best for their own communit
Page 99 and 100: ally transmitted infections and you
Page 101 and 102: World View Forum, 2012, paperback,
Page 103 and 104: “Lucid, deeply accurate and infor
Page 105 and 106: Marxism, Reparations & the Black Fr
Page 107 and 108: The Prison-Industrial Complex: An i
Page 109: A brief Marxist reading list: The C
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