The Chicago Factory Occupation: No “Honeymoon” for Obama
The factory occupation by 240 employees of the Republic Window and Door factory in Chicago, Illinois for six days in early December was the most dramatic episode in US working class history in recent memory. Even the afterglow of the Obama electoral euphoria and its sweet promises of "change" couldn't prevent the angry workers from turning to the class struggle to resist the worsening economic crisis and the growing attacks on their standard of living.
In light of the media campaigns that have celebrated and glorified the sit-in in Chicago, it is critically important for revolutionaries and class conscious militants to be clear on the meaning and significance of these events,. The New York Times exemplified this media blitz with a headline that declared "labor victory comes amid signs of growing discontent as layoffs spread." The Times further stated that the Republic workers "had become national symbols of worker discontent amid the layoffs sweeping the country."[1] But the Times only got the story half right. Yes, the struggle demonstrated growing working class militancy in resisting the wave of layoffs that have culminated in more than 1.7 million workers being added to the rolls of the unemployed or underemployed in the last 11 months. But it was no "victory," not by a long shot, no matter how much the politicians, leftists, and the media celebrate what the workers supposedly "won."
The militancy of the workers is clear. According to media reports, the idea for the factory occupation originated with a factory union organizer after workers became suspicious when the company began removing machinery and equipment from the factory. (Unknown to the workers at the time the company had made the decision to shut down the factory and set up operations as Echo Windows LLC in Red Oak, Iowa, where wages and production costs are much lower.) On Dec 2nd the company announced that all workers would be laid off in three days with no severance pay and no pay for accrued vacation. Then they announced that medical insurance would be cut off. The workers responded with a unanimous decision to takeover the factory, potentially risking arrest for trespassing and holding control over the company's inventory of window frames.
Workers organized their occupation in shifts, maintained order and sanitary conditions, banned alcohol and drugs, and immediately began to attract media attention. When rank and file workers spoke to the media they made clear that their struggle was a fight against layoffs and for their jobs and their ability to support their families. One worker said, "I worked here 30 years and I have to fight to feed my family." Another complained that his wife was about to give birth to their third child, but now there was no medical insurance. In a situation reminiscent of the working class support for the NYC transit workers struggle in 2005, the working class in Chicago and around the country responded with a strong display of solidarity, in the face of growing difficulties confronted by workers everywhere. People came to the factory with food and money to donate; everyone understood that this was round one in the fight against layoffs.
The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers Union (UE), a small (35,000 members nationwide), independent, non-AFL-CIO union that had been thrown out of the mainstream labor movement at the height of the cold war because of the union's links to the Stalinist Communist Party, quickly moved to derail the workers away from a struggle against layoffs onto the terrain of bourgeois legality. Instead of opposing the layoffs and the closing of the factory, the union demanded company compliance with a national law which mandates that the workers receive severance and accrued vacation pay in cases of plant closings - approximately $3,500 per worker. Left-wing and mainstream political celebrities, like Rev. Jesse Jackson and local congressmen and city aldermen, quickly jumped on the bandwagon, visited the occupied factory and voiced their support for the severance and vacation pay. Political leaders urged the local cops not to arrest the workers for fear of provoking a more widespread movement. Even President-elect Obama endorsed the factory workers struggle for the money that was "due" them.
After six days, this is precisely the "victory" that is being celebrated by the left and by the media: the banks funding the company reorganization plan have agreed to make sure the workers will get their $3,500 severance/vacation packages. While it's true that getting the money is better than nothing, the money won't last long and then the workers will be unemployed and without medical benefits. The workers who occupied the plant had made it very clear that what they wanted was to keep their jobs. But the derailment of workers' struggles is the key role that unions play for modern state capitalism. The principal job of the unions is to short circuit any possibility of politicization and generalization of workers' struggles, to block workers coming to a conscious understanding that capitalism has no future to offer.
What happened in Chicago strongly parallels what happened in the auto factory sit-down strikes of the 1930s. In those days the workers were fighting for wage increases and improved working conditions, but the United Auto Workers sidetracked the struggle into a fight for union recognition. In the 1970's, young workers employed by the Western Electric division of the Bell System sought to resist massive layoffs, only to be told that the union was prepared to fight for their severance and vacation monies to be paid in separate checks in order to minimize the tax bite. It's easy for the unions to "win" these masquerade victories, which in the end still leave the workers jobless and facing a disastrous future. This is not just an American phenomenon. Recent struggles involving factory occupations and severance payments have occurred in China as well, as the economic worsens.
The media and leftist glorification of factory occupations is yet another aspect of the defeat. True, factory occupations clearly reflect militancy and combativeness: a willingness for workers to resist and resort to "illegal" actions. However, the historical experience of the working class, dating back to the factory occupation movement in Italy in the 1920's and in France in 1968, demonstrates these occupations are a trap and have never been a good weapon for the class struggle. The critical weapon for the working class is to spread struggles to other workplaces and to other industries, to generalize struggles as much as possible, by sending delegations to other workplaces, by organizing mass meetings and demonstrations to draw all workers into the struggle. This transforms solidarity from passive "support" or sympathy or financial contributions, into an active solidarity of joint struggle. Factory occupations allow unions, as agents of the ruling class, to lock up the most militant workers in the plants, to isolate them from other workers, and thereby keep them from serving as active catalysts to spread the struggle outside union control.
Clearly there is an immense solidarity for the Chicago workers. But for the working class solidarity is the understanding that all workers, whatever the specificities of their job situation, share the same condition, the same fate, and the same way out. We don't care what's "legal" or what's ‘fair' for the bosses. We care what's in the workers' interest, and this is that there are no more layoffs, no more throwing people out in the streets. Rather than stay locked up in their factory, it would have been better for the Republic workers to march from factory to factory in the Chicago area, to send delegations to other workplaces calling on workers to join the struggle, to demand no more layoffs, no more factory shutdowns. A struggle like that will never be hailed or celebrated by the mass media, the unions, the left politicians, or the president-Elect. It would denounced as a threat to capitalist order. The terrible state the working class finds itself in today makes it necessary to reject any idea of a "honeymoon" with the incoming Obama regime, any illusion that anything "good" can come from the new administration and requires a return to the class struggle.
J. Grevin, Dec. 15, 2008
Comments
Nice article
But I am not sure calling for "no more factory closings" is a very effective slogan for the class struggle. In a sense it is calling for something that can't happen under capitalism and as such sounds as if it it is harkening back to the glorious past of full employment in the industrial age (which probably never really existed), rather than facing the realities of capitalism in utter crisis. Workers need to begin to think about how to organize society different, rather than protect their doomed status as proletarians. The power of the proletariat lies in the very fact that its ultimate goal is to abolish itself as the proletariat, rather than affirm its identity under capitalism.
Indeed, in the final
Indeed, in the final paragraph, "no more factory shutdowns" sounds more like the language of labor unions than that of the real struggle against capitalist exploitation. And, contrary to the author's summation, I believe the end of layoffs and factory shutdowns would in fact be celebrated by the mass media. It would be a happy ending to the labor movement. The commentator's explanation of this is more lucid than anything I could add. Also, I don't know of any consensus on the left regarding factory occupations. The author's dismissal of them comes from their implementation in stifled movements of the 20th century, but I'm not convinced of their ineffectiveness. They do, after all, represent a strike carried to the full cessation of production, seizure of the means of production, and prevention of the employment of scab workers. If one is in support of the general strike, support for factory occupation would seem to follow. While those militants within the factory walls would indeed seem to be isolated, in this age of 24-hour news, action is its own form of communication, and a well-publicized act of proletarian force could be more beneficial to the cultivation of class solidarity than a few more bodies at a rally or demonstration.
While I do disagree with the
While I do disagree with the absolutist attitude of the article, I don't think, Anonymous, that your argument is much good. You talk about "twenty-four hour news" and "well-publicized acts", but we've got to keep in mind just who is publicizing acts well over the twenty-four hour news: the bourgeoisie. If it broadcasts news about it at all, it will never ever say "hey, workers, take a look at what your brothers are doing, come out and join them!" It will try to divide and conquer. In this case, I wouldn't have been surprised if the message were "hey, workers, you know how you can't afford to heat your house (that's your fault for not saving, by the way)? Well, these strikers are making it impossible for you to buy new, insulating windows and doors."
I should have been more
I should have been more clear: my later reference to media was not founded in its specific character or tendency to interpret events in a manner favorable to the interests of the bourgeoisie, but in its capacity to notify. Perhaps I should have used the word 'ubiquitous' to describe the state of information instead of '24-hour,' which I understand immediately brings to mind cable TV news. My point was that if there is awareness of action being taken, then the message is communicated. Aside from this, I don't remember reading anything, even in mainstream liberal news publications, about the Chicago strike that found the workers culpable. The superior intellect of the bourgeoisie and its ability to effortlessly hoodwink the working class is, I believe, overestimated in your response (I am also of the opinion that to vilify the bourgeoisie is counterproductive to serious discussion, since it is simply the human conduit of capital). If any worker sincerely believes, or can be so easily convinced, that striking fellow workers are the reason for the inflated prices of necessities, he may well be lost to class struggle altogether. I'm not sure what is 'absolutist' about the original article, nor am I sure to what part of my argument you take exception, aside from the relatively obvious point that bourgeois sources of information will find in favor of the bourgeoisie. My intent was simply to posit the factory occupation, the paralysis of capital, as an effective tool in the contemporary proletariat's arsenal, given the overwhelming amount of 'notification' existent.
In response to Anon
In response to Anon December28-19:24: I hope I'm not misunderstanding your contribution to the discussion; but assuming that your support for factory occupation is in line with others' support for similar acts in Argentina, I should point out that worker management of the means of production within capitalism is as doomed as the slogan "no more factory shutdowns" which you, I, and Anon December25-21:46 would agree, sounds a bit too trade unionist. Neither worker occupation nor "no more shutdowns" have a long shelf-life in this stage of capitalism. With regard to factory occupation, though in itself not something to be dismissed outright as you point out, we should take care not to romanticize it either. If we take what happened in Argentina as an example, we find that such workers become capitalists (the "cooperative" kind), and therefore their own exploiters with a stake in the maintenance of the system, and a necessity to carve their very on niche in it in order to survive. Instead, we should focus, albeit theoretically at this stage in history, on what December25-21:46 reminds us in his/her conclusion: that "The power of the proletariat lies in the very fact that its ultimate goal is to abolish itself as the proletariat" (as well as to abolish all other classes).
Regarding the question of
Regarding the question of whether calling for no more factory closings or layoffs is an effective slogan, a few things need to be mentioned. While it’s certainly true that workers have to think about destroying capitalism and replacing it with a society controlled by the proletariat, this isn’t something that happens independently of the everyday class struggle. There is in fact no contradiction between the defense of the working class’s immediate interests and the revolutionary project. In decadent capitalism, the defensive struggle of the proletariat to protect its wages, its standard of living, its pensions, etc. inevitably leads it into a confrontation with the state precisely because the bourgeoisie is forced to make the workers bear the brunt of the crisis. This means that every struggle for economic self-defense holds within the potential to advance the struggle for the revolution, for the development of class consciousness, for the advancement of solidarity in struggle, and the emergence of new forms of self-organization for the class struggle.
The idea of “no more factory closings” is in essence what the workers who occupied the plant were saying when they were interviewed by the media. They didn’t say “we know we’re going to be unemployed; we just want our severance money.” They were saying, We need our jobs to support our families. It’s not right that we to lose our jobs. Workers everywhere know that the state is spending billions to bailout out the banks and insurance companies. They know that one of the banks that got $10 billion in bailout funds is setting aside $2 billion for bonus checks to company executives. They know that Obama is talking about a moratorium on mortgage foreclosures. So what’s wrong with saying, no more layoffs.
It’s not very different from the demands of the French university students in the CPE struggle in 2006 against the plan to lay them off from their first jobs after graduation. It’s not very different from the Italian workers declaring “we don't want to pay for the crisis" against budgetary cuts in the education sector, resulting in the non-renewal of the contracts of 87,000 temporary teachers and of 45,000 teachers and reduced public funding for the universities. It’s not much different from the working class parents in Philadelphia who recently chanted “no more cuts” at city government sponsored “town hall meetings” to explain the need for cuts in funding for public libraries and social services because of the economic crisis. - J
I don't know that the fact
I don't know that the fact that the workers were asking for no more factory closings means that revolutionaries should parrot their words back to them. Isn't the goal of revolutionary organizations to point the way forward and help the rest of the working class break out of corporatist and reformist ideas? Its true we can't expect workers to fully grasp the historic bankruptcy of capitalism in the immediate course of their defensive struggles, but shouldn't revolutionaries take the long view and help the workers come away from their struggle with a deeper understanding of the historic nature of their struggle? In one sense, its only natural for workers under threat to want to harken backward to a mythological golden age of full employment. In fact, the leftist media has been pushing this idea a lot lately: that its possible to resurrect the working and living conditions of the post-WWII era (which means strengthening the unions as the guarantor of a "middle class" lifestyle). Shouldn't revolutionaries be working to show how capitalism's decadence makes this impossible and that a new road forward for humanity is what is needed?
On the Sit-in in Chicago
02-04-2009
Comrades:
The sit-down strike is several things.
1. It's a tactic of class struggle.
2. It also embodies in embryo the precept of workers' encroachment on capitalist private property relationships and on the alleged "right" of the capitalists to ownership of "their" factories, plants, shops, offices, stores, etc.
I was impressed by the article, because before I read the article, I had not known of the effort of some rank-and-file workers to try to make the sit-in about stopping the shut-down of the plant and keeping jobs intact, a more far-reaching goal than fighting only for severance pay.
I do think the winning of the severance pay was a kind of victory for a short-term goal, however, and what I think is valuable is, the nature of the tactic that won it. On the other hand, I think it was equally valuable to point out that the bureaucrats in the union derailed the struggle away from fighting to keep the jobs intact and keep the plant from being shut down. It would seem to me that had their been a more organized communist working class opposition in the plant, such revolutionaries in that situation might have sought to raise the entire broad issue of keeping the plant from being shut down and keeping the jobs intact, not simply winning severance pay and, in so doing, accepting the shut-down of the plant. Whether that would have been won is another issue.
But for the winning of that, it would tactically be required to generalize the plant occupation to more general labor strikes and labor actions throughout the Chicago metropolitan area, and that would also have had to have been part of the sorts of tactics fought for by working class revolutionaries in that situation, I would think.
That generalization is the key to winning labor victories.
In the 1930s, the tactics of mass labor picket lines in front of struck plants that no scab (strikebreaker) dared cross, of labor flying squads moving from plant to plant to bring out other workers into labor strike action, or impel other workers into the same kind of in-plant sit-down occupations, actions directed at generalizing labor struggles, would be key to not only winning immediate victories for short-run ends, but winning longer-term gains, I would think.
The union bureaucrats are not going to do this sort of thing. I think it was a good thing the article pointed out that the union bureaucracy in this situation kept the thing limited in scope. But working class socialist revolutionaries seek to broaden and generalize such struggles each time they occur, or at least point to the objective necessity to move in that direction.
I was not there, of course, so it is important to find out on the ground from the working people there what the objective situation permitted. But these are some thoughts.
--Allan
Private property
Submitted by Allan (not verified) on February 4, 2009 - "on the alleged "right" of the capitalists to ownership of 'their' factories, plants, shops, offices, stores, etc."
I object to your ownership of your computer, playstation, and your collection of action figures. I believe in my right to enter your house and take those items from you for the greater good. Sounds perfect, isn't it?
Not really, Leo
A short reply to a one-off comment from a troll:
From the Communist Manifesto:
"We by no means intend to abolish this personal appropriation of the products of labour, an appropriation that is made for the maintenance and reproduction of human life, and that leaves no surplus wherewith to command the labour of others. All that we want to do away with is the miserable character of this appropriation, under which the labourer lives merely to increase capital, and is allowed to live only in so far as the interest of the ruling class requires it."
Don't you love straw-man
Don't you love straw-man arguments?