Harvard students hold discussion about "labor" and the war CAMBRIDGE, MA--Elaine Bernard, the Executive Director of the Harvard Trade Union Program spoke December 12th at Harvard to a gathering of 20 people interested in the topic of "labor and the war." The combined views of the audience could serve as a microcosm of the most basic issues facing imperialist country activists locally and globally. Earlier in the day a stone's throw away, the student Democratic Club and the Republican Club held a joint tabling session to "support our troops." Passers-by wrote letters to the troops in Afghanistan. This is the opportunist tactic that war-mongers use: asking to support the troops instead of the war. They should have argued in favor of the war directly, but probably it was too hard to come up with any reasons. However, the best way to support the troops and all other people is to return the troops home and start working on solutions for the problems. Abolishing the CIA (which created Osama bin Laden) and similar agencies would be a good start; supporting the Palestinian cause for self-determination would be another. Working to build an independent media to expose the true causes of the war would be yet another positive step. Bernard started her talk by saying that organized labor is "not frozen in time. It's always moving" and went on to say that organized labor changed its attitude toward immigration in recent months before the events of September 11th. MIM would have to say that she is correct on this point: since organized "labor" includes tens of millions of people, it is "always moving" and moreover, labor is "diverse." On the other hand, as MIM pointed out in MIM Notes #209,(1) the underlying commonality in the labor bureaucracy (AFL-CIO leaders) position toward immigrants is favoring working with immigrants only when it is in the narrow interest of Amerikkkan workers to allow more into the country- -a situation of full employment where Amerikan workers benefit from the cheap labor brought in and where the unions want to organize the undocumented workers into their own unions. In fact, the union still said it opposed inviting more "guest workers," something Bernard did not mention. For Amerikans in AFL-CIO circles it takes very little to go from one moment organizing immigrant workers to the next moment organizing hate crimes against them. In addition, the recent death of several workers smuggled to Ireland from a variety of poor countries in Eastern Europe and Turkey is on the hands of all those activists-- including the AFL-CIO even in its best statements- -who do not support open borders. Bernard and a small minority of trade unionists have signed a statement opposing the war. For this she must be commended. Even better, even though she herself signed a dissenting statement against the war; she did not pretend that she was representative. In fact, she pointed out that the "vast, vast majority of workers" support the war while cautioning against lending support to the image that labor leaders are "way, way out ahead of the workers." Often times, MIM has seen the tactic where the tiny minority of progressive "labor" activists serves as a camouflage for the "movement" as a whole. In such a case, "diversity" is fantasy. The best part of the gathering organized by the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) was that of the four streams of thought represented at the meeting, not one tried to present the fantasy that organized labor was opposed to the war in its rank-and-file. Bernard also admitted that organized labor was "the last pillar" of support for the Vietnam War, continuing to hold out for it even after the Cabinet was deciding to end the Vietnam War. In contrast, Bernard says "it's only been three months" since the September 11th events and she said that organized labor was not creating a difficult climate for anti-war activists, in contrast with the 1960s when the image of hard-hat workers attempting to beat up anti-war youth was prominent. This seemed to be Bernard's main selling point of the night--that no one is stopping anti-war students from continuing to do their work with unions and hence anti-war students should build a "coalition" by exchanging issues with workers. An organizer from Hotel and Restaurant Workers Local 26 said that they do not wave the flag in his union. However, his union is mostly immigrants. Many are afraid of the crackdown on undocumented workers and oppose sanctions on other countries such as Iraq. Again, credit where credit is due, and Local 26 says it is opposing hate crimes from day one, but as the Progressive Labor Party persyn at the meeting pointed out by questioning the Local 26 comrade, Local 26 has not come out against the war. In fact, PLSM and others have supported Jesse Jackson recently; even though he supports the war.(3) In any case, MIM certainly does expect more from immigrant-based unions. It is the middle-class masquerading as "workers" that we have to watch out for. Advancing middle-class economic demands sets back the movement against the war and for international workers' rights. Bernard ended by speaking to "avoid a polarization." Citing the Vietnam example and how hard it was to get over that experience, she opposed "not so castigating folks so you end up breaking the coalition for the next round." The second major current to express its opinion came from within the PSLM. A member who is also a member or supporter of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) spoke: "the only section benefiting from this war is the capitalists." He went on to contend that the United Auto Workers (UAW) had to withdraw from the AFL-CIO because of widespread auto worker sentiment against the Vietnam war. The PLP comrade spoke against the war, and took the most common approach that we hear amongst those calling themselves "Marxist." This comrade said that since World War II, the labor bureaucracy has always supported U.$. war. What he did not say is that so-called workers supported their labor bureaucrats in the vast majority of history that he cited concerning the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Iraq War etc. The problem is that PLP and others do not draw lessons from that and the fact that Third World workers earn an average of 50 cents an hour. Long ago, the Amerikan middle-classes decided they would fight even harder than the imperialists sometimes to preserve their advantages against the Third World. On the plus side, the PLP comrade stressed opposition to Bernard's stance against polarization and clarity and said the labor bureaucrats have to be condemned for supporting the war. He said if sharpening was not appropriate "during this war, then I don't know when." MIM would add that Bernard's proposed tactics might be useful to union organizers strictly from the point of view of the U$A, but such peace and relative harmony is a peace and harmony where workers in other countries get bombed or starved by sanctions. There can be no peace without internationalism. Hence anyone who thinks we can achieve peace by kidding ourselves and Amerikans about the severity of their chauvinism problem is deluded. The Amerikan public except for a small minority of about 10% or less knows it is bombing civilians to death in Afghanistan, supported the war on Iraq and sees the dead children on Yahoo and the like; yet Amerikans go on supporting imperialist war. Not fully recognizing the depth of this fact will mean forever failing to leap the hurdle that the anti-war movement has to get Amerika to leap. We have no choice but to confront hardened racism and chauvinism to get to peace: it's not a matter of "tactics" to achieve the goal but understanding that severe criticism and transformation will be a necessary stage on the way to peace. It's a matter of recognizing just how far we have to go instead of flattering Amerikans as if we were almost there. A third current showed up in the meeting and said, "the labor movement should not get distracted with the anti-war movement." The persyn representing this common view urged focus on bread-and-butter issues; although he later said that something does need to be done about Palestine, a view that is not uncommon in Amerika where there is a broad unease about the Middle East. Elaine Bernard then made her remark that the "vast, vast majority" support the bread-and-butter position just expressed. The PLP comrade also showed some sensibility about where the 90% stand- -while maintaining the potential of the "workers." MIM has a general policy against joining or leading groups such as PSLM. However, in question- and-answer-time and when asked for an introduction, MIM made it clear that it was not PSLM. As people were leaving, MIM said at the end of question-and-answer period while handing out MIM Notes #246 that it disagreed with all the positions stated but that it would take too much time to rebut all the points. (MIM is willing to get into the details one-on-one.) However, MIM made a point of agreeing with the speakers that the "vast, vast majority" supports the war. The difference is that MIM holds that the support for the bombing of Libya, followed by the war in Iraq, followed by the bombing of Afghanistan in 1998 and now all occurred because the "workers" with the exception of the undocumented and prisoners are petty-bourgeoisie, out of synch with the workers of the Third World.(4) As both Bernard and the PLP comrade pointed out, during World War I, most people calling themselves socialist switched from promising to oppose the war to supporting the war. Today we see the same dilemma except that trade unionists and watery "socialists" never promised to oppose this war. Those activists who wish to "represent" the workers will have to support the war in 90% of cases. Hence, MIM says to hell with the majority opinion, especially inside the imperialist countries. The root of pro-war opinion is super- profits derived from super-exploitation. The majority position must be overcome, not conciliated with. MIM stressed that the economic demands of the petty-bourgeoisie are inimical to the interests of international workers. We recommended that people put their lives into activism other than middle-class activism for more VCRs and a television for the bathroom. Social movements for the environment, against U.$. military "aid," for wimmin's liberation etc. are all more progressive than banging one's head on the wall, which is what opposing the war and supporting middle-class economic demands is like. Notes: 1. http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mn/mn209/mayday.txt 2. http://hcs.harvard.edu/~pslm/livingwage/portal.html 3. See for example, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HarvardPSLM/message/388 4. MIM showed that international public opinion surveys show that workers in all Third World countries oppose the war except India which was already at war with Pakistan and hence favored the U.$. attack on Pakistan's interests in Afghanistan. See, http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mn/sept112001/gallupinternational.txt