The Northwest strike: the end of the AFL-CIO and the political lessons

[Karmadillo]

The article suggests working people form their own party. Seems reasonable since the corporations already have two parties.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/aug2005/nwa-a24.shtml

It is necessary to speak bluntly. The scabbing against striking Northwest mechanics by the other unions at the airline demonstrates that the American trade unions are dead as organizations of the working class and cannot be revived.

The backstabbing is being carried out by organizations representing all factions of the trade union movement—the AFL-CIO, the breakaway Change to Win coalition, independent unions. There is no section of the official labor movement that upholds the most elementary principles of working class solidarity.

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One might say the American trade union movement has completed a perverse historical experiment, testing the possibility of constructing a labor movement on the basis of hostility to socialism and defense of the profit system. Today, fifty years after the founding of the AFL-CIO on the basis of Cold War anti-communism, history has rendered its unequivocal judgment: a resounding “no.”

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The corporate/government attack was launched in earnest in the late 1970s, under the Democratic Carter administration, in the form of deregulation of the airline industry. Then-chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board, Alfred Kahn, spearheaded the removal of government controls over the air carriers. Kahn also served as an economic adviser to Carter. One of the most enthusiastic and prominent advocates of deregulation was the liberal Democrat, Senator Edward Kennedy.

The public was told that the workings of the capitalist “free market” were the key to an efficient, affordable, safe and comfortable air travel system. What has the unleashing of unfettered capitalism produced? After nearly three decades, there is ample basis for drawing a balance sheet.

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[wli]

1. I wonder what Bushler does with workers going on strike...

When those court orders are violated. My wild guess is the death squads come out.

[Skink]

3. Bush Co. is helping out by keeping oil prices high...

You must give up your pensions you filthy dogs so we can afford fuel. Meanwhile the Ceo pay scale goes up expotentially.

[iamtechus]

2. wsws.org is uninformed

AMFA, the organization which is on strike at Northwest, is not an AFL-CIO member union. In fact, they are sworn enemies of the afl-cio and its members. AMFA condones crossing the picket lines of afl-cio unions.

[Karmadillo]

4. The WSWS is discussing the failure of the AFL-CIO and other unions to

support the AMFA in a show of solidarity. They aren't arguing the AMFA is part of the AFL-CIO (unless I missed something).

[iamtechus]

5. There is much that you don't know ...

... about how AMFA came to exist and the harm that it has done to REAL unions.

AMFA members at NWA broke away from the IAMAW (Machinists) because they felt that being in a union with less skilled workers held their pay down. They try to convince management to lower the wages of less-skilled workers -- ramp, kitchen etc. -- so that the airline can pay mechanics more.

[Karmadillo]

6. Do you have any links supporting the accusation?

You're correct there's much I don't know (in all sorts of areas), so I'd be interested in seeing anything you could link to regarding the AMFA's attempts to undermine other workers. Thanks.

[Karmadillo]

7. Here's a link that suggests the AMFA is worthy of support.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=19&ItemID=8580

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The International Association of Machinists (IAM), loyal to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, has not only instructed its members to cross AMFA’s picket lines, but do some of their work.

Having lost several representation elections to AMFA, most recently at United Airlines, IAM President Thomas Buffenbarger is more interested in wrecking AMFA than holding the line on Northwest’s and other airlines’ demands for concessions. The Airline Pilots Association, which struck Northwest in 1998, is flying planes maintained by scab mechanics.

For its part, the AFL-CIO is repaying Buffenbarger for his support by providing justifications for this strikebreaking. Before the strike, the federation’s organizing director, Stewart Acuff, denounced AMFA as a “renegade, raiding organization,” adding that AMFA is “not in the house of labor.”

The IAM has made similar arguments, accusing AMFA members of having an elitist attitude toward less-skilled ramp workers. But while AMFA’s go-it-alone craft unionism marks a retreat from the solidarity of industrial unionism, IAM officials have no one to blame but themselves for mechanics’ decision to abandon their union, which has presided over one disaster after another.

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Besides rivalry, there’s another factor in AMFA’s isolation: Its willingness to strike when leaders of other airline unions only bluff and bluster about fighting back, even as jobs are slashed, pensions wiped out, and wages and benefits cut.

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