Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line

Political Education and Action Collective

The Failure of the Left to Create a Mass Movement and a Way Forward


I. The State of the Working Class Movement in NYC

In order to examine the state of the trade union and community movements in NYC we have to look at what progress, what working class struggle has ensued in these two years of the slow strangulation of New York?

There have been several examples of militant and courageous economic struggle waged by the rank and file in NY trade unions. However, each of these struggles was waged along very narrow lines.

The first was a militant wildcat strike of sanitation workers to prevent layoffs in the summer of 1975, at the very beginning of the crisis. The strike was solid and very militant despite sell-out union leadership. However, the workers main demand was very narrow: Enforce Our Contract! The workers on the picket line felt that their case was special, different from that of other city workers. Legally it was. The sanitation workers in NYC had in their contract a clause which prevented layoffs. The workers consciousness was that they were striking to protect their own contract, which was unique. Thus, the issue was a very narrow economic one, although the issue of the Government breaking contracts had broad significance. Though the strike was militant, the courts ruled that the sanitation contract didn’t mean what it said and therefore could be broken. The strike ultimately was a total defeat.

The second strike was the teacher’s strike of Fall 1975. While a whole host of community issues were raised, the only important demand was against layoffs of teachers. The rank and file was militant. A higher percentage of teachers stayed out than had in any prior teacher’s strike. As with the sanitation wildcat, the strike was a very narrow economic one, which in the past had proved capable of winning. This time, the strike lost.

In the summer of 1976, after the city had gone into virtual receivership under the EFCB, there were two hospital strikes. One was waged by 1199 in private hospitals, the other by DC 37 an AFSCME affiliate in city hospitals. Again, both were militant economic struggles which in the past had proved to be successful. Particularly militant was the 1199 strike, led by a so called “progressive leadership”, which lasted more than one week, in which scores of rank and file workers were arrested. 1199*s demand was a very narrow one, arbitration of a wage increase. Again, the strike was a total failure with even the union leadership admitting failure. What was so unique about this failure was that it came about through arbitration where the union leadership expected at least a compromise.

In the community movement there has been somewhat more activity. The huge Co-op City rent strike, the march of 10,000 day care supporters in the summer of 1976, a wave of rent-strikes, the struggle against the closings of hospitals such as Gouverneur on the lower-east side, all attest to the massive discontent and anger in NY. For example, particularly in the housing movement there has been some intensification of the struggle in the past few years. However, even in the community, the response has been much less than one would have expected two years ago, when the tremendous attacks on working and poor people in NYC were first beginning.

Furthermore, the new and developing communist movement has not played a leading role in the struggles in NYC in the past two years. Particularly in the trade union movement, in none of the major strikes outlined above did the new Marxist-Leninist forces play an important role. In many they were totally absent. In community struggles, the new developing Marxist-Leninist trends have played a more significant role, particularly in areas such as day care or hospital, but even in community struggles their political leadership has been minimal.

To summarize, the mass movement in New York has not responded to the crisis with anywhere near the force one would have expected. Particularly in the key city unions, the working class is being defeated and the communist forces have been powerless. Many workers have become totally demoralized, despairing of any hope for victorious struggle.

This is the stark reality staring the left in the face in NYC. A real appraisal of this weakness must be the starting point of any socialist analysis. Thus, the key political questions on the agenda are: why has the trade union movement been so helpless in the crisis and why is the left failing to provide an alternative?