Trade unions in the United States are, overwhelmingly, bureaucratic structures. This means that there is an established institutional separation of the union officials from the input of, and control by, the rank and file. Instead of remaining servants of the rank and file, the trade union bureaucrats become the masters of the rank and file.
The lowest levels of the union apparatus tend to be the least bureaucratic, which is only natural, because they are the most in contact with and under the control of the membership. The conditions of life of the lower-level trade union officials are also closer to that of the rank and file, whereas the higher union leaders tend to have a life-style more appropriate to the petty-bourgeoisie than to the working class.
The capitalists are constantly attempting to make the separation of the union officials from the rank and file even greater, and they have many means with which to strike deals with the union officials at the expense of the membership. They use bribes, help with elections, appointed government positions, social respectability, threats and other means to get union officials to collaborate with them instead of struggle against them.
The bureaucratization of the trade union apparatus is an inevitable phenomenon under conditions of bourgeois democracy and capitalism, and the stratum of the trade union bureaucrats has become increasingly tied to the bourgeois state under conditions of state monopoly capitalism. The inability of the rank and file to control even their own class organizations is related to their general inability to exercize any real democratic rights under capitalism and to the economic power of the capitalist class which is able to bring great pressure to bear on trade union bureaucrats.
The above is the principal reason that it is not enough merely to replace one set of bureaucrats with another seemingly more progressive set. If the basic union structure remains the same, there will be a powerful spontaneous pull on even the most honest and progressive trade union leader to develop into a bureaucrat. Hence, the struggle of the working class to take over control of their unions also necessarily involves a struggle to break up the trade union bureaucracy.
In the United States, state monopoly capitalism, which is highly centralized, has produced its own counterpart in the new highly centralized trade unions. In order to battle with the monopolies and large corporations, it is imperative that the trade unions in the United States become highly centralized themselves. That is why all communists should energetically support trade union unity and centralization of authority and power which enhances the ability of the class to wage struggle with the capitalists. In this regard, in fighting for trade union democracy and control by the rank and file, communists should be clear about demarcating themselves from the Utopian and idealist ideology of Hew Leftism and anarchism.
We definitely favor centralism, but we insist that this centralism be democratic and not bureaucratic. We do not favor local autonomy for the sake of local autonomy, and we are against ultra-democracy which would weaken the organizational capacity of the working class to wage a concerted battle with the capitalists.
It is an objective condition under capitalism that trade union leaders have a likelihood of becoming corrupted and bureaucratic, tending to lord it over the rank and file, but this is not a perennial condition which infects every organisational form which must rely on centralized authority. Such a position represents an anarchist perspective, not a Marxist orientation.
Nevertheless, it has to be realized that the trade unions in the USA are some of the most bureaucratic in the world. They have a larger percentage of full-time officials than in any other country. And the salaries of these bureaucrats are also much higher than elsewhere. With large professional staffs, such as lawyers, economists, statisticians, insurance experts; and institutions like the dues check-off; the trade unions have become regarded as professional service agencies rather than real organs of class struggle.
Communists must organize the rank and file membership of the unions to take back their own organizations from the control by the bureaucrats. Within the trade union movement, Marxist-Leninists make a major focus of their activities the demand to democratize the unions. This democratization will entail such reforms as instituting the right of the rank and file to ratify all contracts and elect all union representatives. In addition, an important reform which would help to narrow the gap between the bureaucrats and the rank and file would be to stipulate that no union official can make more money than the highest paid worker in the respective industry. Lastly, communists should give their full support to the implementation of affirmative action in hiring and promotion within the trade union apparatus, and should fight to remove all anti-communist clauses from union constitutions. These demands represent the rudiments of a minimum program that Marxist-Leninists must take up and vigorously fight for in the trade union movement as part of their over-all political task of strengthening the political position of the working class in its struggle for socialism.