Workers World, Vol. 21, No. 17
April 23 – Not since the days of Herbert Hoover and the early part of the Great Depression have the labor movement in general and the trade unions in particular exercised so little influence on truly significant events in the political life of the country.
It would be false to assume, however, that this can in any way be explained by a general weakening of the trade unions. The overall trade union membership today may not be increasing sharply, but there is not basis whatever to indicate that it is experiencing a numerical decline. Nor is it true that there is a loss of militancy as compared with ten or even fifteen years ago, even though there certainly is no movement on the scale of the late 1930s in this country – as yet.
Efforts to explain the diminishing political role of the trade union movement in practically all spheres of life in this country have focused sharply on the emergence of the New Right and some of its spectacular gains in areas where labor, progressive, or liberal elements would normally be more likely to prevail. While there is much validity to the claim of the growing danger from the Right, it by no means exhausts the question of the retreat of the trade union movement.
The labor lieutenants of American finance capital have seized upon this explanation, however, not merely to justify their policy of inaction but also in private to excoriate the rank and file generally with the lament that “there is no real movement” among the workers. Real action, they claim, can come only if there is a new awakening at a later date – after the 1980 election!
It is the fashion with the more leftist elements in the labor bureaucracy to lament the absence of a “great and tumultuous movement of the workers,” as though they would really welcome it with enthusiasm. This has the double advantage of seducing some of the naïve rank and file militants who come up against the more backward elements in the union movement and also of justifying the bankrupt policy of merely coasting along with the wind as inflation eats away the living standards of the workers.
Nevertheless, the declining position of the labor movement cannot be explained merely by the lassitude and entrenched character of the labor bureaucracy in the union movement. It has to be sought also precisely in those spheres of political life where previously the labor leaders thought they occupied seats of honor, if not power and confidence, but now find the doors rudely closed to them.
The stubborn fact which the trade union hierarchy cannot squarely face up to is that the reign of reaction in the country is generated by the very capitalist establishment they so much want to continue to be an inseparable and integral part of. The capitalist government, and the Carter administration in particular, is the engine which has generated the massive right-wing reaction in the country. The labor leadership will denounce them but cannot get itself to fight them without a complete abandonment and renunciation of its cherished and hallowed role as a partner in the capitalist state apparatus.
One merely has to consider these factors: The office of the President, as has been demonstratively shown over the past several years, is now closed to the labor leadership, except for lectures on abiding the fraudulent wage guidelines and garnering votes for the 1980 elections.
The Supreme Court is an outright enemy of organized labor and a captive of the largest and most powerful banking and industrial interests. Its fundamental role is the protection of the “free enterprise” system and it will side with labor only on the most insignificant issues. This will not be substantially altered even if some of the Nixon court-appointees leave the bench.
The labor leadership played what they thought was their best card in attempting a vigorous campaign to put in labor’s friends in the 1978 Congressional election. Even among those labor-supporting candidates who won the election, the voting on such key issues as the Labor Reform Bill and others was disappointing.
The truth of the matter is that there is scarcely any area in the capitalist establishment where the labor leadership, even if they try energetically, can in any way make their influence felt on the basis of their old and outmoded position of friendship with capitalist politicians.
What then is to be done?
Militants in the trade unions have found through bitter experience in decades of internal struggle against the labor bureaucracy that efforts to get them to move on progressive political and trade union issues can be like talking to a stone wall. Only when the severe pressure of the rank and file is aroused and breathing down the necks of the labor bureaucracy do they deign to listen. In scarcely any other way is it possible to get their attention.
This, however, should in no way frustrate rank and file militants from addressing the bureaucracy, even though no insurgent movement is as yet pressing against the citadels of the establishment of business unionism.
However difficult it is for rank and file militants to address the labor bureaucracy, it must always be borne in mind how much more difficult, in spite of appearances to the contrary, it is to pressure capitalist politicians who run congressional committees and presumably speak in the interests of the people. The gulf between the rank and file and the capitalist politicians is class-wide in character, and that makes the difference fundamental.
It is in this light, then, that one ought to examine the role of the million-fold trade union movement when a phenomenon such as the Harrisburg disaster occurs. The near catastrophe is almost four weeks old now. The capitalist press has been full of material on it. The voices of literally hundreds of public figures, scientists, politicians, and health authorities have been heard, while dozens and dozens of demonstrations throughout the country have taken place.
All this notwithstanding, the capitalist media have tried to both preempt public anger at the power companies and direct the protest movement into safe channels.
Yet in all this time, hardly a word has been heard from the top leaders of the trade union officialdom. There are at the present time about half a dozen congressional committees investigating the Harrisburg disaster or pretending that they are, and more congressional committees are in the process of formation. Yet none of the authoritative trade union officials is slated to appear nor, to the best of our knowledge, have they asked to.
There is substantial reason to feel that to do so would be useless. Nevertheless, there are millions upon millions of people, mostly workers, who are extremely concerned about the crisis.
The failure of the official trade union movement to react in a vigorous way or to take a bold initiative can only further weaken the status of the movement as a whole. Conversely, there is scarcely an issue which would gather more popular support for the labor movement, the working class, the oppressed people, and the progressives as a whole. The issue can be recommended even to the most encrusted of the labor bureaucracy on the most elementary level of safeguarding the life and limb of its “own constituency,” as the legislative jargon goes.
If the congressional committees where the labor leaders, or rather their legislative staff members, were previously so welcome, now treat them rudely and with scorn, it is possible that there are other avenues which should be explored – while of course not in the least surrendering vigorous intervention in the congressional process on a militant, working class basis.
In the tumult of the first few days of the Harrisburg crisis, the Carter administration was pressed for an independent investigating commission with broad powers. After much delay and after the crisis passed, Carter finally appointed a commission to investigate the Harrisburg disaster. This commission headed by John Kemeny, president of Dartmouth College, at first glance has little to offer the labor movement by way of vigorous intervention. But this is a fallacy based on lack of careful consideration.
In appointing this commission Carter may have opened a Pandora’s box for the nuclear industry and a real possibility for a bold and timely initiative by the labor movement.
This commission is composed of eleven members who are supposed to be objective and independent. While it doesn’t take too much research to unravel the threads that really time some of these eminent personalities to their vested capitalist interests in the nuclear industry, the commission is balanced to give the appearance of serving the various interests of the “public.” And so one of the eleven is from the labor movement. The head of the United Steelworkers, Lloyd McBride, was chosen to be on the panel, a safe enough bet.
While this may seem utterly innocuous, it need not be so if the labor movement in general is looking for an avenue to confront both the Carter administration and the power companies at the same time. Once the hearing and investigation has begun by the Kemeny Commission, it can hold a lot more promise of popular interest than any of the congressional committees. For one thing, demands made by the labor movement can get direct and immediate support from a commission member who, while merely serving as the Steelworkers’ head, is also representing labor.
Thus, a demand to take the nuclear industry out of the hands of the monopolies and put it in the hands of the workers, while it may not meet approval from some elements of the present anti-nuclear movement, has the possibility of generating tremendous popular interest and support from the workers generally – much more under these circumstances than in some congressional committee which will never see the light of day anyway. McBride will almost certainly be obliged to consult with other labor leaders, both on the nature of the hearings and on what to propose.
It would therefore be very much apropos for the progressive and militant groups in the anti-nuclear movement to force McBride and the labor bureaucracy to champion the demand of shutting down the nuclear industry until it is safely in the hands of the workers.
Open hearings can be easily afforded. Unlike other commissions, this commission can hire its own personnel to investigate and to prepare the hearings. This means that McBride can choose, in part, personnel to present labor’s point of view through its own aides and experts, which the government is obligated to pay for unlike in other investigatory commissions.
In view of the fact that the commission is not going to expire before September, there is plenty of time to organize and prepare for its hearings. All anti-nuclear groups can have greater leeway and leverage in this political forum than probably in any other one sponsored by the government.
It is not, however, a question of merely participating in a commission’s investigation of what the people already know anyway. The commission also has the power to make “appropriate recommendations.” Therefore, even a minority report by labor’s representative calling for the nationalization of the nuclear industry under trade union and workers’ control, together with community support and strong participation by Black, Latin, and other oppressed people, has a greater chance of mobilizing mass support than any stage-managed congressional investigation. These at the present time have closed their doors to the representatives of the labor movement, except for perhaps allowing a few witnesses who will be outnumbered a hundred to one by those from a variety of hostile sources.
The idea of McBride playing a progressive role on such a sensitive issue as the takeover of the nuclear industry may seem very much at variance with his role in his own union. It certainly is. McBride, for instance, has not called for the nationalization of the steel industry. Why would he be eager to make the same demand on the nuclear industry?
The answer is that it is considerably easier for him to do that than to take a progressive stand in relations with the steel barons. He will only be able to do this, however, if the pressure of working class militancy, together with the broad and progressive anti-nuclear movement, makes itself felt.
It is especially to be remembered that at the last Steelworkers’ convention, before the Harrisburg disaster, a pro forma resolution obviously designed by forces outside the ranks of the Steelworkers resolved that “the number of coal and nuclear power plants should be significantly increased.” It is to be doubted that any of the Steelworkers present were prepared to address themselves to this question.
Here again, this should not inhibit leaders within the nationwide anti-nuclear movement or the rank and file of the trade union movement from recognizing that the labor movement, the anti-nuclear forces, oppressed people, and the progressive movement as a whole can make common cause on a class basis and confront the nuclear industry, the bankers, and the industrialists who pull the strings with the “objective and independent” panel members.
On the contrary, massive intervention in the political process may well develop to such an extent that, if the Kemeny Commission proves to be one of the few or the only or best political forums to focus on, McBride will be enough of an opportunist, as his long tenure in office has shown, to lean with the wind.
But even if McBride in no way responds, the Kemeny Commission as a forum, as an area around which public protests can be generated, retains all its validity. At the moment it may only appear to be a slight crack in the capitalist establishment. But sometimes it takes only the smallest of cracks to admit a torrent of light with can mobilize masses of millions of people.
The anti-nuclear issue is one of those truly great developments which need a forum around which to rally. Such a forum should not be a substitute for demonstrations against the Carter administration, the nuclear industry, and the military-industrial complex, but a means of supplementing them.
But even more important, it offers the broad labor movement a chance to intervene into the political process at a time when it is being shut out by growing reaction in the summits of the Carter administration and in all the arteries of the capitalist government. If the White House is closed to the labor movement from the inside, its effectiveness can be demonstrated more vigorously from the outside. If the halls of Congress become empty when representatives of the unions seek to avail themselves of an opportunity to be heard, then Congress can be ringed by thousands of demonstrators.
The anti-nuclear struggle can have only limited success without mass support from the working class and the oppressed people. The labor movement as a whole and trade union struggles in particular often seek out those areas for attack where the ruling class is most vulnerable and weakest, rather than where they are stronger. At the moment the power companies which own the nuclear facilities are clearly on the defensive and vulnerable.
If the leaders of labor are seeking a way to show that it has strength and is becoming invigorated, then it is clearly to their advantage to make the nuclear industry a target for attack. In doing so they would around millions of workers for other struggles and set in motion the kind of movement which cannot come as a result of swivel-chair bureaucrats idling their time away bemoaning their lost standing in the capitalist establishment while millions are awaiting an opportunity to participate in a genuine, progressive, and working class struggle.
Last updated: 11 May 2026