ISO Study Group: Labor History
Saturday, June 8th, 5:30PM-7PM
Thunderbird Coffee (2200 Manor Rd.)
A historical understanding of the role of labor is key to a Marxist analysis, and it's often a part of history that we're not taught in schools. These readings will expose you to some of the history around labor & unions, exploring the hard-fought battles men and women have taken up in order to establish & defend their rights as workers.
The readings are selected chapters from Sharon Smith's Subterranean Fire: Introduction, Chapter 1 (Are American Workers Different?), & Chapter 4 (Depression Decade: The Turning Point). If you can, try to read the whole book; it's essential information for all Marxists.
Unfortunately, this book isn't available online, but we have copies available for only $16. Dan will be bringing copies to the branch meeting on Wednesday, and if you don't already have one, make sure to pick it up!
Comrades may have seen that WeAreMany.org audio streaming is down right now, but when it's back up, you can listen to Lucy Hershel's talk on "Marxism and Trade Unions".
Video is still working, so if you're eager to get started, you might consider checking out Ashley Smith's "The Changing Working Class"
and Sharon Smith's "The Strikes of 1937".
Study questions:
1. The US is one of the only major industrial country never to develop a massbased labor or social democratic party. Why? Was this inevitable?
2. What was “exceptional” about the development of capitalism in the US from that of other countries? How did that affect labor relations in the US?
3. Historically, what is the central division in the American working class? What affect has it had?
4. Labor unions are reform organizations within capitalism. Do socialists support them? Why or why not?
5. For decades, the American labor movement was divided on the question of “craft unionism” vs. “industrial unionism.” What are the differences between these and why did radicals fight for industrial unions?
6. What is the “trade union bureaucracy?” What role does it play in US labor relations? 7. The Industrial Workers of the World were among the best working class fighters in US history. Yet Smith points out the limitations of their “anarchosyndicalist” politics. What were the “Wobblies’” contributions to labor history and why do socialists criticize their limitations?
8. What do you think of the debate in the early Communist Party about whether revolutionaries should work inside conservative unions or form their own revolutionary unions? What implications does that debate have for today?
9. Why did 1934 mark a turning point in US labor history?
10. What role did communists and socialists play in the labor movements of 19001930? And what role did they play in the mass radicalization of the Depression decade?
11. What was the specific role of the Communist Party USA in the 1930s? Why does Smith argue that the CP led the labor movement backward?
12. Does the Depression experience prove that workers will only fight back when conditions are desperate?
