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On 2/6/20 2:41 PM, John Reimann via Marxism wrote:
It was just last spring that hundreds of carpenters - mainly apprentices - rallied against a sellout contract in New York. There was even a campaign towards a wildcat strike (which didn't get off the ground). Prior to that, thousands of construction workers actually shut down central streets in Manhattan in protest against a major nonunion construction project. In 1999, 2,000 carpenters did go on a wildcat strike in the SF Bay Area.
There are strikes and there are strikes. When these carpenters get the wage they rightfully deserve, they will go back to the atomized existence that characterizes all of the blue collar/factory workers in the USA. When I see carpenters showing up at protests against ICE or at a cops out of the subways protest under their own union banner, I'll sit up and pay attention.
What are the teachers doing now who were on a wildcat strike that Eric Blanc wrote a book about? Any sign of them doing anything except going to work each day and then returning home to look after family affairs?
I am afraid John is susceptible to what Freud called projection, even though I generally have little use for his theories. As a young college student, just like most people who hooked up with Labor Notes, et al, John was radicalized by the war in Vietnam, read Karl Marx, and concluded that only the working class can lead the USA to socialism.
Unfortunately, most carpenters don't travel that road. Just go out to Queens or New Jersey and find a bar where they hang out after work. See if you can get them interested in helping to launch a new party of the working-class. Don't blame me if they look at you as if you have two-heads. Not to speak of losing some teeth.
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