Newsletter No. 26
JANUARY 2005
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Labour Needs a Radical Vision David Bacon http://www.ilcaonline.org/ We must recognise labour’s special place as society’s creator of value, but labour itself, needs to develop a vision for its & humanity’s emancipation. David Bacon, of ILCA, forcefully makes this point in a recent article: * The days of unions as a business representing members for dues, but ignoring wider needs is over; * Rebuilding unions also benefits broader interests by making new agendas possible; * Promises of wage rises do not suffice to inspire workers to face the dangers of direct action. Only a new, radical social vision — the promise of a better world—can inspire a wave of commitment, idealism and activity to rebuild the labour movement; * Strikebreaking and union busting is now acceptable corporate behaviour. Unions must defend jobs to convince many to organise and risk jobs they still have; * Since grinding poverty in much of the world is an incentive to move production, workers in rich countries must defend living standards worldwide; * Labour needs to defend civil rights of all sections of society: then people far beyond unions will defend labour rights as part of a broad civil rights agenda; * Neo-liberal policies imposed by United States etc, increasingly at the point of a gun, using the war on terror, requires the labour movement to be outspoken for peace and against eroded standards & privatisation used to attract investment; * A new, more radical political program runs counter to prevailing wisdom that holds the profit motive sacred and solver of all social problems. To affect workers’ consciousness they need a much clearer sense of their own interests & the sense social change is possible. |