The Political Revolution Goes to Work
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- Published on Friday, 14 December 2018 03:42
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 1722 ... December 14, 2018
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The Political Revolution Goes to Work
Jane Slaughter
The term "political revolution" is an odd one. Bernie Sanders never said that voting for him or building his campaign would overthrow capitalism (the traditional meaning of "revolution" in the socialist movement). The idea was radical but vague. It was rightly inspirational while what was actually asked of us was within the sphere of voting and elections, and in the Democratic Party at that.
Let’s define "political revolution" very broadly as left electoral campaigns that raise transitional demands and seek to enfranchise the disenfranchised. Bernie’s campaign, as well as those of followers such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, called for radical reforms that the U.S. system could grant -- Medicare for All, free public college -- but which... it is profoundly unwilling to. Raising the demands raises the question "why not?" and lays the blame squarely on Bernie’s "billionaire class."
My argument here is a simple one: If we want a powerful movement, workers have to fight their employers not just at the ballot box but at the workplace, too. These two kinds of struggle can complement each other; union fights, in particular, pose clear class battles that raise consciousness. In addition to this year’s electrifying teacher strikes, we can learn from three other large-scale union victories that took place in the year before Donald Trump was elected. Those victories happened where we might least expect them: in the old, blue-collar economy, where unions are down to 6.5 per cent of the workforce and workers are said to be on their way out. Yet at Chrysler, Verizon, and a huge Teamster pension fund, thousands of union members organized to put a stick in management’s eye.
Few believed such victories possible as neoliberalism advanced steadily under Democratic and Republican administrations alike. These were not pocket-sized shop-floor wins but confrontations with big-time capital, from which hundreds of thousands of workers and their families have benefited. Together with this year’s teacher rebellions, they show what unions must do if they are to rebuild in the post-Janus era, and in one case they show how electoral politics and a working class battle can fortify each other.
