Short Shots: Labor and the Elections
L., J.
L.abor and the Elections T HosE OF US ENGAGED in what is loosely called "the New Politics" have been told for some time that we cannot succeed without the labor movement. And we believe it:...
...The New Politics people believe that in terms of the war, the cities, and the economy, the interests of the middle class and the working class are linked...
...Of course organized labor is divided into many houses-some of which, such as the UAW, are now against the war, and most of which campaigned effectively for liberal congressmen in 1970...
...L.abor and the Elections T HosE OF US ENGAGED in what is loosely called "the New Politics" have been told for some time that we cannot succeed without the labor movement...
...The needs of the workers will not be met by "conservatives...
...What is needed now is the kind of leadership that can explain to the workers that their understandable desire for "law and order" can only be fulfilled by a more democratic social structure, not by abusing liberals and students...
...But not enough of them connect the war with the inadequacies of our politics and government...
...And we believe it: there was a conspicuous effort in 1970 by peace candidates, antiwar liberals-and even students-to reach the working class...
...Still the single most powerful leader, George Meany, announced that he might turn to the Republicans because the Democratic party was being taken over by "the New Left" (which must have been news to them...
...Then, despite endorsements from the AFL-CIO, Eastern liberals lost some important contests because of active opposition from the construction unions and a bloc vote of Irish and Italian workers going to "conservatives" who will surely oppose their economic interests...
...They will only be met by a politics which understands their sources, and that politics cannot command any power until the "new class" and the working class are led to an identification of their common interests...
...I wonder what good this does for the real problems workers face...
...J. L...
...The only alternative is alliance with the elitists-and even George Meany acknowledged as much when he denounced Nixon's economic policies just before the election...
...There is much evidence already -e.g., the Massachusetts and Detroit referenda -that the working class would welcome an immediate disengagement from Vietnam...
...The truth is that advocates of the New Politicswho are many times more numerous than the New Left-are committed to democratic, non-· violent politics...
...The point is that economic issues can't be isolated...
...Workers in the cities, blacks in the ghettos, liberals in the suburbs, students on the campuses: all are abused and insecure these daysand the conditions of their lives will not improve until they join together to fight the corporations, the military, and other elitist powers which prevent this country from responding to the needs of its people...
...The general failure of this effort, particularly in the East, where the Jim Buckleys had an easier time courting workers than the Joe Duffeys, raises problems for labor and those who insist on its primacy in any progressive politics...
...Their immediate object is to end the war and the racism which they see as the fundamental causes of the social conflicts which hit hardest in working-class neighborhoods and the economic inequities which Nixonites and right-wing Democrats try to hide in a fury of flag-waving and antiliberal rhetoric...
...Also conspicuous was the apparent rigging of the AFL-CIO convention in New York State in behalf of Nelson Rockefeller...
...For as much as the New Politics needs labor, labor needs the New Politics...
...And all too often in 1970 labor spokesmen lent themselves to attempts to link the New Politics with the violence of the New Left and to attacks on "permissiveness" etc., which were clearly designed to split the workers from the middle-class liberals...
Vol. 18 • February 1971 • No. 1
