Readers Respond
Changes- Pro and Con This is my fifth year as a sub- scriber, and I would like to take this opportunity to comment on some of the changes which I have noted over the years. I am delighted that...
...It seems that you, as well as Mr...
...My first thought was "incredible...
...How do you compare relative benefit of wages...
...New York, NY...
...Steel Talk I've just finished reading your "Steelyard Blues" issue...
...The shifts in the international division of labor and the flight of capital that you document are symptomatic of the international crisis of capitalism...
...Are foreign steel workers twelve times more exploited than U.S...
...Your historical perspective along with your question-asking series of connected articles is quite powerful...
...wages and foreign wages (p.38), and these questions come to mind...
...Of course there are points in your argument I'm not sure about, but I think that your presentation is objective in presenting facts so that I can draw some conclusions myself...
...I am disappointed, however, with the gradual de-emphasis on Latin American news...
...as if that history has not revealed the absurdity of appealing to our government, employers or bureaucrats for help or relying on their benevolence for satisfying those demands...
...steelworkers...
...I had heard, through local newspapers, about the "import steel problem" 45update * update...
...Meany, have confused today with yesterday, or at the very least you've neglected labor's yesterdays...
...In other words, the Report supports and elaborates what the steelworkers basically already know from their 46 living experience...
...The documentation remains at high standards, giving credibility to your reports, as well as help to the would-be researcher for additional sources of information...
...How do you measure levels of exploitation...
...steelworkers are merely one manifestation of these international maneuvers, the solutions of which must therefore also be of an international nature...
...Within the context of your Report, your suggested solutions lack the basis needed to clarify rather than further obscure the problem you set out to document...
...After all, it is they who have borne and continue to bear the brunt of the latest maneuvers of capital and the sellouts of the union bureaucrats, who live with the resultant speed-ups, the deteriorating equipment and safety conditions, the ineffective or nonexistent means of enforcing work rules and the general eroding of their hard won rights...
...You counsel aggressive tactics to put workers on the road to controlling their own lives and society but ignore their aggressive history and are silent on their essential decisive role in the production process...
...As your Report states, the problems of the U.S...
...as if that very history has not revealed that workers are consistently more innovative, more persistent and more astutely radical in a struggle than their leadership...
...as if the steelworkers, and the labor movement in general, were devoid of a history rich in demanding the very things you suggest and more...
...Rather, it is the counselling of steelworkers in a Report that documents those who create, prolong, intensify and benefit by the problems and conditions of the steelworkers, and leaves a conspicuous void with not more than incidental mention of the struggles and conditions of the Brazilian, Japanese, European or even the U.S...
...Michael H. Owens Austin, Tx...
...While the indepth reporting on the problems of labor and class conflict throughout the hemisphere is relevant, NACLA does not serve, as in the past, as the vehicle for reporting of current developments...
...I would have liked more explanation of the steelmaking process...
...You speak to the question of U.S...
...Thank you for the excellent research you have brought to my door over the years and my best wishes for the continued excellence of your publication...
...The style of the magazine has matured too, with a little less rhetoric and a little more substance...
...Yet you reduce this international nature of working class interests to a common struggle for parity wages, and the problem in general (by virtue of your conclusions) to one of struggling for immediate demands, i.e...
...steelworkers...
...And isn't taxing foreign profits of multinational corporations somewhat similar to tariffs when it's a U.S...
...update * update but basically knew very little about the industry otherwise...
...In essence, they know they are the ones who produce the profits for the outrageous executive salary increases and the costly but profitable diversification and restructuring of the industry that you document...
...The "Steelyard Blues: New Structures in Steel" Report documents what the current crisis of capitalism means for the steel industry, and how the industry, the banks, the government and the trade union bureaucracy are all responding to old problems with a somewhat new face...
...The Report upbraids George Meany for his protectionist talk by accusing him of wanting to turn the clocks back, yet you have no qualms about handing out "advice" to steelworkers to demand such things as greater unemployment benefits, job retraining and secured pensions to be paid by taxing multinationals and special business taxes...
...It is also difficult for me to see "any advance for the workers" under your suggested program of Trade Adjustment Assistance payments, financed by specialized business taxes, because it seems much like taxpayers absorbing the losses indirectly...
...It is not your solutions per se that are being objected to, for in the proper context they each have validity...
...rank and file as passive factors in your international division of labor and flight of capital schemes...
...I am delighted that you have been able to adopt a magazine format, as my old newspaper-style copies are certainly becoming old and yellowed, and yet I want to keep them as excellent reference tools on various topics...
...You counsel a strategy of solidarity while, by virtue of the void, you treat the international working class and the U.S...
...subsidiary import...
...solvable within the framework of trade unionism...
...Crystal Graham Ithaca, N.Y...
Vol. 13 • May 1979 • No. 3
