Leave it to SEIU to throw a wet blanket on the fires of revolution. The vanguard of the so-called "Change To Win" faction is openly declaring its opposition to massive self-managed, directly democratic, direct action oriented organizing that is being carried out by the vast immigrant community in the United States. Consider the following quote:
KPBS SAN DIEGO (2006-04-18) Many advocates for illegal immigrants are urging people not to participate in the worker and student boycott planned for May 1. KPBS Reporter Amy Isackson has details.
The Service Employees International Union represents about 12-thousand workers in San Diego County. Many are undocumented. And one of the union's goals is to support members' efforts to gain legal status.
On May first, thousands of people across the country are expected to skip work and school to demand just that for the 12-million illegal immigrants already in the country.
However, SEIU's San Diego spokesman, Matt O'Connor, says there's a better way.
O'Connor: "Really what's going to get the attention of those who don't realize undocumented workers contribute an enormous amount to the welfare of our community is certainly would come election day if we could register those who are eligible to vote and get them to the polls."
O'Connor says it's not as sexy as a walkout, but political participation has more significant impact in the long run. He's encouraging people to participate in an evening rally.
Los Angeles' Cardinal, who was a vocal leader of last month's marches, has also said he does not support the May boycott. Amy Isackson, KPBS News.
This either proves that SEIU is dutifly serving its capitalist masters or they haven't a clue what is needed to fight the forces of capital. Electoral politics have thus far been a culdesac for progressive change.
O'Connor is cynically trying to coopt the immigrant solidarity movement and channel it into SEIU's primary function as auxiliary to the corporatist Democratic Party machine.
In all liklihood, most of the participants in the May Day demonstrations who're eligible to vote will vote Democrat anyway, so why quell far more revolutionary tactics, unless your goal is to sabotage activity that is actually revolutionary, i.e. direct action?
If you cannot fathom the answer, you haven't yet grasped that business unions function as agents of the capitalist class (whether willingly or unwillingly).
There is no substitute for direct action at the point of production, direct democracy, and revolutionary workers' self management. The IWW supports these goals. SEIU obviously doesn't. Their counterrevolutionary actions are frustrating, but not at all unexpected. SEIU is fighting change and opposing those who wish to win.
Sat, 04/22/2006 - 2:50pm
That's really unfortunate, but like you said, not unexpected. I hope the SEIU rank and file, as well as other labor militants in San Diego (and other places where business unions are pull this BS) will pressure the bureaucracy to at least tolerate the May 1 general strike, and not actively oppose it.
- m(A)tt
"Change the world without taking power? It sounds ridiculous, but we have no other choice" - Holloway
- Login or register to post comments
»Sat, 04/22/2006 - 9:54pm
The following article emphasizes my point nicely:
A Day Without Organizers: Youths Honor Their Parents in a Movement of Families
New America Media, Commentary, Raj Jayadev, Apr 17, 2006
Editor's Note: Advocacy groups are scrambling to lead and channel the energy sparked spontaneously by immigrants in marches across the country. They risk ruining the intimate, familial nature of the movement. Raj Jayadev is the editor of Silicon Valley De-Bug (www.siliconvalleydebug.com), a project of New America Media.
SAN JOSE, Calif.--When people say of the recent immigrant rights marches, "Everyone and their mama was there," they mean it literally. The mass demonstrations held across the country have been remarkable not only for the astonishing numbers -- 30,000 in San Jose, 50,000 in Atlanta, 100,000 in Phoenix -- but for who is represented in those numbers: mothers, fathers, teenagers, grandmothers pushing grandchildren in strollers. This is a movement of families.
Now organizers and advocates are meeting to figure out how to channel this social dynamite. There is a sense that spontaneous social action can last only so long; that "somebody" needs to step in for it to be sustained, and the energy directed. As Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles, told the Washington Post last week, "Our challenge is to transform this massive movement of people in the streets into a massive movement of people to the polls."
No offense, but really, who asked her? It is in fact the lack of identifiable leadership and direction from above that is sustaining this new movement. That's what has already taken it further than the advocacy groups trying to "transform" it ever dreamed possible.
The huge turnout at recent marches was not the result of traditional organizing -- strategy sessions, tactic-evaluation, door-knocking by organizers. Rather, it was a spontaneous outpouring by children who wanted to honor their parents' labors; by parents moved by the kids who walked out of class for them. The sustainability of this movement lies in those voices determining what's next, and in their ever-growing acknowledgement of their collective power. The corralling of this energy by traditional organizers may in fact by the only thing that can threaten it.
The second round of marches bore the stamp of professional organizers much more than the first, but those organizers ought not to take credit for the turnout. People came out on April 10 not because they were told to, but because they had felt their collective power on March 24. On that day, the people holding the signs and pushing the strollers were the same ones who called for the protest, decided which streets to take, and chose who would speak. In San Jose, people came out of their houses because they heard the crowd from their homes or got calls from family members. The subsequent student walk-outs were the result of teenagers text-messaging each other and posting messages on MySpace. The sense of celebration at the marches arose when people who had previously been told only of their limitations in this country decided their own fate, if only for a day.
Without the ability to vote, without a single lobbyist, a disenfranchised people in America have changed bills in Congress and set the terms for a national political conversation. The momentum of this movement is intimate and familial. People are looking out for their relatives, not dreaming of becoming a voting bloc. "Today we march, tomorrow we vote" actually minimizes what is happening. This is bigger than the ballot box. It is a reshaping of what active citizenship in America means.
If organizers really want to help out, the best thing to do is to get out of the way. The energy and vision is coming from within the movement anyhow --from people knowing and trusting each other. This is what was most amazing about the march in San Jose -- people hop-scotched from side to side during the march, calling out to uncles, aunties and neighbors.
It provided a sharp contest to the last major protest I had been to, at the World Trade Organization gathering in Seattle. There, no one knew anybody and everyone wore face masks. After breaking a whole lot of stuff, 70,000 protestors left Seattle, never to speak to one another again. After today's immigrant marches, everyone walks back to the same homes. The infrastructure of sustainability is built in.
The next big protest, planned for May 1, is supposed be a "Day Without Immigrants" -- a job and economic boycott. If the media and politicians really want to know what to expect on May 1, they shouldn't be going through their Rolodex of executive directors or union communications departments. They should be asking the day laborer in the parking lot of Home Depot in Los Angeles, or the grandmother on her way back from church in Phoenix. Regardless of what advocacy organizations decide to do, the success or failure of this effort will come down to families sitting down at dinner tables on April 30 and deciding whether or not they're going to work the next day.
On April 10, when the thousands had reached City Hall at the end of the march in San Jose, while the organizers were busy trying to get their political speakers lined up and getting the audio equipment working, everyone was patient with them. All heads were turned in another direction anyhow, watching and clapping along with a spontaneous dance circle that erupted around a single man with a drum.
- Login or register to post comments
»