Doug Henwood: (on a thread in Marxism-International mail-list) > U.S. unions are corrupt, >undemocratic, and often reactionary. They're better now than they were 3 or >5 years ago, though, and that's a good thing for the working class. Hoffa >and Feldman would represent serious steps back. > The reform process in American labor does not begin and end with Ron Carey. It should be recalled that Teamsters were fighting against corruption, gangsterism and bureaucracy long before Carey's election. It was this struggle that resulted in his victory, not just support from a wing of the Democratic Party. Today's Village Voice has a long article on Tim Schermerhorn of New Directions, a progressive caucus in the New York Transit Workers Union. Unfortunately it is too long for me to type in, but I urge folks to try to find it. The article was written by Laura McClure who I used to run into all the time when she was the labor reporter for the Guardian. Good to see her at the Voice. She reports that Schermerhorn's caucus styles itself after the Teamsters for a Democratic Union and now occupies 15 seats on the union's 35 seat executive committee. He has a good shot at replacing Willie James, the current union president who is a self-described "accomodator" who backed Giuliani in the last election. Schermerhorn's dad was in the Transit Union as well and took Tim to a rally led by Mike Quill, the Communist who led the union in the 60s. Quill led a number of successful strikes, including one against the popular liberal mayor John Lindsay, who he kept calling "Lindsley" in a thick Irish brogue. Quill spent time in jail for this strike when he was in his 70s. Quill was an outspoken foe of the Vietnam war and always referred to the NLF as the "Vietnamese freedom fighters." Schermerhorn is a frequent visitor to the Brecht Forum in NY and showed up for a talk by Kim Moody last friday night. He is a broad-shouldered black man, well over 250 pounds and 6 feet tall. He is very at ease in a crowd. Tim identifies strongly with the changes going on in American labor and is affiliated with the Labor Party, which Kim Moody described accurately--I'm afraid--as stuck in the mud right now. New Directions is working hard to build alliances with community groups and transportation activists. Glenn Martin, a subway conductor who is on the executive committe, is drawing the community into opposition to OPTO (one-person train operation), which would eliminate conductors. This cuts wages while it increases danger from crime or accidents. Martin says, "There are people already out here, fighting their own fight, who would love to be with someone who has a big base like ours. It might up the ante for some of those labor sellouts if there was a big union out there talking about the issues." Schermerhorn agrees with Martin: "If we won, it would definitely change the landscape. All those unions in the city with no social power that owuld like to do the right thing? Well, they'd have somebody besides them who carries a big stick." Louis Proyect
