Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece

[Waistline2]

In a message dated 7/20/2004 1:20:58 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:   >Just one more thing: Is apologizing for the occupation part of being a great "uniter" rather than a "divider" of the working class?   Just curious, you know, because my experience with union bureaucracies and leadership was that they were the dividers, like, ummh... Douglas Fraser, who secured his position in the UAW, and I would guess the board of Chrysler, after leading armed goons into the Jefferson Avenue plant to break the wildcat strike of the mostly African-American workers protesting the speed-ups and lack of safety.  Now that's unity.< _____________________________________   Comment   Yea . . . Doug Fraser was a piece of work. An old timer out of the Desoto plants and "hard fist socialists" - rough counterpart to say A. Philip Randolph. Fraser was rewarded with a seat on the Chrysler Board of Directors in the wake of the company's failure to meet its obligations in the bond market in 1980 . . . the collapse hit November 1979 when Chrysler reported its greatest lost of revenue in history.   The Jefferson events of 1973 was part of an intense strike wave. The summer months in Chrysler plants were unbearable . . . which no one understood because at that time Chrysler was the largest producer of industrial air conditioning units. The speed up . . . literally turning the speed of the assembly line up . . . was unbearable. You would literally run to keep up.   On July 24, 1973 Issac Shorter and Larry Carter took direct action and climbed into the elctric power control cage and pushed one button and shut down the assembly line. They negoitated with the company directly from the cage and the workers pretended any action of force from removing them until the grievences were met. 13 hours later both of them were carried from the cage into the streets on the shoulders of a mass of workers that remain one of the most famous and important pictures of this era.   Our unit immediately recruited Shorter into the Communist League . . . who had been the local Chairman of the Panther's Committee to Combat Fascism in Cleveland Mississippi. He had left Mississippi . . . goddamn . . . and move to Los Angeles and got a job with Chrysler only to be laid off. In 1971 he arrived in Detroit already political.   A few weeks later the Chrysler Forge plant went on an unauthorized strike . . . a "wildcat strike" over working conditions.   Fraser had stated earlier in respect to the Jefferson "wild cat strike" that the company had lost its "manhood" by not going through union channels and negotiating directly with the insurgents. At the Forge strike Fraser showed up in force with a squad of goons.   The workers would not bulge and Fraser invited one of the leaders outside for a gentleman game of fisticuffs . . . a white worker named John Taylor who was a member of the Motor City Labor League. Anyone that even heard of John Taylor knew he was anything but soft. A year or two later all of us combined together to form the Communist Labor Party.   "You want soft? . . . you better go get toilet paper.   With the cameras rolling John politely explained that there was no need to go outside because we can fight our way onto the fucking street. Fraser back down on television and his goons were hopelessly outnumbered with many of them on the side of the strikers. The intensity of this strike wave was such that the conservative Detroit News was running headlines like . . . "Chrysler Treats Men Like A Piece of Meat."   By the summer of 1973 there were dozens of groups with hundreds of active members in the plants. The cyclical nature of auto would disrupt all forms of organization because the cycles of work generally ran 36 months . . . maximum.   Fraser was bad news all over and outlived his moment in history. He was not a bad individual as such but outlived his moment in history.   For the record it was Alonzo Chandler and Larry Robinson (DA Mitchell) . . . because Larry Robinson was a phony name used because many of us were black balled and all had alias to get work . . . that recruited Shorter into the Communist League. Actually Alonzo was working under an alias that would not be resolved until he retired in year 2000 and the union won recognition of his work under another name. Even General Baker, Jr. worked under another name for Ford . . . Alexander Ware and the company tried to fired him when they found out. He won his case because their is a contract clause that allows anyone to work under an alias if they last 18 months on the job.   I actually picked up 6 months toward retirement from someone working under my name at Jefferson Assembly. The established leaders are . . . established on the basis of another cycle of the class struggle and composition of the working class.   Those were the days.   John would have been harshly criticized for fighting Fraser because he was to old. On the other hand nothing would have happened to him because it was Fraser's call . . . and big mouth. Fraser was a company man out of time with the members.   Marxism as theory hit the plants in a big way in the 1970s. Marxism as theory is going to hit the streets . . . literally . . . in a big way during the coming wave, which is in progress. None of this next generation are going to talk Hegel . . . but class assertions and theory from their point of view.   The unity is going to be forged on the basis of protecting the bottom of the economic ladder. This is so because everyone already knows who they come for the day after tomorrow . . . your ass.   Melvin P.