Working Class

Nigel Cole, director of Made in Dagenham, commented in the Socialist Worker, "I hope that people come out of the film thinking, maybe we don’t need to be pushed around, maybe we can stand up for ourselves."

Last year's release may have been perfect timing for us here in the US: the intensifying attacks on the public sector, declining union density and limited (if inspiring) fight backs, made it a good moment to reflect on accomplishments of workers movements and on collective action generally. Now, the Verizon strike, which involves 45,000 workers up and down the east coast, gives us another reason to contemplate our political moment.

Made in Dagenham recounts the 1968 Ford sewing machinists' strike in England. The strikers, who sewed car seats at the world's largest Ford plant, were galvanized by management's effort to classify of their work as unskilled. While this resulted in lower wages, the issues of respect and workplace control were the driving factors. Ultimately these women, a tiny minority of the plant's workforce, were able to halt production entirely.

The film has plenty of Hollywood-esque qualities. For one, it attributes a lion's share of the strike's leadership to single individual: the protagonist, Rita O’Grady played by Sally Hawkins). In fact, her character is a composite of several real-life strikers.

The film's depiction of O'Grady's personal transformation is predictable at times.

In the three months since the Budget Repair Bill was signed, activists in Wisconsin have been looking for whatever they can do to keep things going and to refuse to let the austerity agenda proceed unhindered. Undoubtedly, important coalitions and actions have come together to attempt to keep the protest energy together, but its been difficult for these things to really take hold in the face of at least two major institutional endeavors: the first has been the recalls (the timeframe to collect signatures to recall legislators is just about ending now), and the second was the Supreme Court election, which lasted much longer than expected in light of the election fraud and subsequent recount (in the end, the right-wing justice Prosser still won). The big electoral organizing being over, the time is just about right for another go at street protest.

So last week a series of actions were planned by people around National Nurses United (which does not currently have members in Madison, but have kept a few paid organizers here since February to organize some of the coalition campaigns), some individual trade unionists and younger student/community activists. The idea then was basically that people who were dissatisfied by the way that the struggle had turned out since the bill's passage wanted to try and bring back the street activity. After some discussion, the plan came up to organize some direct actions to block the intersections around the capitol building, take protests to banks and halt business as usual.

Beyond any shadow of a doubt, what is emerging across the United States is the most significant upsurge of the labor movement in a very long time. What has begun in Wisconsin is rapidly spreading to other states—even some southern states, traditionally vacuums of labor activity.

Without a doubt, today is going to decide the course of the struggle. The last two and a half days have been a pause, with folks moving into position for Tuesday while guarding their backs in case of any unexpected developments. Rumors of strikes have come and gone depending on what the collective sense is of who's in the lead and what the balance of forces is. The anxiety into Monday was in looking for some maneuvers or developments that would put one side in front of the other, a step forward by some local who to announce an action or a new position on the bill by anyone in the government, but basically everyone has just dug in and stayed the course.

We're into the fifth day now and its starting to take its toll--I'm pretty worn so hopefully this report is holding the standard. The capitol square has temporarily depopulated to the point that it almost looks like a normal business day--of course its Sunday and most people don't do business with KILL THE BILL placards and "I am MTI" pins. The local newspapers are saying that the small turnout today is because of the bad weather (it's grossly cold and wet) and that shows the resolve of protesters here. But people have been here days and nights and since there's no imminent threat its a good time to go home, take care of yourself and get ready for the next day. Some are leaving Madison, back to the rest of Wisconsin for life, work or until the next round, so allies from around the country have come to take their places and keep a presence. And even though things seem pretty mellow, there's a lot going on behind the scenes.

One thing this week has become infamous for is the spread of rumors, and Friday night ended with a scare that a fleet of Tea Party buses were on their way to counter-protest with Sarah Palin at the head. WEAC members passed out flyers Friday afternoon briefing demonstrators on what to expect and how to conduct themselves, but apart from overworked activists and a few union bureaucrats, the crowd seemed unbothered by the right wing threat. Of course when a little more than a thousand tea party activists got to the capitol (sans Palin), most people seemed to think their presence was laughable and carried on without incident.

While workplace resistance to the tsunami of attacks on our living standards, pensions, healthcare, social security, and our social wage in general is near an all time low as measured by recent U.S. strike activity, our French brothers and sisters are demonstrating a different way.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, leader of a center-right party, campaigned promising to put more money in people's pockets, to cut taxes, and make France more competitive. Eighteen months ago Sarkozy seemed unstoppable. Now his government is trying to force workers to contribute more to their pension and retire later. The attack on pensions has stripped away what little remains of the populist posturing that helped Sarkozy and his party win in 2007. As the Economist reported, "The champion of the worker is now wielding the ax, cutting jobs in teaching, hospitals and the police force."

Despite strikes and protests, and a vow of further action by labor unions, the French National Assembly voted in mid September to pass President Sarkozy's pension cuts. The French labor movement responded with a general strike on September 23rd, followed by a wave of demonstrations on October 2nd. On both days, perhaps 3 million workers and their supporters (in relative terms that would be 15 million in the U.S.) took part, with more than 200 local demonstrations on the 2nd.

When addressing the important question of scale--"how big or broad do we really need to be in order to start calling some shots in a meaningful way"--some of us on the left are fond of approvingly paraphrasing Lenin's idea that "politics is millions." ["Politics begin where millions of men and women are; where there are not thousands, but millions."]

This is a truism that few would contest, but it's also a good reminder of the real mammoth task at hand. Before we can realize the "another world" that so many will be imagining in Detroit next week, we have to think about what it will take to get there. When I think about this, I envision millions of people who identify with social movements and are directly engaged by them. We would be able to recognize this phenomenon in the conversations of strangers at a bar, the lyrics of pop songs, a politicization of sports, and so on. These people are from all walks of life and carry eclectic, diverse, and often contradictory political positions. The left is there, but only as a midwife to the struggle--leading by example and careful not to undermine its influence by mandating political orthodoxy on an array of points for every campaign or by exhibiting insensitivity to cultural and religious traditions that may have reactionary elements about them (as well as radical potential, in some cases).

Late Sunday night, like millions of other people, I found myself basking in the brilliance of the historic New Orleans Saints Super Bowl victory.

Howie Hawkins, a longtime Socialist Party member, Green Party leader and friend of Solidarity recen