Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Political Affairs | Fresh Marxism Daily.
Political Affairs is the monthly online Marxist magazine of the People Before Profits network, which also includes the   Peoples World, and the online site of the Communist Party. The new issue focuses on the labor movement, and has some great articles. It features reviews of the current labor movement, history of political strikes, labor and the 2012 elections, critiques of labor critiques, the role of service workers, the conditions of minimum wage workers, and more.

Here is a list of contents of this issue, with links to the individual articles.

Labor Fightback in the Great Recessionby Scott Marshall. Despite 30 years of relentless corporate, political, and right wing attack, the labor movement is responding with new alliances, nontraditional forms of organizing, international solidarity, and political action. 

Service Workers Uniteby John Case. Provides a wealth of information about the changing composition and nature of the work force in the US, and discusses the implications for the labor movement and working class organizing.

Labor: An Analysis of Past Strikes, Political Strikes, Present and Future Struggles, by Norman Markowitz. Discusses the relationship between union organizing in the workplace and political action by the working class in the US since the 1880s. Special attention to the most successful period in American labor history -- the New Deal era of the 1930s and 1940s and the lseeons for the present situation.


Working Class Values in 2012by Joelle Fishman. The role of the labor movement in the 2012 elections, with lessons from the grassroots organizing by unions and community labor allies in New Haven CT in building an independent political base and winning local elections.

Can labor recover from its critics? by Sam Webb. Some on the left, such as sociologist Francis Fox Piven, are critical of the labor movement and look to groups like the Occupy movement to lead a movement for change. Webb replies that this estimate of labor not only amounts to a misrepresentation of what labor is doing, but also expresses a patronizing attitude toward the organization that represents working women and men.

The 89%: Where Anarchism Shuns Unionists, the Ultraleft Allies with the Ultraright, by Greg Rose. Some of the participants in the Occupy movement are critical, even contemptuous of unions and the labor movement. By trivializing the struggles of organized labor, by demonizing organized labor as the enemy of progressive elements in Occupy, by telling activists that union struggles are lost already and that they need to do something else the ultraleft anarchist presence in the Occupy movement has become an open collaborator with the ultraright.

Raise the Minimum Wage! by John Case. Raising the minimum wage doesn't only help minimum wage workers -- it is important for all of us.

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