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Notes From
the Editors
Monopoly Capital
and the New Globalization
by John Bellamy
Foster
Taking
Exams, Taking
on Capitalism
by Margaret Mikesell
Tabb, Kathryn Cressida Tabb, and William K. Tabb
Wealth Gap
Woes
by Jerry Kloby
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The Future of the Movement
The MDT has become a force to be reckoned with in Argentina. It has spread
rapidly outward from Salta, Juijuy, and Matanzas to the poverty-stricken
suburban belt surrounding Buenos Aires, Cordoba, and Rosario, and into the
“ghost towns” of the interior. Local organizations have formed
national federations, as evidenced by the two national congresses discussed
above. This success is based upon the mobilization of tens of thousands of
unemployed workers, the energizing of thousands of trade union activists, the
bringing of women and adolescents into the movement as active participants
(perhaps 60 percent of participants are women), and the actual securing of
(limited) concessions from the regime. The strength of the movement however,
continues mostly at the local level, based on neighborhood ties, mutual trust,
and concrete demands. And its main attraction remains the fact that the MDT
catalyzes action—direct action—in a society exhausted by the endless
“SAP” (structural adjustment policies), budget cuts, multiple low
paid jobs, and the corruption and impotence of Congress and the authoritarian
elitist nature of the Executive branch. The unemployed workers are the only
pole of opposition to all of this, and the MTD has the only effective tactics:
direct action—the prolonged blocking of highways until minimum demands are
met.
As the unemployed movement has grown in numbers and capability for action,
it has formed alliances with university students, dissident trade unions, human
rights groups, and small leftist parties. The most significant tactical
alliances were forged with the public employees unions (ATE) and with local
teachers’ unions. The Madres de la Plaza de Mayo gave moral support
and mobilized its supporters, as did a number of left university student
organizations. However, throughout the joint activities, especially with the
trade unions, the unemployed movements jealously guarded their hard won
autonomy and freedom of action. The movements rejected the demagogic
interventions by conventional politicos who sought to capitalize on the
unemployed movements growing power.
The dynamic and unprecedented growth of the unemployed movement and their
success with road blockades in paralyzing the movement of commodities was
accompanied by robust discussions and debates on how to proceed. Several basic
issues arose within the movement debates:
- Localism: The initial and continuing strength of the movements are based
on their close ties to their communities, barrios, and neighborhoods. Yet as
the state has responded to the movement with violent repression, including
murder, mass arrests, and military occupation, and as economic austerity
proceeds, it is evident to many movement activists that only collective action
at the national level will provide the leverage to weaken state violence and
secure concessions from the regime. Yet some of the leaders who have been most
successful in consolidating popular participation resist and are distrustful of
national meetings and organizations. The movement in General Mosconi is a case
in point. Its leaders refused to participate formally in the two national
meetings in early September 2001.
- Competing Groups: The decentralized origin of the movement has been a
necessary and important element in promoting local initiatives and leadership
and guarding the autonomy of the various movements. But in several cases
political and personal differences have emerged which could undermine future
unity of action. While most unemployed movements reject electoral politics, a
few leaders have been offered a place on the lists of left parties,
particularly the new formation called the Social Pole. Other differences relate
to the relationship with the established dissident trade unions. While few
unemployed leaders would object to tactical cooperation, many are fearful that
the CTA and ATE will eventually dominate the action and manipulate the movement
to fit the moderate agenda of progressive trade union officials. For example,
in one of the national days of action in August, the piqueteros, under
the influence of ATE, allowed alternative roads to be clear while they blocked
main arteries. The purpose of this concession was to “win over”
middle class commuters and make a good will gesture to the Minister of Labor.
Many unemployed activists rejected the “alternative routes” strategy
as effectively undermining the purpose of road blockades and opening the door
to the demoralization of the unemployed and the demise of the movement in favor
of traditional trade union wheeling and dealing.
- Penetration by Traditional Politicians: The powerful thrust of the
movement comes from its autonomy of action. As successful mobilization
accelerated, conventional opportunistic politicos from the nominally
“opposition” parties (Peronist and other) attempted to take up some
of the demands, offering to “mediate” between the piqueteros,
offering to secure jobs, and dividing the movement to gain a section of it and
rebuild their depleted ranks. The movement has so far resisted the
blandishments of these opportunistic demagogues. However, if the repression
becomes more severe and basic needs are not met, the stark choice will be
either a further political radicalization, or the temptation to accept
“mediation” by the old political bosses.
- Students—Allies and Dangers: The unemployed workers convoked the
September 7-8 national encounter. However, a large number of student, cultural,
and even self-help groups turned up, diluting the social composition of the
conference. The long and many times tedious presentations of the student
orators did not add a great deal of clarity to the movement’s future.
While the unemployed movement’s delegates did maintain control and
welcomed student and other participation, there was concern that they would
introduce the usual ideological rifts that paralyze action. The genuine search
among some student groups to “articulate” with the unemployed
movements was matched by a student harangue explaining to the Assembly why
“globalization inevitably condemned the movements to failure in this
period.” The unemployed delegates unanimously rejected this type of
intervention and proceeded to outline a series of practical immediate and
strategic demands. The Unemployed Movement of Lanus called attention to the
pressures of unholy alliances following mass demonstrations and for the
retention of leadership by autonomous unemployed workers movements.
These contradictions of growth point to the new challenges that face the
movement. The important point is not that there are problems, but that these
are open assemblies at the local, regional, and national level where the
unemployed can debate and resolve these issues.
Conclusion
One of the debates about the declining power of the labor movement focuses
on the proliferation of precarious work, the growth of the informal sector, and
the increase in the number of unemployed. When questioned, trade union leaders
constantly cite the difficulty of organizing the unemployed, the lack of
leverage the unemployed have over the economic system, and the lack of interest
among the unemployed in collective action. The massive growth of the
organization of the unemployed in Argentina calls these assumptions into
question and raises new questions. The experience in Argentina demonstrates
that unemployed workers can be organized, will engage in collective action,
possess leverage to paralyze the economic system, and are capable of
negotiating and securing concessions, in a manner that the organized labor
unions have not been able to accomplish in recent years.
This suggests that the decline of labor has less to do with the nature of
unemployed and informal labor and more to do with the structure, approach, and
leadership of the trade unions. The unemployed movement organizes from the
bottom up, in face-to-face recruiting in the barrios. The trade union
bureaucrats ignore non-dues paying workers, and when organizing, send in
“professionals.” The result is that they usually fail to gain the
confidence of the unemployed, much less succeed in organizing them. Secondly,
the unemployed movement has a horizontal structure in which leaders and
supporters come from the same class and discuss and debate as equals in open
assemblies. The trade unions are vertical structures built around personal
loyalties to the top bureaucrats, many of whom draw salaries comparable to
CEOs. The unemployed movements engage in sustained direct action and
collectively negotiate demands in open assemblies. The trade union elites
engage in symbolic protests and then negotiate with the state or the employers
behind closed doors, reaching agreements that ignore workers’ key concerns
and then “sell” the agreements to the membership or just simply
impose them. As a result, the unemployed leaders have the confidence and
support of their constituents, while the trade union bosses are viewed with
distrust if not as active collaborators with the austerity-minded state and the
employers.
The labor market, the large pool of unemployed, presents a challenge to the
conventional way of top-down organizing, automatic dues check off, and formal
organization. No trade union boss is willing to trudge through the muddy
unpaved roads of shantytowns organizing; attending meetings in icy or
sweltering improvised meeting places, amidst crying children and women
militants demanding food now, or unemployed young men bored by long-winded
lectures on globalization and unemployment.
No trade union leaders stand behind the barricades of burning tires with
slingshots blocking highways and facing live ammunition. They prefer to secure
a half-hour appointment in the offices of the Minister of Labor in order to
form a tripartite committee to discuss how to cushion the austerity program and
secure governability. The fact is that almost all trade unions as they are
organized today are only concerned with their electoral ties to the official
parties and are totally irrelevant if not a major obstacle to organizing the
unemployed.
Through the initiative and social inventiveness of the unemployed, by trial
and error, they have found a way to secure leverage over the economic system by
cutting the highways that link markets and production sites. The early success
of the road blockades by unemployed petroleum workers in the ghost towns of
Neuquen in 1996 has spread throughout the country.
Road blockades have become the generalized tactic of exploited and
marginalized groups throughout Latin America. In Bolivia, tens of thousands of
peasants and Indian communities have blocked highways demanding credit,
infrastructure, freedom to grow coca, and increased spending on health and
education. Likewise in Ecuador, massive street blockades have protested the
dollarization of the economy and the absence of public investments in the
highlands. In Colombia, Brazil, and Paraguay road blockades, marches, and land
occupations have been combined in pursuit of immediate demands, as well as
redistributive policies, and an end to neoliberalism and debt payments.
What all these groups have in common is that they are non-strategic groups
in the economy acting on strategic areas of the economy. The export sectors,
the banks, minerals and petroleum, and certain manufacturing sectors are the
principal foreign exchange earners (to pay the debt) and revenue and profit
producers for the elite. Food is imported, as are manufactured intermediary and
capital goods. From the perspective of the elite who control the accumulation
process, the activities of the peasants, unemployed, Indians, farmers, local
commercial enterprises, and small manufacturers are superfluous, expendable,
and irrelevant to the main activities—exports, financial transactions, and
imports of luxury goods. But these flows of goods and capital require free
passage across roads to reach their markets. This is where the “marginal
groups” become strategic actors whose direct actions interfere with the
elite circuits and disrupt the accumulation process. Road blockades of the
unemployed are the functional equivalent of the industrial workers stopping the
machines and production line: one blocks the realization of profit, the other,
the creation of value. Mass organization outside the factory system
demonstrates the viability of this strategy when it takes place outside the
structures of electoral parties and bureaucratic trade unions. Autonomous
organization is the key in Argentina and the rest of Latin America. Experience
demonstrates that the new mass movements can sustain struggles, resist violent
repression, and secure temporary and immediate concessions.
The formation of a national coordinating committee of unemployed
organizations in Argentina, and similar national organizations among the
peasants and small farmers throughout Latin America, demonstrates that local
movements can become national and potentially can confront the state.
Many questions remain unanswered. Is it possible for these new movements to
unify into a national political force and transform state power? Can alliances
be forged with employed urban industrial workers and employees and the
downwardly mobile middle class to create a power block to transform the
economy? Can local assemblies become the basis for a new assembly-based
socialism?
In Argentina, the success of the unemployed workers’ movement has
opened a new perspective for advancing the struggle in the face of a prolonged
and deepening depression. With the advance of similar direct action movements
growing throughout Latin America, it is not difficult to imagine the
convergence of these “marginal” classes into a formidable challenge
to the U.S. empire and its local collaborators.
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