A job is a right
Lessons from Pittsburgh
Published Nov 24, 2009 9:44 PM
Excerpts from a talk by Sharon Black at the WWP National Conference,
Nov. 14.
A job is a right! We’re going to fight, fight,
fight!
|
Second Plenary Session: Jobs and human needs - not banks, racism and imperialist war. Speaker: Sharon Black.
|
This is more than just a demand.
It is a concept based on the fact that we, the working class, produce
everything. There isn’t a single thing in this auditorium that
wasn’t made or built by workers. It is our social, collective labor that
gives everything its value.
It’s on this basis that a job is a property right.
It is the contradiction between this socialized labor and the privately owned
means of production by a parasitic class—for profit only—that is at
the very root of the present economic crisis.
We have a right to seize and occupy the plants and the workplaces!
We have a right to stay in our homes rather than let the banks foreclose
them!
In 1937, Frances Perkins, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Labor secretary,
recognized that workers had a property right to their job. She was responding
towards the latter part of the sit-down strikes and plant occupations of that
period. She proclaimed this under the hot breath of the mass struggle.
On our Party’s 50th anniversary it’s important to reflect on how
our legacy guides us in today’s struggles, especially the recent Jobs
March and Tent City at the G-20 Summit.
One of the keys to its success that is so much a part of our Party’s
legacy was grasping the connection between the national question and the class
question.
There is so much that can be said about all of the work that went into
community outreach: the door-to-door distributions, the meetings with key Black
activists, and of course the mobilization’s relationship with the Rev.
Tom Smith of the Monumental Baptist Church—particularly his courageous
act of opening up the church grounds for the Tent City in the historic Hill
District—Pittsburgh’s African-American community.
There was a complex political strategy involved that called for opening up and
facilitating the involvement and leadership of the Black community itself.
Reviving Dr. King’s legacy for full employment gave those in the Black
community who wanted to struggle around jobs an avenue to do so during a period
when the historic election of the first Black president weighs heavily in
people’s consciousness.
That was one aspect of the question. The other was about challenging the
movement—particularly the anti-war and anti-globalization forces.
Initially the challenge was to take on the struggle for jobs—but
ultimately it was about “Who would come to the Hill and stand in
solidarity with the community?”
In essence the jobs march was not only about jobs—it was also an
anti-racist march.
Challenging the movement, whether mild in manner or bold, turned out to be the
right thing and it should be noted that even if their numbers were small, the
very best of the movement did come, including many white youth who were
attracted on the basis of what we stood for.
Understanding the national question and the fight against racism will become
even more important as the capitalist crisis deepens in this country and
virulent racism and anti-immigrant sentiments are whipped up by the
ultraright.
We ourselves have to be keenly aware of it as we deepen our fight against the
capitalist government—that we will simultaneously need to be ready to be
on the front lines of fighting racism directed against Obama, who symbolizes
for the right wing the gains made by Black people.
What the Tent City highlighted is that the best way of conducting the class
struggle is to be aggressive in fighting racism and promoting the leadership of
the most oppressed.
It’s as Comrade Sam Marcy said a long time ago, “If white
revolutionaries fight hardest against racism and in support of the national
question, it will afford the oppressed comrades the opportunity to push the
class struggle harder.”
This same formulation can be equally extended to the masses.
The Jobs March and Tent City brought together poor white Southern workers, who
were newly jobless and homeless, with Black workers. This was probably the
first time in their lives that the whites had marched under a Dr. King banner.
It was in the crucible of the struggle that unity was forged.
We cannot leave the white workers to the racists and the ultraright!
The fact is that the entire working class is deeply indebted to the most
oppressed, whether it is the immigrant workers who revived May Day along with
the militant tactic of sitting in and occupying the Republic Windows and Doors
factory, or the revolutionary Black workers who forged the fight in the auto
plants and so much more.
In the book, “Solidarity Divided,” there is a story about an
exchange between a Service Employees International Union staff member and a
representative of the South African Congress of Trade Unions. To the question
of what is the role of the unions, the SEIU delegate exclaimed, “To
represent the interest of its members.” The COSATU member diplomatically
corrected him, “The role of the union is to represent the entire working
class.”
Workers can no longer afford to fight alone industry by industry, region by
region, or even country by country in an era of capitalism that has gone
global.
The unions must fight for the entire working class.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email:
[email protected]
Subscribe
[email protected]
Support independent news
DONATE