The court case of Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association is another attack on U.S. public sector union workers. Today, in many such unions, workers who refuse to join the union still must pay their “fair share” for the benefits both members and non-members enjoy. Under the guise of “free speech,” this case would end that practice. A non-union worker would pay no fee but still receive the same benefits as paying union members, significantly limiting the power of workers to fight back collectively. This idea of “fair share” has been upheld many times since the 1977 Abood Supreme Court case.
Since the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonio Scalia, the fate of Friedrichs is very much up in the air, but the attack on the working class is very much alive. And since public sector workers are largely Black and women, this is a racist and sexist attack, once again dividing and weakening the entire working class (see box).
In the past, when led by communists, unions won some significant victories. The include Social Security, unemployment benefits, the 5-day 40-hour work-week, better wages, and other gains, made with militant, often illegal. Workers broke the bosses’ laws. They fought pitched violent battles against hired gun thugs, police and army troops. In the U.S., they included general strikes in numerous cities and mass community support for anti-racist walkouts like the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers’ strike.
In the 1930’s, during the Great Depression, the rulers feared workers’ anger might lead to communist revolution as occurred in Russia. Their fears were fueled by the bonus march of World War I veterans, hunger marches and the 44-day sit-down strike against General Motors workers in Flint, Michigan. To appease and pacify the working class the rulers passed the New Deal reforms and were forced to allow some unionization. But eventually they installed a reformist, anti communist union leadership which kept their demands modest and did not challenge capitalism.
Today U.S. rulers are being increasingly challenged, both economically and politically, by imperialist rivals such as China and Russia. They need more funds for their present and future wars, meaning less and less for the working class. The union movement is a shell of its former self, allowing the ruling class to cut back or eliminate many past reforms such as welfare, housing, pensions, education, mass transit budgets, and benefits. The Friedrichs Supreme Court case is one more attempt to lower the living standards of all U.S. workers.
Reforms never last. The answer to Friedrichs and other attacks is to rebuild a revolutionary, fighting communist-led working-class movement. In the past, when communists tried to build such a movement, unfortunately they made winning reforms primary. The gains have been slowly taken away. The movement that we in the Progressive Labor Party are building must make revolution primary. Let’s get rid of capitalism once and for all.
What Can and Should We Do?
Today the working class has been divided and weakened, so the bosses attack and attack and attack. Racism, nationalism, sexism, and individualism harm our collective ability to fight back. We must spread the communist ideas of militant struggle wherever we are. Organizing on the job must address class solidarity, anti-racism, anti-sexism and call to smash capitalist exploitation. We need to build student-parent-teacher alliances in the schools, hospital worker-patient alliances and worker-client alliances wherever we can. We need to organize workers to fight racism much as was done during the teachers’ strike against the Chicago school system. PL’ers must involve themselves in the struggles large and small at their workplaces and in their communities. We can’t stand by idly while the bosses attack. However, our goal goes much farther than each individual struggle. We aim to eliminate the bosses’ attacks by building for, and winning, a communist revolution!