The many friends and colleagues of the late Tom Kahn: an incandescent writer, organizational Houdini, and guiding spirit of America's Social Democratic community for over 30 years -- who died in the flower of his career after decades of remarkable accomplishments in the labor, civil rights and social democratic movements –- now have a great treat in store. Tom's longtime friend and co-worker, Rachelle Horowitz, ably abetted by another devoted colleague, Eric Chenoweth, has pieced together a political memoir that not only provides a rich and carefully documented record of a time of astonishing ferment on the American Left, but that evokes Tom Kahn and his unusual circle in ways that might even stir hope and admiration on the liberal left today--at a time when this community otherwise appears to be wearing itself down even further in sour and unfocused complaints. (For a full text of the memoir, go to the Social Democrats, USA website.)
LET THE CIRCLE BE UNBROKEN
We happily invite you to join a group of Tom Kahn's friends, comrades, and even just the curious to celebrate Tom's life and work and Rachelle's recounting of it during a Friday afternoon “Kahn Fest.” Look forward to fond and amusing memories, warming refreshments and lively conversation about some of today's issues around which the Kahn saga may stir discussion.
Date: Friday, April 1 Chair: Penn Kemble
Words of welcome and introduction:
Discussion:
Rachelle's paper will impress you with its scholarship and detail. It is available on the Social Democrats, USA website. RSVP by March 30 to: 202-467-0028 or e-mail: info@socialdemocrats.org. (A suggested contribution for this event is $15.00--$5.00 for students--and may be paid at the door or in advance. Checks should be made out to Social Democrats, USA and brought to the meeting or mailed to: 1925 K Street, NW, Ste 401, Washington, DC 20006.)
Tom Kahn died in l992, of complications from HIV. It doesn't take much imagination to see that much of what he did and wrote has relevance today. Tom was an unabashed leader of the American Social Democratic movement at a time when its prospects seemed even more hazy than some may find them today. But Kahn himself never yielded to defeatism.
KAHN'S COMMITTMENT: INDEPENDENT, DEMOCRATIC ORGANIZATION
As Rachelle notes in a telling quotation, Tom defined his social democratic outlook in a way that distinguishes it deftly from the paternalism and preoccupation with incremental benefits that often seem foremost in other variants of leftism and welfare state liberalism. Rachelle reports that, “Throughout Kahn's life he maintained a consistent and clear belief in democracy and freedom of association -- which he defined simply as '. . . the right of ordinary people to create their own institutions independent of the government, institutions which can shelter them from the power of the state, the power of the employer, or the power of other organized social forces.'” So, in Kahn's vision, social democracy is in essence about “ordinary people” creating and running their own institutions, in their own interests.
Kahn knew that only such institutions can sustain government protections for workers and assure social decency for the poor and the weak. This was the vision that stirred his heroes in Poland's Solidarnosc to rebel against the state-directed “unions” of their self-annointed Communist benefactors. In another way it has also been the vision that has inspired leaders of the embattled American labor movement across several centuries. Despite many frustrations and temptations, American unions have maintained a tradition of independence: independence from employers, from various political and ideological suitors, and from others who saw them as potential instruments for the pursuit of ends that were not central to union members themselves.
AFL-CIO "REFORM" DEBATE
Many prospective "Kahnfesters" will have been trying to follow developments in the AFL-CIO as its leaders debate and vote on a variety of proposals for reforming the Federation's structures, finances and programs. These developments have proved difficult for both journalists and their audiences to keep abreast of, perhaps because the proposals were not fully worked out and discussed in advance of the Federation's Executive Committee and Executive Council meetings last week in Las Vegas, and because the inner workings of the Federation are so unfamiliar to most people. In fact, one of the key issues at the Las Vegas meetings became a call for greater transparency within the Federation itself.
The various reform proposals that have been advanced are too complex, fluid and controversial for us to deal with adequately in our short space here. We'll simply note some aspects of them that we surmise might have drawn Tom Kahn's interest. (There are some good sources of information about this debate on the Internet: see Harold Meyerson's article in The American Prospect for background and Tom Edsall's reporting on the meeting in The Washington Post.)
It appears that the initial proposals of the New Unity Partnership -- an initiative proposed some months ago by Service Employees President Andrew Stern and endorsed by John Wilhelm of the merged HERE/UNITE unions and others, did not come up for a direct vote. (NUP has officially been disbanded but its original members are still working together.) Their initial proposition was directed at consolidating many of America's labor organizations in the hopes of freeing up resources and creating efficiencies that might be used to counter the disheartening losses in union membership that have followed the globalization of trade and finance, the introduction of certain job-destroying technologies, and the political and legal assault on unionism that has emerged from elements of the business leadership in recent decades.
Harold Meyerson notes some of the controversial spects of this NUP proposal in the article cited above, and Cornell Professor Richard Hurd also commented skeptically in an article that can be viewed on the Social Democrats web site. But Hurd does give Stern and his NUP associates some credit: "In spite of the controversy, the NUP has performed an extraordinarily useful function by stimulating serious reconsideration of strategy, structure and the role of the AFL-CIO."
Tom Kahn, of course, died in 1992, and therefore did not participate in debate about the specific proposals for reforms in labor that are being put forward today. But he did write about the distinctive character of American unionism in ways that offer some insights that can help us understand some of the disputes these proposals have aroused.
While votes were not taken in Las Vegas on the NUP's proposals for cosolidating existing unions, the AFL-CIO's Executive bodies did take votes on several proposals for restructuring the finances of the AFL-CIO, and addressed its activities in organizing new members and in the political and legislative arenas. These votes appear to have favored the current leadership of the Federation -- President John Sweeney -- and the direction it prefers for reform.
A proposal advanced by Teamster's President Hoffa and supported by Stern's SEIU, UNITE/HERE, The Food and Commercial workers, The Laborers and the Auto Workers -- an impressive alliance of large unions -- would have rebated some 50% of dues back to unions with active organizing programs that now goes from these unions to the operations of the AFL-CIO. According to The Washington Post this proposal was defeated by a 15-7 vote of the Executive Committee.
On another vote the Federation decided to almost double the amount of its per capita dues receipts that it devotes to legislative and political activities, bringing the total to some $90 million every two years. The vote on this was also lopsided -- 14 to 8.
These decisions can have important consequences, and many in labor ask if these have been sufficiently discussed -- even though the impatience of some union leaders over the slowness of responses to what is surely a crisis of the labor movement is understandable enough. We find it interesting to speculate on what someone like Tom Kahn might have thought of certain aspects of the new "reform" agenda?
For one, Kahn was ever skeptical of catchphrases and slogans that could become excuses for not thinking through the real consequences of one's actions. He never hesitated to question those who waxed enthusiastic about fashionable subjects such as "participatory democracy" or "preferential treatment." He wanted to know just how these ideas would translate into practice.
Another point that might have aroused Kahn's interest in this discussion is, if there are large funding shifts into the organizing and political activities of the AFL-CIO, what will be left for servicing the membership -- whether it is the existing membership or new members brought in through organizing drives? Most servicing of members is done by individual unions, but AFL-CIO funds could be used to educate members on issues, to get the message out to the press and public, to advise on pension investing, to help new locals develop collective bargaining strategies and capabilities. Who will assist in implementing safety and health programs that members desire? Who will provide assistance for the administrationof local unions and cenral labor councils, which can be complicated and demanding? Who will represent labor in the wider communities that have importance to it?
In the midst of an Executive Council debate about how much dues money should be rebated to AFL-CIO affiliates for organizing, Kahn would probably have puzzled over these inconvenient questions: Just how is it proposed to use this money for organizing -- is there a sound practical plan? And if it were proposed to devote substantial sums of union dues money to intensified political and legislative action, he might well have asked what strategy should guide such action, and is it wise to commit funding when the strategy has not been properly mapped out?
Kahn would also have scrutinized proposals that would lead to large reductions in union staff and the engagement of union members and officers in the affairs of their communities.
KAHN: TRADE UNIONS KEY TO A STRONG "CIVIL SOCIETY"
A few days ago, leafing through old books in our tiny office, we came upon a small volume of essays from the 1990s published by the American Enterprise Institute. We were mildly surprised to find that one of the authors featured by this conservative publisher was old friend Tom Kahn, an American social democrat. In addition to his impressive contributions in the international affairs field, Tom also wrote widely on the need for a mainstream political alliance here in the US that would draw unions, the black leadership and responsible liberals together to work on issues of race and economics. Kahn gave characteristic stress to the role of unions.
The recently discovered AEI volume in which Tom's essay on unionism appears bears an intriguing title: "Mediating Structures: A Theological Inquiry."
Those who knew Tom might wonder if he wouldn't have smiled at this invocation of theological purpose. But his essay does engage what were and still are momentous matters. He was always asking, “what calling lies ahead for American labor?”
In this AEI essay Kahn muses on the importance of unions to the strength of what has come to be called our “civil society.” The editors of the AEI volume, Michael Novak and Peter Berger, were concerned about the health of the web of non-governmental and non-profit institutions and relationships that contributes so importantly to holding our democracy together. Novak and Berger had the insight to see that labor unions contribute to this. Hence an essay on "Mediating Structures" by Tom Kahn.
The proposals of the New Unity Partnership have proved controversial in certain sectors of our labor movement, for some reasons that were pre-figured in Kahn's essay on “mediating structures.” A plan that would compress so many currently existing unions into a far smaller number of streamlined organizations seems to some to be guided by an impulse to turn away from civil society or “mediating structures” concepts of unionism, toward what someone might describe as a “re-proletarianization” of American labor. Think of that vintage slogan that the alienated and disenfranchised working masses 'have nothing to lose but their chains." That notion denies the extent to which, for all its difficulties, trade unionism and what it has wrought have become a part of the fabric of American life. This fabric may not so readily be deconstructed from on high and then rewoven into new and useful patterns by grand strategists.
In his essay in the AEI volume on mediating structures, Tom wrote evocatively about the complex array of social and cultural activities that our labor movement helps to sustain. For example: “What the labor movement is really about is tens of thousands of local unions in the United States…That means there are hundreds of thousands of individuals who are union officials, union leaders, in the United States. A good portion of them are part time and unpaid, and they are rather average people with roots in their communities.” (p. 126) As the British historian and philosopher Edmund Burke so memorably put it, "to love the little platoon we belong to in society is the first principle of public affections."
Kahn naturally adds a more political dimension: "In some parts of the country, the local union hall is as important a social center as a fraternal organization, a neighborhood club or an ethnic social group….For many people in society, unions really are schools of democracy. They are the place where workers, many of them with relatively little formal schooling, learn how to raise their hands, be recognized, get up, say something, and sit down."
He also notes that the union movement is the most racially integrated institution in American life, bar none. A number of union leaders have questioned the benefits of trying to consolidate this rich array of distinctive organizations into what supposedly will be a more effective and less expensive system. There are those who wonder if chopping back the web of union organizations and the networks of local officers and activists who manage them may not ultimately weaken our labor movement by cutting away many of the capillaries that draw nourishment from the civic culture on which in so many ways our unions depend. The civic nourishment that our unions gain from their broad community involvement in turn is recirculated back through unions to many of these same communities, and they in turn gain strength from labor's presence. (p.130)
Disagreements about the New Unity Partnership proposals within the labor movement have sometimes even turned a bit testy. One objection that has been raised is that the push to "streamline" and consolidate the structures of the AFL-CIO threatens to diminish the influence of Blacks in the labor movement, and in public life more generally.
"They want bigger unions," says Bill Lucy, head of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU), referring to the NUP supporters. "They want power players, big unions in charge. The end result is diminution of community power." Black unionists fear that Central Labor Councils, so important to urban organizing and community outreach, will become mere extensions of the Federation's national headquarters' campaigns. Some proponents of consolidaiton have made it clear that they envision a streamlined and consolidated labor engine that responds to top union management in much the same way as corporations operate -- the better to beat the companies at their own level of play.
Lucy's group has not been the only labor ally to voice concern about propoals that it believes might attenuate labor's community ties. A joint statement criticizing the NUP proposal has also been endorsed by the the A. Philip Randolph Institute, the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, and Pride At Work.
A number of small but vibrant unions have also objected to what they see as a high-handed approach to reorganizing labor structures. Gregory Junemann, President of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), a small, specialized union that could cease to exist if the NUP players had their way, offered this objection: "My members are not chess pieces to be maneuvered, nor marionettes waiting to be moblized. These are real people, and it's their union."
In an interview with BusinessWeek the typically soft-spoken
President of the American Federation of Teachers, Edward McElroy,
expressed some similar misgivings: "Making decisions about mergers is a democratic process that deals with members of unions. For any organization, the AFL-CIO or individual unions, to point a finger and say, 'This union or that should merge,' strikes me as totally antidemocratic."
According to Cornell's Richard Hurd, the International Association of Machinists's President R. Thomas "Buffenbarger apparently sees this as more than a disagreement over strategy, and speaks against it more sharply; he views it as a takeover attempt by a group of elitist intellectuals. In this view, Stern -- along with his New Unity Partnership colleagues Bruce Raynor of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees and John Wilhelm of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union -- represents a new breed of progressive union leaders, all with Ivy League degrees and experience as campus activists in the 1960s and early 1970s. Buffenbarger was quoted in the New York Times as saying that the Ivy League-educated union leaders talk down to the rest." (Richard Hurd, "Disorganized Labor," Los Angeles Times, December 1, 2004.)
HURD ON PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS: COULD THEY OFFER A NEW FOOTHOLD FOR TRADE UNIONISM?
Professor Hurd has done pioneering work on an area in which American unionism might profitably take great interest. As AFL-CIO leaders met in Las Vegas last week to ponder labor's future, lead items on their agenda appear to have been how best to press toward greater success with what has been called the "organizing model," i.e., union strategies that can maximize the recruitment of large numbers of less-skilled, often underpaid and insecure workers in areas of our economy in which unionism is weak. The AFL is incontestably right to be deeply concerned with these workers.
But another avenue for potential development in the labor movement that evidently does not draw much attention has been creatively explored in Richard Hurd's writing has been studying the remarkable rise of specialized vocational and professional associations. He has published dozens of papers in books and professional journals, among them "Professional Employees and Union Democracy," "Is Organizing Enough? Race, Gender and Union Culture," "Contesting the Dinosaur Image: the Labor Movement's Search for a Future," and "Beyond the Organizing Model." Professor Hurd works closely with labor organizations developing training programs and offering technical assistance on strategic issues including trade union management, organizational change, internal and external organizing, strategic planning, and leadership development. His clients include the AFL-CIO Office of the President, AFL-CIO Department for Professional Employees, the AFT's Albert Shanker Institute, New York State United Teachers, AFSCME-CSEA, UNITE, and the American Guild of Musical Artists. An interesting place to begin exploring Hurd's ideas is his paper on associations, information and professional development.
The development of associations built around specialized professions and skills could conceivably provide a new groundwork for a unionism that might fit more comfortably into what is called the "new economy." This kind of unionism would in some ways hearken back to the guilds and craft unions that were so admired by figures such as Hillaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton, Catholic thinkers who may enjoy some respect among those today who profess a cultural conservativism. These kinds of associations prosper because they stress the central importance of skills and professionalism, and their members therefore are often seen as adding considerable value to employers' and stockholders' endeavors and investments.
Richard Hurd argues that in order to reach more of these "new economy" workers the labor movement will need to re-examine and in some ways alter its approach and even its cultural style:
Because of their skills and professional culture, these associations or guild-type unions often find it possible to exert considerable influence in our labor markets -- more than can be exerted by unskilled workers, who are usually in ready supply. These associations can set standards for educational and performance qualificatons for their members. Some can deny employment to those who fall below these standards. They make it difficult for employers to send certain kinds of work abroad, where safety, security and performance standards may not be enforceable. They appeal to the general public because so much effort has been invested by their members in mastering expertise. Associations are good at making the case that their members contribute substantially to the over-all strength and progress of our economy and society. (For interesting discussion of this, see the Report of the Task Force on Workforce Development of the Albert Shanker Institute and the New Economy Information Service.)
Tom Kahn never shrank from a good debate, or hesitated to take on what struck him as a dubious panacea or slogan, (whether it was 'preferential treatment' or 'participatory democracy'). He was suspicious of simplistic cures for complicated problems that could easily make them more difficult and dangerous through ideologically-colored diagnoses and prescriptions.
LABOR AND POLITICS
There are a number of other "new ideas" at work these days in the American labor movement that would have drawn Kahn's attention. Labor's political difficulties have understandably drawn some in labor to ally themselves more closely with non-labor groups that bring to the political process both financial resources and activist constituencies. Kahn would probably be concerned that too deep an integration of labor's agenda with these non-labor groups could generate some consternation among labor's own rank and file and in the public. Will new-found allies on the left skew labor's image and political appeal in ways that could ultimately prove unhelpful?
MAN OF ENGAGEMENT
We have now come by a somewhat circuitous route around to a point that was suggested earlier: the inspiration that Kahn's career could offer today to young people who may be drifting toward the cynicism of the Michael Moore set. In his time Kahn never succumbed to the fashionable excuse that American politics was so locked in the grasp of special interests, big money and hardened ideologies that all one can do is fall in line, vent toxic angers, or sit in humiliation on the sidelines.
This posture of hip cynicism and alientation has its contemporary devotees, but it is hardly new. It actually has a good deal in common with the temper of the era when Tom Kahn first embarked upon his own very effective engagement in public life. Remember, the 1950s and early 1960s were a time of considerable political demoralization for many on the American Left. There was still an overhang of the McCarthy era on campuses. Pressures to conform to the role of the corporate “man in the grey flannel suit” aroused resentments among many young people who considered themselves free-thinking intellectuals. Strictures on the roles of women and Jim Crow still held stultifying sway in some sectors of our society. But read Rachelle's description of the little band of New York socialists and civil rights activists. Do also take a look at Paul Feldman's reminiscences on the same web site from his own amusing odyssey through the bohemian and politically exotic realms of Greenwich Village radicalism and Brooklyn College. This was the world in which he met his wife-to-be, the AFT's Sandra Feldman. Reading this reminiscences may help you grasp how much really was possible back then, and how foolish and self-indulgent the moaning and disaffection of the era's beatniks and ultra-leftists eventually proved to be).
Tom Kahn began his adult political life at seventeen, stuffing envelopes and attending meetings of the Independent Socialist League, a zesty little group led by a former Communist and lieutenant of Leon Trotsky. This was the fabled Max Shachtman, who in time repudiated communism (and Trotsky) on the grounds that its relentless suppression of democracy both within its own ranks and in places where it came to power made it a complete perversion of socialist ideals.
The so-called Shachtmanites, who later joined ranks with the old Norman Thomas Socialist Party and eventually took the name Social Democrats, USA (SDers), had a special talent for sowing discomfort among communists and their sympathizers— those who clung obsessively to the belief that somewhere down deep in the Soviet system one might eventually find saving graces. The SDers organizational and polemical skills, grounded in years of front line work for labor, civil rights and for democracy abroad, produced an influence that reached well beyond their modest numbers. They provided evidence that bears out that maxim of Margaret Mead's: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” It is a maxim that young people today might bear in mind.
A number of the SDers of the 1960s and thereafter went on to become significant figures in major unions, in the work of organizations that promote democracy internationally, in the Democratic Party, in the civil rights movement, and in a wide array of think tanks, universities and publications. There are many other examples from our recent political history of the effectiveness of small, organized groups that work with dedication to advance clear and compelling ideas. One thinks of New Left groups such as SDS on one hand, or of the New Right (the YAF, or Lee Atwater's and Karl Rove's Goldwaterite Young Republicans.) A more recent example might be the so-called “neo-cons,” whose tireless efforts took the Bush Administration and the country to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some might also argue that Howard Dean's recent election as Chair of the DNC demonstrates the enduring potency of small communities on the American left. All these cases disprove the suggestion that American politics has been usurped by forces that are inaccessible to citizen action, and all that can be done is wait, denigrate and complain.
Tom Kahn wrote in his own name and ghost wrote speeches and articles for civil rights, labor leaders, and politicians—Bayard Rustin, Martin Luther King, A. Philip Randolph, George Meany, Lane Kirkland, Walter Reuther, Hubert Humphrey and Henry Jackson. He brought more than lucid words to these speeches, often adding historical analysis or eloquence. He analyzed current events, wrote polemics against the old right and new left, and edited agitational pamphlets. His continued analysis of the civil rights movement helped propel that movement from legalistic demands for equal access to demands for greater economic equality, and from direct action protests to political action. His first major work, Unfinished Revolution,
was written in l960 in response to the sit-in movement. It was read and studied by the young SNCC activists. He continued writing about every aspect of the civil rights movement until l983. In l966 he started writing about the New Left and its conflicts with the labor movement. He deplored what he considered the New Left's anti-labor elitism. He wrote and spoke for the social democratic movement: for the Young People's Socialist League, and for Norman Thomas' Socialist Party, which eventually took the name Social Democrats USA. He edited the AFL-CIO's Free Trade Union News, and collaborated with Lane Kirkland on many of the latter's speeches and reports. His writing, however, was never divorced from political activism or organizational concerns. He did not write 'critiques,' either in his own name or for others. Everything he wrote was meant to push forward the struggle for democracy.
So let's all raise a glass to Tom Kahn!! See you on April 1st--no fooling!!
LANE KIRKLAND: CHAMPION OF AMERICAN LABOR
New York Times columnist William Safire showers praise on Arch Puddington's new biography of Lane Kirkand, and study of Kirkland's life in labor (which involved close collaboration with Tom Kahn). The influential New York Times columnist argues that Puddington's book could even become a surprise best seller. Safire spoke at a party to launch Arch's book on February 9 in Washington, where prominent and enthusiastic readers lined up to bless it: among them, Jack Joyce, former President of the Bricklayers and leader in so many of labor's international engagements; Representative Richard Gephardt, former House Democratic Leader; Lech Walesa, founder of Solidarity and former president of Poland (by written statement). Thomas R. Donahue, Kirkland's immediate successor as AFL-CIO President and current AFL-CIO President John Sweeney also spoke. Walesa sent this heartfelt tribute both to Kirkland and to Arch: "through the skillful use of the power he exercised as the leader of American labor, and through his own unshakeable commitment, Lane Kirkland played a crucial role in our peaceful revolution in Poland. He did much more. Throughout the world, millions of free people owe him a debt of gratitude for his service to the democratic cause. I am gratified that the full account of his indispensable contribution to freedom has finally been written."
Says yet another reviewer of the book "Puddington creates a vivid and multi-faceted history of Kirkland's life that is also the history of the labor movement in the latter part of the twentieth century." (LANE KIRKLAND: Champion of American Labor, By Arch Puddington,Wiley/February 2005, ISBN: 0471416940. Order your copy now to help push Arch up in the best seller sweepstakes.)
FRED SIEGEL ON KIRKLAND
Commenator Fred Siegel has also contributed a review of Arch's book that appeared recently in the Wall Street Journal. Siegel's review will surely provoke discussion -- some admiring, and some annoyed. He focuses on Kirkland's legacy to the labor movement itself, and on how this is playing out in the wider political arena:
"Arch Puddington's engaging Lane Kirkland: Champion of American Labor returns this extraordinary man to the pantheon of American heroes. Mr. Puddington, who knew Kirkland and his circle, draws on his personal contacts to re-create the lost world of a grounded labor leadership that was as tightly attached to America as it was to the pursuit of social justice."
Siegel also remarks on Kirkland's sense of values. While never sanctimonious or self-righteous, Kirkland did provide an example of how, in contradiction to certain polemics of the last Presidential campaign, liberals and Democrats do deeply embrace personal and social ethics. As Siegel puts it,
Kirkland "believed that labor, at its best, represented an ethic of brotherhood and solidarity that had something to teach the rest of society. He often criticized American corporations for doing business with our enemies. He argued that free societies were best for trade unionists. Thus he pushed the Reagan administration into supporting democratic reform for Central America, and he resisted the unionists who backed the proto-communist Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Given the choice, Kirkland insisted, 'people will always choose freedom.'"
IRAQI LABOR: TARGET OF "INSURGENTS"
The violence and factional intrigue that has torn at Iraq even as the country has celebrated it's first tastes of democracy has taken a disheartening toll on the Iraqi labor movement. And not all who should rally in support of democratic labor in Iraq have found their voices to raise the outcry these crimes demand.
American Social Democrats will remember Eric Lee, once chair of the vibrant Cornell YPSL Chapter who now manages an informative labor news service from Britain, and often mines some prize political nuggets. His service carried an account of the torture and murder of Hadi Saleh, leader of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions. Saleh "is not the first Iraqi trade unionist to be targetted by the so-called "resistance." In a press release issued five days before Hadi's murder, the IFTU "denounced further attacks on its members on the railway line between Basra and an-Nasiriyyah and on union premises in Baghdad. These criminal acts designed to intimidate workers and trade unionists follow a well-established pattern of targeted campaigns of assassination and terror which have been waged by those loyal to the former fascist-type, dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein against individual IFTU activists and ordinary workers in recent months."
The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, representing 148 million unionized workers around the globe, declared: "This vicious murder is nothing less than an attack on the right of Iraqi workers to trade union representation."
But some on the left -- as well as on the right -- have been unsure about adding their voices to the global protest. To his credit, at least one conservative has acknowledged the importance of the issue. Asked to describe things that should now be done to strengthen reform and democracy in the Middle East, Michael Ledeen responded that "I would hammer away at the western trade unions to support the workers' organizations in Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia. Support politically (yelling and screaming, demonstrating, lobbying their governments) and economically (raising money for a strike fund). The final scene in the revolutionary drama consists of massive demonstrations and strikes, shutting down the economy and demanding that the regime step down."
But in Britain, a group called the Stop the War Coalition, led by top figures in the British Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party and financially supported by some unions, has been denouncing Hadi Saleh's IFTU for weeks as quislings, a "fake union," tools of the occupiers, traitors. Other opponents of the war and occupation have severely criticized them for doing so, pointing out that this endangers the lives of all Iraqi trade unionists who could now be targetted by the "resistance."
One very prominent left-wing British trade union leader quit the Stop the War Coalition a few weeks before Hadi's murder, warning precisely of the Coalition's stand. Mick Rix, formerly the general secretary of the UK's train drivers union ASLEF, wrote in a public letter, "The language that was used [by the Stop the War Coalition] was deliberate, archaic, violent, and plain downright stupid and dangerous if you happen to be an Iraqi at this present time."
Says Rix, "In the struggle between independent trade unions on the one side and a coalition of Ba'athists and Islamo-fascists on the other, the choice for trade unionists and others on the left should not be a difficult one. No more difficult than the one posed by the song, which tells us that 'there are no neutrals.'" Rix then asks his colleagues in the labor left, perhaps lapsing emotionally into archaic pre-feminist language, "Will you be a lousy scab -- Or will you be a man."
Will democratic labor in the United States and other countries rally behind its embattled brothers and sisters in Iraq, Beirut and elsewhere in the Middle East, and will unions be understood by our governments as strategically valuable instruments for establishing traction for democratic values and practices in the teeth of what continues to be a vicious resistance?
As Rachelle -- who knew him so well -- explains in the "afterthought" to her Kahn paper, "I am sure I know what Tom Kahn would be saying and doing if he were alive today. He would have supported the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. He would not have needed to know about weapons of mass destruction or "imminent threats" to do that. And as soon as it was possible, he would have gone himself or sent someone into Iraq to find anti-Baath Party trade unionists to support. And it would not have mattered whether there were two or 2,000 of them. He would be on the phone with Condi Rice demanding decent labor law in Iraq (and, incidentally, in the United States). He would be telling his friends that it is a good thing that the Administration is proposing to double the National Endowment for Democracy's funding.
Will a new generation of Lane Kirklands, Tom Kahns, and Lech Walesas emerge to take up the challenges labor faces in the Middle East? There are reasons for concern about whether this will come about, but there are also some encouraging signs.
UNIONS TAKE ROLE IN "PEOPLE POWER" DEMONSTRATIONS IN LEBANON
"People power" -- and labor tactics -- may already be arriving in the authoritarian Middle East. United Press International reports that "A general strike began Monday in Lebanon, with anti-Syria protesters gathered outside parliament to press for the government's resignation."
The nationwide strike, called by the opposition to coincide with the debate, shut down banks, schools and businesses. The strike and demonstrations, were in part led by Lebanon's strong teachers' union. They eventually brought about the resignation of Prime Minister Omar Karami and the disolution of Lebanon's pro-Syrian government. They laid the groundwork for international efforts to press toward a complete withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon.
GREENS AND HAWKS GO BEDFELLOWS
Evidence that oil money from the Persian Gulf has played a very large part in financing terrorism, war and extremism has provoked a number of American hawks to question our heavy dependence on petroleum imports from the region, and to look seriously into ways that technologies pioneered by environmentalists might enable us to break free from a bind in which our energy purchases are re-cycled into attacks on our security and values.
Slate writer Robert Bryce reports that former CIA Director R. James Woolsey now drives a fuel-cell powered Toyota Prius, and that a group of hard-edged hawks who have never been accused of tree-hugging -- Midge Decter, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Newt Gingrich, Steve Forbes, Jim Woolsey and Frank Gaffney -- are about to join in issuing a paper urging greater energy conservation. It may soon be time again to break out Jimmy Carter's sweater.
Although there are some mild ironies in all this, it also looks like a very good idea. Maybe at last we will find a way to loosen the OPEC chokehold. What a blessing it will be to return the oil moguls to the place they merit. And to let Richard Perle disprove the old George Wallace slur that policy wonks can't even park their bicycles straight.
CHALLENGES TO A TRANSATLANTIC ALLIANCE FOR DEMOCRACY:
The Bush administration's efforts at rebuilding a Transatlantic Alliance to defend and extend democracy internationally are surely welcome. Many European leaders have made encouraging comments about this--Gerhard Schroeder and Jacques Chirac. But serious difficulties remain to be dealt with before a new Transatlantic Alliance for democracy can become a potent reality. Some of these are ideological and political holdovers from earlier times that have never adequately been resolved. Dare we say, it's time for "closure"?
One of these obstacles has been written about trenchantly by Andrei Markovitz in the Winter 2005 issue of Dissent Magazine. Markovitz argues that:
"A new European (and American) commonality for all lefts -- a new litmus test of progressive politics -- seems to have developed: anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism (though not anti-Semitism, or at least not yet). I cannot think of two more potent wedge issues that define inclusion and exclusion on the left today. In a hierarchy of key items defining what it means to be left in contemporary Europe and the United States -- pro-choice, abolition of the death penalty, equality in marital arrangements and official recognition of gay and lesbian couples by the state; progressive income tax; economic and social justice; support for third world claims against the rich first world; multilateralism as opposed to unilateralism; legalization of marijuana; and on and on --opposition to Israel and America figure at the very top. If one is not at least a serious doubter of the legitimacy of the state of Israel (never mind the policies of its government) and if one does not dismiss everything American as a priori vile and reactionary, one runs the risk of being excluded from the entity called 'the left.'"
The problem of extreme anti-Americanism in Europe is not confined to the political Left. According to a recent survey of the European Media by Media Tenor International: "The finding that European coverage can be more critical of the U.S. than
even the Arab media mirrors results of previous Media Tenor studies. In 2003,
Media Tenor published a report about four weeks of news coverage during the
Iraq war that showed German television in particular covered U.S. military
actions more critically than Al Jazeera."
The prospects of building a strong Transatlantic Alliance for democracy are much diminished so long as these attitudes on the European Left and in its media persist.
ANTI-GLOBALIZATION MOVEMENT AND THE LOST LEADER
Some five years ago the anti-globalization movement was launched, with special attention given to the international financial institutions such as the World Bank, IMF, and WTO, that in the eyes some bore heavy responsibility for freeing governments and corporations from any obligations to protect workers, the environment and the poor from harm that can come from utterly unbridled trade, investment, the movement of jobs, and the interplay of new technologies.
The anti-globalization movement led some to hope for a revivial of the world-wide anti-capitalist left that had been so disoriented and discrreditied by the collapse of communism and the difficulties that many Third World and Western radicals encountered as old relationships demanded re-thinking, and fresh ideas about fundamental economic strategies proved necessary. But the temptation some evidently felt to try to shove their way through these vastly changed circumstances without reflection or intellectual re-appraisal was strong. The dream dies hard.
Now we learn of another round of demonstrations being planned to vent animosity toward the international financial institutions (and further strain Washington D.C.'s civility and its municipal budget) by the same groups that organized earlier protests.
The Lost Leader
One significant difficulty this effort to flog new energy into the anti-globalization movement faces is that many of the prominent leaders who lent it political credibility in its earlier phase have developed doubts about the soundness of its analysis and program.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who became a leading voice on trade issues after taking office last year as Brazil's first elected leftist leader, told an important meeting last summer that the developing world should learn how to use globalization instead of denouncing it.
YALEGLOBAL ONLINE:
JOSH MURAVCHIK REVIEWS HAYNES & KLEHR'S NEW BOOK
Josh Muravchik reviews John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr's new book on the way Communism has been treated by so many American historians: In Denial: Historians, Communism and Espionage, by John Earl Haynes. In his review, which appeared in the Journal of Cold War Studies,Winter 2004/2005 issue, Muravchik finds that "Haynes and Klehr have blown the whistle on an intellectual scandal."
Those who were involved in the debates of that era may come to the view that most academics show even less disposition to accept responsibility for error than others who may be more modest in asserting their claims to give the rest of us guidance. The horrors of Communism were very largely swept under faculty club rugs, and many of those who encouraged this nevertheless often are still holding forth with little reserve about how the United States exaggerates and over-reacts to every problem.
ANNE APPLEBAUM: NEEDED--IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLE AND A MEL LASKY
Ever since 9/11, American leaders from the White House to Congress have spoken of the imperative of challenging the ideology of Islamist extremism and the attitudes of those in the West and elsewhere who encourage and condone its virulent contempt not only for the Unitd States but for democracy itself.
Many Social Democrats will recall the late Mel Lasky, editor of Encounter Magazine and a founder of the Congress on Cultural Freedom, an organization that with great effect carried on its own "war of ideas" with Communism and its apologists during the Cold War. (He was also a great friend of Tom Kahn's.)
Washington Post columnist Anne Appelbaum makes the following observations about our present posture in the ideological confrontation with Islamic radicalism. It also applies to the challenges we face in Europe that Andrei Markovits describes.
Anne Applebaum: "...at the moment the war on terrorism has not yet created its Congress on Cultural Freedom. Surprisingly few in the administration or outside it think much about how we are going to fight a long-term ideological struggle against radical Islam, in the Arab world as well as in Europe...."
She adds, "The war on terrorism can achieve a permanent victory only after it has found its Mel Lasky as well." [Washington Post, "A Cause In Need of A Lasky," Anne Applebaum, June 9, 2004.)
In fairness, we note that there has been much talk within our government about rebuilding America's capabilities in the field of what is called "pubic diplomacy." But much of this discussion centers around the importance of increased funding, around modes of managing programs such as the citizens and scholarly exchanges, and around our relations with the foreign press and other government pubic relations activites. But so far there has not been much public discussion about a strategy for conducting a war of ideas: what are the vulnerabilities of our adversaries and how might they be exploited? Where can capable people be found to carry on this ideological contest? How can we establish new alliances with those in foreign countries who, while they do not want to be syncophants for the United States, nevertheless share our fundamental values and many of our interests, and are willing to work closely with us to advance them? Doesn't a "war of ideas" require a strategy and a competent, experienced staff -- just as any "war" would? Or will this "war" just turn out to be a matter of turning up the volume on the U.S. government's PR machine. If so, it could even prove counter-productive.
MILESTONES
Robert Heilbroner, 85
AFL-CIO Chief Spokesman, Rex Hardesty, 67
Here Comes The Next Wave!
Noah Isaac Ford
Jacob Bond
STOKE ROCHFORD HALL BURNS
Many American Social Democrats and trade unionists cherish memories of visits to Stoke Rochford Hall, a Grade 1 listed building in Lincolnshire that long served as a conference and training center for Britain's National Union of Teachers.
A massive fire has seriously damaged the gothic Victorian mansion owned by the National Union of Teachers, where thousands of teachers have trained in the past three decades.
Senior NUT members said they were "devastated" at news of the blaze at Stoke Rochford Hall, which has doubled as a training base and conference centre since the union bought it 27 years ago. "Stoke Rochford, set in 28 acres of formal gardens surrounded by 1,000 acres of parkland, has 31 meeting rooms, the largest of which seats 500 delegates." [From the London Times, Educational Supplement: January 28, 2005, "Blaze Rips Through NUT's Hall," William Stewart.]
The elegant stone manse and its beautifully carved wooden panels have been gravely damaged by this serious fire, but Peter Robinson, the facility's politically astute Director and Labour Party activist, is hard at work in efforts to rebuild, repair, and reopen the center. Peter's charmingly mock-Falstaffian demeanor and readiness with a good meal and something to wash it down with have been a great asset to Stoke Rocheford, and all who have enjoyed his company wish him full success.
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JOIN THE APRIL FIRST "KAHNFEST" (No Fooling!)
Tom Kahn with his friend and collaborator,
the AFL-CIO's long-time Civil Rights Director, Don Slaiman
Time: 4:30 – 7:00 PM
Place: 1319 18th Street NW, 2nd Floor
(Ballroom at Freedom House)
Rachelle Horowitz (Auteur!)
Herb Magidson, Vice President, American Federation of Teachers
Thomas R. Donahue, Past President, AFL-CIO
"Professional, technical, and skilled craft workers will be drawn to organizations that elevate occupational status and embrace cultures consistent with professional norms. . . [I}nstitutional transformation requires more than hardheaded leaders committed to a resource shift and structural realignment. The movement will also need to engage current members and be capable of making a cultural connection with a broad mosaic of the evolving workforce." (From Richard Hurd, "The Failure of Organizing, the New Unity Partnership, and the Future of the Labor Movement," WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society, Vol. 8, Sept. 2004.)
"Trade unionists once bound the party to the life of workaday America. But no longer. The Democrats are now the party of the very poor and of upper-middle-class ideologues.
Andrei Markovits and Media Tenor International
While hundreds of demonstrators chanted against globalization, inside a conference hall in Sao Paulo, Brazil's leftwing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had a different message. Addressing a gathering of 180-nation United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, he said the developing world should learn how to use globalization instead of denouncing it. Lula's speech offered yet another example of a changing approach to globalization that is noticeable in the developing nations. Unlike activists who condemn globalization for promoting unfettered free trade that only benefits multinational corporations, the Brazilian president said it was possible to harness globalization to help poor countries gain greater market access and fight poverty. He not only asked the developed countries to reduce barriers but noted that poor countries would be able to get a larger share of world trade if trade barriers were reduced among themselves. --YaleGlobal.
Robert Heilbroner, writer, economist and teacher who had great influence on many Social Democrats but, more importantly, on the broader public discourse, died on January 4 in Manhattan. At his death Heilbroner was the Norman Thomas Professor Emeritus at the Graduate Faculty of New School University in New York. Heilbroner "was regarded by mainstream economists as a popularizer and historian whose insights made no great contribution to the study of the field. He, in turn, saw their reliance on mathematics and computer modeling as narrow in vision and as losing sight of the very purpose of economics -- to help improve the well-being of people at work and of the society they work in." A witty writer, he called himself a "radical conservative.” In "'21st Century Capitalism,' (W.W. Norton & Co., 1993), Dr. Heilbroner explained his radical conservatism with a bow to Adam Smith. Dr. Heilbroner agreed with Smith that the separation of the economy and the state was central to capitalism and a nation's economic health, and essential for political liberty. But he believed that from time to time the people's government had to wade in with major repairs." (from the obituary by Holcomb B. Noble, New York Times, January 12, 2005.)
Rex Hardesty, stalwart Social Democrat and chief spokesman for the AFL-CIO during an era of union-bashing and a decline in labor's clout in the 1980s and early 1990s, died of complications from leukemia January 9 at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda. But Hardesty never let tribulations turn him sour: "He was this engaging, adroit and drolly profane defender of the union movement at a time of dramatic change," said James Warren, deputy managing editor of the Chicago Tribune, who covered the labor movement during the 1980s. "He had this wonderfully sophisticated knowledge of most of the unions in the AFL-CIO . . . ranging from their histories to their distinct institutional idiosyncrasies. And he could be a real treasure trove for reporters as long as you reminded yourself that he was a partisan. And he was as good a guy to go drinking with as you could find in an age prior to the coming of the South Beach Diet and chardonnay-sipping journalists." Thomas Donahue, a former AFL-CIO President who worked with Mr. Hardesty, said that within the union, "he was always the one who told us you have to get the truth out as quickly as you can." (From a gracious obit by Patricia Sullivan, Washington Post, January 13, 2005.)
The brave will conquer the future! Leah Ford, staff attorney at the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and husband Richard, Assistant Director, Organization and Field Services at the American Federation of Teachers, are thrilled to announce the birth of a son, Noah Isaac Ford, who joins sister, Celia.
Burnie Bond, Director of Programs at the Albert Shanker Institute, is watching with awe and pride as son Jacob, 8 months, grows toward a robust manhood.