[Marxism] Fresh Direct

[Joaquin Bustelo]

Greg says: "Oh please, Joaquin. I never said I did not think the U.S. of
Amerikkka was built on anything but the racist and genocidal impulses of
white european settlers, impulses which are an ever-present reality for the
latino communities living in its borders. But there's a big difference
between US unions and the US state, and to conflate the two is equally
irresponsible."

I did not conflate the US State with the US Unions. You imputed that view to
me. 

"If you know anything about the Teamsters, especially the anti-corruption,
pro-internal democracy wing represented in the Fresh Direct campaign, then
you know they can be pretty militant and direct-action oriented."

I actually do know "something about the Teamsters" and most especially the
TDU wing of the Teamsters, which I assume you're alluding to. I'm also
familiar with the failure of that wing to say anything different from what
Hoffa was saying about immigration in the last union presidential campaign,
and how that wing has been historically estranged from some sectors of the
Chicano teamsters on the West Coast, especially some of the officials that
came out of the milieus of the Chicano student movement of the 1960s and
Bert Corona's CASA-Hermandad organization, and have remained identified with
the immigrant rights movement. So when the big immigrant rights conference
was held in Chicago in August of last year, which brought together the left
wing of the movement, there was a Chicano pro-Hoffa international rep from
L.A. at the conference, but no one from TDU, and it wasn't because TDU
hadn't heard, because I spent some time talking to people involved in that
work, trying to get them to be there, but they were all tied up with their
election campaign. 

I've also seen what a very large Georgia local led by that wing of the
Teamsters --which won the elections with the help of a TDU organizer
precisely out of New York-- has done to help the immigrant rights movement
here in town --nothing-- and to combat prejudices in its own ranks, which is
also nothing that I've seen though I don't spend my time monitoring their
activities. They have a few dozen undocumented in their ranks and AFAIK have
done well by them, trying to involve them in the union, but the judgment of
their most conscious people about a year ago --I don't know if its changed--
was that to proactively raising defense of immigrant rights in the local was
not politically viable. When we had the big demonstration on April 10 a
years and a half ago in Atlanta, this local, which has a dozen or more
staffers, didn't even send one of their staffers as a token show of
solidarity. 

For all that they are good folks and I wish them well. Certainly much better
than the run of the mill local union officialdom. But they are what they
are.

This does not change my opinion that the traditional organizing campaigns as
usually carried out by unions in the U.S. under TODAY'S circumstances are
likely to lead to ICE raids and victimizations when done in workplaces with
lots of Latino immigrants. It's open season on Latino immigrants, and
staging an organizing drive at a workplace is often going to mean, in
practice, putting a big bull's-eye target on those workers. 

The idea that you can take advantage of bourgeois-democratic legality to
organize Latino workers TODAY is an illusion. It may not have been an
illusion five or ten years ago, or even a couple of years ago, but it is one
NOW. "Illegality" is being successfully imposed on these workers. And this
isn't primarily a question of the laws, but of the shift in the political
climate promoted by the yahoo wing of the ruling class that has stripped
undocumented immigrants of any veneer of bourgeois-democratic rights.

And in this sense, it is important to understand what is involved here is
not just the government but civil society; not just the state but the
nation. To defend undocumented immigrants today is to go against the
sentiments of the big majority of those who view themselves --as often as
not unconsciously-- as the real Americans, white people. 

If the union involved understands that and is ready to effectively defend
the workers, fine. But I've yet to hear of such an example. There may be
some locals like that --I don't claim to follow the union movement closely--
but if there are, they must be few and far between. And if there was a
national or "international" leadership like that, I think I would have
heard.

Joaquin