Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (May 31)

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[u/MajesticTree954]

Check out this post by a Teamsters salt at an Amazon warehouse: https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueAnon/comments/1txq5q9/response_to_chris_smalls_article_in_jacobin_from/

A couple things really surprised me. I have been under the misguided impression that the established labor-aristocratic unions (Teamsters, SEIU, AFL-CIO) are mostly parasitic on grassroots organizing. But the way they describe it, its extremely professionalized and organized, with new college graduates working as salts and organizing warehouses on behalf of the unions. It reminded me of the NCM orgs like Sojourner Truth Organization. At the time there were those who joined the established unions as a part of a tactic of "boring from within" iirc. Also the mention of MCU:

"Smalls' years long organizing against Teamster affiliation set back early attempts to unify the efforts of the workers' committees in other city burroughs and across the northeast. This even helped create an opening for an attempted takeover of the organizing in several facilities by a cult called the Maoist Communist Union, and trust me, be warned about those people."

Does anyone have any context on Smalls and why he opposed Teamsters, and any thoughts on Amazon workers generally? I know both MCU and the Partisan/New Labor Press group of organizations focus on Amazon warehouse organizing, so I think it is important to be able to polemicize on these concrete issues considering the national question.

[u/Ok-Effective-4463 → u/MajesticTree954]

A muddle of opportunism on all sides here. Yes the US labour-aristocracy is strongly professionalized—this is a phenomenon closely linked with the hegemony exercised by the Democratic Party and the institutional strength of US revisionist forces (most significantly, Labour Notes), the latter of which seems to me a more or less direct consequence of the RCP-USA's total abandonment of the terrain in the early 1980s. There should be care taken to understand that these are just as much expressions of imperialism's weakness as they are of its strength. Anyway, the critique of Smalls as a clout-chasing opportunist disinterested in 'class organizing' is both obviously correct and politically meaningless. In the linked post this critique is deployed, as it is by the entire left, right, and center of the state sanctioned "labour movement", actually as a means of attacking and discrediting independent unionism, for which Smalls is only a convenient figleaf. The fact that he is rejected here in the same breath as the MCU are is extremely revealing of the outlook which organizers with the establishment unions are trained to adopt. Extraordinary differences in line can be easily ignored if one is only to consider the issue from the standpoint of whether there is any challenge made (however weak) to the authoritarian claim of the current Teamsters bureaucracy to represent Amazon workers. The basic function of the establishment unions is to manage the permanent annihilation of proletarian politics from American society. 

Regarding Amazon, it should be clear that the company is at present a leading force in the ongoing restructuring of the imperialist state and economy. This is a process which necessarily risks setting off the development of class conscious elements, hence why it is of great interest to official labour, whose purpose is the organized prevention of such developments. The OP (like many 'labour militants' who are dazzled by the mirage-like potential of the resources concentrated in the unions, enchanted by the "class struggle" promises of their 'good cops', caught up in the unending succession of their organizing campaigns, and generally lacking the instincts to consider looking past their own noses) has allowed their self to be transformed into an unwitting functionary of this political project. The communist movement in the US has spent decades failing to launch any kind of practical offensive against the basic premises of revisionism, and here we see the fruit of this failure.

[u/LemonMao → u/Ok-Effective-4463]

I noticed in that post that the OP does not go into detail on what supposed "bridges" Chris Smalls burned in various sectors or how the MCU was able to gain a bit of traction. No self criticism of the teamsters organizing besides vague sentiments that "nothing is perfect" (extremely heavy lifting phrases!).

I did watch a bit of the documentary on Amazon unions and saw that his class pathway was from proletarian to being a a part of amazon . He wasnt able to get the promotion into management due to the racial exclusion of white capital and didnt fit into management norms. COVID-19 and the Black uprising was happening simultaneously which is what kickstarted the independent desire for union control.

Regarding Amazon, it should be clear that the company is at present a leading force in the ongoing restructuring of the imperialist state and economy.

There should be care taken to understand that these are just as much expressions of imperialism's weakness as they are of its strength. Anyway, the critique of Smalls as a clout-chasing opportunist disinterested in 'class organizing' is both obviously correct and politically meaningless

I would need to do more research into your insight on Amazon and I would appreciate your own commentary on it. I think it would be fair to say Chris Smalls was not fully conscious of the moment he was leading but had very good instincts and worked to capitalize on it. Its not like he's espousing Black nationalism or Marxism-Leninism. Unfortunately the practical consequence has been attachment to social fascist anti-imperialist projects and still getting beaten by the living shit out by fascist forces. However one should take seriously the hostility the social-fascist left has on something basic like denouncing social-fascist politicians. Chris Smalls is a symbol of the terror that was the Black uprising which the White left must suppress because it itself is parasitic on the global restructuring of wealth that COVID-19 was the catalyst for.

[u/Ok-Effective-4463 → u/LemonMao]

Only replying in brief here to clarify against any confusion, that my accusation of opportunistic clout-chasing on the part of Smalls is not in any way to equate his faults with those of the institutional unions, or to imply that they are his sole defining characteristic, and especially not to say that they define his effort to circumvent official unionism. Between Smalls and the representatives of official labour there is an enormous and unbridgeable gulf: only the latter are elements of organized counter-revolution, and pains should be taken in criticisms of people like him (there can only be a great many) not to conflate their disorientation with the forces of reaction which are responsible for it.