No Franklin D Roosevelt
INTRODUCTION — In this month's Dossier we turn our spotlight on the USA. The articles we publish here are of course only pieces of a much larger jigsaw but we believe they examine three of the central features of the political situation in America today:
by speakers at the Labor Notes conference, for a US labor party based on the unions may appear ritualistic. If, however, the resurgence generally and the advance of many of the democratic reform movements can be sustained and built upon the American working class may be a lot nearer to having its own independent party than it has been for a long time. -
International Viewpoint #247 July 1993
With amazing speed, the euphoria of Bill Clinton's January inauguration turned to slush.
Many observers had expected
• The rapid disintegration of the new Clinton administration and the "jobless recovery" over which they attempt to preside. • The protracted urban crisis that has gripped so many of America's cities. • The signs, despite illusions in the Democrats, of a resurgent union movement. "I think the American people know one thing - that I'm on their side...", President Clinton said at a press conference in May. Dianne Feeley illustrates how, as Clinton's promises and plans turn to dust, this is clearly not enough. He has, without resistance, become a hostage of the rightwing. The overwhelming problem facing Clinton - just as it faced Bush - is the US economy. Feeley describes the "recovery" as "jobless" and goes on to note that the recession is, in reality, still lingering. It is against this backdrop that Feeley warns that illusions in the new administration being a friend of the social movements are "pathetic". She concludes that, "..the sooner activists at the base of (.) struggles recognise this, the better." It is now one year since, courtesy of an extraordinarily well-placed video enthusiast, the world watched a group of Los Angeles policemen brutally assault Rodney King. The police, at least initially, got off scott-free. King was convicted for a traffic offence. The city erupted in dissent. Evelyn Sell, a school teacher in Los Angeles, takes us back to the city to find out what has happened in the last 12 months. Los Angeles was being hailed as a positive preview of the future America. In her detailed article, Sell reveals that this description may at least be half true. Los Angeles could well be a preview of the future America —but a very negative picture develops. Sell concludes by noting how a number of diverse and militant struggles have proved that combativity and consciousness certainly still exist — but that these struggles need to be united. Can a resurgent and radical union movement play a central role in uniting these, often locally based struggles? In the February, 1993 issue of Labor Notes, Kim Moody wrote that: "The Clinton era will be different from labor's lost decade of the 1980s. It brings some openings, particularly in new organizing. But it also brings new problems." If at least some sectors of the union movement are able to take advantage of the openings; confront and overcome some of the problems, Labor Notes will have played a major part in bringing this about. Since its inception, Labor Notes has sought to link up individual activists and, where they have existed, the various democratic reform movements from across the country. This years conference was the largest yet. Frank Lovell, in his report of the conference, detects that there is indeed a new mood amongst militants, that the signs of a resurgent movement are real. We have chosen to highlight two reform movements which we feel illustrate this: Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) and the New Directions current in the United Auto Workers. We would also add that the TDU, having won important positions in the national leadership of the IBT, faces enormous challenges. A resurgent union movement may not, however, mean an immediate resurgence in strikes, although we could see the Mineworkers re-establishing a trend in this direction. Re-building confidence in the ability to actually engage in a struggle against the employers will in most cases be the first priority. In a shorter article we examine the way in which members of the Allied Industrial Workers have chosen to adopt 'in-plant tactics to carry forward a struggle against a subsidiary of the British sugar conglomerate Tate & Lyle. Alone amongst every major industrialised country America does not have, nor has it ever had a mass workers party (social democratic or communist). The call, made several times Roland Wood * 12
Clinton's initial economic package to be enacted without much Congressional resistance, given the stuttering start to the recovery. But Clinton, who is seen as weak, has been unable to get Democrats to accept his leadership and operate in a disciplined manner. Unable to defend his own, woefully inadequate stimulus package from the frenzied worshippers of the golden calf of deficit reduction, Clinton has seen his plans unravel. DIANNE FEELEY* Detroit, June 1993
T
HE early political successes of the Clinton administration were signing a family leave bill that Bush had vetoed two times, reversing Executive Orders that had restricted women's access to abortion and announcing that the United States will sign the international bio-diversity treaty to protect endangered species.
But in comparison to the domestic agenda that Clinton had promised, these are minor victories. What is amazing is how quickly the euphoria of the January inauguration has turned to slush. A recent CNN/USA Today Gallup poll showed his approval rating down ten points, to 45% -a new low for a recently elected President. In an attempt to recover some political momentum, Clinton went on a three-city speaking tour in mid-May.
At a May 14 press conference, he fiercely asserted: "I'm doing things that are hard, that are controversial.. Whenever you try to change things, there are always *The author is a member of the revolutionary socialist organisation Solidarity and a supporter of the Fourth International
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USA Clinton:
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International Viewpoint #247 July 1993 people there (...) to point out the pain of change without the promise of it...
I think the American people know one thing - that I'm on their side, that I'm fighting to change things, and they're finding out it's not so easy..."I
Clearly President Clinton is already on the defensive. His most stinging defeat came on April 21, when Republicans in the US Senate crushed his weak stimulus package through a filibuster. Clinton could not — or did not — organise his Democratic forces in Congress for a decisive confrontation; he merely compromised. The $16 billion plan became a $4 billion bill, extending benefits to the long-term unemployed.
Within the month Clinton suffered another defeat. His plan to give businesses a tax break to encourage new investment -a plan that was not supported by business — was killed in Congressional committee.
In order to reduce the deficit, Clinton proposed an energy tax, which, if implemented, would represent one of the largest tax increases in US history. Just to get over the first Congressional hurdle, Clinton has already made a number of compromises. Although the tax is expected to pass the House, it may not make it through the
Perceived as weak, Clinton has been unable to get Democrats to accept his leadership and operate in a disciplined manner. Unable to defend his woefully inadequate stimulus package, he has seen his plans unravel.
The recent fiasco over the nomination of Lani Guinier to lead the Justice Department's civil rights division has left more egg on his face. It proved him to be hostage to rightwing veto power, incapable of making a political fight on anything, even when the African-American political establishment, civil rights advocates and liberals were prepared to mobilise in his support.
### Hostage to rightwing
Guinier's crime, as judged by the political correctness standards of the rightwing, is her theories on how existing voting rights legislation might be employed to make minority political representation more substantive than purely formal. The speed with which Clinton wimped out of any open debate, which hearings on her nomination would have provided, on the failures of the electoral system as presently constituted, handed the rightwingers their victory without even forcing them to fight for it. As a result, the Congressional Black Caucus threatened to revolt - with what effect remains to be seen.
Clinton now appears on the defensive on every front. At the beginning of June, administration officials announced, Clinton has decided to delay increasing the minimum wage (now at $4.25) until next year, and will propose something less than the $1 an hour raise he contemplated when he took office in January. Why? His advisers acknowledge the proposal antagonises business executives and conservatives in Congress.
### Homophobia
Although he rescinded the Executive Order that hounded lesbians and gays out of the military, Clinton allowed Congress and the military to orchestrate hearings that overwhelmingly want to maintain the ban. By mid-May Congressman Barney Frank, one of the few openly gay representatives, urgently called for a compromise on this issue - before Congress legislates homo-
The only decisive action the administration has taken was the use of psychological terrorism and overwhelming fire-power resulting in the massacre of a religious cult in Waco, Texas. (Unlike certain other religious fanatics, the Branch Davidians to our knowledge were not firebombing medical facilities that provide abortions or assaulting those who work at them.)
In all matters Clinton is guided by the light of 'realism'. He now carries out Bush's policy of surrounding Haiti so that refugees cannot flee the country's repressive military; he has backed away from the demand that those who use public lands pay above-cost fees; he has delayed the proposal for revamping health care until
The overwhelming problem facing the Clinton administration - just as it faced the Bush administration - is the US economy. We are in the middle of a "jobless recovery". In all other recoveries, as the economy grows, factories and offices start rehiring. We are nearly two years into the recovery and it continues to be flat. Layoffs at big corporations are continuing. So we still have 7.3% unemployment. During the late 1980s the big companies were laying off workers but the small companies were hiring at the rate of 175,000 a month. In February of this year the economy added 365,000 workers — but this figure also included those who are part-time, or temporary workers.
Currently small companies would need to increase their hiring by about 400% in order to bring the unemployment rate down to 6%. But when Clinton raised the idea of cutting capital gains taxes for small businesses that used their capital for investment, business wasn't interested.
### Minimum wage falls
Today the United States has a weak divided and poorly paid work force. Unio nisation in the private sector stood at 12% in 1991 (from 31% in 1970). One out of five full-time workers earns poverty level wages. The earning power of the minimum wage has dropped 23% over the last decade. 43% of young workers (be-tween the ages of 18-23) are locked into minimum wage jobs. And the majority of the 37 mil lion people who don't have any form of health insurance are working people. Part-time work is growing rapidly. Today it is 25% of the total workforce, but by the end of the decade the figure will balloon to a
Early on in his administration Clinton talked about the need to rebuild the US
1.Detroit Free Press, March 5, 1993.
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Solidarity statement in defence of abortion clinics
FOR those of us who have been clinic escorts or defended a clinic against Operation
Rescue, we were not surprised by Michael Griffin's murder of Dr David Gunn in front of the Pensacola Women's Health Services. But we hold more than the man who pulled
International Viewpoint #247 July 1993 the trigger responsible for Dr Gunn's death.
liberalism can be implemented under either hard-right Republican meanness or smiling Democratic "shared sacrifice'. Bill Clinton campaigned successfully by splitting the difference; his problem in office is that holding together a governing coalition on that basis is a little harder.
We hold the right, who attempted to make abortion illegal, responsible. They seek to deny women's right to make decisions about their own bodies - decisions that have life-long repercussions. By so doing, the right denies that a woman is a moral and sexual being. They elevate the fetus to the status of the born and relegate women to being incubators.
The rightwing's rhetoric inflames passions as they speak about abortion as "murder".
Rightwing columnist, Joseph Sobran, can write in the New York Times of Dr Gunn's death, "the score is now about 30 million to 1." Representatives from groups like Operation Rescue, Rescue America and Missionaries to the Prebor mixed pallid condemnations of the murder with calls for financial support to Griffin's family.
But beyond the rhetoric; beyond the attempts to chip away at the legal right to abortion, these anti-abortionists have engaged in a war, blocking access to clinics, stalking medical and administrative staff. Last summer Operation Rescue distributed a 'wanted' poster featuring Dr Gunn, listing his schedule and telephone numbers. During 1992 alone there were over 1,100 acts of serious violence against community-based clinics. This patter of intimidation and outright terror has existed since the first clinics were established in the 1970s — but the terrorism has gone unchecked.
We hold the local, state and federal goverments responsible for the death of Dr Gunn.
Hiding behind the rightwing's argumentation, they have passed legislation that restricted women's access to abortion. This has taken the form of cutting off federal funding for abortion (but not sterilisation or birth) which was then followed by a cutoff of state funding in all but a dozen states and Washington DC. Today, so-called parental consent legislation is on the books in 35 out of 50 states, a 24-hour waiting period now in effect in Pennsylvania and Mississippi has been upheld by the US Supreme Court.
Perhaps it was the US Supreme Court that gave the green light to Michael Griffin when they ruled last January that courts cannot use civil rights laws to prevent the blocking of clinics where abortions are performed. This decision affirmed the terrorist tactics of those who physically intimidate women and the clinic personnel assisting them.
We must defend the community-based clinics and their staff against all forms of intimidation and violence. We demand passage of the Freedom of Access to Clinic
Entrances Act of 1933 (House of Representatives 796). We call for the enforcement of laws which prohibit stalking clinic personnel. In cities where Operation Rescue plans to unveil its new tactics of intimidation and sleuthing this summer, we urge that broad and democratic coalitions be built to defend the clinics and those who work in them.
We demand that the local, state and federal government end its attempts to restrict women's access to abortion by passage of restricting legislation. Repeal this legislation and restore federal funding that allows women to implement their reproductive decisions. We call for a total revamping of the health care system along the lines of a single-payer, Canadian style system that guarantees universal access. In such a system we call for full attention to the medical needs of women, including sex education, access to abortion, pre-natal care and a preventative model of health. To accomplish this, movement forces need to seek allies in all who place human needs before a profit system that favours the few. * infrastructure. He talked about money for mass transit, highways, job training, fiberoptic networks. During the Reagan/Bush era the cities were starved, aid was cut by 81%. The infrastructure of all our metropolitan areas is literally falling apart. But Clinton has already given up the fight for $16 billion - yet if we were to compare the amount of money other industrialised countries put into their infrastructure, we'd realise what a drop in the bucket Clinton's already abandoned goal was. To spend at 14 the British level, we would need $100 billion a year, to compare with Germany we would need $200 billion, with Japan, $300
For twelve years the rightwing had a good friend in the White House. That stamped the Reagan/Bush era as one in which the rich became much wealthier and those in charge of enforcing civil rights used their power to subvert those rights. But this relationship is not intrinsically necessary for today's neo-liberal economic order. Neo-
So the worst anti-union, anti-abortion and anti-gay policies are in the process of being modified under the new Clinton administration. Some of these policies, from capital's point of view, were counterproductive. After all, it isn't cost effective to spend millions of dollars a year to drum lesbians and gays out of the military or to limit abortion services so that women are forced to bear unwanted babies. It's wasteful to continue to bar the air traffic controllers who struck a decade ago from work-ing in a stressful industry or to force productive workers to quit their jobs in order to take care of their family obligations.
No return to Carter
It is important to note that this doesn't mean the Clinton administration is willing to return to the situation that existed in the early days of the Carter administration. Reversing the Executive Orders on abortion doesn't get us back to where we were in 1976. We still have "parental" consent legislation that prevents teenage females from exercising their democratic right to control their own bodies. Poor women still lack the option to have an abortion. So approximately 20% of all pregnant women who want to have an abortion are unable to
Fifteen years ago when a person was laid off, it was more than likely that they would be covered by unemployment insurance (for six months). Today only one third of the workforce has that coverage. Such a shift came about during the Reagan era — it was deliberate public policy and not just
The world has changed dramatically since the beginning of the last Democratic administration. This crisis of profitability won't go away. Therefore central to this period of growing crisis are neo-liberal economic policies that seek to continually restructure the process of production. In unleashing the forces of competition, the neo-liberal hope is that the devaluation of the weak will restore the profitability of the strong
One area where the continuity between the Republican and Democratic administrations seems strong is in their opposition to welfare. Welfare takes up 1% of the Federal budget and only 2-3% of the state budget, covering about 4.5 million families who receive Aid for Dependent Children. Yet
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International Viewpoint #247 July 1993
Clinton has called for ending "welfare as we know it". The reality is that over the last two decades there has been a 27% drop in real welfare benefits.
Clinton has proposed that welfare be limited to a two year period, that job training for welfare recipients be increased four times, that $2 be granted to the working in tax credits. The problem is a lack of jobs and low wages — Clinton's proposals don't even try to address that problem. Instead Clinton, like Reagan and Bush before him, project the image the image of a "lazy welfare mom" instead of focusing on job creation.
### Millionaires
When we look at the Clinton cabinet, the question is not the one the media asked: "Do they look like us?", but do they have solutions for the working people who make up this country? While some journalists pointed out that the varied appointments of liberals and millionaires was a kind of "managed schizophrenia", the fact of the matter is that it is a centre-right cabinet where a few African-Americans, Chicanos and women do not minimise the central fact: more than three quarters of the cabinet members are millionaires, a higher percentage than in the Bush and Reagan cabinets (71% and 62%, respectively).
While Clinton and his cabinet talk about how the United States is going to regain its pre-eminence through a well trained and productive workforce, that's not at all necessary in today's labour market. Mexico has already shown it can produce a well trained productive workforce at a fraction of the cost.
Co-operation schemes with management will pit workers from one plant against workers from another (usually in the same union), and it will be clear that it is only the corporation that benefits.
At the same time, in this world market of 'lean' production, policymaking will increasingly move from the nation state — even one as powerful as the US — to the multilateral institutions of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the North American Free Trade Agreement's dispute settlement panels, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. People will have less control over
The Canadian/US free trade agreement shows us the future. In Canada the law stipulates that two years after a new drug comes on the market, companies can put out a generic drug. This has meant that the drug companies cannot continue to maintain an exclusive hold over the population, saving Canadians an estimated $500 million a year. However, the new free trade agreement has developed the idea of intellectual copyright that supersedes the Canadian law.
Despite Canadian protests, the government is unable to circumvent the agreement. So today the Canadian single payer health care system is threatened by just such attacks.
Populist message?
In the current political situation, Clinton had two choices. The first was to water down his programme to essentially nothing, to get something passed through Congress purely for appearance's sake. The second was to force a fight by taking a populist message to the people. Since the last thing Clinton wants is for people to begin fighting for themselves, he logically and inevitably chose capitulation and face saving
Caught in the traps of its own making — particularly the loony logic of deficit cutting in a time of lingering recession — the Clinton administration may already have entered its phase of disintegration. It's still too early to say if this will be irreversible. What is already clear is that this administration is no friend of the movements; that any hopes that it might carry through any bold programme of economic reconstruction are pathetic illusions; and that the sooner activists at the base of labor, people of colour and feminist struggles recognise this, the better. *
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