. I
MICHIGAN aTIZEN
5
OPINION
Ran
and file labor .. is
I
b.enora
Fu nl
Dr.Le
The social ferment in the
African-American oommunity
is spreading. It has already
reached the campuses. Now
rank and file labor' beginnig to
rise up. Right on!
For weeks striking workers
have been pitting . ength
against Eastern Arilines and its
union-busting president Frank
Lorenzo. Like the students at
Howard University who forced
the Republican Party chair, Lee
Atwater, to resign from the
school's board of trustees, the
,machinists and the baggage
handlers have refused to be bul­
lied and blackmailed; like the
students, the workers are smart,
they're well organized, and
they've �ot guts.
Democratic Party, workers will
continue to have no power �
their struggle for fairness.
That's why union democracy �
the most critical issue the labor
movement faces. Without it,
rank and file labor is stuck in
that bad marriage with the
Democrats - a marriage of
convenieace for the politicans .
and the union bureaucrats, for
which the workers pay the price.
The fight for democracy is
raging now in Local 1199, New
Yor City's union of health and
hos ital workers. Georgianna
Jo n, the president of the
union, is a courageous African­
American woman who is step­
ping our to lead the fight for
union demoaacy. We all need
to follow her examp e.
In 1986 she wa elected
president of Local 1199, whose
members are mostly Black
women, with the backing of cor­
rupt bureaucrats who wanted
only to use her as a token. Since
her election two years ago
they've played every dirty trick
they knew to strip her of her
power while bargaining away
member wages, benefits and
pensions.
Organized labor has been
taking a severe beatiag from the
bosses - aided d abetted by
major Parties over the last eight
years. It is becoming' creasing­
Iy clear that the Democratic
Party is no more of a friend to
working people that the
Republicans are. Democratic
Party strategists in Congress are
now preparing to cut deal with
the White House which will
allo employers to pay new
workers a subminim m wage
for up to s� moo in exchange
for an increase in the minimum
wage to a pitful $4.25 - a wage
I that would keep millions of
working Americans below the
official poverty line.
Like the rest of the labor
movement, the Machinists
Union is trapped in a bad mar­
riage with the Democrats that
has made them dependent on a
party that»- like an abusive hus­
band - uses rank and fiI labor
without ever giving anything in
return. And now that the
workers are in life and death
fight, the Democratic Party
doe 't even have the courage
or e decency to stand up and
defe d them.
I lieve that unless and until
the unions divorce the
Now Georgianna Johnson is
running for re-election at the
head of a slate that's comniitted
to taking the union back from
this gang of bureaucratic thugs
- phony progressives who've
negotiated nothing but
givebacks. In the lowest tradi­
tion of crooked Democratic
Pary machine politics, they even
tried unsuccessfully to keep this
sister and her slate off the ballot
this year so that they could run
unopposed
Crooks inside and outside
the unions don't like
democracy; it cramps their
style. But we the people need as
much as we can gel!
The fight for democracy that
Georgianna Johnson is .leading
in Local 1199 has to be waged all
over the country. We must take
back our unions, our com­
munities, and all of our institu­
tions from the Democrats and
their' partners in crime the
Republicans.
Dr. Lenora Fulani is the na- " I
tional chairperson of the New Al­
liance Party and a practicing So­
cial Therapist in Harlem. She
can be contacted at the New AL­
liance Party, 2032 F(flh Avenue,
New Yorlc, NY 10027 and at
(212) 996-4700.
Black· c;Jgenda (JIst di tat
I A.frican-American
I
role in politica} p rties
Ron
Daniel
VANTAGE
POINT
By Ron Daniels
The "grand mound of
rebound," Philadelphia 76 Sixer
super-star Charles Barkley
voted for Republican George
Bush for President in the 1988
general election ccording to a
recent article in U.S.A. Today,
Barkley was stunned by
criticism from his family who
were dismayed that he would
vote for a Republican for Presi­
dent. After all his family
camplained, the Republicans
are" for the rich people. How did
Charles Barkley respond?
"That's why I voted for him, be­
cause I'm rick," Barldey is said
to have informed his f mily.
In a real sense the
Republican strategy for captur­
iI)g support within the African­
American community relies
heavily on the hope that a size­
able segment of the Black mid­
dle class will abandon tradition­
al concerns for civil rights, and
social justice and support the
Republican Party because of
what they percieve to be their
"class interest;" that is to say be­
cause they see themselves as
wealthy, w "II off, or "rich". In­
deed the Republicans are taking
straight aim at a new generati n
of "buppies", young Black up­
ward moble profes ionals in
bopeofbuildingon the "Barkley
yndrome".
This absence of an explicit
philosophy or ideology in ap­
proaching the question of voitng
and the selection of a political
party could pose grave dangers
for African-Americans as we
grapple with the questions of
survival and development for
the masses of our people. The
Republican Party after all has
infact been the party which his-
torical1y has identified with and
promoted the interest of the
rich and the power to the detri­
ment of minorities, working
people 'and the poor. After
some impressive leadership
around emancipation, an�civil­
rights after the civil w , the
Republican Party aban oned
their "loyal" devotees in 1 6 in
the infamous Hayes-Tilden
Compromise which kept the
Republicans in the Whitehouse,
but left the fate of so them
Blacks to the southern states.
Since that time, the Republican
Party has not only been pro-
rich, but anti-civil rights. .
Does this mean that African­
Americans who join any politi­
cal party - Democratic,
Re pub lican, Independent,
Socialists, etc. hould do with
eyes wide open and with a sense
of mission and purpose. Since
the era of Roosevelt, the
Democratic Party has been the
African-American s
must
approach
politic from
the vantage
point of our
collective
interest as a
national
community,
Republican Party who have
been relatively forthright on is­
sues of concern to African­
Americans. One thinks of
former Senators J avites and
Keating of New York, former
Mayor Lindsey of New York
City, Senator Clifford Case of
New Jersey, Mathias of
Maryland, Lowell Weicker of
Connecticut, and Mark Hat­
field, the Senior Senator from
Oregon to mention a few.
The point is that African­
Americans must appro ch
politics from the vantage point
of our collective interest as a na­
tional community. African­
American will either remain on .
the sharp cutting edge of
progress and th transforma­
tion of America into a true
political and economic
dem ctacy or we will be ab­
sorbed into the sickness of an
Am rica which places profit,
greed, materialism, and pow r
above the interest of human
d velopment and fulfillm nt f r
all the people of America and
the world.
�frican-Americans need to
. retain a "progre siv " agenda
for change in America, nd
wage struggle for the impl men-
tation of that agenda in the
Democratic, Republican, or any
ther party which might
emerge. Those African­
Americans who chose to join
the Republican Party should be
fighting to develop the libral­
progressive wing of that Party
and challenge it to move beyond
its racism to be a Party reI vant
to the interests of the masses of
African-Americans, minorities,
working people and the poor.
African-Americans who cast
their lot with the Dem cratic
Party shoudl obviously d
likewise.
Beyond cosmetics, and
empty symbols, there must be
substance for African­
Americans. That's why a
progressive African-American
agenda is always critical to our
development as a people.
For as an old African
proverb puts, it, "if you don't
know where you're going, any
road will take you there".
party that has in the main sup­
ported the intere ts f African­
Americans, min rities, working
people and the r. But even
the Dem cratic Party has been
guilty of viola tin the inter sts of
African-American and ork­
in people. The rate f pr gress
towards civil-right, lab r
reform, and s cial legis ation
has often been sl wed to a
snail's pace by southern conser­
vative "Democrats". Dubbed
"Dixiecrats" in the fifties and six­
ties, and "boll weevils" in the
seventies, these conservative
Democratics in alliance with' a
largely conservative Republican
Party were often able to stymie
Black progress.
00 the other hand there have
always been a few within the
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