The Labor Party: A New Political Architecture

THE EMERGENCE OF SERIOUS THIRD PARTY EFFORTS has been one of the few bright features of what has been, for the Left, a generally low and uninspiring decade. The agonizingly slow and unspectacular evolution of these parties is one indication that the corporate domination of politics is corroding at the edges, at a time when the new is struggling to be viable. Now that these fledgling initiatives are beginning to make something of a minor impact here and there, many progressives, citing the need for left unity, are urging them to band together in some bigger formation -- anything else being a sign of blind sectarianism.

The Labor Party has a lot in common with other third party initiatives like the Greens and the New Party. All are large enough to be taken seriously, but all are presently inadequate to the task at hand. However, unity at this point is not only extremely unlikely, it would almost certainly end in disaster. Of course, third parties can and should work together in certain instances, but their primary responsibility for the foreseeable future is to stick resolutely to the task of building themselves. The fact that they have already done this to some extent, and have something to show for their efforts, goes a long way toward explaining why there is today a growing interest in third parties. And the programmatic differences that to some seem secondary now, will probably become far more significant over time.

But at least now there is something to talk about. A decade ago the discussion in progressive circles on third parties amounted to little more than an exhibition in rival futurologies. Mass-participation politics to the left of the Democrats existed as a thought experiment, suspended in some kind of quantum state waiting to be realized. The debate has moved on precisely because people understood that, while a new politicalarchitecture exists in the minds of each and every one of us, the time had come to start laying some foundations. As a result, real options now exist.

The Labor Party option can be understood as an unambiguous declaration of independent working class politics, with no apologies. None of the other third party options can, or even wish to, make such a claim. However, my objective is not to make a standard pitch for the Labor Party. The case has been made; the Party has been formed; the work proceeds. Readers of New Politics must make their own choices and many have already done so. Some have involved themselves in these efforts; many, no doubt, are stuck in a state of fashionable dissatisfaction with any of the available formations. This said, the story of the Labor Party is perhaps more compelling than the argument that such a party is needed.

Fletcher was wrong on both counts, but his mistake was understandable. At the time, the Rainbow Coalition was real, the Labor Party seemingly a worn-out 1930s slogan. Fortunately, a small number of union leaders and rank and file activists remained committed to such a party. Spearheaded by the then-Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union (OCAW) and its Secretary-Treasurer Tony Mazzocchi, plans to launch a labor party were cautiously set in motion. As the Rainbow dissipated, thanks in no small measure to its illusions about the Democratic Party, the idea of an independent party began to take hold.

The ten-year story of the Labor Party revolves around five basic principles or key strategic considerations:

First, the Party subscribes to an independent class approach to politics and is emphatically not about trying to reform or pressure the Democrats (although no one knows what effect the Labor Party might have on the existing main parties in the future). This immediately distinguishes the Labor Party from the New Party and its New York sibling, the Working Families Party, both of which rely on fusion or the cross-endorsement of Democrats as a means of building a progressive alternative. There can be little doubt that an independent working class party will prove hard to build in the short term, which is why the Labor Party considers itself to be a long term project, one that is unwilling to pitch its tent in the back yard of the Democratic Party no matter what the perceived immediate advantages. True, many of the unions that support the Labor Party continue to both endorse and actively work for Democrats. The explicit goal, however, is to build a party that will, over the course of time, confront both existing main parties. Indeed, part of the struggle to build the Party has revolved around the need to convince unions to think beyond the next election cycle and to develop a Labor Party culture that will eventually eclipse the reactive lesser-evilism (to put it charitably) that passes for "political action" in most unions.

Second, Labor Party thinking holds that organized labor is the est place to anchor class-based politics. There are perhaps twenty million workers in unions, and unions are relatively rich in human, financial, and technical resources. Every year, tens of millions of dollars are used to elect and re-elect politicians from the two main parties, to say nothing of the staff time and other in-kind resources that are regularly brought into service. This is enough for labor to sustain a party of some considerable size on its own. In terms of available resources, labor's patch is probably the biggest one around. Moreover, this massive hemorrhage of staff time and money has been allowed to continue without much either by way of democratic input from the rank and file or a serious evaluation of the results. And this at a time when polls consistently indicate that a very large portion of union members firmly believe that the Democrats and the Republicans serve corporate interests at the expense of their own. The Party has encouraged unions to conduct a poll in order to gauge the political sentiments of their own members. When conducted, the results have been strikingly consistent, with close to 50 percent of those responding indicating support for the idea of an independent labor-based party.

Third, a party based on the unions has a greater opportunity to be representative of the working class than one that springs up regionally, is rooted in one racial or ethnic group, or is animated by a single issue. Unions represent high proportions of women and people of color, as well as growing numbers of foreign born. Perhaps more than any other institution, labor is also a place to politically engage large numbers of working class white men, many of whom have been heavily influenced by the right but are simultaneously alienated from the corporate agenda. The Labor Party is determined to reach those millions of working class women and men who have been written off by many on the left as either apathetic or backward.

Fourth, labor unions are ready for political realignment, although the pressure for this realignment is coming from the right as well as the left. Union members have been a primary target of capital's strategic bombardment of working class rights and living standards for more than twenty years now, an attack authorized and facilitated by a bipartisan alliance that pertains to almost all major areas of social and economic policy. As a result, the labor movement has at last become a scene of considerable transition and institutional ferment. The 1995 election of the New Voice leadership under John Sweeney is but one feature of this change, but not all of the changes are for the good. In an attempt to run for shelter, both public and private sector unions have shown a growing inclination to support purportedly pro-labor Republican incumbents as a means of cutting their own deals on behalf of their members, no matter what the broader implications might be for other unions and the working class as whole. The launch of the Labor Party by a number of unions reflects pressure from the other end, one rooted in the realization that an injury to one is still an injury to the working class as a whole. For a union to cut a deal on behalf of its members is one thing; for it to do so at the expense of other workers is fatal to the basic principle of union solidarity.

IT REMAINS OBVIOUS, HOWEVER, THAT THE TASK OF WRESTING THE LABOR MOVEMENT away from the Democrats and Republicans will probably take a long time and may never be completely accomplished. Strange as it might seem, it is perhaps just as likely that organized labor may split along lines of political affiliation, in a manner historically characteristic of France, Italy, and a host of other countries. Either way, the battle for independent class politics within labor, alongside the struggle for democracy and accountability, constitute the two main fronts where the campaign to truly revitalize the labor movement will be fought in the years to come.

Fifth, the Labor Party is committed to organizing the unorganized -- in the sphere of politics. More than 85 percent of workers are unorganized and well over 90 percent of workers under the age of 25 have never been near a union. These figures have been cited as evidence of the futility of building a party based on labor. But who has the capacity to reach the unorganized if not the labor movement? The Labor Party believes that the unorganized may first need to be organized politically before there will any qualitative growth in labor's ranks. The AFL-CIO has put a lot of faith in aggressive organizing as the motor of labor's revival. Here and there the results have been impressive, but union density continues to fall because the anti-union climate, encouraged by both main parties, remains as mean as ever. As long as the implicit message from the White House reads "Your President wants you to bust a union," one that is not likely to change come the likely arrival of Al Gore, then organizing alone will not save the labor movement from further decline. Thus the Labor Party sees itself as both a vehicle and a rallying point for the unorganized, a political bridge between those in unions and those who are not. In this sense, the word labor means much more than those workers covered by a collective bargaining agreement. It's a construct that speaks to a common and all inclusive class perspective, respectful of identity, but driven by a desire for broad-based unity.

Perhaps one of the most significant aspects of the Labor Party story is its pre-history as Labor Party Advocates (LPA). Launched in 1991, LPA started as little more than a list of sympathizers who had shelled out twenty bucks to demonstrate their commitment to, or at least their interest in, building a working-class party based on the labor movement. LPA grew at a steady clip for a few years but then began to level off. In 1994, responding to considerable pressure from its base, Mazzocchi and the leadership of LPA agreed to recognize chapters in a number of cities and states. By the time the founding convention met in Cleveland in June 1996, 36 chapters would send delegates. The shift in direction allowed space for activists, many of them long-term socialists, to put a positive mark on the process. At the same time, however, the length of the preparation period drove home the need for patience and tenacity on the part of individuals and groups eager to make the party real.

Organizing from below paralleled a different type of organizing from the top. Mazzocchi understood that a labor party would never be launched if it failed to acquire a solid institutional base. With OCAW serving as a launch pad, the message of LPA journeyed from local to local, picking up endorsements and some precious in-kind support here and there. By 1996, endorsements for the founding convention were coming in at a steady pace. OCAW had been joined by the Longshoremen's union on the West Coast, legendary for its militancy and its unwavering commitment to internationalism. Another left union, the United Electrical Workers, put serious resources into the effort. The rail workers union (BMWE), the California Nurses Association, and the mid-west based Farm Laborer's Organizing Committee joined the action. It became clear by the range and character of the unions involved, that the Labor Party was more than the reconfigured remnants of the old CIO left. Furthermore, many individual locals in a large cross section of unions endorsed the Labor Party as a result of a debate and a vote by delegates or rank-and-file activists.

By the time of the founding convention, hundreds of locals and a dozen or so national unions were on board. This tally represented only a fraction of today's labor movement, but it allowed the Party to claim a legitimate space within labor and paved the way for an enormously successful founding convention. Over 1400 delegates debated, amended, and finally adopted the Labor Party's program and constitution. As the Party's pre-history drew to a close, one thing became clear: both the activists and the institutional base were essential ingredients; one without the other would have led to a dismal and lifeless beginning.

In the wake of the 1996 launch, progressives cited any number of reasons why it would go nowhere; indeed, more than a few Party members felt this way. The program was allegedly pie-in-the-sky, workerist, neglected social issues, and color blind. For many, the Party simply shied away from supporting the right to an abortion, adopting instead the now notorious language in its program that called for "informed choice and unimpeded access to a full range of family planning and reproductive services for men and women." (This language was changed at the convention in November 1998) Others criticized the new Party for being too top-down, too old-white-left, so 1930s you could almost smell the CIO mothballs. Peculiarly, it was a party that was not even planning to run any candidates. A party without candidates? Surely its days were numbered.

For a small party, a grueling amount of time has been spent on constructing a skeletal party apparatus. State, city, and neighborhood-level structures have been encouraged. To be officially recognized, each body must submit a clear organizing plan. At the state level, by-laws must be drafted by a representative committee, circulated, and approved. Since 1996, five such state Labor Parties have been recognized by the national office, although they remain for the most part rather large committees of union staffers and activists. To become "fully chartered" state parties, these bodies must comply with another set of criteria that speaks to a whole new level of development. The criteria itself took more than a year of committee discussions within the Party before agreement was reached. Boring as these details may be to some readers, they capture an altogether different approach to the challenges presented by the historical moment. A new political architecture requires builders if it is ever to see the light of day. Most construction projects involve routine, repetitive, and unglamourous forms of labor. And so it is, fittingly, for the Labor Party.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the Labor Party's form-before-substance methodology has been criticized even by some Party activists and other progressives. Many feel that the Party would do better if it were "on the streets" doing what needs to be done to "get the name out there." Others suggest that the Labor Party should involve itself in a range of struggles in order to win the confidence and support of those who lead or are heavily involved in single-issue movements. This, however, is not the direction the Labor Party is taking. It is true, however, that local membership chapters in particular have established a fine record of solidarity with those in struggle, (Detroit newspaper strike, Liverpool dockers' lockout, Decatur "War Zone", and so on). But an awareness has begun to develop within the Party that customary struggle-to-struggle activity, while winning the Party respect among those embroiled in a dispute, is only one aspect of party building. A party that wishes to bring about a qualitative shift in the balance of forces between the contending classes, that wishes to take power, needs to move into an entirely new political territory and adopt a whole new mind set.

The building of the Labor Party or, for that matter, any serious third party effort, will almost certainly require a clear change in the way our politics is conducted. In a nutshell, protest politics must give way to a systematic approach to party building. It's time to stop pulling together ad hoc coalitions that quickly fall apart, only to then have to pull them back together again a year or two later for some other issue or struggle. It's time to focus less on organizing demonstrations that frequently attract pitiful numbers, and to quit launching campaigns that are designed solely to put pressure on those presently in office. Time consumed taking "positions" on every conflict or struggle internationally, although of some educational value, does little to change one's own position in politics as a whole, which, for the left, can politely be described as barely marginal. And, most critical of all, today's protest politics has failed to inspire young people and thus replenish the stock of activists, and failed to provide an enduring framework or a common identity that can sustain struggle over the longer term.

The Labor Party's building approach amounts to an attempt to break free of the protest paradigm. Now more than ever, a party is needed that will take power, not to wave a placard at those who already wield that power. Constructing a party does not mean an end to protest, but it does require an entirely different political regimen, one that dissuades people from "wearing many hats" as if this were something of a virtue, the way-of-life signature of the free radical.

The Labor Party's handling of the highly charged issue of electoral activity actually serves as something of a lesson in consensus building and internal education, and how the presence of a party frequently leads to a level of qualitative development that only becomes apparent over time. LPA always presented a non-electoral face, and maintained that, once formed, the Labor Party should not be electoral until such time as it had developed into a much larger force. Activists frequently took a completely opposite view, arguing that the Labor Party should use elections as the primary means to build the Party, or run the risk of being seen as either irrelevant or simply as a pressure group set up to pull the Democrats a little to the left. The floor fight at the founding convention was an absorbing spectacle, full of life-or-death pronouncements from both sides. Most LPA chapters, the Longshoremen of the West Coast and, less emphatically, the United Electrical Workers, wanted some kind of electoral commitment. OCAW and most of the endorsing bodies, as well as a number of chapters, were happy with an open-ended non-electoral "organizing approach to politics." Thanks to their institutional weight the non-electoral camp won the vote at the convention, but the debate revealed clear divisions within the new Party on this critical question. Moreover, the debate failed to clear up the issue of the Party's relationship to the Democrats.

During Fall 1997, the Party established its own Electoral Strategy Committee which met for a total of four full days. The Committee's report recommended that the Party adopt clear criteria for running its own candidates. In January 1998 the Party's national body, the Interim National Council, met in Washington. The report was adopted and later published in the Labor Party Press. A debate ensued, one that heard the views of those on all sides of the issue. By the time the First Constitutional Convention convened in Pittsburgh in November 1998, it was fairly clear that the Party would adopt some version of the report and declare its intention to be electoral. The floor debate was again passionate, but the report had addressed the concerns of both sides of the argument. The convention voted overwhelmingly to adopt clear criteria for electoral activity. A Labor Party electoral campaign must be able to demonstrate real support from both labor and the community sufficient to run a credible race. There will be no "protest" candidates, and no "fusion candidates," and all candidates will be held accountable to the Party's program.

As a result of this internal debate, the Labor Party now has a far more developed approach to electoral work. This illustrates the point that the presence of a Party allows for qualitative growth at the level of ideas and discussion, and presents a clear and ongoing need to weigh up any conclusions in terms of their practical implications for the Party. The Party has also grown qualitatively in terms of its own program. The Party has established a number of national task forces to research and develop its own program and deepen its own analyses. In New York, a number of well-known economists and labor-based researchers have established an Economic Forum and plan a one-day conference on the economy in the name of the Labor Party later this year. At MIT, intellectuals have established a Labor Party Science and Technology caucus. Cultural workers and artists have started the group known as CWAC, the Cultural Workers and Artists Caucus of the Labor Party, in order to both attract these workers to the Party and to involve their skills and insights in building the Party.

The slogan on the podium at the Labor Party's First Constitutional Convention in Pittsburgh last November read "Let's Hammer It Out Together," words that aptly describe the Labor Party's approach to its own program and internal life. Of course, it takes more than good slogans to build a party. But the process of creative construction going on inside the Labor Party should be a reminder to us all that this effort is a work in progress. Progress, however, also requires work. The task of re-building a new working class politics from the ashes of Stalinism and traditional social democracy will probably require more work than any of us can possibly imagine. This is not the history of our choosing, but when is it ever?

Contents of No. 27