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America's long and steady march toward a fully disposable workforce continues apace, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this week. Union membership is at its lowest point in nearly a century, with just 11.3% of all workers - the same level it was in 1916. To put this in proper historical perspective, union members are as rare today as they were at a time when being one could get you shot to death in a mining camp by the Colorado national guard.

Not that there is a great public outcry to return to the halcyon days of garment factory fires and tubercular slaughterhouses, or workers rallying to demand their bosses take away their pensions and bathroom breaks. Surveys show that most people wish they had more, not less input into their working conditions, and that a majority of non-union workers would choose to join a union, given the opportunity. Most do not get that opportunity, whether due to outright intimidation, or the ongoing shift of large parts of the economy toward part-time, temporary, low-wage and no-benefit jobs.

Union decline is nothing new: it began in the US in the mid 1950s and has been accelerating since the mid 70s. What's new this year is why: while deunionization was long linked to deindustrialization, now union losses are concentrated in government, the last bastion of organized labor. Decades ago, facing factory closings, many unions shifted to the public sector, organizing what were then seen as stable jobs: teachers, firefighters, cops, state-funded healthcare and childcare workers.

Then came the recession, and a new breed of Republican governors who seized the moment as a chance to punish their political opponents. One of the sharpest declines has occurred in Wisconsin, where Governor Scott Walker stripped most state employees of their bargaining rights (notably excluding those unions that had endorsed him).

But if labor markets are adapting to the reality of a mostly union-free America, so too is labor activism. Last year, two of the highest profile labor actions in the country - one-day "flash" strikes at fast food restaurants in New York City, and at Walmart stores nationwide - were coordinated by groups that are not traditional unions: New York Communities for Change and OUR Walmart (though both received union support). And both strikes were carried out without the traditional aim of formal union recognition.

Networks of new, grassroots workers centers - including the Restaurant Opportunities Centers, Retail Action Project, National Day Laborer Organizing Network, and National Domestic Workers Alliance - have grown in sectors which unions have found nearly impossible to organize due to their contingent or informal nature. And their victories - exposing safety and health violations, winning raises and backpay owed to workers, freeing some from virtual domestic slavery - have been achieved largely outside the purview of the body that governs union elections, the National Labor Relations Board.

Just a week before the BLS released its sobering report, Chicago passed a new law imposing some of the strictest sanctions on employers who do not pay workers the wages they are owed. It's an illegal but lightly enforced practice - and appallingly common in many industries, where it is used to force employees to work off-the-clock, as a means to avoid paying overtime rates, or simply as a way not pay staff for work they have done.

I volunteer at one legal clinic for low-income workers called the DC Employment Justice Center. The bulk of cases I've seen over the past decade have involved some form of wage theft perpetrated against construction workers, cleaners, housekeepers, and restaurant kitchen staff - most of them immigrants from Central America.

In one case, a carpenter I interviewed had been hired to install drywall at a building site, and was promised a lump sum payment upon its completion. When he finished the job, the contractor never showed up to pay him.

"Yeah," he told me, "my friends warned me not to work for that guy because he doesn't pay."

"You mean he's known to pay low wages?" I asked.

"No," he laughed, "I mean he doesn't pay his employees at all. Ever."

The Chicago law was passed with union support, but was spearheaded by another non-traditional labor group called Arise Chicago, formed from an interdenominational network of religious leaders. Other improvements have been won in recent years, mostly through class action lawsuits and state- and municipal-level legislation: winning paid sick leave, overtime, and disability compensation, and forcing cities to budget proper funding to enforce wage-hour and health and safety laws.

These victories are significant, and translate into safer jobs and more food on the table for workers. But it's important not to lose sight of what is being lost: an institution of collective agency, and a way for employees to sit down with employers on equal terms and set the conditions for what they will do for eight or more hours every day. The disappearance of that institution and the breakdown of that balance of power between them create the very conditions - from discrimination to workplace accidents to outright theft - that these new worker movements rise up to address.

Labor lawyer Tom Geoghegan once observed that much-maligned trial lawyers thrive when the rule of law breaks down, and when the state, through austerity, outsources its regulatory responsibilities to them. Lay off meat inspectors, and you get whistleblowers and lawsuits instead.

Today, workers still want a fair deal. But now, they have to petition in the courts and at city councils for what they were once able to demand at the bargaining table.

Jan 31, 2013 - The Entrance Of The French Military Into The Malian Civil War Further Complicates A Descent Into Hell Which That Country Has Been Experiencing For The Last Two Years. Mainstream Media Attention Has Largely Focused On The Emergence Of Right-Wing Islamists Associated With Al Qaeda In The Islamic Maghreb, And The Threat That This Poses To The Culture And People Of Mali. Yet Little Background Is Presented Regarding The Whole Conflict, Particularly The Circumstances That Resulted In The Unfolding Disaster.

The Country Known As Mali Was Carved Out Of What Was Once Known As "French West Africa." Named After The Famous Empire Of Mali (Roughly 1200-1600 Ad), Mali Included Various Ethnicities, Much Like Other Former European Colonies In Africa. In Many Cases, These Ethnicities Had Little In Common, A Fact That Became Particularly Important With Regard To The Tuareg People In The Northern Part Of The Country.

The Tuareg, Part Of The Larger So-Called Berber Population Of Northern Africa, Engaged In Non-Violent And Violent Confrontations With The Malian State Almost From The Time Of Independence, In Search Of Greater Autonomy. This Has Been A Source Of Constant Instability.

Like Most Of The Former French Colonies, Mali Remained Of Interest To France. During The Years Of Malian President Modibo Keita, Efforts At Genuine National Sovereignty Were Pursued, But With The Overthrow Of Keita, French Neo-Colonial Involvement Regained The Initiative. Mali, A Country Rich In Natural Resources, Including Gold And Uranium, Has Remained Important To Global Capitalism.

The Algerian Civil War Of The 1990S, Along With The Libyan Uprising (Hijacked By The Nato Intervention), Had A Direct Impact On Mali. The Algerian Civil War, Which Counterposed The Military Government Against Right-Wing Islamists, Was Filled With Atrocities Committed By Both Sides, Including Atrocities Attributed To The Fundamentalists Actually Carried Out By Forces Linked With The Government. In The Wake Of The Military Defeat Of The Fundamentalists, A Politico-Military Realignment Took Place In The Camp Of The Right-Wing Islamists And With It, The Creation Of Al Qaeda In The Islamic Maghreb (Aqim). Aqim Has Become One Of The More Successful And Well-Resourced Of Fundamentalist/Terrorist Organizations In Africa. But More Importantly, Its Rise Has Been Used As A Pretext By The Usa, Starting Some Years Ago, For Greater Us Military Involvement In The Sahel Region Of Africa Under The Guise Of Fighting Terrorism.

The Trajectory Of The Libyan Uprising, Which Began As A Non-Violent Protest And Then Escalated Into A Full-Blown Civil War In The Aftermath Of Repression By The Qaddafi Regime, Provided A Basis For Further Instability In The Region. In The Aftermath Of The Nato Intervention, Which Derailed Efforts At Justice And National Sovereignty, The Situation In Northwest Africa Became Increasingly Unsettled. The Source Of That Instability Was The Combination Of Armaments Possessed By The Now Fallen Qaddafi Regime That Ended Up Flooding Northwest Africa, Along With The Exit From Libya Of Many Of The Late Qaddafi'S Former African Allies. Aqim, Along With Dissidents In Northern Mali, Were Major Beneficiaries Of This Flood Of Arms....(Click Title For More)

Jan 24, 2013 - Many younger Americans probably know little about Eleanor Roosevelt, and if their first encounter with her is the new film Hyde Park on Hudson, what they'll learn is incredibly misleading and inaccurate. Other films-including Sunrise at Campobello (1960); the two-part Eleanor and Franklin HBO mini-series (1976); Eleanor, First Lady of the World (1982); and Warm Springs (2005)-have depicted different aspects of her life. Yet not one of these films accurately portrays the depth and influence of Eleanor's radicalism.

The biggest controversy Eleanor deals with in the film is whether to serve hot dogs to the British royals.

Hyde Park on Hudson focuses on the relationship between President Franklin Roosevelt (played by Bill Murray) and his distant cousin Margaret "Daisy" Stuckley (Laura Linney) during a weekend in 1939 when the King and Queen of England are visiting the Roosevelts at their second home in upstate New York. The film shows FDR and Stuckley having a sexual love affair, although many historians believe that their relationship was merely a flirtation.

Given its focus on the affair, it is perhaps not surprising that the film treats Eleanor (Olivia Williams) primarily as a ceremonial helpmate whose major function is to help FDR negotiate the social rituals of being president. The biggest controversy Eleanor deals with in the film is whether to serve hot dogs to the British royals.

In reality, Eleanor's life-before she met FDR, during the 13 years she served as first lady, and after FDR died in 1945-was filled with important public controversies, including her activism around such issues as workers' rights, civil rights, women's rights, and human rights. She became FDR's most important, and most progressive, advisor. FDR was the most powerful president in American history, and Eleanor (who died in 1962) wielded her own power, sometimes behind the scenes but often in public, breaking the mold for first ladies. No first lady before or since-not even Hillary Clinton-has had as much influence while her husband was president.

Eleanor consistently pushed FDR to the left on key issues and appointments. The left-leaning members of FDR's inner circle (including Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, Agriculture Secretary and later Vice President Henry Wallace, and Harry Hopkins, who formulated and ran many New Deal relief programs) often conspired with Eleanor to make sure he heard the views of progressive activists.

Throughout her life, Eleanor fought on behalf of America's-and the world's-most vulnerable people. Over time, she became friends with a widening circle of union activists, feminists, civil rights crusaders, and radicals whose ideas she embraced and advocated for, both as FDR's wife and adviser and as a political figure in her own right. From socialites to solidarity

Born in New York City in 1884 and descended from a long line of privilege, Eleanor nevertheless had a difficult childhood. Her father, Elliott Roosevelt, was an early influence on her social consciousness, taking her with him when he visited the Children's Aid Society or served up Thanksgiving dinner to poor newsboys, where she saw the injustice of child labor. By the time Eleanor was ten, both her parents had died. She was sent to live with her maternal grandmother, a formidable woman who wanted to groom her for New York's elite society. Her prominent relatives included her uncle, Theodore Roosevelt, who became president when Eleanor was seventeen....(Click title for more)

International Socialist Group    

Aug 16, 2013 - Nicos Poulantzas is a name that, today, is little known and seldom discussed out with certain academic circles.  On the few occasions that the Greek Marxist is referenced by the organized Left, it is usually in relation to his public debate with Ralph Miliband on the nature of the State; or as an alleged proponent of Structural Marxism after Althusser.  

However, neither context provides a particularly accurate representation of this dynamic thinker: the Miliband debate only provides a small detail of Poulantzas's rich investigations into the capitalist State; whilst reducing his lifelong political researches to the category of 'Structural Marxism' is inaccurate and unfair. In a short series of articles we will attempt to provide a more rounded (though brief and hopefully accessible) portrayal of Poulantzas's thought: specifically his theories of the 'expanded' state, owing a considerable debt (more than he himself would acknowledge) to Gramsci's concept of the 'Integral State' and his multi-faceted understanding of class domination in the advanced capitalist West.  Far from a mere academic irrelevancy, Poulantzas is perhaps the most important post-war theorist for those seeking to advance Marxist theories of the State beyond crude instrumentalism and subjectivism.

Overview

Poulantzas identified hegemony as strategically specific to the capitalist mode of production (CMP).  As opposed to previous systems, the relations of production within capitalism are maintained and reproduced not only by the State's use of its monopoly of legitimate violence; but also by establishing the acquiescence of sections of the subaltern masses.  Formally, the capitalist State is classless, representing the national-popular interest; although realistically, it upholds the interests of the dominant classes.  The two major functions of the State are the unification and organization of society's dominant classes and the disorganization of the dominated classes.  The State ensures that members of the dominated classes do not experience the relations of production as class relations, instead living them as competitive relations among individuals constituted as 'subjects' of the democratic people-nation.  Poulantzas called this process 'the isolation effect': the State endeavours to prevent the raising of class consciousness within the dominated classes, whilst performing the opposite function for the dominant classes.

The first thing to examine in relation to continued supremacy of the dominant classes over the dominated is the specific make-up of each respective 'bloc'.  It goes without saying that in any advanced capitalist society  there are an array of classes and class fractions beyond the opposing bourgeoisie and proletariat, although these are the primary components (although they themselves are highly stratified) of the dominant and dominated classes respectively.  For now we will focus on the dominant classes.  Poulantzas understood that economically dominant classes within society could only establish their political dominance through the capitalist State - the fundamental role of which is to protect the overall political interests of the dominant classes.  Poulantzas called the conglomerate of classes whose political interests are upheld by the State (i.e. the ruling classes) the 'power bloc'.  The power bloc is comprised of various fractions of the capitalist class as well as other economically powerful classes or class fractions such as the landed aristocracy, elements of the petty bourgeoisie etc.  The interests of the components of the power bloc are heterogeneous ("We are dealing with fiefs, clans and factions: a multiplicity of diversified micro-policies.")[i].  The exact make-up of the power bloc and balance of forces therein (which we will return to later) varies from State to State....(Click title for more)

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