By the way, I'm heading over to the Labor Day parade up 5th Ave today followed by a UFT sponsored barbecue, which is our union leadership's version of a rank and file strategy -- faux organizing by feeding them.
the Rank and File is a strategy document for a socialist organization dedicated to raising class consciousness and building a mass movement. The document is not only relevant to would-be vanguard parties, but also to organizing socialists as a whole....
“Industrialization” was not unique to Solidarity[the Labor Notes Trotskyist org not the caucus]. Many socialist and communist groups (especially those like Solidarity in the Trotskyist tradition) tried throughout the 70s-90s and largely failed. Industrialization sought to place members of socialist organizations into industrial jobs. The goal was twofold: first, to move away from middle-class, college-educated, and counter-cultural recruitment and reorient towards a blue-collar working class. Second, to agitate amongst workers for a radical movement against the bosses and the conservative, bureaucratic unions who protected them. Industrialization was a failure. Employers screened out degreed applicants and long hairs. Those who got hired had trouble recruiting for a revolutionary party when workers’ political horizon shortened, caught up in defensive struggles over pay and pensions....The 1% in the UFT - the activists on both sides
... Build/DSA, https://dsabuild.org/rank-and-file-analysis
The landscape within the UFT for the inside players in the union leadership and in the opposition - the 1% of the UFT - has gone through some changes over the past three years, though to the 99% of the rank and file these changes are irrelevant and if they were aware, somewhat of a joke. And I admit I am part of the joke due to my obsessions as part of the 1% for 49 of my 52 year membership in the UFT.
I've been trying to sort issues out from an academic and organizing perspective within the context of my own history of activism in the UFT which has been my personal focus for the past two and a half decades plus the decade of the 70s. While the experience in MORE has given me insights into the various political forces that operate in unions, I still see many of the ideas worth examining, and not automatically reject them as some colleagues who left or were pushed out of MORE have done. The recent influx of teachers from the Democratic Socialists into MORE could be a new dynamic in the UFT - or not. But I am focusing my attention on this dynamic and also on those who are pushing back against it.
MORE has adopted the rank and file strategy for whatever that means inside the UFT (which was used as an artificial divide in MORE to push out people - especially the ICEUFT who were charged with not supporting the rank and file strategy - which was not true -- ICE didn't support using suspensions and turning over democracy in its implementation.
But there were questions to be raised and I actually tried when I pointed out that the old defunct TJC caucus failed with the same strategy which is an imported strategy not organically grown inside the UFT.
And it is always interesting to watch how a strategy hatched outside the context of our particular union is adapted to our unique situation of being in a union with a massive membership and with a leadership in its most dominant position in 25 years, partly due to either the inherent weaknesses in the rank and file strategy or MORE's incompetent implementation - with the recent failed election strategy being a key - like alienating the non-DSA connected opposition in the UFT is not a violation of the rank and file strategy. But I leave it to interested readers to explore further.
I posted an article on the Rank and File Strategy by Barry Eidlin a key player in the Labor Notes/ Solidarity vapor. And you should read it
A sort of counter group in DSA to Bread and Roses seems to be Build
https://dsabuild.org.
Th article below takes a more critical look at the Rank and File Strategy, which seems to be the working plan in MORE. Rather than break down the Bread and Roses article and this one, I'm posting it without further comment but will take a closer look at segments in follow-ups. The key for me is how it touches on the politics and organizations that have been active in segments of opposition groups in the UFT over the past 50 years. As Arnold said, I vill be back to dig deeper.
https://dsabuild.org/rank-and-file-analysis
