[What’s needed beyond “talking socialism on the job” is a
sensible labor policy, humility and respect for fellow workers, the
commitment to learn from mistakes while taking the initiative to
organize the working class majority for a just society.]
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“TALKING SOCIALISM” ON THE JOB  
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Garrett Brown
January 3, 2024
Against the Current
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_ What’s needed beyond “talking socialism on the job” is a
sensible labor policy, humility and respect for fellow workers, the
commitment to learn from mistakes while taking the initiative to
organize the working class majority for a just society. _

Garrett Brown on a United Farm Workers picket line while at the
University of Chicago, 1976,

 

WITH A NEW generation of socialist activists entering the workforce to
build unions and the socialist movement, experiences from 45 years ago
may provide lessons about what works and what does not work when
talking socialism on the job.

I joined the Young Socialist Alliance in 1971 and the Socialist
Workers Party in 1973, resigning from the party in December 1983. I
was a student activist in California, Massachusetts, and Illinois,
before becoming the labor reporter for _The Daily Calumet_ newspaper
in southeast Chicago in 1976.

While a journalist at _The Daily Calumet_ I covered the United Steel
Workers of America (USWA) and Ed Sadlowski’s campaign for union
president in 1976-77.

I was also a member of the SWP’s national “fraction” or
subcommittee of USWA members, and wrote articles about the
Steelworkers Fight Back campaign under the pen name of “Michael
Gillespie” for the party’s newspaper, _The Militant._

Perhaps the most successful party labor work in which I was a
participant was during the Steelworkers Fight Back (SFB) campaign in
1976-77. Party members were active participants, in some cases key
activists, of the union election campaign run out of southeast
Chicago, but involving local campaign committees around the country.

The party adopted a non-sectarian approach to promote and publicize
the most radical union election platform since the 1930s, even though
it was not a socialist program. [For a fuller discussion of the SFB
campaign, see my three-part series at the _Stansbury Forum._]
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_The Militant_ had extensive coverage of campaign activities and
developments, including two issues of the paper with special sections
on the SFB campaign, and a stand-alone pamphlet including valuable
analysis of the steel industry, USWA, and broader labor movement.
Socialist steelworkers were recognized for their commitment to the SFB
effort by other steelworkers and at campaign headquarters.

The official tally of the election was that Sadlowski lost the
election with 43% of the vote, but there were serious questions about
voter fraud, particularly in the Deep South and Canada. But despite
the outcome, socialist steelworkers came into contact through the SFB
campaign with hundreds of workers seeking radical solutions to
problems facing their union and their families.

Turn to Industry

The SWP steel fraction held a national meeting in December 1976 in
Chicago with more than 60 USWA members from seven states. National
Trade Union Director Frank Lovell said the energetic two-day meeting
was “reviving an old tradition in our party,” noting that the last
such gathering occurred in Detroit in 1947 among SWP auto workers
facing restrictions in union rights under the Taft-Hartley Act.

In addition, women steel workers in the party were active members of
the “District 31 Women’s Caucus” in the Chicago-Gary region,
working to defend women USWA members against company discrimination as
well as sexual harassment and violence on the job. Again, socialist
steelworkers were able to present an alternative political perspective
to women workers, many of whom were single mothers and women of color.

In 1979, I left journalism to participate in the SWP’s “turn to
industry,” moving to Birmingham, Alabama, and helped found the
Birmingham branch of the party. In Alabama, I worked as a production
worker in two USWA-organized foundries — McWane Cast Iron Pipe and
Stockham Valve and Fittings — as well as a non-union steel
mini-mill.

I moved to Atlanta, Georgia, in late 1980, and worked in a series of
industrial jobs including the Lockheed aircraft plant in Marietta
(organized by the International Association of Machinists), the Oxford
Chemicals plant (Teamsters), the Arrow Shirt factory warehouse
(Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers), and the Empire
Manufacturing garment plant (United Garment Workers).

I was part of the fraction of party members in these Alabama and
Georgia plants and unions. Our activities were guided by the SWP’s
labor policy, whose primary focus was “talking socialism on the
job” to gain influence and recruits for the party. Secondly we were
to participate in the internal life — up to a certain point — of
the unions in order to strengthen the unions’ ability to defend
their members.

My experiences working in industry showed that while the party’s
labor policy had positive aspects in raising socialist ideas and
important local and national issues on the job and in the union, the
net result in terms of influence and recruitment was undermined by
self-limiting and self-defeating aspects of the party’s approach.

Like all effective organizers, we tried to make friends and personal
connections with our co-workers. This was especially the case during
the employers’ “probation” period (usually 30-60 days) during
which management can legally fire new hires without cause.

Once we passed probation, the primary activity was conducting
“socialist propaganda” in the form of selling The Militant,
inviting coworkers to the weekly socialist forum at the party’s
bookstore, and campaigning for socialist candidates running for
elected office. We would deliberately plan to spend lunch and break
periods with different groups of co-workers to carry on political
discussions with as many people on the job as possible.

As socialists on the job we talked up national issues, like halting
U.S. intervention in Central America and participating in labor
solidarity actions, as well as local issues like protests against the
series of murders of Black children in Atlanta.

Defending Rights

Our union activities included encouraging co-workers to attend the
regular meetings of the local union, speaking at the union meetings
about local and national issues, as well as filing grievances with the
local union against employer discrimination on the job, or health and
safety hazards. At the same time, we sold The Militant in the union
halls’ parking lots and circulated flyers about upcoming party
activities at union meetings.

Responding to employer reprisals for these activities also became a
significant part of our work. This included filing union grievances
against disciplinary warning letters and firings at the plant level,
up to public campaigns at a national level. One dramatic example was
when 15 members of the SWP branch in Atlanta (including me) were fired
all at once in December 1980, following an intensive investigation of
“suspected” SWP members by the Defense Intelligence Agency in
cooperation with company security and the Federal Bureau of
Investigation.

At Oxford Chemicals, health and safety issues came to the fore after a
series of uncontrolled exposures to chlorine and other toxic
substances. Our fraction of party members circulated and filed a union
grievance on the issue in June 1981, resulting in improved evacuation
plans and first-aid protocols.

In September 1981, I met with a Federal OSHA compliance officer
conducting an on-site inspection following worker complaints.
Socialist workers regularly spoke up during the newly organized
company safety trainings following the OSHA inspection.

A measure of respect and support we enjoyed at the plant was that one
of the many union grievances filed after the firing of two socialists
(me and the party’s gubernatorial candidate) at Oxford Chemicals in
1982 was co-signed by 37 workers, two-thirds of the plant’s
workforce.

The amalgamated Teamsters local union representing workers at Oxford
Chemicals not only undertook grievances explicitly highlighting the
employer’s political bias and retaliation, but also used local union
resources to take cases to final-step arbitration and won the
grievances.

A publicly circulated petition to reinstate us was signed by Mayor
Andrew Young, State Senator Julian Bond, then City Councilman, but
later Congressman John Lewis, as well as leaders of the Atlanta NAACP
and Southern Christian Leadership Conference. These various efforts
generated increased publicity for the party, but, alas, did not result
in our reinstatement.

Socialists were able to raise broader issues of national and world
politics in union halls as well. The local Teamsters president agreed
to charter a bus to take members from Atlanta to Washington, DC, for
the AFL-CIO’s September 1981 “Solidarity Day” demonstration for
labor unity and in honor of the Solidarity union in Poland.

The union president asked me, representing the organizers of the bus,
to give a slide show to the next union meeting after the event, even
though the Teamsters were outside the AFL-CIO at that time. The
Teamsters local also authorized official contingents, again organized
by our fraction and co-workers, in marches in Atlanta protesting the
series of killings of Black children, and other civil rights issue.

Problems of Party Policy

It was a fact that the SWP’s “socialist propaganda” on the job
struck a chord with many workers during this time, and gained the
party visibility in the workplace and union hall. However, in my view,
the labor policy and internal life of the Socialist Workers Party in
this period ultimately undermined our influence on the job.

The party had a blanket policy that members should not run for the
unions’ grievance committee, or contract bargaining committee, or
the health and safety committee. The goal was to prevent personal
careerism of individual members, and to prevent the party from being
put in any compromising position as part of a union bureaucracy
implementing policies we did not control or support.

This was a different approach than during the 1930s when SWP leaders
like Farrell Dobbs and others held union positions leading the heroic
Minneapolis Teamsters strikes and organizing drives. It also differed
from when SWP members took local leadership positions in the United
Auto Workers in the 1940s.

Clearly, holding union office is not the goal of socialist activism on
the job — building a stronger union better able to defend its
members and organize for fundamental social change are the key goals.
But socialists in union positions can play an important part of this
effort in the right circumstances.

The party’s policy, in my experience, undercut the members’
credibility and influence on the job. The fact that we would not
consider running for union office — even when asked and urged to do
so by co-workers — gave the impression that we were all talk, and
not courageous enough to “put our money where our mouths were.”

We had many ideas about how the union should be run, changes that
needed to be made, but we were not willing to fight for them as
committee members or union officers.

Another aspect that is key to gaining influence and recruitment is how
party members related to their co-workers. Effective organizing is a
skill that has to be learned and honed over time, learning from
mistakes, and with large grain of humility.

Successful organizers listen more than they talk, build friendships
and bonds from common experiences and interests, and gain respect and
credibility as workers who always pull their weight on the job and
defend peers against supervisors and managers.

Many left groups in this period gave workers the impression that they
knew all the questions, had all the answers, and the workers just
needed to do as instructed. We Trotskyists were tagged by many with
having an extra dose of this arrogance.

We knew we were right about Stalin (and Stalinists) as the gravedigger
of the revolution and betrayer of socialist ideals. We knew our theory
of permanent revolution was the best analysis of how revolutionary
upsurges succeed or fail, and we had all the answers of what to do
next.

As a result, some of the SWP members’ discourse on the job often
came across as pedantic and patronizing — which was the case in many
internal party discussions as well. At Oxford Chemicals, I remember
one co-worker telling me — after a lunch break with another
co-worker who was a National Committee member of the party — that he
was not sure how much more of the “daily profundities” he could
take.

“Jack in the Box”

Related to this was the “jack-in-the-box” effect when party
members passed through their industrial probation period on the job.

Fraction members were expected to immediately launch into full-on
socialist proselytizing right after passing probation. This left many
co-workers bewildered and amused that party members who had been quiet
as church mice during probation, suddenly became irrepressible orators
and aggressive salespeople.

The party’s labor policy prompted “job jumping” by members from
one workplace to another. It takes a certain amount of time and jobs
to get into plants which are considered “strategic” for building
union power and party influence.

But the party leadership changed the priorities frequently, meaning
members who had just arrived at a plant would be directed to quit in
order to work elsewhere.

Clearly the goal is not be “permanently embedded” in any
particular workplace, but the net effect was that many members were
never in a workplace long enough to develop any social base or
contacts that would lead to party influence and recruitment.

The employers’ firings, and the party’s response, also had adverse
effect on organizing for socialism on the job. After our firing at
Lockheed Marietta, obviously we could not list Lockheed as a previous
employer. But “falsification of job application” is a firing
offense, and such terminations are legal and final.

The party correctly mounted a very public defense of those fired at
Lockheed. But party leaders insisted over the next three years, at
several points of possible publicity in the lawsuit against the
firings and during local election campaigns, that fired members
“come out” at their new jobs as one of the fired Lockheed workers.

Naturally, our then-employer was happy to fire us again for
falsification of job application, and rid themselves of bothersome
employees. In the end, I was fired from four jobs in three years in
Atlanta, and I had to move out of the city because I could not get
hired or hold the job if I did.

Unsurprisingly, these firings had a chilling effect on workers in the
plants where we worked. No one wanted to lose their job or have more
problems with the foreman for being seen as a supporter of socialists.

Cadres and Workers

Finally, the character of the party’s internal life made it almost
impossible to keep the half-dozen or so workers we recruited on the
job in Birmingham and Atlanta.

As a self-designated revolutionary vanguard party, the Socialist
Workers Party was a cadre organization which expected members to be
professional revolutionaries. Members were “on duty” on a 24/7/365
basis, and the norm was that someone who, for example, would be away
for the weekend would need to get a “leave of absence” from the
party.

In the main, party members worked 40-hour-plus industrial jobs during
the week; had fraction or committee meetings once or twice during the
week; were expected to attend the weekly socialist forum events at the
party bookstore on Friday or Saturday evenings; spend several hours
every Saturday selling The Militant or collecting signatures for
ballot status for socialist candidates; and spend multiple hours every
Sunday in party branch meetings.

Then on Sunday night, party members prepared to spend the next week
just like we did the past week. Members were also expected to make a
weekly financial “sustainer” (contribution) to the local party
branch.

The handful of workers we were able to recruit often had spouses and
children, responsibility for child or elder care, and previous roles
in their community and its organizations, not to mention hobbies or
interests of their own. The party norm was simply impossible for these
recruits.

They had to choose to either have sharp and growing conflicts within
their families; or have a sort of second-class membership where other
party members viewed them as not making the grade because of their
absences. Almost all the workers I helped recruit were gone within a
year of their joining.

Drawing Conclusions

Garrett Brown accepting an award from the USWA for health and safety
work in 2015.

In December 1983, I left the Socialist Workers Party and never worked
as an industrial worker again. However, I have had an ongoing 35-year
career since then as an occupational health and safety professional
working to protect workers as a field compliance officer for
California’s OSHA agency.

I have also worked as the volunteer coordinator of an international
non-governmental organization providing training and technical
assistance on workplace safety with worker and community groups
throughout the Global South.

I was not part of the massive purge of opposition members of the SWP
in 1983, as the internal disputes were not known in the party’s
branch in Atlanta where I lived at the time.

In resigning, I did not reject socialism — quite the contrary —
but rather I concluded the SWP’s leadership policies would never
create a social base among working people necessary to actually lead
revolutionary change.

Also I believed the party’s analysis of the political moment was
fatally flawed — the leadership declared the working class to be
moving toward victory in the 1980s. This was at a time when strikes
were totally defeated (PATCO air traffic controllers, Arizona copper
miners, Greyhound bus drivers, Eastern airlines mechanics) and with
millions of workers casting their votes for Ronald Reagan to become
president.

_An organization that cannot tell victory from defeat will never win
the confidence and loyalty of working people, nor does it deserve to._

But my five years in industry taught me that with careful planning, a
sense of humor and patience, socialist workers can become a pole of
attraction in any workplace. Socialist activists were often seen as
very capable people who had information and perspectives that
co-workers had not heard before.

Socialists had explanations for why exploitation, poverty, and
discrimination existed in capitalist societies. And socialists had a
plan for addressing the root causes of these problems.

The willingness of socialists to stand up for themselves and
co-workers around issues of injustice, discrimination, health and
safety, and other working conditions, frequently won them respect and
support from their peers.

What’s needed beyond “talking socialism on the job” is a
sensible labor policy and approach, an attitude of humility and
respect for fellow workers, and the commitment to learn from mistakes
while always taking the initiative to organize the working class
majority for a just, sustainable society worth living in.

_Garrett Brown was a member of the Young Socialist Alliance and the
Socialist Workers Party from 1971 to 1983. He worked as a production
worker and member of various industrial unions from 1979 to 1983 in
Birmingham, Alabama, and Atlanta, Georgia. After leaving the SWP at
the end of 1983, Brown has worked for more than 30 years as an
occupational health and safety professional protecting workers in
California with the Cal/OSHA enforcement agency, and as volunteer
Coordinator of the Maquiladora Health and Safety Support Network
partnering with worker and community organizations in Mexico, Central
America, Indonesia, southern China, and Bangladesh._

_Against the Current is the analytical and activist journal sponsored
by Solidarity. [[link removed]] As part of our larger
project of regroupment and dialogue within the U.S. Left, the journal
presents varying points of view on a wide variety of issues. As such,
debates are frequent and informative, with the goal of promoting
discussion among activists, organizers, and scholars on the Left._

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