Jun 18, 2012
Critical Fragments Concerning the Palermo’s Strike
1. The ability of the Palermo’s workers to act for the immediate improvement of their working and living conditions is severely limited by the threat of deportation and other serious forms of repression. If decisive action is to be taken, it must come from an organized force other than the workers themselves. Unfortunately, it is not immediately obvious that intervention into the strike would be particularly beneficial to any outside party.
2. Until the above limitation is overcome either by decisive outside intervention, exceptional action on the part of the workers, or some combination of the two, the Palermo’s strike will remain firmly situated within a statist political paradigm. This paradigm is defined by the placement of the state in the position of mediator of all conflict between social antagonisms. The appeal to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to force the Palermo’s management to accept at least some of the workers’ demands is a prime example of this paradigm.
3. But management has a point. After the NLRB hands down its decision, undocumented workers will still be undocumented workers. Thus, there is space for a continuing antagonism which can stretch far beyond the walls of the Palermo’s factory.
4. In order to articulate that antagonism, the valorization of citizenship must be overcome among both the workers themselves and the leftists who have come out in support of them. It must be immediately made clear that integration into White America, if that is even possible for Latinos on a large scale in a time of crisis, is a betrayal to all oppressed people.
5. A through critique of the Left must also be put into action. The irrelevance of demands-based struggle must be demonstrated. Direct action must actually get the goods. The manipulations of leftist organizations must be exposed, especially those organizations which appear to be most closely aligned with those seeking the generalization of social antagonisms.
A friendly response to some of these points (maybe to initiate a more in depth conversation):
1) It appears as unclear what the exact makeup of the status of the striking workers is regarding their being US citizens, having papers, etc. To assume, that because many workers are Latino, that they are illegal immigrants might be too assumptive on our part. The threat is imposed toward those who may not be legal within the mass of workers. But certainly it would make sense that the willingness of these workers acceptance of meager pay and menial work hinges upon their precarious position in relation to other less precarious workers within the economy. What activity or conditions forced upon management for what would be decisive in ending the strike for the benefit of the striking workers is unknown to a degree, but the striking workers have been threatened precisely for their threat upon management in the form of a refusal to work – shutting down three out of five lines of production. This is what has made the situation a situation.
The strike has the ability to resonate with those who recognize themselves amongst others who are dominated by work. Those who hold this in common benefit from the spreading of a general antagonism against work.
2) What is being fought for, channeled through the discourse and activity of workers’ rights, is a right of recognition by law, via a union, as a mediating force between labor, capital and state. In this sense the struggle further enters a statist paradigm in the decision to form a union. The contemporary form of unions entail that they, being a mediator and new manager within the workplace, assume the productive function of the state-form. This is the form, however in it we recognize the content of refusal. What other material options are presented or appear possible? Some other force, other than the state must ground the refusal of work in a material reality. The spiritual dimension of such refusal is a latent fact of our lives, because though we may drag our feet as we are dragged to work the structure of this world ever-orients the rest of our bodies toward work. It is our endless task to spread the end of work.
4) White America is too reductive. The relationship between work, citizenship and race is always more than just about race. Also the language of oppressed peoples is a dead end. It’s always a race to find the most oppressed and weigh it in relation against others. This argumentation can easily imply that those people somewhere who somehow aren’t oppressed by civilization and capitalism (which is in really not anyone), generally meaning white affluent people in advanced and developed economies live in a way that is desirable, if only everyone could be included. Though we know that not everyone can be included, but it should be clear that inclusion should not entice us either.