Anarchy in Wisconsin!

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.