MEMBER VIEWPOINT
On the Waterfront: Notes on NYC DSA’s Labor Movement Day School
by Miram Bensman
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The history of the US labor movement and the left. How unions work. The challenges and opportunities that labor faces today. NYC DSA’s Labor Day School covered the waterfront in five hours on February 10. It managed to achieve two seemingly contradictory goals, providing an introduction to labor that didn’t bore the already knowledgeable, as well as insightful commentary that didn’t confuse newcomers.
I enjoyed the mix of history, theory, and practical advice, and I’m pleased there are plans to take the program to other DSA chapters. I hope we can adapt some of the talks into articles or videos; it’s great that nearly 100 people—most of them DSA and union members—showed up for this event, but I’d love to see its rich content made more widely available.
Many thanks to Chris Maisano, Bianca Cunningham, Laura Gabby, Dan DiMaggio, Gay Semel, and Zelig Stern for putting together a great program; to the terrific speakers (some of the above, plus Dan La Botz, Nate Franco, Stephanie Luce, Bob Master, Marsha Niemeijer, Ken Paff, and Ariel Zakarison); and to the volunteers who made the day school run smoothly, including Queens OC Co-Chair Ben Beckett.
That said, I have a few friendly comments/criticisms:
First, offer more points of view. The roster of speakers was dominated by current or former leaders or members of Teamsters for a Democratic Union and Labor Notes. I admire both groups immensely for their long years of fostering militant, grassroots labor activism. I learned a lot from their talks about mobilizing union members and creating working class consciousness. But DSA is blessed with an abundance of labor activists, leaders, staffers, historians and journalists who come from various traditions. It would be fruitful and interesting to bring them together to share ideas and, yes, argue.
Second, I recommend a more participatory format next time, for at least part of the program, rather than three panel discussions followed by Q&A. Bianca Cunningham gave an inspiring and funny talk on her experiences organizing her coworkers at seven Verizon Wireless stores to found the first wireless unit of CWA; it could have kicked off a small group discussion about how to organize your workplace, perhaps one you joined in order to help a union drive. Ariel Zakarison’s reflections on supporting the B&H strikers could have opened a discussion in which others shared their experiences with solidarity campaigns. Several of our members were active as shop stewards in recent strikes; they could have shared stories. And union staffers, members and elected leaders could have traded their thoughts about their roles as socialists in the labor movement.
Enough kibitzing. I’ll end with advice from my old friend Saul Wellman, a lifelong union activist and socialist who mentored many of the older speakers at the event. Bob Master, now the political and legislative director of CWA Northeast, said when he was a young socialist seeking to devote his life to building the labor movement, Saul told him to get a job, whether on union staff or the shop floor, and stay there for years. How socialists should relate to labor has been a central point of controversy for 100 years, but one thing is clear: Creating solidarity requires building strong relationships. And that takes time.
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