Labor Party Hearty

Tony Mazzocchi explains the direction of working-class politics
by Doug Collins

The primary proponent of a US Labor Party has for years been Tony Mazzocchi, who was in Seattle for the WTO events in early December. Doug Collins interviewed him then on his views of the direction of the Labor Party and labor in general.

Since Americans traditionally haven't really had much class consciousness, doesn't it make it difficult to organize a Labor Party here?

We're trying to reintroduce the notion of class. Things are getting rougher for the average worker. Jobs continue to migrate. Wages have been level since 1973, adjusted for inflation. People are working longer hours. This is at the so-called best of times. When the cycle turns downward, which it inevitably will, we want to be there to explain the nature of things and turn the sentiment into constructive channels.

The Labor Party was founded a few years ago but still has not run any candidates in any races. Why is this?

It's very difficult to get elected, although the Labor Party adopted an electoral strategy at its last convention. Of course groups will have to meet certain thresholds in order to run candidates. It has to be a realistic opportunity -- not necessarily to win but to be credible. You don't want to come out of an election campaign getting one-and-a-half percent of the vote like fringe groups have been doing for years. We're saying, "Run, but you have to meet the criteria." You have to have an organizing committee, have a campaign manager who's able to raise credible amounts of money, be able to solicit some support from various sectors of organized labor, and be able to provide the national council with a plan so we know it's a serious effort.

Is the Labor Party growing now?

We're holding our own. We're getting larger groups [affiliate unions] coming in. We want to be a mass membership organization. Sometimes there's a lot of enthusiasm in a union's leadership but it doesn't translate into recruiting individual members. We have an organizing program now where we run people through a two-day session about how to bring the message of the labor party to individual members. We've firmly rooted ourselves at a time when you would not expect major membership growth. The past years have not been the most conducive to membership growth because in this country people traditionally move only when under crisis. We also think our organizing efforts this year around our universal healthcare campaign will invigorate a lot of other people. Everything we do is focused on the long term. Most of us come from organizing backgrounds and we realize that these kind of things are going to take time.

A lot of people have negative view of unions. What do unions need to change in themselves to improve the public perception of labor politics?

Unions have to be more democratic and aggressive in their posture toward the boss. Unions have to become more of a social movement. There can't be bureaucratic negativism where the rank and file is separated from the top. Some things are changing. We have a long way to go, but the major impediment to union membership with all our faults is not people's perception of unions, it's the law. It's difficult to organize. The employer can use illegal tactics and get away with it. The employer might fire a union organizer, and that person might get the job back, but the remedial process may take three years. In the meantime, the other workers are scared.

Would no labor law be better than the labor law we have now?

I don't think we're ready for no labor law. But we need different legal limits. The Labor Party stands for a whole new conceptualization of worker rights: if there are only two workers who want to form a union in their workplace they should have a collective bargaining unit. It may not be as strong as if they have a majority, but they should be recognized. Scabbing should be illegal. A strike should be a struggle between you and the employer, not you and the employer backed up by the state apparatus.

What do you think about the national labor support of Al Gore for president?

I don't think it's going to get labor anything. Labor is going down the traditional road. This administration has demonstrated that the interest of labor is secondary to everyone else's interest. We got NAFTA and almost got Fast Track. We got the Crime Bill and we got welfare reform, which has really hurt organized labor. The question I always ask everyone is: "So you endorsed this guy, what did you get from him?" Some nebulous promises such as "fairness" perhaps, but no aggressive stance like "striker protection." I think if Gore wins, they'll take labor for granted again.

What do you think about the WTO demonstrations?

It's a good lesson for many trade unionists who came here and saw the power of the state used against them. It reminded me of Chicago in 1968, but one big difference is that a lot of trade unionists were on the other side of the fence then.

The big labor sponsored rally at Seattle Center to me seemed to siphon people away from downtown Seattle so that the WTO conference could go on as usual, what's your view?

The fact that labor even had the rally and march was a major step forward. It's the beginning of a long road. There's growing anger about trade, and the lid's not going to be kept on organizations forever. That the leaders of organized labor would join that [downtown] fray wasn't about to happen, but they did bring 40,000 people there. These folks are going to go back to their constituencies and talk about this in a totally different way. They're not going to fall for the usual press accounts of what happened.