Class Struggle: Workers and the Nation-state of Greece

The marxian view of the state (simplified): under capital the state is a weapon of class warfare, controlled by the ruling elite and used to maintain its political and economic power while subordinating others classes to its interests.

But look at what has happened recently in Greece, the workers are fighting back.

[A] 24-hour general strike [was] called by the main public and private sector unions…There was widespread disruption to transport and public services across Greece on Wednesday…The unions called the strike as part of an escalating campaign of action over the conservative government's attempts to reform the economy…There is real discontent amongst the workforce at low wages and high prices. Union officials say the minimum wage in Greece is half the European Union average(1).

It is nice to see that labor has some organization and power in the world today. The Greeks know how to stand their ground and fight for the hard won benefits that all individuals should receive. This is not just a one of occurrence either, Greek labor has been very active the past two years in striking and letting their voice and power be shown(2)(3)(4)

It would be nice to see this type of syndicalistic labor action in the United States, whose corporatist labor structure has effectively gutted any radical potential of labor to create a social welfare state. The extremely bureaucratic and top-down business and management approach of American labor has decimated the rank-and-file and grassroots support which was a key for mobilization and building bridges within the labor movement and making it part of a wider social struggle as well. Additionally, the heavily anti-labor laws in the U.S. gutted a lot of the radical potential of labor unions as well.

However, the loss of a rank-and-file labor organization structure lead to the lack of focus on increasing membership, maintaining energy in the labor organization process and building coalitions with other groups oriented to social struggle. About the only worthwhile and grass-roots oriented labor organization now is UNITE(5).

Labor’s demise is largely its own fault for not branching out and increasing membership - through grass roots campaigning and union leadership, failing to make labor part of a broader coalition for social change and for letting the government rob it of its revolutionary potential through the enactment of anti-labor legislation, which was allowed to pass precisely because of the two problems mentioned previously.