STRIKE STRATEGY
achievement under existing conditions. The workers will give no serious support to a group, whether it be in control of the union or a minority fighting for control, which makes its appeal for their backing on the basis of immediate demands that are manifestly unrealizable under the given conditions.
The character of the workers' demands is determined by the state of industrial activity, the power of the employers, the strength of the workers' organization, the mood of the workers, the degree of their ideological development, etc. In time of industrial activity the workers ordinarily go into a more or less general offensive, demanding more wages, shorter hours, better working conditions, and the right of organization. But in slack periods they usually have to face an employers’ offensive, and their chief fight is to preserve existing standards: to defeat wage cuts, to prevent lengthening the working day, and to maintain their unions.
Under present conditions in the United States, with the final capitalist crisis still far off, the workers make their hardest fights when they are defending standards that are already in existence. The most desperate strikes in American labor history have been against sweeping wage cuts and other attacks upon the workers' standards. Strikes for higher standards are ordinarily much less militant in character.
Demands Upon the Bureaucracy
In organizing campaigns and strikes the workers should make demands not only upon the employers but also upon the reactionary bureaucrats where these control the unions. This is a very important consideration for the strike strategist to bear in mind. When unions are about to plunge into a great struggle or are already in the midst of it, their weaknesses are apparent and demands for the strengthening of the organization by amalgamation, by taking in
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