Workers World, Vol. 20, No. 31
August 2 – United Auto Workers President Douglas Fraser’s apparent break with the Carter administration and the big business council known as the Labor-Management Group is a welcome move. It could turn out to be a potentially important development. Its significance as of now, however, should not be overrated.
Fraser’s resignation from the so-called Labor-Management Group is a long overdue act. This group was set up by Carter early in his administration and was supposed to be composed of eight top big business leaders and eight from the labor movement, with Carter’s Secretary of Labor Dunlop sitting in to represent the administration.
It was obvious from the beginning that the group had no power so far as getting something for the workers or the mass of the population generally. If the group ever met to seriously consider anything that the labor leaders presented, it was a secret. No unified demand was ever made by the labor leaders, publicized, or made a rallying cry for the labor movement. The meetings were nothing more than so-called jawboning sessions. The workers in the plants have a less elegant phrase for it.
The real power, the real authority in formulating, shaping, and implementing the Carter administration’s economic policies is in the hands of a triumvirate consisting of Federal Reserve Board Chairman William Miller (from the giant conglomerate Textron), Secretary of the Treasury W. Michael Blumenthal (from the Bendix Corporation), and Council of Economic Advisors Chairman Charles Schultz, supposedly representing light industry and with links to the smaller banks. These three advise Carter and together decide and act upon matters of the highest importance concerning the living standard of the workers, most of the time without ever seeing the need to even consult the appropriate congressional committees.
The steel corporations, the aluminum interests, the copper and mining giants all got their price hikes and tax breaks as a result of decisions secretly arrived at by this inner grouping representing the interests of big business.
The labor leaders should have in the first place refused to meet with the so-called Labor-Management Group, which held no authority and was a dead horse to begin with. If they had to meet with anyone, they should have insisted on meeting with Carter’s economic triumvirate and, if there was no progress on specific demands made by the labor movement, should have resigned en bloc – as a group.
As matters stood, however, they hung around all the time that inflation was galloping and the cost of living was eroding the paychecks of the workers and until even Meany got tired of it. Some time ago even this far-right reactionary threatened to resign. It seems that Douglas Fraser beat him to the punch.
The significance of Fraser’s move, however, doesn’t lie in his resignation from the deadbeat Labor-Management Group. Fraser’s break has importance because of the sharp attack he delivered against big business and the Carter administration. Even more important is the fact that he virtually threatened to break from both the Democratic as well as Republican parties by attacking both of them. He said he was looking forward to a strategy meeting to be held in September whose business would be to “reforge the links with those who believe in struggle – the kind of people who sat down in the factories in the 1930s and who marched in Selma in 1962.”
He also accused big business leaders of having chosen “to wage a one-sided class war today in this country – a war against the working people, the unemployed, the poor, the very young and the very old and many in the middle class of our society.”
Finally, he virtually called for the building of a new third party, although he said he was against the formation of a labor party at the present time.
It is this militant blast against Carter and the ruling class, and the threat to break away from them, which is new and is worthy of consideration. One must remember, however, that Fraser represents one of the most progressive unions in the labor movement whose officialdom have over the years of long training acquired the fine art of talking a good fight – and stopping there. It is the good old Reutherite technique perfected by one who was a master practitioner of this very act. And Fraser is one of his disciples.
The UAW has passed literally hundreds of resolutions over the years in various locals which called for the formation of a labor party. A considerable number of the top leaders of the UAW have from time to time expressed encouragement for it. Even during the 1951 UAW convention, three members of the resolutions committee were able to present a resolution for a labor party.
The UAW didn’t act upon it, but aside from that the political significance of the labor party resolution was nil. The crucial question at the time was the Korean War, and not one leader dared to stand up against the ruling class government on the issue which was of the most critical importance. Virulent chauvinism on the war permeated the entire convention and was fueled by the red-baiting, Cold War demagogy of the Reutherite leaders. Thus, sanctimoniously coming out for a labor party without coming to grips with such fundamental class issues as the waging of an imperialist war makes a mockery of any call for an “independent” labor party.
It would not be surprising if some sort of a broad coalition, which would also embrace civil rights groups, women’s groups, and other organizations, arises according to the vague conception outlined by Fraser. One will have to gauge the composition and direction of the September conference to determine if it is indeed a viable instrument for some form of independent progressive labor action.
Any crack in the pavement, no matter how small or narrow, opens up the possibility of green grass pushing through. The wider the cracks, the greater the possibilities for mass intervention by the workers.
It is from this point of view that Fraser’s new posture should be evaluated. Any move which promotes or encourages a rupture between the labor bureaucracy on the one hand and the Carter administration and ruling class on the other holds progressive potentialities. It gives the rank-and-file an opportunity to intervene and hopefully begin to take matters into their own hands.
Without the intervention of the rank-and-file workers, without arousing their political interest, without systematically and conscientiously stimulating and cultivating their own class consciousness, no break by the labor bureaucracy can promote genuine working class interests in the struggle against big business, the Carter administration, and the capitalist system which they all serve.
Even a small crack can let through a great deal of light. But the light must be directed towards opening the eyes of the working class to the general character of capitalist exploitation and imperialist, racist oppression.
Last updated: 11 May 2026