Not long ago, the president of the bureaucratic and anti-worker RWDSU, and the New York City Council took to the press to congratulate themselves on a historic achievement: the “Labor Peace” bill that sailed through City Council on November 23rd. This ‘historic’ achievement has amounted to little more than a footnote in the news of the past month, having hardly been reported at all. However we feel it necessary to revisit this footnote, as it clarifies the function of anti-worker bureaucratic trade unions in relation to the employers’ political organizations.

We must reject both the fake-optimism of the officials and the resignation that has set in after nearly two years of death and disease. We must fight for the measures that will see us through this newest episode of this ongoing crisis.

This is the second part in our four-part history of the US labor movement, based on an internal RWU-STR Union School presentation. If workers today are to successfully revive the US labor movement, it is essential that we study our own history. If we don’t know how we got to the present, we will be powerless to chart a path into the future.

For workers actively engaged in efforts to rebuild the US labor movement, a firm grasp of US history is essential. Studying this history above all brings out the central role that the struggle between the working class and the capitalist class plays in shaping our society.

From the perspective of the present, in which the working class is just beginning to stir into action after decades of peace organized by the trade-union bureaucracies and the state, it is hard to imagine that the US working class was once the most advanced and militant working class in the world. This short article, based on an internal RWU-STR Union School presentation, surveys this important period of sharp working-class struggle, which coincides with the birth of the US labor movement.