사회운동가이자 노동운동가, 그리고 노동교육자로서의 이력을 통틀어 그는 노동자를 조직화하는 활동이 노동자 스스로가 주도하는 강력한 운동으로 발전할 수 있도록 하기 위해서는 진보적인 사상과 실천적이고 구체적인 분석을 결합할 필요가 있음을 일관되게 주장해왔다. 그는 노동조합운동 안에서 계급과 인종의 문제를 제기할 필요성이 있다고 일관되게 주장해온 (미국에서는) 매우 찾아보기 드문 노동운동가이기도 하다.
플레쳐의 진보적인 사고는 진공 속에서 어느 날 갑자기 만들어진 것이 아니라 오래 전부터 그의 집안에서 벌어졌던 격정적인 토론을 통해서 대부분 형성되었던 것이다.
그는 시인이자 비평가였던 그의 할아버지, 윌리엄 스탠리 브레이스웨이트의 집을 자주 방문하곤 했다. 두비오나 서구드 마셜과 같은 급진적인 아프리칸 아메리칸 운동의 탁월한 지도자들이 주기적으로 그의 할아버지 집을 찾아왔다.
그들은 거의 항상 정치문제와 흑인해방운동, 인종주의나 미국의 대외정책을 놓고 열띤 토론을 벌였다. 이러한 가정환경은 그의 정치적 실천의 원천이 되었고 14살 무렵부터 그는 고교 흑인학생조직을 결성하는데 앞장섰다.
또한 민권운동과 반전운동은 플레쳐의 정치의식을 더욱 성장시켰다. 1999년에 있었던 데이비드 베이컨과의 인터뷰에서 그는 “나의 정치의식은 반전운동과 민권운동을 통해서 발전되었다.
마틴 루터 킹이 전쟁에 반대하고 나섰을 때 나는 충격을 받았다. 그때까지 나는 다른 사람들과 마찬가지로 미국의 민권운동은 전쟁이나 베트남과는 상관없는 특별한 것으로 여겨졌다. 킹 박사의 연설은 완전히 새로운 생각을 불러 일으켰다.”
플레쳐는 오늘날 미국 노동운동에서 가장 탁월하고 열렬한 반전운동의 주창자 가운데 한 명이다. 이라크 전쟁에 대한 그의 거침 없는 주장은 이처럼 마틴 루터 킹의 영향 아래 일찍부터 자연스럽게 발전해 온 것이다.
정치의식이 발전하면서 플레쳐는 복잡한 국내적 국제적 이슈들이 서로 얽혀 들어가면서 미국 사회의 근본적이고 진보적인 변화를 이끌어낼 수 있다는 점을 간파했다. 플레쳐는 바로 이 점이 미국 노동운동이 간과하고 있는 매우 중요한 지점이라고 믿었다. 플레쳐는 이렇게 말한다.
“노동조합은 노동자연대에 대해서는 말하지만 외교정책에 대해서는 아무 문제도 제기하지 않는다. 노동조합은 대외정책을 국내 이슈와 연계시킬 필요가 있다. 노조는 초국적기업의 문제를 다루도록 해야 하며, 국제적 정의를 말하면서 동시에 미국의 대외정책을 심각하게 바라보아야 한다. 하지만 노동운동은 이 문제에 대해 가볍게 처신하는 경향을 보이고 있다. 이것이 바로 노조운동의 냉전적 유산이다.”
그는 하바드에서 공부하던 시절에 사회주의에 대한 인식을 다져 나갔다. 즉, 사회주의와 흑인해방운동의 관계에 대해서 말이다.
그는 비록 마오이즘을 지지했고 구 소련을 사회주의 국가로 간주하지는 않았지만 소련이 몰락할 당시 사회주의에 대한 그의 신념은 깊은 상처를 입게 되었다.
그는 이렇게 말했다. “나는 소련이 붕괴한 직후인 1990년부터 1994년까지 말문을 완전히 닫고 살았다. 생각하는 것도 멈추었다. 소련과 동구권의 몰락, 그리고 중국이 선택한 길은 나를 혼미하게 했다. 나는 세계 문제에 대해 사고하는 것을 멈추었다.”
1994년에 가서야 사회주의에 대한 그의 신념은 되살아났다.
“모든 관계가 그렇듯이 나는 다시 사랑에 빠졌다. 나는 맑스주의와 다시 사랑에 빠졌다. 맑스를 다시 읽기 시작했다. 맑스와 엥겔스의 자본주의 분석에 따르면 1840년대에 인류가 경험했던 자본주의의 성장과 오늘날 우리가 경험하고 있는 자본주의는 결코 다르지 않다. 오늘날의 위기는 바로 소련에 의해서 촉발된 것이다.”
다음은 영어원문
Bill Fletcher Jr., former Assistant to President Sweeney of the AFL-CIO and currently the President of TransAfrica Forum, is considered to be one of the most dynamic and progressive trade unionist in the U.S. labor movement.
Throughout his entire career as an activist, trade unionist, and labor educator he has been consistently vocal on the need to incorporate progressive ideas and analysis with the practical, hands-on approach of organizing workers toward building a strong, worker-led movement. He is also one of the few trade unionists who have consistently spoken out on the need to address the issue of class and race in trade unionism.
Fletcher’s progressive thinking did not come out of a vacuum but it was greatly shaped by the ideas that were fervently discussed at his home. He would frequently visit the home of his great grandfather, William Stanley Braithwaite, a poet and literary critic. Prominent and radical African American leaders, such as W.E. Dubois and Thurgood Marshall, were regular guests of his great grandfather’s home, which seemed to always be filled with discussions of politics, black liberation, racism, and the implications of U.S. foreign policy abroad. His family environment would lay the basis for his political activism, which began at the age of 14, when he helped form a Black organization in high school.
In addition, the civil rights and anti-war movements would further develop Fletcher’s politics.
In an interview he gave to journalist David Bacon in 1999, he stated, “My own politics developed in the anti-war and civil rights movements. When Dr. King came out against the war it really shook me up. I think I was like others at the time, looking at the civil rights movement as though it was something particular to the United States, separate from the war, separate from Vietnam. Dr. King's speech got me thinking in a new way.” Today, Fletcher is one of the most prominent and ardent anti-war voices in the U.S. labor movement. His outspokenness against the war on Iraq is a natural development from this early influence of Martin Luther King Jr.
Fletcher understood early on his political development the importance of entwining domestic and international issues to bring about real fundamental progressive change in U.S. society. Fletcher believes that this is a critical piece that is missing in the U.S. labor movement. According to Fletcher, “Unions talk about worker solidarity but do not address foreign policy. Unions need to link foreign policy and domestic issues. Unions need to talk about multi-national corporations and when talking about global justice, unions need to be critical of U.S. foreign policy. However, unions are skittish about it. This is the remnant of cold war trade unionism.”
During his years at Harvard, Fletcher began to solidify his views on socialism---the connection between socialism and black liberation. Although he was a “supporter of the Maoist movement and did not think the Soviet Union as a socialist state,” nevertheless his belief in socialism was tested with the fall of the Soviet Union. In his words, “he had shut down. From 1990 with the immediate collapse of the Soviet Union until 1994, I stopped thinking. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc and the road that China was taking was confusing. I stopped thinking globally.”
Then by 1994, his belief in socialism was rekindled and according to Fletcher, “Like all relationships, I fell in love again. I fell in love with Marxism again. I began to read Marx again. Marx’s and Engel’s mode of analysis of the capitalist system, the rise of capitalism, what we are going through now, and what was going on in the 1840s is not the exception. The crisis was ignited by the Soviet Union experience.”
Fletcher states that, “the Soviet Union was not the promise of the working class democracy. As a result, it was difficult in building a revolutionary movement in the United States and Western Europe. There was a growing crisis to socialism. Workers hated capitalism and feared socialism. The compromise was the welfare state, which was to be temporary and not the ultimate goal.”
To those who believe Marxism is dead, Fletcher claims, “Marxism is not dead. Capitalism took 500 years to develop. During that process there were some failures and eventually it developed to its current ‘successful’ state. Socialism has yet to develop. There should be a rigorous critique of socialism of the 20th century and we should learn from the failure of socialism, so that we can articulate a different framework for the 21st century and think in different terms. It is socialism or barbarism (capitalism).”
Like many U.S. progressives at the time, Fletcher entered the labor movement working as a welder in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the 70s. As a rank and file member of the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America, he attempted to change the racism rampant within the union and its leadership. After leaving his job as a welder, he would later join as staff for several unions---United Auto Workers, National Postal Mail handlers Union, and the Service Employees International Union.
In 1995 when John J Sweeney became President in the first-ever contested Presidential race in AFL-CIO history, Fletcher was appointed Education Director. One of his major projects was the development of Common Sense Economics, a training manual designed to educate union members and workers about the impact of globalization on working people and the mechanisms of capitalism and how it works. Fletcher has stated that, “One of the two things that I am most proud of during my time at the AFL-CIO is Common Sense Economics. Unfortunately there was not sufficient resources and energy to operate it.”
Even though he left the AFL-CIO in 2002, Fletcher is deeply committed to the labor movement. He writes profusely for several progressive publications such as the Nation, Monthly Review and the Progressive, about the challenges the U.S. labor movement is facing on the onslaught of globalization as well as what should be the solutions.
After more than 25 years in the labor movement, Fletcher's analysis of the politics of U.S. unions is worth looking at. He's coined the term "Gompersian", name dafter Samuel Gompers, the first president of the AFL, to describe the current model of U.S. style unionism. He sees this model as a reaction to, and a means of deterring the growth of radical trade unionism. Says Fletcher: "The paradigm is a job consciousness trade unionism. It is a bread and butter unionism. Within this paradigm, the critical precept is to take care of the worker in the work place and address the concerns of the worker employed in a company or an industry.” According to Fletcher, the 1995 election of President John Sweeney was a failed attempt to reform the Gompersian model.
Fletcher's response to the Gompersian model of unionism is "Social Justice Unionism." It is a radical and timely response, one that Fletcher articulates with passion and vision: “Social Justice Unionism is to rethink the nature of trade unionism where capitalism is basically trying to annihilate trade unionism. To the capitalist class, unions are irrelevant and a major obstacle to capitalism. The barbarism of capitalism has been revealed. Because of this, we need a social justice unionism paradigm where unions fight for political power.”