经济学人83:工会的力量 The power in the union

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　　文艺；书评；美国农业；工会的力量；

　　Trampling¹ Out the Vintage: César Chávez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers. By Frank Bardacke.

　　把葡萄踩在脚下：塞萨尔·查韦斯以及美国农会的两个灵魂人物。弗兰克·巴达克著。

　　“He is trampling out the vintage” is part of a line from “The Battle Hymn² of the Republic”. It continues “where the grapes of wrath³ are stored”. Thus the title of Frank Bardacke's history deliberately⁴ echoes John Steinbeck's novel, a proletarian classic which tells the story of tenant⁵ farmers driven off their fields in Oklahoma and forced to cross the country to seek work in California.

　　“他踏在......”是《共和国战歌》里的一段，后接着“搁愤怒葡萄的地方”。因此，弗兰克·巴达克的史书的标题有意应和了约翰·斯登贝克那部讲述俄克拉荷马失地佃农被迫横穿美国到加州谋生的无产阶级经典小说。

　　But, as Mr Bardacke stresses, a huge demographic difference divides then from now. In the Depression of the 1930s Steinbeck could present his impoverished⁶ “Okies” as deserving of government help “because they were true American whites”. It was harder for their Mexican-American successors to win public sympathy. They were brown, Spanish-speaking and “considered aliens and sojourners”.

　　但是，正如巴达克强调，从人口学上讲，现在与过去已大不同。30年代大萧条时，斯登贝克可以提出贫困的“俄克拉荷马人”应得到政府帮助，“因为他们是真正的美国白人”。对墨西哥裔美国人来说，获得公众同情则比较难。这些棕色皮肤，说西班牙语的人被看作外国人和旅居者。

　　It took the genius of César Chávez, whose family was dispossessed of its land during his boyhood, to bring them into the American mainstream⁷. As a vegan inspired by Catholic social teaching and the non-violent methods of Mohandas Gandhi, Chávez was more comfortable with religious people than political ones. He set out to create a movement rather than a union, leading a “pilgrimage” across the Central Valley of California to the state capital, Sacramento, in 1966. When his followers⁸ were blocked by the police they knelt in prayer behind a picture of the Virgin⁹ of Guadalupe.

　　这使塞萨尔·查韦斯，这个孩提时代便遭遇一家人流离失所的天才进入了美国主流社会。比起政界人士，作为一名受天主教社会教义以及莫罕达斯·甘地非暴力主义鼓舞的素食主义者，他更认同宗教界人士。他打算发起一场运动，而非工会。这场运动是1966年由他领导的穿过加州中部山谷到达州府萨克拉门托的朝圣之旅。当被警察拦下时，他的追随者跪在圣母像前做起了祷告。

　　The idealism of Chávez's movement and the fasts he endured to win support for striking farmworkers caught the public imagination. Other labour leaders looked on aghast as he built an odd but strong coalition¹⁰ of farmworkers, religious enthusiasts¹¹, student radicals¹², politicians, artists and union officials. Working together they persuaded consumers in their millions to boycott¹³ the grapes, lettuces¹⁴ and other products of agribusinesses which refused to negotiate sincerely with the United Farm Workers (UFW). The tactic¹⁵ they perfected was described by critics as “victimhood”. A photograph of a starving urchin¹⁶ was, for instance, captioned¹⁷: “Every grape you buy helps keep this child hungry”.

　　意在赢得罢工农民支持的查韦斯的运动的理论以及他所忍受的绝食引起了公众的猜想。其他劳工领袖惊讶地发现，他建立了一个古怪的，却集合了农民、宗教狂热分子、学生激进分子、政治家、艺术家和工会干部的强大联合。他们齐心协力劝说上百万消费者抵制由拒绝真诚地与农会谈判的农业公司所生产的产品：葡萄、生菜及其它。经他们完善的策略被评论家描述为“受迫害情结”。比如，一幅饥饿的儿童画像下打出的标题是：你购买的每一颗葡萄都让这个孩子挨饿。

　　Mr Bardacke is only half-impressed with all this. As he sees it Chávez had two main responsibilities: to sustain support for boycotts¹⁸, “which he did magnificently”, and to administer the union, “which he did badly”. The author notes that the union's membership continued to decline in the late 1980s even after Chávez fasted for 36 days to support its grape boycott and anti-pesticide campaign. His verdict seems unduly¹⁹ harsh but then Mr Bardacke is an old-fashioned leftist. For him, strikebreakers are almost always “scabs” and growers not even worth listening to. This is a pity, for such prejudices mar²⁰ an otherwise intelligent, thorough history.

　　对此，巴达克则不置可否。依他之见，查韦斯担负有两个主要责任：维持对抵制的支持，“这点他做得非常好”，至于管理工会“这点做得很糟糕”。作者注明，即使查韦斯为声援抵制葡萄及反杀虫剂运动而绝食36天，工会会员数在80年代末期也不断下降。他的结论看上去过于偏激，但巴达克是一名“老左”，对他来说，破坏罢工者几乎全是“工贼”，而推波助澜者甚至可以置之不理。这不得不说是种遗憾，因为其它方面的睿智的、深刻的历史有损于这种偏见。

　　The UFW is indeed, as he contends, a shadow of its former self, but the odds²¹ against it ever succeeding as a conventional labour union were always impossibly large. Illegal migrants from Mexico, poor and desperate for work, poured across the border to take the jobs of UFW members and doom²² their strikes. The rival Teamsters union was no help. Its operatives sabotaged²³ UFW recruitment drives by telling farmworkers they would be much better off in a tough professional union like theirs.

　　的确，正如他所主张的那样，农会是其前身的影子。但它和它所继承的传统农会的差别一直很大。贫穷的、渴求工作的墨西哥非法移民如潮水般越过边境，抢走了农会会员的饭碗，使得罢工失败。其竞争对手，名为掌控者的工会对此一点忙都帮不上。他们告诉农民，加入像他们这样强硬的职业工会日子会更好，这些行径打击了农会的招募新会员的动力。

　　Nonetheless Chávez left a significant legacy²⁴ which is insufficiently²⁵ acknowledged by Mr Bardacke. In leading by example and through the sheer force of his will he raised the stature²⁶ of Mexican-Americans not just in California and the south-west but throughout the United States. In consequence, he is now held in the same high esteem²⁷ as his black equivalent, Martin Luther King. César Chávez's portrait hangs in the National Gallery in Washington, DC. His statue stands on university campuses. Streets, parks and buildings are named after him. In California his birthday, March 31st, is a state holiday. His truth is marching on.

　　虽然不被巴达克完全认可，但查韦斯留下了一笔重要的遗产。榜样以及他的遗志所产生的巨大力量不仅仅在加州和西南部，更在全美树立了墨西哥裔美国人的形象。结果是，如今人们把他摆在了和马丁·路德·金一样受人尊敬的地位。塞萨尔·查韦斯的画像悬挂在华盛顿国家画廊。他的塑像屹立在大学校园里。马路、公园、建筑物以他的名字命名。在加州，他的生日，也就是3月31日，成了州立节日。他的真理将代代传承。

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