Anarchism and Trade Unions

[Dóchas]

i was recently reading the ABC Of Anarchism and alexander berkman seemed pretty critical of the unions and in particular its leaders but then further on in the book he say that they are a great way of educating the worker (although these will be unions set up after the revolution).they seem like a good way bringing the workers together as if they were on their own they couldnt really achieve anything of value i was just wondering what are anarchists opinion on trade unions and if you are a member of one?

[StalinFanboy]

I think trade unions are inherently reformist, but still necessary. Along those lines, I think concentrating all of our time and effort into unions isn't going to bring about revolution (bring on the flaming).

[Invincible Summer]

I'm not in a trade union, but only because I'm not a tradesperson or working at all... but I do think that unions (especially radical ones) are important, especially these days when not many people identify with classes. When people are involved in union activities, it can help them gain a collective identity in regards to fellow workers.

[Jack]

Some unions are exceptionally good, like the CNT, because the CNT puts so much into the activity of the individual worker, a CNT unionized workplace is a thousand times better than a CGT (reformist "anarchist" union) unionized workplace because every single worker is a revolutionary syndicalist.

Now when it comes to the AFL-CIO (America's big old bourgeois union), the worker is merely a puppet for the union beurocrats. There is no real shopfloor prescence of the union, but it is like a distant being that is no way revolutionary, but just saps from your paycheck every week.

So basically unions can be revolutionary, but most larger unions become bogged down in beuracracy.

There is still a real need for anarchist political organization, the Spanish Revolution showed the weakness of syndicalism in a revolutionary situation.

[Absolut]

Im an anarchist and a member of the SAC.

I dont at all agree with Malatesta or Berkman about the roles of the syndicalist unions, I think it can play a huge and positive role in the revolution, especially since its the most logical organization for a worker to join before the revolution.

Jack, just out of curiousity, which are the flaws in the syndicalist organizational form that became apparent during the Spanish Revolution? I agree with you, Im just curious as to what you think the flaws are. :)

[STJ]

I am not in a union but there are none for the job i do.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

I have mixed feelings for Unions. Unions in some cases can help to radicalise the workplace and increase class concsiousness however their revolutionary potential is very little in my opinion. Also, unions, by negotiating for 'better' exploitation for the workers can help to minimise levels of class consciousness.

[Jack]

Jack, just out of curiousity, which are the flaws in the syndicalist organizational form that became apparent during the Spanish Revolution? I agree with you, Im just curious as to what you think the flaws are. :)

Well for starters as Bakunin-Kropotkin said, by lessening exploitation, unions often lower class conciousness. In Spain the CNT openly collaborated with the government which helped defeat the revolution. The union discouraged actions by members who would want to restart the revolution in hopes of anti-fascist unity.

[Absolut]

Well for starters as Bakunin-Kropotkin said, by lessening exploitation, unions often lower class conciousness. In Spain the CNT openly collaborated with the government which helped defeat the revolution. The union discouraged actions by members who would want to restart the revolution in hopes of anti-fascist unity.

Ive always felt that we should strive after improving the workers life, be it by a raise of one dollar per hour or by a revolution. It might lower class conciousness, and thats a risk Im willing to take, but I can also see it raising the confidence of the working class and class conciousness and attracting new members if they see an organization that actually fights for the workers.

The rest, I agree with.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Ive always felt that we should strive after improving the workers life, be it by a raise of one dollar per hour or by a revolution. It might lower class conciousness, and thats a risk Im willing to take, but I can also see it raising the confidence of the working class and class conciousness and attracting new members if they see an organization that actually fights for the workers.

The rest, I agree with.

I agree that union struggles can raise consciousness among workers.

I think we need to distinguish between the union bureaucracy and the rank and file. Often in order to win a struggle, workers also have to battle their own union leadership and this is really why I think radicals should all be in unions when possible even if it's a really shitty one - and they're out there.

I am not opposed to radical unions and I think they can play an important role - even if it is just to cause workers in traditional unions to become more aware of the impact of the influence of reformist ideas in the mainstream unions. However, I think it's a mistake to abstain from the traditional unions on the principle that they are not revolutionary. Having a radical presence among the rank and file in a union struggle can potentially help radicalize the local and by presenting a radical alternative to the tactics - and ultimate goal - of the union leadership.

[nuisance]

Well for starters as Bakunin-Kropotkin said, by lessening exploitation, unions often lower class conciousness. In Spain the CNT openly collaborated with the government which helped defeat the revolution. The union discouraged actions by members who would want to restart the revolution in hopes of anti-fascist unity.
I am sorry but no, you and Bakunin-Kropotkin are horribly off the mark and your views negate the improval of workers conditions- this stance alone states that you believe that revolution is seperate from the class and its struggle to emancipate itself (the class should be deterred from acting through its current mechanisms to gain reforms on pay and conditions because it will appartently prolong the neccessity of revolution)- which is strange coming from anarchists.
We learn through struggle and this is how the class will educate itself for when revolution comes. Unions can be the opening door to taking active resistance in the class struggle and can produce a certain amount of class conciousness- unionised workforces are alot more concious than un-unionised ones, an example is the miners organised within the NUM during the miners strike in the UK. Other than this, it is preferable to gain as many concessions from the capitalist class as possible, I for one do not want to live and work in shite in hoping that it may potenially hasten up a revolutionary situation.
On the other hand, I would argue that a stunned, downtrodden, completely unorganised class en masse (of course revolutionaries and such would still try and organise the workforce outside of the perameters of the unions) are less revolutionary than a class making small gains collectively here and there. With every little gain we believe that more is possible and once that need or want is statisfied the class will become bolder in its adivances as it shows the strength of the workers.
All this said, I do not believe unions are a revolutionary force, however they are the mainstream face of resistance and though nowhere near perfect, I feel it is necessary to work within these groups and attempt to inseminate more radical ideas and critiques of the union movement within your branch. It is best to organise in the existing unions aswell as our own initatives until we have create alternatives that can take up the place of the modern day unions in the struggle.

[Devrim]

Some unions are exceptionally good, like the CNT, because the CNT puts so much into the activity of the individual worker, a CNT unionized workplace is a thousand times better than a CGT (reformist "anarchist" union) unionized workplace because every single worker is a revolutionary syndicalist.

Jack, I very much doubt that there is one single workplace in Spain where every worker is a member of the CNT. Not only because the CNT is an organisation which struggles to act as a union nowadays but also because that is not the way in which unions in Europe work.

The system in Europe is not the same as the US or the English model, but one in which adherence to unions is often also a 'political' adherence. A freind of mine for example works in a place where there are seven unions to choose from ranging from left to Islamicist and fascist.

I think that the CNT today has between two and four thousand members, which although high by comparison with leftist parties is low in comparison with functioning unions. If you discount the pensioners, students and unemployed, and only consider those who would be a part of workplace unions it would be a lot smaller.

As for every member being a committed 'revolutionary syndicalist', I think the CNT look at it slighty differently;


No ideological qualification is necessary to be in the CNT. This is because the CNT is anarcho-syndicalist, that is, it is an organisation in which decisions are made in assembly, from the base. It is an autonomous, federalist structure independent of political parties, of government agencies, of professional bureaucracies, etc. The anarcho-union only requires a respect for its rules, and from this point of view people of different opinions, tendencies and ideologies
can live together within it. Ecologists, pacifists, members of political parties... can be part of the CNT. There will always be different opinions, priorities and points of view about concrete problems. What everyone has in common within the anarcho-union is its unique way of functioning, its anti-authoritarian structure.

Devrim

[Pogue]

I'm an Anarchist and I'm in the IWW as well as a TUC affiliated union.

I'm also an anarcho-syndicalist. I believe that revolutionary unions are the natural home for the working class. Unions have always been the organ of defense of the class and make sense as an organisation for the worker to join. If you can get a worker in a militant union, which is easy to do as unions have clear benefits for workers, in comparison to parties, which don't. I believe that the radical, revolutionary union acts as the 'school of the revolution', in that as part of its membership, a membership which is the union, participating in organising and striking and other workplace actions helps develop class and revolutionary conciousness. The organisation trains workers for revolution, and creates links between the working class making it powerful through the weapon of solidarity.

I think Spain showed this best, where the workers in the CNT were the best organised to resist fascism and make a revolution through a succesion of struggles and connections made by the class in the years building up to 1936.

I think the main problem is keeping the union in a revolutionary anarchist direction which was experienced in 1936 too. This is why I think the revolutionary union needs a very storng democratic and influenecial group of anarchists within it arguing for a radical position, basically keeping the union revolutionary in nature and anarchist in its goals. This is seen in how the FAI (Iberian Federation of Anarchists) worked within the CNT-FAI to keep it revolutionary throughout the period of struggle in Spain.

I disagree with the council communist position of thr union/form of working class organisation being formed during the struggle. I think this makes us lazy as revolutionaries and leaves it too late and just begs for class contradictions to remain in force even in a potentially revolutionary organisation.

In regards to the TUC, well I follow a dual carder position because its neccesary while the IWW grow and gives me contact with other works I can hope to win over to our positions. I think the reformist unions can never be revolutionary and are grounded by beurecracy and class collaboration, but they have some good representatives and people at the ower levels, many of whom I know and have worked with and they are brilliant people. Unions protect workers, if they're good ones and fight, and provide a basis with which to defend and advance against management and the bosses, and I admire the TUC for their anti-fascist stuff even though I don't agree with their approaches. We need to win the members, not the unions themselves, to more revolutionary positions through engaging with them and debating and also by succeeding in our revolutionary union.

Devrim, I've heard that the CNT has around 30,000 organised workers which is alot for an anarcho-sydncialist goup considering the influence of the revolutionary left in general and the fact the group was pretty much wiped out by the fascists while it was at its strongest point back in the 30s. I think criticising them for small membership is absurd given the size of the left, and it merely represents that anarcho-syndicalists have to put alot of effort into building our organsiations, not that it means our tactics and ideas cannot work.

[Devrim]

Devrim, I've heard that the CNT has around 30,000 organised workers which is alot for an anarcho-sydncialist goup

The CNT doesn't issue membership figures. I think that 30,000 is an major exaggeration. The most common figure that I hear is 6,000. I base my figure (between 2,000 and 4,000) on figures that I used in a discussion on the CNT and the CGT. They weren't corrected by the IWA/AIT international secretary, who was present and did disagree with my statements on other things. To me that says it is probably quite a reasonable guess.

Even 2,000 would be big for an anarchist group, but it would be small for a union.

Devrim

[Stranger Than Paradise]

I am sorry but no, you and Bakunin-Kropotkin are horribly off the mark and your views negate the improval of workers conditions- this stance alone states that you believe that revolution is seperate from the class and its struggle to emancipate itself (the class should be deterred from acting through its current mechanisms to gain reforms on pay and conditions because it will appartently prolong the neccessity of revolution)- which is strange coming from anarchists.
We learn through struggle and this is how the class will educate itself for when revolution comes. Unions can be the opening door to taking active resistance in the class struggle and can produce a certain amount of class conciousness- unionised workforces are alot more concious than un-unionised ones, an example is the miners organised within the NUM during the miners strike in the UK. Other than this, it is preferable to gain as many concessions from the capitalist class as possible, I for one do not want to live and work in shite in hoping that it may potenially hasten up a revolutionary situation.
On the other hand, I would argue that a stunned, downtrodden, completely unorganised class en masse (of course revolutionaries and such would still try and organise the workforce outside of the perameters of the unions) are less revolutionary than a class making small gains collectively here and there. With every little gain we believe that more is possible and once that need or want is statisfied the class will become bolder in its adivances as it shows the strength of the workers.
All this said, I do not believe unions are a revolutionary force, however they are the mainstream face of resistance and though nowhere near perfect, I feel it is necessary to work within these groups and attempt to inseminate more radical ideas and critiques of the union movement within your branch. It is best to organise in the existing unions aswell as our own initatives until we have create alternatives that can take up the place of the modern day unions in the struggle.

Well unions work within Capitalism without any intention of destroying it. They do serve to make workers accept their oppression and accept the bosses. This is true of non revolutionary unions.

Not that we shouldn't be members of these unions as improving conditions is better than not improving conditions however the agenda of these unions is a capitalist agenda.

I support unions like the IWW and CNT because they have a revolutionary anti-capitalist agenda and are organised democratically.

[Dóchas]

Well unions work within Capitalism without any intention of destroying it. They do serve to make workers accept their oppression and accept the bosses.


ye i have to agree with you there, it seems as if unions just accept the compromise of what they were setting out to achieve in the first place. i dont think they are strong enough to fight properly for what the workers want and this is one of their main weaknesses

[Bilan]

ye i have to agree with you there, it seems as if unions just accept the compromise of what they were setting out to achieve in the first place. i dont think they are strong enough to fight properly for what the workers want and this is one of their main weaknesses

Their strength is neither the question nor is it a solution. Unions in different places have been incredibly powerful - the unions in France are classic example of powerful unions.
The point is their role within capitalist society, and whether as an instrument of power they can play a progressive or revolutionary role still.
Unions cannot play a revolutionary role in Capitalist society precisely because they're an instrument of mediation between two opposing classes - the working class and the bourgeoisie. They seek concessions, whether by force (strikes, etc) or by compromise and discussion (much more common now days), but not for its over throw as the existence of these Trade Unions necessitates this position (That is, as a mediator).

It is irrelevant who is elected in the union - whether a socialist, an anarcho-syndicalist, a liberal, or whoever - because they must make compromises to keep themselves in that position. Compromises which hurt us, and which keep the organization afloat. Good examples are popping up all over the place right now, such as those in relation to the wharf strikes in 1998 in Australia, or the current deals being negotiated with the bosses on the Wharves in Australia.

[The Feral Underclass]

Unions are great at winning transitional demands - making our exploitation more comfortable - but they are not and cannot be revolutionary by their nature.

:ohmy:

[Devrim]

Unions are great at winning transitional demands - making our exploitation more comfortable - but they are not and cannot be revolutionary by their nature.

I think that you have misunderstood what a transitional demand is. Wiki puts it like this:


Transitional demands differ from calls for revolution (a maximum programme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_programme)) in that they call for things that could be achieved under capitalism. So "Rule by workers' councils (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers%27_council)" would not be a transitional demand, as it would imply the overthrow of capitalism. Examples of transitional demands would be "Employment for all (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_employment)" or "Housing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing) for all," demands that sound reasonable to the average citizen, but are practically impossible for capitalism to deliver on. Trotsky held that, while socialists should not hide their programme, it was essential to plan a possible route to it.

Transitional demands are in essence things that the trade unions can't win by definition.

Whether they can defend workers' living standards is a different question.

Devrim

[Black Sheep]

Tell me please, what is the difference between a syndicate and a trade union?

[Pogue]

Syndicate is basically from the french word for union, so there is no difference.

Syndicalism would be the same trade unionism, referring to the ideology hilighting the need and importance for and off trade unions.

I gueess if you accept syndicate in the sense of revolutionary syndicalism or anarcho-syndicalism (although no one ever calls the union the syndicate over here in English) the union we talk about is a revolutionary one.

Linguistically they are the same but syndicate has connotations due to its usage in revolutionary names and theories to refer to revolutionary unions more if you wanted to find a distinction.

Also, a syndicate might mean an industrial, mass union, such as those revolutionary unionists and industrial unionists refer too. A trade union would unite people according to their trade - so all cleaners would be in one union - whereas an inudstrial union does it according to industry, so everyone working in say, the transport network, from the train drivers to station cleaners, would be in one union, united by industry. And also revolutionary unionists/syndicalists would believe in uniting the class into one being revolutionary union.

I've found people who refer to themselves as 'syndicalists' tend to be the more radical union activists.

[nuisance]

Well unions work within Capitalism without any intention of destroying it. They do serve to make workers accept their oppression and accept the bosses. This is true of non revolutionary unions

Not that we shouldn't be members of these unions as improving conditions is better than not improving conditions however the agenda of these unions is a capitalist agenda.

I support unions like the IWW and CNT because they have a revolutionary anti-capitalist agenda and are organised democratically.
It wasn't claimed that unions were not constrained by capitalism, infact I stated that they are not, in themselves, vehicles of revolution.
Also, in the bold, you have refuted the initial arguement you made, which my comment was countering.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

It wasn't claimed that unions were not constrained by capitalism, infact I stated that they are not, in themselves, vehicles of revolution.
Also, in the bold, you have refuted the initial arguement you made, which my comment was countering.

Ok what I meant in my original post was that Unions make workers accept their exploitation and by doing so lower class consciousness. Any negotiation that a union makes with the bosses for better conditions is good in my mind, however I cannot see how this in anyway would increase class consciousness.

[Holger Meins]

I have to say that I fail to see how trade unions would make the workers accept their exploitation, unless of course they are yellow unions.

[h0m0revolutionary]

I am an anarchist and in a union, this is because in the here and now it's in my material interests to do so.

Moreover that is where class-conscious workers congregate and so agitation within a trade union is easier.

However I do not hold that unions, revolutionary or otherwise can ever be the vehicle to ignite revolution, nor do i think they can offer any form of governance postrevolution.

Unions by their nature are reformist; not just because they seek to get an acceptable level of exploitation (as stated) but because their whole existance is based upon the antagonism between two classes, in the stuggle for a better world our sturggle is to make them obselete. In a revolutionary period, many unions, so bureaucratised have they become, will not want to relinquish the institutional status some have come to assume.

[The Feral Underclass]

I think that you have misunderstood what a transitional demand is. Wiki puts it like this:



Transitional demands are in essence things that the trade unions can't win by definition.

Whether they can defend workers' living standards is a different question.

Devrim

I think I did well in defining a transitional demand. Thanks.