Die Neue Zeit
5th December 2009, 18:33
Private-Sector Collective Bargaining Representation as a Free Legal Service
"Free administration of justice and free legal assistance. Administration of the law by judges elected by the people. Appeal in criminal cases. Compensation for individuals unjustly accused, imprisoned, or sentenced. Abolition of capital punishment." (Eduard Bernstein)
In the late 19th-century and early 20th-century, trade unions were in fact alliances of employed workers and otherwise (unemployed workers, retired workers, and so on), provided social services, showed a lot less hesitance towards calling strikes, and sometimes posed political questions. Out of these came the One Big Union and Socialist Industrial Union concepts, neither of which united workers on merely a sectional basis.
Contrast the above to a modern, "yellow" tred-iunion, which caters only to its particular section of the working class (such as public-sector workers), doesn't provide social services (except perhaps entertainment for the tred-iunionisty who control the union bureaucracy), pays lip service to the very concept of strikes to the point of signing no-strike deals, never poses political questions (as demonstrated clearly by United Steelworkers of America's approach to workers' cooperatives), and even organizes sometimes on the basis of craft and not trade (as is the case in the airline industry). As mentioned earlier, the modern tred-iunion also does not perform the functions of "workers' statistical commissions" to audit the business figures of employers.
All in all, what is to be learned from these trends is that the collective bargaining function itself, except perhaps where there are no union representatives, goes against politico-ideological independence for the working class. Amongst the various forms of dispute resolution in civil law - negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and litigation - tred-iunion careerists perform not just negotiation on the formal behalf of employees, but also (and in practice) mediation between employers and employees. The old Western European corporatist model best exemplifies this, whereby representatives of government, businesses, and unions met together on a regular basis and jointly determined economic policy.
Looming over this lesson and the trends is the difficulty of mobilizing clerical workers (who are mistaken for the entire "service worker" population, which includes professional workers). While the comprehensive reform outlined in the previous section – for living wages, non-deflationary cost-of-living adjustments based on reliable inflation figures, and similar application towards unemployment insurance and voluntary workface benefits – would indeed render collective bargaining for those wage increases for mere cost-of-living adjustments practically obsolete, the overall problem of collective bargaining representation would still remain, such as in the obvious topics of working conditions and wage increases well above mere cost-of-living adjustments.
The immediate solution once more lies in the Erfurt Program, this time in its demand for free legal assistance. However, what should be pursued here is the wholesale absorption of all private-sector collective bargaining representation into free legal services by independent government agencies acting in good faith (and subjecting their employees to full-time compensation being at or slightly lower than the median equivalent for professional and other skilled workers). Significant parts of the administrative apparatus required for the complete provision of labour dispute resolution by such agencies and their plethora of lawyers are already in place in developed capitalist countries, and happen to be called "labour courts" or "labour relations boards." Public-sector collective bargaining is not addressed, given the sensitivity of public-sector workers towards their government employers.
It should be noted that the collective bargaining function as a whole is different from the strike function, the latter of which should naturally remain the function of whatever unions remain, including "red" unions. In terms of facilitating the issuance of intermediate or threshold demands, there would be emancipatory demands later on pertaining to potential restrictions on the activities of these unions, which should be able to perform all the class solidarity and statistical functions mentioned earlier.
In terms of this reform enabling the basic principles to be "kept consciously in view," politico-ideological independence for the working class, as well as exposition of the bourgeois-capitalist nature of the modern state (hence the cynicism behind "acting in good faith") and other aspects of class strugglism, is upheld by this radical departure from traditional views on collective bargaining. This demand illustrates the false nature of the alleged dichotomy between building union-based labour parties on the one hand - a notoriously strong phenomenon on the British left-of-Labour scene, such as the left-nationalist No2EU project - and building cross-class, left-populist parties such as Respect on the other; neither option has the potential to mobilize private-sector clerical workers like this demand does.
Furthermore, this absorption, if not enacted by the bourgeoisie due to class-strugglist pressure from the workers, would have to be enacted by the latter during the early transitional period - before dissolving the businesses of the former. Meanwhile, any "workers' statistical commission" functions arising from this reform could in fact play an important control function for social labour in this period.
REFERENCES:
Programme of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany (Erfurt Programme) by Karl Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein [http://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/1891/erfurt-program.htm]
On Trade Unions [http://www.revleft.com/vb/trade-unions-t116838/index.html]
Steelworkers Form Collaboration with MONDRAGON, the World's Largest Worker-Owned Cooperative by the United Steelworkers of America [http://www.usw.org/media_center/releases_advisories?id=0234]
No to coalition with "son of No2EU" by Mike Macnair [http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/794/nocoalition.php]
"Free administration of justice and free legal assistance. Administration of the law by judges elected by the people. Appeal in criminal cases. Compensation for individuals unjustly accused, imprisoned, or sentenced. Abolition of capital punishment." (Eduard Bernstein)
In the late 19th-century and early 20th-century, trade unions were in fact alliances of employed workers and otherwise (unemployed workers, retired workers, and so on), provided social services, showed a lot less hesitance towards calling strikes, and sometimes posed political questions. Out of these came the One Big Union and Socialist Industrial Union concepts, neither of which united workers on merely a sectional basis.
Contrast the above to a modern, "yellow" tred-iunion, which caters only to its particular section of the working class (such as public-sector workers), doesn't provide social services (except perhaps entertainment for the tred-iunionisty who control the union bureaucracy), pays lip service to the very concept of strikes to the point of signing no-strike deals, never poses political questions (as demonstrated clearly by United Steelworkers of America's approach to workers' cooperatives), and even organizes sometimes on the basis of craft and not trade (as is the case in the airline industry). As mentioned earlier, the modern tred-iunion also does not perform the functions of "workers' statistical commissions" to audit the business figures of employers.
All in all, what is to be learned from these trends is that the collective bargaining function itself, except perhaps where there are no union representatives, goes against politico-ideological independence for the working class. Amongst the various forms of dispute resolution in civil law - negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and litigation - tred-iunion careerists perform not just negotiation on the formal behalf of employees, but also (and in practice) mediation between employers and employees. The old Western European corporatist model best exemplifies this, whereby representatives of government, businesses, and unions met together on a regular basis and jointly determined economic policy.
Looming over this lesson and the trends is the difficulty of mobilizing clerical workers (who are mistaken for the entire "service worker" population, which includes professional workers). While the comprehensive reform outlined in the previous section – for living wages, non-deflationary cost-of-living adjustments based on reliable inflation figures, and similar application towards unemployment insurance and voluntary workface benefits – would indeed render collective bargaining for those wage increases for mere cost-of-living adjustments practically obsolete, the overall problem of collective bargaining representation would still remain, such as in the obvious topics of working conditions and wage increases well above mere cost-of-living adjustments.
The immediate solution once more lies in the Erfurt Program, this time in its demand for free legal assistance. However, what should be pursued here is the wholesale absorption of all private-sector collective bargaining representation into free legal services by independent government agencies acting in good faith (and subjecting their employees to full-time compensation being at or slightly lower than the median equivalent for professional and other skilled workers). Significant parts of the administrative apparatus required for the complete provision of labour dispute resolution by such agencies and their plethora of lawyers are already in place in developed capitalist countries, and happen to be called "labour courts" or "labour relations boards." Public-sector collective bargaining is not addressed, given the sensitivity of public-sector workers towards their government employers.
It should be noted that the collective bargaining function as a whole is different from the strike function, the latter of which should naturally remain the function of whatever unions remain, including "red" unions. In terms of facilitating the issuance of intermediate or threshold demands, there would be emancipatory demands later on pertaining to potential restrictions on the activities of these unions, which should be able to perform all the class solidarity and statistical functions mentioned earlier.
In terms of this reform enabling the basic principles to be "kept consciously in view," politico-ideological independence for the working class, as well as exposition of the bourgeois-capitalist nature of the modern state (hence the cynicism behind "acting in good faith") and other aspects of class strugglism, is upheld by this radical departure from traditional views on collective bargaining. This demand illustrates the false nature of the alleged dichotomy between building union-based labour parties on the one hand - a notoriously strong phenomenon on the British left-of-Labour scene, such as the left-nationalist No2EU project - and building cross-class, left-populist parties such as Respect on the other; neither option has the potential to mobilize private-sector clerical workers like this demand does.
Furthermore, this absorption, if not enacted by the bourgeoisie due to class-strugglist pressure from the workers, would have to be enacted by the latter during the early transitional period - before dissolving the businesses of the former. Meanwhile, any "workers' statistical commission" functions arising from this reform could in fact play an important control function for social labour in this period.
REFERENCES:
Programme of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany (Erfurt Programme) by Karl Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein [http://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/1891/erfurt-program.htm]
On Trade Unions [http://www.revleft.com/vb/trade-unions-t116838/index.html]
Steelworkers Form Collaboration with MONDRAGON, the World's Largest Worker-Owned Cooperative by the United Steelworkers of America [http://www.usw.org/media_center/releases_advisories?id=0234]
No to coalition with "son of No2EU" by Mike Macnair [http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/794/nocoalition.php]