CWO Public Meeting, Manchester - 23rd Jan 2010

[Android]

Unions: Whose Side Are They On?

Manchester Public Meeting of the Communist Workers’ Organisation.

The financial bubble has burst and the cost is being pushed onto the working class. Jobs gone, pensions stolen, wages cut and services lost.. In Britain the workers are starting to realise they have no choice but to fight back. The media have started talking about the return of “union power”. But is there a new union militancy and if there is, is it a good thing for the working class? Join the discussion at:

Friends’ Meeting House
6 Mount Street (behind the Central Library)
Central Manchester.
2.00pm. Saturday 23 January 2010

[Pogue]

Interesting. I'd go to this if I lived in Manchester. Seems to me the question of whether union militancy is a good thing is a bit peculiar but then that would give us some good debates.

[Android]

I've posted below a report on the meeting by a comrade that originally was posted on libcom.org

------------

Well this meeting was not as stimulating as it might have been had the political spectrum there been a bit wider (no SolFed, SPGB or traditional leftist attendee for instance). As it was there were 5 members of the CWO, 4 members of the ICC (partly due to their own meeting orginally planned for the same day being sensibly postponed as a result), 2 members of the Anarchist Federation, a supporter of 'The Commune', 2 comrades from the Birmingham Discussion Forum and me.

There was indeed a large measure of agreement on the anti-working class role of the trade unions (whilst understanding that many struggles would start off within a trade union framework) and the impossibillity of traditional anarchist or revolutionary syndicalism providing a useful or practical alternative in todays global capitalism. In this situation it was however recognised that pro-revolutionaries (whatever tradition they hailed from) needed to encourage the formation of militant minority groups of workers outside the union framework to develop politically and to exert influence in situations of rising class struggle. In some cases that could be helped by pro-revolutionaries working better together perhaps in the tradition of Libcom's 'Tea Break' or local workplace networks.

A number of experiences were recounted both close to home as with the recent Post Office and Visteon disputes and worldwide as in the Italian Auto industry which illustrated the broader analysis.

There was some recognition that in our discussions and attempts to co-operate practically we needed to look behind the political language used by different groups and tendencies from 'anarchist' and 'marxist' tendencies to find some common understanding and practice, (wherever possible though of course it isn't always possible).

Given the age profile of most attendees,their political histories and past, often heated, disputes, there was something of the 'old comrades re-united' about the event, especially noticeable in the pub afterwards, but at least it was genuinely comradely throughout.

I have noticed recently a few attempts to broaden the discussion amongst pro-revolutionaries and others looking for alternatives outside the traditional left accross the anarchist/marxist divide, as in the Sheffield Readers Group promoted by 'The Commune', and to some extent the established Birmingham Discussion Forum and would like to see more in this direction here in Manchester and in other towns.

Libcom helps but you cannot beat some face to face contact.