The Union Movement is the front Line

[Blackburn]

In one of those epiphany moments for myself between sleeping and awakening, I realized this. Unions are on the front line of the fight.

To begin the class battle, we need to strengthen the union movement.

People on the left wing (mainstream) have been ignoring unions. The Right Wing has not. They have actively been targeting them.

Because the Right Wing knows where the front line is.

The union movement shows people that there is a class battle, that we can fight back...and that things get better in a worker lead environment.

I've never really spoken to anyone in my life who has thought highly of unions. They all buy into the Right Wing propaganda. And because unions are weakened, or absent from industry...people are trained into a type of serfdom.

What do you guys think?

[Paulappaul]

We need to strengthen the Workers' Movement, not the Union Movement. Unions mean peace, we mean class war. You say without Unions we are "Serfs" and with Unions are Contracted Wage Laborers. We as Communists shouldn't be focusing on point of production politics, rather we should be working to strength the working class as a class for itself.

[Madslatter]

I think the two go hand in hand. A workers movement will include unions, but it must not be dominated by reformist types. The ideal is to have a workers movement where the union aspect is mainly utilized by revolutionary unions. Paulappaul, your DeLeon quote is extremely applicable in this instance. Even if, as many think, unions cannot be truly revolutionary on their own, a union can be revolutionary when the revolution comes. A party can direct the more revolutionary ends, the union will help with the organizing and would be better able to conduct a general strike than the political organization.

[Delenda Carthago]

Unions mean peace, we mean class war.
Yar, we mean class war yar yar!! No unions, only class war!

http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/digitalpress/digitalpress0808/digitalpress080800020/3503664-pirate-with-angry-face.jpg

[Delenda Carthago]

Its the same thing when some real revolutionaries said that the 48 hour general strike that happened in Greece in June was nothing, and that it was just excersise and its no revolutionary thing to strike unless you strike for the eternity. You can be all revolutionary you want, you can figure out the most radical political thesis, you can imagine the worst for the capitalist pigs, it dont fuckin matter.
Only thing that matters, is what happens. And in order for you to make an impulse to real world, you have to understand the framework. You dont just go ultra-revolutionary when people dont even know what socialism, class strugle or what their class position is. One step at the time. You need to take any step together with society. Or else you are just a clown who is daydreaming revolution all he wants. Thats for free.It dont cost nothing.

Other than that, unions are the economical organisations of the exploited class in the economic system of capitalism. It is the home for every worker. Fighting against them is sterile leftist ultra revolutionarism. Which in no historical situation ever helped at all.

[Lynx]

There are some collaborationist unions that need to be reformed. If they cannot be reformed, they are an obstacle, keeping workers in blinders.

[citizen of industry]

Unions are indespensible. In the era of finance capital (and its violent decline) even the simplest union demand for a tiny wage raise or benefit is something corporations can't afford. The simplest demands cannot be met by capitalism in decline, which puts unions on the front line. Look at the mass strikes this year sweeping Greece, France, S. Africa, Bolivia, Honduras, etc.

Of course, unions depend on employers and therefore on capitalism, but they improve working conditions for the working class and develop class-consciousness. I recommend Rosa Luxemburg on the mass strike.

Unions can never mean peace. It's wage labor vs. capital. Leadership often sucks for sure, but we can vote it out or replace it.

[Paulappaul]

Paulappaul, your DeLeon quote is extremely applicable in this instance. Even if, as many think, unions cannot be truly revolutionary on their own, a union can be revolutionary when the revolution comes. A party can direct the more revolutionary ends, the union will help with the organizing and would be better able to conduct a general strike than the political organization.

I still believe there should be a struggle alongside the economic field. I don't think it should be by or can be by Unions or by the means of a general strike which will "take and hold" the means of production. I respect the line promoted by Loren Goldner and followed by groups like the Solidarity Federation in England, mainly that we should be in Unions where they exist as to promote Independent Organization and Autonomy of the rank and file from Union.

[Madslatter]

Whereas I consider the general strike to be an essential aspect of successful revolution. It's not the be all end all of of it, but it's very important. I also think that for a union to be useful in a revolution it needs to be run by it's members, not through an elected bureaucracy. However, a revolutionary union does not need to have have the closed door on every major workplace where the revolution is occurring. Groups like SolFed can use existing union structures to bring about a work stoppage independent of the reformist union that is probably in the shop. Even if the union itself is a joke, it has set up a structure which enables it's members to act in unison action, something that the revolutionary members of the shops workforce can utilize.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Unions are indespensible. In the era of finance capital (and its violent decline) even the simplest union demand for a tiny wage raise or benefit is something corporations can't afford. The simplest demands cannot be met by capitalism in decline, which puts unions on the front line. Look at the mass strikes this year sweeping Greece, France, S. Africa, Bolivia, Honduras, etc.

Of course, unions depend on employers and therefore on capitalism, but they improve working conditions for the working class and develop class-consciousness. I recommend Rosa Luxemburg on the mass strike.

Unions can never mean peace. It's wage labor vs. capital. Leadership often sucks for sure, but we can vote it out or replace it.

If capitalism in decline can not even meet the simplest of demands, how can unions at the same time be used to achieve these demands?

In fact, here is what Rosa Luxemburg said on this:


On the contrary, if we examine the large factors of social development, we see that we are not moving toward an epoch marked by a victorious development of trade unions, but rather toward a time when the hardships of labor unions will increase. Once industrial development has attained its highest possible point and capitalism has entered its descending phase on the world market, the trade union struggle will become doubly difficult. In the first place, the objective conjuncture of the market will be less favorable to the sellers of labor power, because the demand for labor power will increase at a slower rate and labor supply more rapidly than at present. In the second place, the capitalists themselves, in order to make up for losses suffered on the world market, will make even greater efforts than at present to reduce the part of the total product going to the workers (in the form of wages). The reduction of wages is, as pointed out by Marx, one of the principal means of retarding the fall of profit. The situation in England already offers us a picture of the beginning of the second stage of trade union development. Trade union action is reduced of necessity to the simple defense of already realized gains, and even that is becoming more and more difficult. Such is the general trend of things in our society. The counterpart of this tendency should be the development of the political side of the class struggle.

[RED DAVE]

We need to strengthen the Workers' Movement, not the Union Movement. Unions mean peace, we mean class war. You say without Unions we are "Serfs" and with Unions are Contracted Wage Laborers. We as Communists shouldn't be focusing on point of production politics, rather we should be working to strength the working class as a class for itself.And how do you expect to "strengthen the Workers' Movement," without "point of production" victories? This is one of the most important places where it starts. Frequently, this means union victories.

RED DAVE

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

On the contrary, if we examine the large factors of social development, we see that we are not moving toward an epoch marked by a victorious development of trade unions, but rather toward a time when the hardships of labor unions will increase. Once industrial development has attained its highest possible point and capitalism has entered its descending phase on the world market, the trade union struggle will become doubly difficult. In the first place, the objective conjuncture of the market will be less favorable to the sellers of labor power, because the demand for labor power will increase at a slower rate and labor supply more rapidly than at present. In the second place, the capitalists themselves, in order to make up for losses suffered on the world market, will make even greater efforts than at present to reduce the part of the total product going to the workers (in the form of wages). The reduction of wages is, as pointed out by Marx, one of the principal means of retarding the fall of profit. The situation in England already offers us a picture of the beginning of the second stage of trade union development. Trade union action is reduced of necessity to the simple defense of already realized gains, and even that is becoming more and more difficult. Such is the general trend of things in our society. The counterpart of this tendency should be the development of the political side of the class struggle.

Yep. And:



Firstly. A general rise in the rate of wages would result in a fall of the general rate of profit, but, broadly speaking, not affect the prices of commodities.
Secondly. The general tendency of capitalist production is not to raise, but to sink the average standard of wages.
Thirdly. Trades Unions work well as centers of resistance against the encroachments of capital. They fail partially from an injudicious use of their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerrilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class that is to say the ultimate abolition of the wages system.


And:



Committeemen can and do leave the plant during working hours, with the company guards looking the other way. They also get the top overtime that any worker in their district gets, because a union representative has to be present if just one worker is working. Full-time status for the union committeeman, which began as a means of freeing the union representative from the pressures of management, became a means of freeing the representative from the pressure of the workers.

[Ocean Seal]

On the contrary, if we examine the large factors of social development, we see that we are not moving toward an epoch marked by a victorious development of trade unions, but rather toward a time when the hardships of labor unions will increase. Once industrial development has attained its highest possible point and capitalism has entered its descending phase on the world market, the trade union struggle will become doubly difficult. In the first place, the objective conjuncture of the market will be less favorable to the sellers of labor power, because the demand for labor power will increase at a slower rate and labor supply more rapidly than at present. In the second place, the capitalists themselves, in order to make up for losses suffered on the world market, will make even greater efforts than at present to reduce the part of the total product going to the workers (in the form of wages). The reduction of wages is, as pointed out by Marx, one of the principal means of retarding the fall of profit. The situation in England already offers us a picture of the beginning of the second stage of trade union development. Trade union action is reduced of necessity to the simple defense of already realized gains, and even that is becoming more and more difficult. Such is the general trend of things in our society. The counterpart of this tendency should be the development of the political side of the class struggle.
Rosa Luxemburg is correct in stating that unions are not revolutionary and eventually they line up with the bosses. And they will continue to do so, so long as reformists are the only voice within the unions. Reformists will allow the bosses to trample over the rights of workers using unions as a vehicle for that. However, revolutionaries must make their voices heard within the union movement to strengthen the workers within the unions--not to dismantle the unions or call for new units of workers unity.


Firstly. A general rise in the rate of wages would result in a fall of the general rate of profit, but, broadly speaking, not affect the prices of commodities.
Secondly. The general tendency of capitalist production is not to raise, but to sink the average standard of wages.
Thirdly. Trades Unions work well as centers of resistance against the encroachments of capital. They fail partially from an injudicious use of their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerrilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class that is to say the ultimate abolition of the wages system.

Correct again. The final emancipation isn't coming anytime soon though, especially in the United States. The workers need unions right now. They need the basic necessities and a network to fall back upon (regardless of how flawed that network is). Union demonstrations are the way that the workers test the waters, organizing them from within unions, uses already existing reactionary networks for revolutionary purposes. The workers are united under false advocates; however, we need to expose this contradiction. And we aren't going to do so by yelling to the heavens. We're going to do it by getting involved in the workers movement and organizing them to push for more rights, until we eventually push too far. And the workers with the knowledge of how to organize themselves, and having the union network, will fight the class enemy without the union bosses via wildcat strikes among other tactics. That is when the contradiction is exposed, and the workers essentially begin to run the unions democratically rather than in their current authoritarian manner.

[citizen of industry]

If capitalism in decline can not even meet the simplest of demands, how can unions at the same time be used to achieve these demands?

In fact, here is what Rosa Luxemburg said on this:

Generally speaking. We know over 60% of union organizing drives end in failure. But in the minority of cases some small and temporary demands are achieved. It would be unwise to abandon union work and only focus on the political aspect. Marx's famous quote:

“Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battle lies, not in the immediate results, but in the ever-expanding union of the workers. This union is helped on by the improved means of communication that are created by modern industry, and that places the workers of different localities in contact with one another. It was just this contact that was needed to centralise the numerous local struggles, all of the same character, into one national struggle between classes."

And the Luxemburg I like:

It goes without saying that these concessions were withdrawn again, now here and now there. This however was only the cause of renewed strife and led to still more bitter struggles for revenge...

The mass strike, as the Russian Revolution shows it to us, is such a changeable phenomenon that it reflects all the phases of the political and economic struggle, all stages and factors of the revolution. Its adaptability, its efficiency, the factors of its origin are constantly changing. It suddenly opens new and wide perspectives of the revolution when it appears to have already arrived in a narrow pass and where it is impossible for anyone to reckon upon it with any degree of certainty. It flows now like a broad billow over the whole kingdom, and now divides into a gigantic network of narrow streams; now it bubbles forth from under the ground like a fresh spring and now is completely lost under the earth. Political and economic strikes, mass strikes and partial strikes, demonstrative strikes and fighting strikes, general strikes of individual branches of industry and general strikes in individual towns, peaceful wage struggles and street massacres, barricade fighting – all these run through one another, run side by side, cross one another, flow in and over one another – it is a ceaselessly moving, changing sea of phenomena. And the law of motion of these phenomena is clear: it does not lie in the mass strike itself nor in its technical details, but in the political and social proportions of the forces of the revolution...

It is absurd to think of the mass strike as one act, one isolated action. The mass strike is rather the indication, the rallying idea, of a whole period of the class struggle lasting for years, perhaps for decades...The workers’ condition of ceaseless economic struggle with the capitalists keeps their fighting energy alive in every political interval; it forms, so to speak, the permanent fresh reservoir of the strength of the proletarian classes, from which the political fight ever renews its strength, and at the same time leads the indefatigable economic sappers of the proletariat at all times, now here and now there, to isolated sharp conflicts, out of which public conflicts on a large scale unexpectedly explode...The most precious, lasting, thing in the rapid ebb and flow of the wave is its mental sediment: the intellectual, cultural growth of the proletariat, which proceeds by fits and starts, and which offers an inviolable guarantee of their further irresistible progress in the economic as in the political struggle...

[NoOneIsIllegal]

Statements like Paulappaul's are what scare me, because some people have some naive thought the workers will suddenly be organized if a time comes for revolution. Workers need to be organized in the workplaces, and as bureaucratic as the union movement has become, it will always be a breeding ground for revolution and class consciousness.
I think it's a sign of the times that low-wage, unorganized workers are getting pissed off and seeking to organize their workplaces. These are the places that won't simply be outsourced overseas. I've met some very militant people in these workplaces who want more than simply better wages and sick-pay.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Although I've kind of moved away from anarchism over the years, I still find a lot of value in Malatesta's assessment of them.


Today, I believe, there is no-one, or almost no-one amongst us who would deny the usefulness of and the need for the labour movement as a mass means of material and moral advancement, as a fertile ground for propaganda and as an indispensable force for the social transformation that is our goal. There is no longer anyone who does not understand what the workers' organisation means, to us anarchists more than to anyone, believing as we do that the new social organisation must not and cannot be imposed by a new government by force but must result from the free cooperation of all. Moreover, the labour movement is now an important and universal institution. To oppose it would be to become the oppressors' accomplices; to ignore it would be to put us out of reach of people's everyday lives and condemn us to perpetual powerlessness.

So obviously interacting within the labor movement is necessary. I don't think there's anyone who disagrees with that.

But going on:


A union can spring up with a socialist, revolutionary or anarchist programme and it is, indeed, with programmes of this sort that the various workers' programmes originate. But it is while they are weak and impotent that they are faithful to the programme - while, that is, they remain propaganda groups set up and run by a few zealous and committed men, rather than organisations ready for effective action. Later, as they manage to attract the masses and acquire the strength to claim and impose improvements, the original programme becomes an empty formula, to which no-one pays any more attention. Tactics adapt to the needs of the moment and the enthusiasts of the early days either themselves adapt or cede their place to 'practical' men concerned with today, and with no thought for tomorrow.

Can this not be seen in just about every industrial organization or union as they've become ascendant forces, from the CNT to the CIO? Isn't the history of the US labor movement replete with examples of unions ultimately selling out their militant membership in some way, in the name of "practicality"? And that was usually just about "economistic" demands. Imagine what would happen if there was a revolutionary moment, when political power was on the line. I don't believe that merely changing the leadership can change the fundamental nature of the modern union, either. To change the nature of, say, the AFL-CIO would be to destroy the AFL-CIO as it exists today.

However, while ultimately I think unions represent conservative, anti-revolutionary institutions, I do think they have value in the everyday struggle for "economistic" demands. I think they can provide a useful meeting place for people to collaborate and take action in order to improve their own conditions. I'm just acutely aware of their severe limitations.

[black magick hustla]

i think unions are condemned to dissappear as the economy becomes increasingly decadent and a whole sector of the working class gets aborted to a casualized, slum dwelling underclass. the unions will exist but they will only exist in its traditional demographics like public sector, or the "essential proletariat" (blue collar jobs, postal work). the decadence of the economy has turned nyc, san francisco, and other big cities into cities for the petit bourgeoisie and yuppies, as the traditional working class gets displaced into restaurant jobs etc and are increasingly unable to afford to live in those cities. i don't think the casualized workforce will be able to become "uncasualized" and therefore unionized. i think the labor movement will still be a non negligible force but i don't think it will ever be the dominant one again. i think what is going to end up happen is that the casualized proletariat will begin to organize itself in non-permanent, flexible organs/commandos as we have increasingly seen in the riots and disturbances since 2008 or so.

[La Comédie Noire]

I think capital has become mobile in a lot of sectors and that unionism will only survive in those traditional industries where capital can't be shuffled around or made liquid as easily. As communists we should serve as a link between those organized traditional workers who have it "good" and the younger casual and marginal workers. We need to show them how their struggle is a common one.

[Paulappaul]

And how do you expect to "strengthen the Workers' Movement," without "point of production" victories? This is one of the most important places where it starts. Frequently, this means union victories.

There are always point of production victories. I am more interested in the working class forcing through some political act. Hundreds of Contracts were won for workers in Wisconsin right before their right to organize was stripped. It didn't do much to strengthen Workers as Class as much as it did to strength workers as an individual trade. If on the other hand the working class and the left had defeated the bill It would have strengthen the class. Accomplishing what takes a long bureaucratic process by Representatives, by Direct Action would have done a Million more for the working class then securing wages at their current level.


because some people have some naive thought the workers will suddenly be organized if a time comes for revolution.

Nope never said that. Infact I think I said there must be an organization along the Political and Economic field. Namely a Party. So stop with the fucking strawmen.


Workers need to be organized in the workplaces, and as bureaucratic as the union movement has become, it will always be a breeding ground for revolution and class consciousness.

Nah not really. I've seen alot more on School Campus and in General Assemblies from average proletarians then I have in all the Labor Struggles I have been in. Mostly in the later it's people just trying to get back. People don't want to go challenge the when they are in a labor confrontation with their boss.

[citizen of industry]

There are always point of production victories. I am more interested in the working class forcing through some political act. Hundreds of Contracts were won for workers in Wisconsin right before their right to organize was stripped. It didn't do much to strengthen Workers as Class as much as it did to strength workers as an individual trade. If on the other hand the working class and the left had defeated the bill It would have strengthen the class. Accomplishing what takes a long bureaucratic process by Representatives, by Direct Action would have done a Million more for the working class then securing wages at their current level.



Nope never said that. Infact I think I said there must be an organization along the Political and Economic field. Namely a Party. So stop with the fucking strawmen.



Nah not really. I've seen alot more on School Campus and in General Assemblies from average proletarians then I have in all the Labor Struggles I have been in. Mostly in the later it's people just trying to get back. People don't want to go challenge the when they are in a labor confrontation with their boss.

That might be true in your experience, but it isn't the case globally. Look at the labor movement in Southern Europe right now. Maybe those unions weren't very militant, but once IMF austerity measure began destroying their standard of living, they rose up and pulled countless workers into their ranks. A large, militant movement is blossoming there.

[syndicat]

On the contrary, if we examine the large factors of social development, we see that we are not moving toward an epoch marked by a victorious development of trade unions, but rather toward a time when the hardships of labor unions will increase. Once industrial development has attained its highest possible point and capitalism has entered its descending phase on the world market, the trade union struggle will become doubly difficult. In the first place, the objective conjuncture of the market will be less favorable to the sellers of labor power, because the demand for labor power will increase at a slower rate and labor supply more rapidly than at present. In the second place, the capitalists themselves, in order to make up for losses suffered on the world market, will make even greater efforts than at present to reduce the part of the total product going to the workers (in the form of wages). The reduction of wages is, as pointed out by Marx, one of the principal means of retarding the fall of profit. The situation in England already offers us a picture of the beginning of the second stage of trade union development. Trade union action is reduced of necessity to the simple defense of already realized gains, and even that is becoming more and more difficult. Such is the general trend of things in our society. The counterpart of this tendency should be the development of the political side of the class struggle. just the usual excuse for partyism. but we know where partyism leads. it leads either to reformist social democracy or statist power for a rising bureaucratic class.


We need to strengthen the Workers' Movement, not the Union Movement. Unions mean peace, we mean class war. You say without Unions we are "Serfs" and with Unions are Contracted Wage Laborers. We as Communists shouldn't be focusing on point of production politics, rather we should be working to strength the working class as a class for itself. power comes from organization. and an organized workers movement at the point of production is a form of unionism. it may not be a bureaucratic, service agency, contract bargaining type of unionism, but it would still be a form of unionism.

Anyway, the comments posted here all suffer from the fallacy that they think there is a single perpetual essence that unionism has. in reality workers in union in workplaces...the root form of unionism...have existed along a spectrum of forms and political character....from the bureaucratic business unions at one end to autonomous, worker-run grassroots unions with a more independent, anti-capitalist tendency.

the working class can't liberate itself from class domination and exploitation without the latter form of unionism growing and becoming dominant.

the importance of the workplace struggle is that this is the heart of capitalism, and is where social power of workers can be built, through direct solidarity and collective action, and through this kind of activity and building of social power directly in their hands, confidence and an aspiration for more power, a belief in their ability to gain more power, can grow. there is no substitute for this.

the various complaints about the bureaucratic character of established unions and making compromises with employers are complaints about the current power of capitalists & bosses over workers. these kinds of controls...legal, contractual, bureaucratic...are needed by the system precisely because production is the heart of profit making, and it is critical to the capitalists to maintain control within production. but this also shows the potential power when workers are able to stop production and disrupt the process of profit-making.

[citizen of industry]

This is an issue I grappled with for a long time. What to prioritize? Union work, party work? Economics? Politics? Finally I decided they are both interelated and equally important. In Japan, where I am, the hey day of socialist parties happens also to be the hey day of labor. It wasn't that the parties were turning people into unionists, but that the material the parties were made of came from the unions. Union made, so to speak.

And this happened in a period of post-war economic decline. Union organizing became legal in 1946, and membership exploded. People didn't have a pot to piss in and inflation was devastating so they organized, demanding the "right to live" in the form of a decent wage. That brought them into confrontation with industrialists, and hence the government, and the unions became very political - the unionists became socialists.

In the period of economic growth, unions became collaborationist. They still got wage raises every year, but only because the corporations could afford to pay. After the bubble popped, the government split up and privatized large industries to break up the unions, introduced a lot of contract and temp labor, and companies moved operations abroad for the cheap labor. But the standard of living is falling dramatically now, as is the population. I see a bright future for both unions and socialist parties.

And anyway, what could be more fun than fighting your employer! Once you figure, hey, my job sucks and I'm being exploited, I don't really care if get fired, I'll unionize. If I get canned or it doesn't work out, I'll hawk my labor somewhere else like a wage whore and try again. Nothing to lose.

[Kadir Ateş]

I don't think unions or syndicates are "breeding grounds" for revolutionary class consciousness. In Turkey, for example, union confederations such as TURK-IS were basically calling for all members to commit to an anti-strike pledge as the country began to rapidly industrialise. Even the more "radical" syndicates like DISK were only for a type of labourist platform that really amounted to some sort of state capitalism.

Today, DISK has taken on the usual rhetoric of fighting against "neoliberalism"--an empty term nostalgic for the brief respite against the Import-Substitution Era of the 1970s throughout the "Third World"--due to the defensive nature of class struggle in Turkey at the moment.

My point is that, at least in the case of Turkey, unions in their glory days called for left-wing state capitalism and today, for the fight against finance capital...along with the mainstream unions like TURK-IS. Both are hardly revolutionary claims, and yet already on person on this thread has suggested that unions become vehicles for "class consciousness". Incidentally, when one of the largest strikes occurred last year (TEKEL), DISK had initially shown little interest in supporting the wild cat strikers.

So unions are important, but I think it's best that we give some historical background to their evolution and their subsumption into capitalist social relations. Even the so-called "revolutionary" ones.

[Paulappaul]

That might be true in your experience, but it isn't the case globally. Look at the labor movement in Southern Europe right now. Maybe those unions weren't very militant, but once IMF austerity measure began destroying their standard of living, they rose up and pulled countless workers into their ranks. A large, militant movement is blossoming there.

There has always been an active labor movement in Southern Europe. Intrestingly enough Southern Europe is home also to alot of Autonomist and Left Communist type Marxists. Why? Because the practical experience of the movement there has shown them despite the huge Union Movement there wasn't any revolutionary potential till workers started acting as a class and acting in a Political Fashion. The Union movement in Southern Europe, particulary in Italy has been aganist Workers' Militancy and has led the workers aganist political acts and aganist autonomy. In the 70s and 80s it was just as common to see workers pickets outside the factory as you were to see pickets outside the Union headquarters and outside of representatives houses'.

[citizen of industry]

There has always been an active labor movement in Southern Europe. Intrestingly enough Southern Europe is home also to alot of Autonomist and Left Communist type Marxists. Why? Because the practical experience of the movement there has shown them despite the huge Union Movement there wasn't any revolutionary potential till workers started acting as a class and acting in a Political Fashion. The Union movement in Southern Europe, particulary in Italy has been aganist Workers' Militancy and has led the workers aganist political acts and aganist autonomy. In the 70s and 80s it was just as common to see workers pickets outside the factory as you were to see pickets outside the Union headquarters and outside of representatives houses'.

How about Greece? There have been pretty impressive strikes there this year. The "socialist" government has done little to address the needs of the people and it appears will cave in to IMF demands. But over half the working population is unionized and have launched 24 and 48 hour general strikes. Before the strikes, a majority of the total population supported the government. After the strikes, the government lost that majority support. More people joined the struggle.

In Bolivia union strikers actually employed dynamite during a visit by Rosales and extracted some concessions. They have more revolutionary potential than the "socialist" party in power.

In S.Africa mass strikes wiped out the economic gains of the world cup. People in S.Africa are saying the feeling of solidarity is comparable to apartheid. Groups non-affiliated with labor, such as the church, are supporting the struggle.

It's easy to get skeptical about unionism in developed countries with non-militant union bureaucracies, such as the US/Japan/etc. But in the three countries I listed, economic conditions are critical, and the union movement is growing. I anticipate the same thing in the US as the crisis deepens.

And actually, in Japan union membership rates have begun to rise again post 2008.

[Paulappaul]

How about Greece? There have been pretty impressive strikes there this year. The "socialist" government has done little to address the needs of the people and it appears will cave in to IMF demands. But over half the working population is unionized and have launched 24 and 48 hour general strikes. Before the strikes, a majority of the total population supported the government. After the strikes, the government lost that majority support. More people joined the struggle.

I actually was in Greece for these Strikes, have been around Greece for the past couple of years. Where you found that the majority of people supported the government I have no idea. The Greek people lost faith in their government a long time ago. Regardless you're painting the picture that I don't apperciate Strikes. I do apperciate Strikes and the work of militants within their workplace is admirable. I don't whitewash the situation though. The Strikes weren't a challenge to the State and they didn't push the movement towards social change very far. Alot of people dropped out the Struggle because of the General Strike and attacked the labor elements of the movement because the General Strike stopped the flow of simple necessary goods to markets.


In Bolivia union strikers actually employed dynamite during a visit by Rosales and extracted some concessions. They have more revolutionary potential than the "socialist" party in power.

Uh no sorry, a few workers getting concessions doesn't quite equate to kind of work Morales is doing or what he could be doing.

[Martin Blank]

In one of those epiphany moments for myself between sleeping and awakening, I realized this. Unions are on the front line of the fight.

To begin the class battle, we need to strengthen the union movement.

People on the left wing (mainstream) have been ignoring unions. The Right Wing has not. They have actively been targeting them.

Because the Right Wing knows where the front line is.

The union movement shows people that there is a class battle, that we can fight back...and that things get better in a worker lead environment.

I've never really spoken to anyone in my life who has thought highly of unions. They all buy into the Right Wing propaganda. And because unions are weakened, or absent from industry...people are trained into a type of serfdom.

What do you guys think?

I think most of the leaders of that front line have been turncoats from the moment they showed up, and that placing any confidence in them to act in the interests of the working class is a waste of time and resources.

The scab business unions have run their course. Members of these unions may still have a lot of fight in them, but attempting to reform these unions from within is about as useless as attempting to reform the government from within. As we've seen in Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, Michigan, California, Massachusetts and across the country, the scab union officials reject any break with capitalism's established order, which is why they keep their wagons hitched to the Democratic ass. This rejection is not just some unconscious belief in the "good nature" of the exploiting and oppressing classes; these loyal labor lieutenants of capitalism are conscious servants of the ruling classes.

Is there a need for union organization in industries and services? Absolutely! But the kind of unions workers need today are not the kind we see in the AFL-CIO or Change To Win federations. We as workers need class-struggle unionism -- revolutionary industrial unionism -- to move our struggles forward, to strengthen our front-line defenses, to improve our interior lines in battle, to mobilize the active majority of workers not only for defensive action but also for seizing the initiative and bringing the working class closer to victory over capitalist rule. The building of a revolutionary industrial union -- One Grand Union of the working class -- would be the prerequisite for the formation of workplace committees to exercise direct workers' control of production and distribution, as well as for the establishment of workers' councils to defeat and overthrow capitalist rule and establish a workers' republic. This is because the revolutionary union serves as the training ground for the development and exercise of workers' control, so that the need for any measure of state control over the economy will not exist. Elements of the communist mode of production would begin to appear much sooner and on a firmer basis than in the past.

Working together with the workers' communist party, which provides political guidance and direction in the course of struggle, and achieves its victory not through gaining power itself but through the success of its program in mobilizing and organizing workers to carry out their own self-liberation, the revolutionary industrial union does its part to raise the proletariat to the level of a ruling class, coordinates the taking and holding of the means of production and distribution in its hands, and aids the party in its battle with the armed forces of the capitalist state.

Once capitalism has been overthrown, then the role of the union itself transforms. While the workplace committees take control of industries and services, and the workers' councils administer basic public services and coordinate armed defense of the revolution, the union element becomes the workers' inspectorate, responsible for insuring the quality, safety and health of both the workplace and the commodities produced. Together, the three branches of the revolutionary industrial union movement become the basis for the transition from capitalism to communism, with the workers' communist party itself transformed into the political guide through the transition, insuring that nothing is forgotten or ignored along the way.

If we as workers want to battle the corporatists and their fascist gangs, then we need to start off right. Where we are in the scab business unions, we should be promoting the alternative of class-struggle, revolutionary industrial unionism and seeking to organize the nuclei of that movement within the shell of the old organizations. Where no union exists, we should be helping to organize new unions on the basis of revolutionary industrial unionism. And all along the way, regardless of whether we consider ourselves communists, syndicalists, anarchists or whatever, it should be toward one goal: One Grand Union of the working class, willing to mobilize its members on both the economic and political battlefields to defeat capitalist rule.

[Delenda Carthago]

There has always been an active labor movement in Southern Europe. Intrestingly enough Southern Europe is home also to alot of Autonomist and Left Communist type Marxists. Why? Because the practical experience of the movement there has shown them despite the huge Union Movement there wasn't any revolutionary potential till workers started acting as a class and acting in a Political Fashion. The Union movement in Southern Europe, particulary in Italy has been aganist Workers' Militancy and has led the workers aganist political acts and aganist autonomy. In the 70s and 80s it was just as common to see workers pickets outside the factory as you were to see pickets outside the Union headquarters and outside of representatives houses'.
Autonomy's worst era came when they started analysing about the "social worker" and stoped giving fights in the working places and started fighting for cheaper bus tickets. And this line got them extincted today- there is no Proletaria Autonomia in Italy anymore. Lotta Continua is a tiny affiliation group comparing to its past. Its not a very good example the one you brought up.

[citizen of industry]

I actually was in Greece for these Strikes, have been around Greece for the past couple of years. Where you found that the majority of people supported the government I have no idea. The Greek people lost faith in their government a long time ago. Regardless you're painting the picture that I don't apperciate Strikes. I do apperciate Strikes and the work of militants within their workplace is admirable. I don't whitewash the situation though. The Strikes weren't a challenge to the State and they didn't push the movement towards social change very far. Alot of people dropped out the Struggle because of the General Strike and attacked the labor elements of the movement because the General Strike stopped the flow of simple necessary goods to markets.



Uh no sorry, a few workers getting concessions doesn't quite equate to kind of work Morales is doing or what he could be doing.

I can't find the government approval ratings pre-crisis that I was reading earlier that listed a majority. Looking at their election numbers they've consistently got between 38% and 48% percent of the vote since coming to power ages ago. In 2009, they got 43.92% of the popular vote.

Looking at a recent Reuters article: The poll, conducted from June 2 to 7 for Kathimerini newspaper, showed the ruling socialists' approval rating had declined in June. Only 18 percent of those polled said they were satisfied with the government versus 22 percent in the previous month.

So I can say with some confidence there were many people supporting the government before the strikes and that now that support is nil.

I don't deny the need for a revolutionary party in Greece. I don't think the unions are capable of revolution alone. But the theme of some posters on this thread was to essentially ignore the economic struggle and solely focus on politics. Half the working population of Greece is unionized. Why would anyone ignore that movement? That's where the workers are, and they are organized. And my point is that union membership will grow as economic conditions decline. BTW - that's awesome you were in Greece during the demonstrations. Did you participate?

Regarding Morales, I'll admit I don't know much about his work. The dynamite incident (instigated by mine workers):

Bolivian President Evo Morales has abruptly abandoned a mining town after protesters angered by rising prices booed him and set off dynamite. Mr Morales was due to speak on the anniversary of a colonial uprising in Oruro but canceled plans to participate in a march yesterday after demonstrations against rising food prices and shortages.There were also protests in the Bolivian capital of La Paz, and the cities of Santa Cruz and Cochabamba.The Bolivian populace are angry over a near doubling in the price of sugar after the government lifted subsidies.The president’s popularity has plummeted since he tried to lift subsidies on gasoline, flour and sugar in December. He subsequently abandoned the effort - but did remove price controls on sugar.

[Paulappaul]

Looking at a recent Reuters article: The poll, conducted from June 2 to 7 for Kathimerini newspaper, showed the ruling socialists' approval rating had declined in June. Only 18 percent of those polled said they were satisfied with the government versus 22 percent in the previous month.

So I can say with some confidence there were many people supporting the government before the strikes and that now that support is nil. This is because of the IMF and the government, not because of the Strikes. You're trying to conflate the two. People not involved in the General Strike felt A) Alienated from a movement they couldn't actively be a part of and B) were pissed because society had come to a stand still.


. But the original theme of this thread was to essentially ignore the economic struggle and solely focus on politics. Half the working population of Greece is unionized. Why would anyone ignore that movement? That's where the workers are, and they are organized. And my point is that union membership will grow as economic conditions decline. BTW - that's awesome you were in Greece during the demonstrations. Did you participate?I never said we should ignore the Economic. I never said we should ignore the Union Movement. I said it shouldn't be the forefront of the movement, it shouldn't be our main focus. We should start getting the working class to think as a class along political lines. Workers are organized in the lines at my local KFC. They are organized outside Planned Parenthood everyday. Organization doesn't mean anything if the content is crap. I didn't get to be in alot of Demos, the ones I was in were awesome but the gases make you horribly sick.


Autonomy's worst era came when they started analysing about the "social worker" and stoped giving fights in the working places and started fighting for cheaper bus tickets. And this line got them extincted today- there is no Proletaria Autonomia in Italy anymore. Lotta Continua is a tiny affiliation group comparing to its past. Its not a very good example the one you brought up. And you're an idiot. I never glorified Autonomy's or Lotta Continua's existence, just marked their existence as a sign of the historical situation which sprang forth their existence.

[citizen of industry]

But planned parenthood organization and non-unionized workplace organization doesn't put people into direct confrontation with capital. Union organizing does. As a worker, if I want to fight back against capital, what can I do? I only see two options. 1) Join a political party and be active - and that amounts to agitation only. Studying, writing, producing propaganda, demonstrating, or 2) Join a union and attempt to organize my workplace.

I do both, and in my experience 2) is much more difficult and the reaction much more severe than 1). Which leads me to the conclusion that union organizing has a much larger impact on capital than political organizing at present.

For me at least, the union is the front line, and the work is more intense and challenging, and at present riskier.

[Delenda Carthago]

And you're an idiot. I never glorified Autonomy's or Lotta Continua's existence, just marked their existence as a sign of the historical situation which sprang forth their existence.
And I m explaining that this "historical situation" you are describing was actually a choise based on a true nessecity(leftists were being fired by the hundreds from the factories)which lead to a disaster. And if something is left from this disaster in Italy, is the Union power that italian proletariats always have had.


And as far as PASOK goes, they got elected in 2009 with 100.000 votes less than when they got demolished by New Democracy in 2007. So its not that PASOK won, its more that ND lost. And their programm was that "there are available money, and we gonna get them from them that have it", which obviously was a TOTAL bullshit. So...yeah. No PASOK lovers around this *****. Only the most right wingers neoliberals maybe. And some burned potheads, since they more or less legalised drug dealing two weeks ago... But dont worry about them, drugies tend to forget easily.:lol:

[Sand Castle]

Now, I might be off topic or repeating something. I know I just dug up and old thread, sorry. Now, this isn't going sound as fancy as the other posts, but it should still be said. But I think a nice revival of the Industrial Workers of the World would be worth a try.

They are very democratic, they are based on volunteer organizers, there is no super-well-paid president. It doesn't matter where you work, or if you even have a job. You can still join the IWW, they will train you, and you can try to organize your workplace (or somebody else's if you want). If you leave your job, you don't have to leave the IWW or the assistance it will provide you. Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to be an anarchist to join. I couldn't be further from an anarchist, and I'm a delegate!

In the early 20th century, the IWW organized traveling harvest workers called "bindlestiffs." They would hop on trains and travel all over the Western US and Canada to look for farm work. In order to keep up with these workers, the IWW developed a mobile delegate system. If you're a delegate, you can sign up people to be members anywhere you are. So, as a result, these proto-temp workers were all union members, carrying the IWW red card. I think something like that could be useful for today's workers. Especially if the delegates/officials are workers themselves.

Here is the preamble to the IWW constitution.


The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.


Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth.


We find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers.


These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.


Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair day's wage for a fair day's work," we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, "Abolition of the wage system."


It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.


Now, as for the mainstream unions. In my opinion, union vs. union competition pits worker against worker. It should be avoided like the plague. We should show up on picket lines and support strikers from other unions, while at the same time talking to their members about what we believe. If possible, we should join the other unions and bring a radical presence to their memberships. While that may end up badly, if it radicalizes at least one person, you've made some progress.

The IWW is still around. For those of you sitting on your butts "theorizing" and talking trash about everyone and their brother, walk the walk if you're going to talk the talk. Our enemies walk the walk, and that's why you don't see the red flag flying all too often in the US. They aren't going to fight themselves, and you know this. Take out a red card and organize some workers yourself! Even if your campaign is defeated, you've still raised class consciousness. Maybe not as much as you want, but it beats just handing out newspapers. Not that newspapers aren't important.

As a matter of fact, shame on all of you out there in internetland that aren't trying to organize anything (union, party, or other group).

[Le Socialiste]

Unions, at least in the classic sense, have historically been used for defensive purposes since the beginning of the 20th century. They were always used as a means to protect the gains made by the workers against the managers, bosses, and CEOs/politicians of the world. Very rarely do you see a union go on the offensive in a way that genuinely contributes to the furtherment of the class struggle. The reasons for this are many, but the core points are these:

1. Regardless of their origins, unions have traditionally served as a guard against potential working-class struggle, using their place as the "protector of the workers" to stifle class warfare/dissent and channel anger into state-appropriate forms of protest. This has often resulted in the workers facing a reversal of their previous gains, with the union bosses actively seeking a deal with the establishment in question that best suits their interests - not the workers.

2. Union leaders will often mobilize the workers when the position of the bureaucracy is threatened by an external force (i.e. companies, governments, etc.). They see their place in the union as a relatively profitable one, and will try to fight tooth and nail to find a settlement that protects them. All during this process the workers are screwed over by the very institution they're told serves as a safeguard for their hard-fought gains.

3. Lastly, unions rarely maintain any semblance of militancy as they age and are slowly co opted by their corporate and political leaders. The vast majority seek compromise with the capitalist system, instead of seeking its dismantlement. This train of thought only leads to the suppression of actual workers' militancy and struggle as the workers within the union find themselves fighting the very masters they sought to overthrow on the outside! The reality is that unions are no longer well-suited to carry out the struggle. They have their place, but our front line belongs to the international working-class, their determined militancy, and their commitment to the essentials of class warfare. When the unions trade in their compromises for the basic tenets of revolutionary leftism (as a few have done in the past), we'll talk. But until this happens they'll just be another arm of the bourgeois state and its beneficiaries.

Edit - I feel that I should be a little more clear about my position: I'm all for the unionization of the working-class, so long as it's the workers themselves who are in control and are dictating union policy and direction. Militant unions that rely on a platform of revolutionary leftism, which calls the workers on towards self-organization and self-governance (and the fight for a communist society) are desperately needed on the "front lines" of our struggle. But these types of organizations are few and far between, and usually lack the manpower, influence, and presence that most state-approved, "mainstream" trade unions have. My above statement is aimed at the latter - I'm not opposed to the unionization of labor, just the generally reactionary character and path its taken.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

"Trades Unions work well as centers of resistance against the encroachments of capital. They fail partially from an injudicious use of their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class that is to say the ultimate abolition of the wages system." - Marx

[Q]

I think quite a few people here are confusing the purposes of a communist party and that of a union, in their opposition towards union.

As quite a few have already mentioned, unions are elementary defense organisations of the working class. They are an expression of a response by the working class towards the attacks (or, more proper, its needs) of capital.

A communist party is a higher expression of a working class response, taking matters to a political level.

There can, historically, be four levels of working class organisational development be distinguished:

- Local campaigns, local strikes, workplace unions.
- Unions (a higher development of the local unions, able to overcome its limits, but also actively influenced by the bourgeoisie to co-opt it and make it harmless)
- Labour and social-democratic parties (giving a political representation of the working class movement, often of the same bureaucratic character that the trade unions have and therefore bound within the system)
- Communist parties (overcoming the limit of the previous in insisting independent working class organisation, specifically to go beyond the capitalist system)

Does this mean we should ignore or even fight unions, as some suggest? This would be absurd and would place you outside the movement. It's all nice and dandy to talk about how "we need to strengthen the Workers' Movement, not the Union Movement", but what the hell does that mean? What "working class movement" exactly if you oppose it to the union movement? The organisational expression of working class defense, that is, its expression of organisation as a slave class is exactly in its highest form in the unions!

Trade unions are exactly a huge gain for the working class as they limit competition between workers and organise them in the millions into collective action.

So instead of ignoring or fighting it, communists need to engage with it. That is, we need to fight against all forms of bureaucracy, for democracy within the movement (that is, the biggest participation of workers in the unions, the voting and recalling of all officials, normal wages for all officials, etc.), fight bourgeois ideology within the unions, overcoming sectionalism and instead put forward the general interest of all workers, fighting for the principle "one industry, one union" as opposed to trade unions, against all "social partnerships" with bosses and the state, fight for genuine international unions in response to the transnational character of many companies... In a word, fight for changing the existing unions into schools for communism.

That is, again, not to say we should blur the distinction between union and party. A proper communist party should, however, seek to win the political leadership of the union, which can only happen in the context of a programme just outlined.

[Q]

"Trades Unions work well as centers of resistance against the encroachments of capital. They fail partially from an injudicious use of their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class that is to say the ultimate abolition of the wages system." - Marx

You use the quote out of context, to suggest Marx opposed unions. That is complete nonsense. He merely outlined the limits of unions and why we need to have a higher form of organisation (that is, a communist form of organisation) to overcome these limits, as I outlined in my previous post. So yes, I do happen to agree with that quote of Marx, be it that I put it on its feet.

[black magick hustla]

outside "non-decadent" economies like the asian tigers, the unions are dead and won't expand outside the demographics they already cover, and will downsize with those demographics. i think people need to start thinking not about reviving them because that seems like an ahistorical thing to do, but the new forms of struggle that might emerge and might take us by surprise because we wouldn't consider them a "high expression". i think the union patriotism of the dinosaur left is alienating to the grand mayority of the working class which doesn't hold the same identity of the unions etc. i think unionized workers at the point of production and the casualized oproletariat will have to unite, and will unite at the end, but perhaps we need to stop talking so much about the unions as if they were the best thing since sliced bread and instead theorize about the new kind of proletariat emerging (which is basically what we know, this is the kind of proletariat we are and our friends, most of us have never been in a strike and a lot of the talk we have about unions is basically intellectual, how many people have friends that are longshoremen here?)and how it reacts to capital.

[Die Neue Zeit]

We need to strengthen the Workers' Movement, not the Union Movement. Unions mean peace, we mean class war. You say without Unions we are "Serfs" and with Unions are Contracted Wage Laborers. We as Communists shouldn't be focusing on point of production politics, rather we should be working to strength the working class as a class for itself.

Correction: "point of production pseudo-politics"


i think what is going to end up happen is that the casualized proletariat will begin to organize itself in non-permanent, flexible organs/commandos as we have increasingly seen in the riots and disturbances since 2008 or so.

That's more like lumpen-ization and lumpen-ized action to me.


Statements like Paulappaul's are what scare me, because some people have some naive thought the workers will suddenly be organized if a time comes for revolution. Workers need to be organized in the workplaces, and as bureaucratic as the union movement has become, it will always be a breeding ground for revolution and class consciousness.
I think it's a sign of the times that low-wage, unorganized workers are getting pissed off and seeking to organize their workplaces. These are the places that won't simply be outsourced overseas. I've met some very militant people in these workplaces who want more than simply better wages and sick-pay.

He doesn't think that way at all. We both emphasize the political or "politico-political."

Regarding the tired word "bureaucratic," why do you say that the union movement and not mass political party-movements are a "breeding ground for revolution and class consciousness"?


The counterpart of this tendency should be the development of the political side of the class struggle.

Here is where Rosa Luxemburg makes a crucial mistake: There is no non-political side to genuine class struggle!

[syndicat]

Regarding the tired word "bureaucratic," why do you say that the union movement and not mass political parties are a "breeding ground for revolution and class consciousness"?

what "mass political parties"? A political party by definition is an organization to put its leadership into control of a state, to manage the affairs of society top down. they tend to focus on their leaders and elections...a dynamic that doesn't focus on the direct self-activity of workers themselves. but it is only this latter thru which working class people gain confidence, change their mindset through the struggles they are drawn into.

a lot of the problem here in this thread is that "union" is taken to be one thing, and a static idea of unions is put forth...as if they can only be what they are at present, or as if control by a bureaucratic layer is inevitable.

unionism historically has two tendencies, towards development of a bureaucracy to continue negotiations with management and ensure survival of the worker organization in long periods of relative peace...and a more autonomous, direct worker form of solidarity and activity, based on direct participation and control by workers...with the latter tendency coming more to the fore during certain periods of working class insurgency.

[Die Neue Zeit]

This is an issue I grappled with for a long time. What to prioritize? Union work, party work? Economics? Politics? Finally I decided they are both interelated and equally important. In Japan, where I am, the hey day of socialist parties happens also to be the hey day of labor. It wasn't that the parties were turning people into unionists, but that the material the parties were made of came from the unions. Union made, so to speak.

And this happened in a period of post-war economic decline. Union organizing became legal in 1946, and membership exploded. People didn't have a pot to piss in and inflation was devastating so they organized, demanding the "right to live" in the form of a decent wage. That brought them into confrontation with industrialists, and hence the government, and the unions became very political - the unionists became socialists.

In the period of economic growth, unions became collaborationist. They still got wage raises every year, but only because the corporations could afford to pay. After the bubble popped, the government split up and privatized large industries to break up the unions, introduced a lot of contract and temp labor, and companies moved operations abroad for the cheap labor. But the standard of living is falling dramatically now, as is the population. I see a bright future for both unions and socialist parties.

And anyway, what could be more fun than fighting your employer! Once you figure, hey, my job sucks and I'm being exploited, I don't really care if get fired, I'll unionize. If I get canned or it doesn't work out, I'll hawk my labor somewhere else like a wage whore and try again. Nothing to lose.


And actually, in Japan union membership rates have begun to rise again post 2008.

Despite their blatant programmatic reformism, the Japanese Communist Party should be commended for their innovative work amongst the "precariat" there.

I prefer this kind of work to certain glorifications of rioting posted in this thread.


what "mass political parties"? A political party by definition is an organization to put its leadership into control of a state, to manage the affairs of society top down. they tend to focus on their leaders and elections...a dynamic that doesn't focus on the direct self-activity of workers themselves. but it is only this latter thru which working class people gain confidence, change their mindset through the struggles they are drawn into.

You're posting about mere electoral machines, not party-movements. By definition a party-movement is an organization to put its voting membership or "citizenship" into management of society's political affairs.

[Delenda Carthago]

Imaging a communist party without unions is like imaging a basketball game without the players. There is no way you can have a party without having its fundamental basis, the unions. A party is a political organisation. A union is an economic one. And as we all know, economy shapes society and society expresses through politics. How the fuck you gonna go straight to C without having the As and Bs.

[Le Socialiste]

Imaging a communist party without unions is like imaging a basketball game without the players. There is no way you can have a party without having its fundamental basis, the unions. A party is a political organisation. A union is an economic one. And as we all know, economy shapes society and society expresses through politics. How the fuck you gonna go straight to C without having the As and Bs.

Why can't a union take on a political character? I fail to see why parties are necessary for the organization of the working-class. The problem with the political party is that 1) it's origin lies in the basic mechanics of capitalistic bourgeois democracy/parliamentarism, and does not reflect the aspirations of the worker in a way that will lead to the latter's liberation, and 2) it shackles the efforts of the workers' struggle to a political process that masks its voice rather than amplify it. Leftist parties (regardless of tendency) cannot operate within the limits set by the capitalist state, because they ultimately end up being yet another arm of the bourgeoisie in channelling the people's anger into a more acceptable form of protest. They stifle, rather than aid, the class struggle.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

You use the quote out of context, to suggest Marx opposed unions. That is complete nonsense. He merely outlined the limits of unions and why we need to have a higher form of organisation (that is, a communist form of organisation) to overcome these limits, as I outlined in my previous post. So yes, I do happen to agree with that quote of Marx, be it that I put it on its feet.

You should get your mind reading tools fixed, because they are obviously broken.

I posted a quote, without commentary. It's not out of context. Marx makes his own argument quite clearly. Unions are limited and workers need to go beyond them to abolish capitalism.

"...the working class ought not to exaggerate to themselves the ultimate working of these everyday struggles. They ought not to forget that they are fighting with effects, but not with the causes of those effects; that they are retarding the downward movement, but not changing its direction; that they are applying palliatives, not curing the malady. They ought, therefore, not to be exclusively absorbed in these unavoidable guerilla fights incessantly springing up from the never ceasing encroachments of capital or changes of the market. They ought to understand that, with all the miseries it imposes upon them, the present system simultaneously engenders the material conditions and the social forms necessary for an economical reconstruction of society. Instead of the conservative motto: 'A fair day's wage for a fair day's work!” they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: “Abolition of the wages system!'" - http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/ch03.htm#c14

[syndicat]

unfortunately marxists often use this sort of argument to argue for political parties and elections. marx advocated that workers form parties to "win the battle of democracy." we also need to go beyond marx's limitations.

[black magick hustla]

direct worker form of solidarity and activity, based on direct participation and control by workers...with the latter tendency coming more to the fore during certain periods of working class insurgency.

and yet they were also sometimes parts of the counterrevolution. See CNT integrating to the popular front, the clearest expressions of the CNT were found in political groups like the friends of durruti.

[syndicat]

and yet they were also sometimes parts of the counterrevolution. See CNT integrating to the popular front, the clearest expressions of the CNT were found in political groups like the friends of durruti. there are no guarantees of not making mistakes. there is no strategy or ideology that somehow will guarantee avoiding error. the intelligent thing is to try to understand why that error happened. not concluding, "mass organized movements can't be the road to liberation." that wouldn't follow. only pessimistic conclusions can come from your method. in that case inadequate preparation for, and confidence in, collective taking over of control over social affairs, and destroying the old state strucutres in the process. these things were not adequately prepared for within the CNT movement.

[Zav]

Labour is the base of society. Proles make up most of the labourers. The class war is between the Proles and the Capies. Unions will help the Proles win. The Capies are attacking the unions. Thus, unions are the front line of class war. Yep, that seems pretty logical, and also pretty obvious, though I am biased as I came to the Far Left through the Labour Movement. I think the question should be why some in the Left do not see this.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Why can't a union take on a political character? I fail to see why parties are necessary for the organization of the working-class. The problem with the political party is that 1) it's origin lies in the basic mechanics of capitalistic bourgeois democracy/parliamentarism, and does not reflect the aspirations of the worker in a way that will lead to the latter's liberation

Though that may have been the case with non-mass parties (Federalists vs. Democratic-Republicans, for instance), the mass political party did not originate in parliamentarism, but in the French Revolutionary clubs.


unfortunately marxists often use this sort of argument to argue for political parties and elections. marx advocated that workers form parties to "win the battle of democracy." we also need to go beyond marx's limitations.

No, Marx advocated that the working class form a political party precisely in order to become a class for itself. The only limitation I see in Marx on this subject is the absence of an institution-based understanding (http://www.revleft.com/vb/workers-power-rule-t160796/index.html).

[black magick hustla]

there are no guarantees of not making mistakes. there is no strategy or ideology that somehow will guarantee avoiding error. the intelligent thing is to try to understand why that error happened. not concluding, "mass organized movements can't be the road to liberation." that wouldn't follow. only pessimistic conclusions can come from your method. in that case inadequate preparation for, and confidence in, collective taking over of control over social affairs, and destroying the old state strucutres in the process. these things were not adequately prepared for within the CNT movement.

on the contrary, i think people obsessed with forms of organizations remniscent of other eras and material conditions (revolutionary unions) are bound to get burn out because it will not happen that way ever ever again. most revolutionary unions are not real unions today, and if they act as unions sometimes is through a very limited amount of shops and in many times they are not very different in praxis than yellow unions. you cannot build "revolutionary unions" from the ground, it is something that happens due to certain specificities, not convincing enough people that your shit is pure gold.

[black magick hustla]

unfortunately marxists often use this sort of argument to argue for political parties and elections. marx advocated that workers form parties to "win the battle of democracy." we also need to go beyond marx's limitations.

the word "party" in the 19th century had a different connotation than it does today. it also meant people who are part of your same movement, for example "working class party" meant the myriad of pro worker organizations in the 19th century. it was not only about centralized organizations participating in elections.

[Die Neue Zeit]

on the contrary, i think people obsessed with forms of organizations remniscent of other eras and material conditions (revolutionary unions) are bound to get burn out because it will not happen that way ever ever again.

I'm reading an exchange by the proverbial pot calling the kettle black here. That has always happened with spontaneous councils and riot-based "non-permanent, flexible organs/commandos" spanning multiple eras, not just the one era most conducive to "revolutionary unions." :glare:


the word "party" in the 19th century had a different connotation than it does today. it also meant people who are part of your same movement, for example "working class party" meant the myriad of pro worker organizations in the 19th century. it was not only about centralized organizations participating in elections.

True yet not true, because it eventually and necessarily meant the centralized myriad of equally centralized workers political, cultural, and social organizations.

[black magick hustla]

I'm reading an exchange by the proverbial pot calling the kettle black here. That has always happened with spontaneous councils and riot-based "non-permanent, flexible organs/commandos" spanning multiple eras, not just the one era most conducive to "revolutionary unions." :glare:

i roll with the lumpenized gang dawg sorry

[Die Neue Zeit]

i roll with the lumpenized gang dawg sorry

At least now you're open about it.

[Martin Blank]

the word "party" in the 19th century had a different connotation than it does today. it also meant people who are part of your same movement, for example "working class party" meant the myriad of pro worker organizations in the 19th century. it was not only about centralized organizations participating in elections.

Oh FFS, Thank you! It's about damn time someone else said this. I would only add that is wasn't just the various pro-worker organizations, but also unorganized workers who supported their programs.

Good luck, though, on getting your point across to syndicat.

[Q]

Why can't a union take on a political character? I fail to see why parties are necessary for the organization of the working-class.

I already explained the reason for this in post 36. I would only add to it that where a union needs to organise all workers (including republicans, tories, etc.), a political party can give an explicit working class political voice to the masses.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I already explained the reason for this in post 36. I would only add to it that where a union needs to organise all workers (including republicans, tories, etc.), a political party can give an explicit working class political voice to the masses.

The funny thing is that even a union organizing on an agency shop basis can be organized by Republican- or Tory-leaning workers who are quite militant on mere labour disputes.

[syndicat]

the word "party" in the 19th century had a different connotation than it does today. it also meant people who are part of your same movement, for example "working class party" meant the myriad of pro worker organizations in the 19th century. it was not only about centralized organizations participating in elections. you're wrong about that. the initiative of Marx and Engels led directly to Marxist participation in the German SDP and various other socialist political parties. And contesting in elections was part of the aim. the word "party" in the 19th century was not fundamentally different than its meaning today...a leadership to control a state. in the 19th century in the USA you had the Democratic and Republican parties in the U.S. just as you do today.

also, what does "pro-worker organization" mean? how does that differ from an organization of workers? if we don't suppose that Marx and Engels meant were not for political parties as we know them, then why the split with the libertarian socialists in the First International? the latter held that the movement should be made up of the worker mass organizations, especially the unions. that's how they viewed the "worker international". the dispute was about both the mass character of the movement and its methods...direct self-activity of masses versus party organization based on recruitment to some program and aiming at implementing its program thru a state.

there is such a thing as a distinction between mass social movements and parties.

[Delenda Carthago]

Why can't a union take on a political character? I fail to see why parties are necessary for the organization of the working-class. The problem with the political party is that 1) it's origin lies in the basic mechanics of capitalistic bourgeois democracy/parliamentarism, and does not reflect the aspirations of the worker in a way that will lead to the latter's liberation, and 2) it shackles the efforts of the workers' struggle to a political process that masks its voice rather than amplify it. Leftist parties (regardless of tendency) cannot operate within the limits set by the capitalist state, because they ultimately end up being yet another arm of the bourgeoisie in channelling the people's anger into a more acceptable form of protest. They stifle, rather than aid, the class struggle.
What I said is, first you gonna organise the economic struggle and when this gets more mature, it will find its way to crystallise to a political organisation. To start from scratch trying to form a political party that expreses nothing in the social field, is catastrofic or at least useless.

[Q]

What I said is, first you gonna organise the economic struggle and when this gets more mature, it will find its way to crystallise to a political organisation. To start from scratch trying to form a political party that expreses nothing in the social field, is catastrofic or at least useless.

While I agree that unions are vital, I disagree if your statement would imply that communists shouldn't organise as communists. Our contribution to the movement is exactly that we insist on the independence of the workers struggle, to be able to go beyond this system and fight the class struggle to the end.

[Delenda Carthago]

While I agree that unions are vital, I disagree if your statement would imply that communists shouldn't organise as communists. Our contribution to the movement is exactly that we insist on the independence of the workers struggle, to be able to go beyond this system and fight the class struggle to the end.
Well, communists can organise as communists all they want. If there is no reference to something out there, a movement that is, its good enough as farting at a consert: best case people around you will understand that there is something, but noone will know its you.

And movements never start because of politics.


We have to keep in mind that communism is the political expression of the working class that wants to better its life. Its not something outside of society. So the only way for it to exist, is actually being in the society.

[Die Neue Zeit]

you're wrong about that. the initiative of Marx and Engels led directly to Marxist participation in the German SDP and various other socialist political parties. And contesting in elections was part of the aim. the word "party" in the 19th century was not fundamentally different than its meaning today...a leadership to control a state. in the 19th century in the USA you had the Democratic and Republican parties in the U.S. just as you do today.

also, what does "pro-worker organization" mean? how does that differ from an organization of workers? if we don't suppose that Marx and Engels meant were not for political parties as we know them, then why the split with the libertarian socialists in the First International? the latter held that the movement should be made up of the worker mass organizations, especially the unions. that's how they viewed the "worker international". the dispute was about both the mass character of the movement and its methods...direct self-activity of masses versus party organization based on recruitment to some program and aiming at implementing its program thru a state.

So why don't we see the IWW and typical "revolutionary unions" at least conduct mass spoilage campaigns? This is a question that I've asked you time and again, and time and again you've dodged this. :glare:

That's the difference between political participation and illusions in growing political awareness out of mere labour disputes. Recruitment to "some program" is political support, and the question of putting things into law cannot be avoided.

Re. the split: Bakunin organized a Secret Faction contrary to the Rules. It would also seem his group went against earlier resolutions about classes-for-itself necessarily being actual political parties.


And movements never start because of politics.

Actually, they do. The Civil Rights movement is a prime example of this, sidestepping mere labour disputes.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

you're wrong about that.There are multiple instances of them pointing out specifically that they were using the term "party" in a broad, class-based sense, as described earlier in this thread.

"Hence, the League was organized afresh; the Address of march 1850 was issued and Heinrich bauer sent as an emissary to Germany. The Address, composed by Marx and myself, is still of interest today, because petite-bourgeois democracy is even now the party which must certainly be the first to come to power in Germany as the savior of society from the communist workers on the occasion of the next European upheaval now soon due (the European revolutions, 1815, 1830, 1848-52, 1870, have occurred at intervals of 15 to 18 years in our century)." - Engels

Needless to say, there was no political party called "petite-bourgeois democracy" that was contesting bourgeois elections.


the initiative of Marx and Engels led directly to Marxist participation in the German SDP and various other socialist political parties.Which they roundly criticized and even, in Engels's case, ruled superfluous.

"As for ourselves, in view of our whole past there is only one path open to us. For almost forty years we have stressed the class struggle as the immediate driving force of history, and in particular the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat as the great lever of the modern social revolution; it is therefore impossible for us to co-operate with people who wish to expunge this class struggle from the movement. When the International was formed we expressly formulated the battle-cry: the emancipation of the working class must be achieved by the working class itself. We cannot therefore co-operate with people who say that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves and must first be freed from above by philanthropic bourgeois and petty bourgeois. If the new Party organ adopts a line corresponding to the views of these gentlemen, and is bourgeois and not proletarian, then nothing remains for us, much though we should regret it, but publicly to declare our opposition to it and to dissolve the solidarity with which we have hitherto represented the German Party abroad." - Marx and Engels

"A whole generation lies between then and now. At that time Germany was a country of handicraft and of domestic industry based on hand labor; now it is a big industrial country still undergoing continual industrial transformation. At that time one had to seek out one by one the workers who had an understanding of their position as workers and of their historico-economic antagonism to capital, because this antagonism itself was only just beginning to develop. Today the entire German proletariat has to be placed under exceptional laws, merely in order to slow down a little the process of its development to full consciousness of its position as an oppressed class. At that time the few persons whose minds had penetrated to the realization of the historical role of the proletariat had to forgather in secret, to assemble clandestinely in small communities of 3 to 20 persons. Today the German proletariat no longer needs any official organization, either public or secret. The simple self-evident interconnection of like-minded class comrades suffices, without any rules, boards, resolutions or other tangible forms, to shake the whole German Empire to its foundations. Bismarck is the arbiter of Europe beyond the frontiers of Germany, but within them there grows daily more threatening the athletic figure of the German proletariat that Marx foresaw already in 1844, the giant for whom the cramped imperial edifice designed to fit the philistine is even now becoming inadequate and whose mighty stature and broad shoulder are growing until the moment comes when by merely rising from his seat he will shatter the whole structure of the imperial constitution into fragments. And still more. The international movement of the European and American proletariat has become so much strengthened that not merely its first narrow form — the secret League — but even its second, infinitely wider form — the open International Working Men’s Association — has become a fetter for it, and that the simple feeling of solidarity based on the understanding of the identity of class position suffices to create and to hold together one and the same great party of the proletariat among the workers of all countries and tongues. The doctrine which the League represented from 1847 to 1852, and which at that time could be treated by the wise philistines with a shrug of the shoulders as the hallucinations of utter madcaps, as the secret doctrine of a few scattered sectarians, has now innumerable adherents in all civilized countries of the world, among those condemned to the Siberian mines as much as among the gold diggers of California; and the founder of this doctrine, the most hated, most slandered man of his time, Karl Marx, was, when he died, the ever-sought-for and ever-willing counsellor of the proletariat of both the old and the new world." - Engels

(And there's that party in the general class-based sense again!)


And contesting in elections was part of the aim."One may be of the opinion that the best way to abolish the Presidency and the Senate in America is to elect men to these offices who are pledged to effect their abolition, and then one will consistently act accordingly. Others may think that this method is inappropriate; that’s a matter of opinion. There may be circumstances under which the former mode of action would also involve a violation of revolutionary principle; I fail to see why that should always and everywhere be the case." - Engels

Beyond that, we don't need to treat Marx and Engels as Saviors and turn their work into a rigid dogma. Conditions are not the same as the years they lived. Marx and Engels of all people wouldn't have ever suggested anything like that.


if we don't suppose that Marx and Engels meant were not for political parties as we know them, then why the split with the libertarian socialists in the First International?There was a lot involved, including various intrigues. It wasn't a clear split over the question of political parties.

"I think that all our practice has shown that it is possible to work along with the general movement of the working class at every one of its stages without giving up or hiding our own distinct position and even organization..." - Engels

Additionally, being a socialist/communist/leftist organization says nothing of class character, which is why Marx and Engels wrote of the feudal socialists, petty-bourgeois socialists, etc. (as compared to the proletarian party in the broad sense) in The Manifesto.

Indeed, Marx and Engels spent more time battling such outfits than nearly anyone or thing else:

"The development of the proletariat proceeds everywhere amidst internal struggles and France, which is now forming a workers' party for the first time, is no exception. We in Germany have got beyond the first phase of the internal struggle, other phases still lie before us. Unity is quite a good thing so long as it is possible, but there are things which stand higher than unity. And when, like Marx and myself, one has fought harder all one's life long against the alleged Socialists than against anyone else (for we only regarded the bourgeoisie as a class and hardly ever involved ourselves in conflicts with individual bourgeois), one cannot greatly grieve that the inevitable struggle has broken out." - Engels

[Die Neue Zeit]

When did Engels made the remarks in bold? During the Anti-Socialist Laws, or after? I'm willing to bet it was during.

BTW, there has been historically not much of an American labour movement, precisely because the related parties were too small. Real parties are real movements and vice versa. Otherwise, you're left with lumpenized riots and time-and-again-failed councilist bursts.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

there has been historically not much of an American labour movement

Sorry but you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. I'm not even going to bother to take the time to write out a thoughtful response when you post statements like this that are entirely disconnected from reality.

See: The Great Strike of 1877, The Homestead Strike, The Battle of Blair Mountain, The Coal Creek War, Bloody Harlan, the Autolite Strike in Toledo, the strike waves in auto, coal, steel, etc., etc., etc., etc.

[black magick hustla]

Sorry but you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. I'm not even going to bother to take the time to write out a thoughtful response when you post statements like this that are entirely disconnected from reality.

See: The Great Strike of 1877, The Homestead Strike, The Battle of Blair Mountain, The Coal Creek War, Bloody Harlan, the Autolite Strike in Toledo, the strike waves in auto, coal, steel, etc., etc., etc., etc.

I just want to add that in certain instances the american working class was basically the vanguard of the world. The black and polish workers of the detroit auto industries in the 70s were miles ahead than most workers in other countries, routinely questioning union leadership and breaking racial lines through wildcat strikes.

[syndicat]

there has been historically not much of an American labour movement

why am i not surprised at such ignorant nonsense from you?

around 1918 in a book he wrote Bertrand Russell pointed out that labor conflict in the USA was much more violent than in western Europe and that the kinds of militancy exhibited by workers in the USA was not common in western Europe.

actually there was one country in western Europe with a history of violent labor conflict...Spain.

[Die Neue Zeit]

See: The Great Strike of 1877, The Homestead Strike, The Battle of Blair Mountain, The Coal Creek War, Bloody Harlan, the Autolite Strike in Toledo, the strike waves in auto, coal, steel, etc., etc., etc., etc.

I meant a labour movement in the sense of typical Labourism. The sectional strive waves in auto, coal, steel, didn't involve much in terms of even a Labourite party like the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (pre-NDP) just up the border.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Right. Because votes for a social democratic pro-capitalist "labor" party is > mass strike waves.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I wasn't implying that at all. I was implying that concrete political support and commitment > mass strike waves, and I've already stated my position on the relationship between mass, participative voting membership (or simply party citizenship) and concrete political support and commitment, stuff which mass strike waves and soviets and other "organs of action" can't muster.

I also stated in the past that, where there was a worker-class movement in the US, it was because it tried to emulate the German model (like the Socialist Labor Party during the 19th century) and not the British model.