Unions....

[Hexen]

I recently talked to somebody who watched a documentary film about Unions and how they started in the US. He said what happening back then is now being reversed as he concluded there was a 'cycle'.

Well is there any response to what a Union is via a Leftist perspective? Although I do know have a idea that it's about workers asking the capitalists for more 'rights' and now those things are being reversed today which as if they did in the 1930s was a failure.

Any input on this?

[Permanent Revolutionary]

I wouldn't say that the unions are being reversed now. Oppression by the government in the first half of the twentieth century killed many of the unions.

From a leftist perspective, modern unions are useless. Their only major function is to bargain for some pennies increase in wages. This is true for Scandinavian unions, at least.

The IWW is a different story though.

[Le Socialiste]

Unions arise out of a very specific need, as a way and means of defending workers against some of the more reprehensible qualities of capitalism. Engels correctly assessed that, as an organizational form, it springs from the material constraints imposed on the working-class, noting "the workers feel in every reduction imposed by the state of trade a deterioration of their condition, against which they must defend themselves as far as in them lies." The aggressiveness with which the overseers of capital strive to exact and fulfill their interests compels the average workingwoman or man to defend themselves; the union represents then a natural formation within the developed/developing framework of private capital. More directly, it testifies to capitalism's innermost contradictions, as a "battle between labor and capital, between wages and profits" (Marx).

Unions may develop in such a fashion, but ultimately they come to represent mere microcosms of the system they rallied against, seeking to renegotiate the terms of exploitation, as opposed to abolishing it. A leadership develops, thereby shaping the bureaucratic contours of the organization. This end of the hierarchy will, over time, come to identify less with the rank-and-file and more with business and state management, presenting themselves as arbiters of the class struggle. Thus a paradoxical situation develops, wherein the bureaucratic layers of union management seek to simultaneously maintain the short-term functionality of the organization by acquiescing to the long-term interests of private capital. Whether they are conscious of this matters little. Therefore, it wouldn't be unthinkable to describe unions as defensive formations, defined as much by their material conditions as those who were originally driven to form them.

Is it impossible for unions to enter into direct conflict with the bourgeoisie then, given the circumstances? No. Unions may, depending on the needs and demands of their rank-and-file, be pressured to embark upon a course that, while uncomfortable for the leadership, is more in line with the immediate desires of its members. They are however prone to waves of reaction and manipulation by segments of the ruling-class, as instruments of division rather than unity. Oftentimes the rank-and-file of a particular union will be brought in to work in places undergoing strikes or other related labor 'disturbances', essentially filling in as strikebreakers (scabs).

In short, unions are a mixed bag. While they are natural products of the material mode of production/service, they are - on average - incapable of anything beyond the renegotiation of terms under capitalism. While they contain within them embryonic forms of self-management, they are unable to realize the possibilities (at least, within the current economic system). Naturally, the left's support for unions must be tempered by its caution and skepticism. In the end, our stance on them must be continually assessed, as conditions change and opportunities present themselves. In the meantime, it certainly doesn't hurt to work with unions, as they have proven valuable in the day-to-day struggles of working-class communities. But we mustn't be uncritical of their leaderships, or mistake moments of cooperation for long-term shifts in the course and makeup of their struggle. Trotsky perhaps summed it up best when he commented on the need of the trade unions "to adapt themselves to the capitalist state and to contend for its cooperation." Despite positioning themselves as arbiters of class disputes rather than democratic organs of the rank-and-file, unions are a necessary step in the natural self-development of the working-class.