Unions

[American_Trotskyist]

The new trend of the New Left is to critized the Unions and say they are just corrupt and usless. Well the workers orginizations are a great advance toward socialism and they are the workers only voice, or are they? Are they the future? Workers democracy I mean. What should be done to help improve the Unions?

[ComradeRed]

Tough call. On one hand it could be viewed as reformism, which is bad. On the other, it is a workers organization. But it isn't always for the interest of the working class. Afterall, the union bureaucracy is a labor aristocracy.

I'd support the union if the union was working for the working class.

[redstar2000]

Mostly, the existing unions in the U.S. are pretty bad -- with some notable exceptions.

Sometime in the next few decades I would not be surprised to see an altogether new union movement emerge.

Until then, I don't expect much... :(

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Archpremier]

Most unions these days are pretty bourgeoise, too center-left.
Bu there are such radicalistic ones as the IWW (http://www.iww.org/).

[Pawn Power]

Unions will always exsist under capitalism. The boses need someone, like the head of a union, to speak to and make deals with. If the workers revolt and strike the boses and capitalist want a single person talk to to end the strike, if there were no unions then it would be difficult for the capitalists to cut deals with the working class. So the I guess unions in alot of cases can be considered 'reformist'.

[SonofRage]

I agree with RS2k. The AFL-CIO unions are on the decline and it going to reach a point where workers are going to go in a different direction. I've been very active in the IWW and there are some good things happening throughout the US. Hopefully this is either the beginning of an IWW come-back or at least our principles will influence a new labor movement.

[Djehuti]

I think that the Unions have played their part in history. Sure, they do still have their uses, and I will still organize myself in a Union when I take a job, bevause you will get alot of rights and other advantages by doing that. But thats about it, the Unions today mostly serve as a buffert against attacks on the working class, they slow down the process that attacks the rights of the working class. But as an offensive tool for the working class in the class struggle, I fear that the Unions have lost their use. And not only because as good as all unions are bureaucratic, top-ruled and a bastion in the hands of the Social Democrats (here in Sweden)...As far as I know, the non-unionist struggles are much more effective (in offensive struggle) these times, more flexible and able to attack more functions of the capitalist system. Faceless resistance is the thing!
http://slash.autonomedia.org/news/02/10/02/1237239.shtml
http://www.riff-raff.se/english/articles/h...s_vs_value.html (http://www.riff-raff.se/english/articles/html/3_burgers_vs_value.html)

[VukBZ2005]

Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2005, 05:04 AM
I think that the Unions have played their part in history. Sure, they do still have their uses, and I will still organize myself in a Union when I take a job, bevause you will get alot of rights and other advantages by doing that. But thats about it, the Unions today mostly serve as a buffert against attacks on the working class, they slow down the process that attacks the rights of the working class. But as an offensive tool for the working class in the class struggle, I fear that the Unions have lost their use. And not only because as good as all unions are bureaucratic, top-ruled and a bastion in the hands of the Social Democrats (here in Sweden)...As far as I know, the non-unionist struggles are much more effective (in offensive struggle) these times, more flexible and able to attack more functions of the capitalist system. Faceless resistance is the thing!
[
I Agree with you. This is why i am developing something that combines
direct action with anti-authoritarianism. I believe that the unions also have
become a obsolete tool of resistance against capitalism and the state for
the working class.

[encephalon]

I agree with *union*, but disagree with unions, as we have them today. They are little more than insurance for the bourgeoisie against uprising. Whereas unions were once a tool of controlling production, or at least halting it, they have now become utilities of continued production in the hands of capitalists, not workers. I think, probably, people should have been able to look at the American system and see how tthis would happen to unions, but I also have the benefit of retrospect.

Is everyone aware that, until a few years ago, the AFL-CIO banned communists from becoming members? Or at least that was in their membership agreement, not sure if it happened as such.

[American_Trotskyist]

here are my thoughts,
There are some Unions where they are buerocrats running things, but they do a hell of a lot for the workers, a hell of a lot more than no Union. Lenin said Unions are the embryo of the future. So I think we ought to have reforms within the Unions. The right to immediate recall of the Union rep, the right to create a Union based political party where the Unions vote within it on all of the issues faced by their representives. The Unions are the enbryos of the future, and should be treated as such. The reactionaries need to be purged and we could keep them in check by recalling them if they are fucking around. The Union is the only real voice of the workers, all of the workers,no matter what their beliefs are. We want a social, not political, revolution and the Union is the place to start because that is where the advanced proletariate is. So we need a party of Labor to only work for the workers and try to unionize as many workers as possible. I think there will be a more violent labor movement to come because we only have 1/10 workers unionized. At the height it was 35% so if we were to repeal the laws against Unions, perhaps we could unionized a majority of the workers and get out demands moving. So there is a long fight to come.

[encephalon]

I don't believe the unions of today, as we have in the US, are working for labor.

Don't you think it's interesting that many businesses, without being enforced by union demands, require their workers to join the union? That it's interesting that companies pour money into union pockets? Why, if unions worked against these same companies, would they support those unions?

Capitalists realized that by fighting the unions with force, as they did in the beginning, they inadvertently encourage support against the bourgeoisie. What works, at least thus far, is taking those "representative institutions" and making them illusory, from unions to democratic government. If there is hope in unionization, it is a vastly different type of union than we have today. Perhaps unions are different in other parts of the globe, but not in america. They are methods by which the capitalists keep workers in line.