I-07

IWW likes you!

The problem with CNT-F is that they say :

"Following the industrial Conferences of San Francisco in 1999 ( I 99) and Essen in 2002 (I 02), the french CNT takes the initiative to invite all those organisations, groups, networks and activists who participated in the previous Conferences, as well as other interested.
[...]
What is the point for Anarcho-syndicalists and Revolutionary Syndicalists and all those for a workers controlled world to meet at an international level ?"

(International syndicalist conferences i07 )

But they invite who they want contrary to what is written.

They refuse to invite SUD-Rails that is the most fighting union in railways with CGT and also CSR whose members are involved in CGT, local unions and industrialist and class solidarity.

CSR are just interested by the branch meetings of the saturday afternoon. It is bad the unity of Revolutionary-Syndicalists in France is made impossible by the sectarism of some anarcho-syndicalists.

CSR members even in CNT always defend the possibility to work together in France against bureaucrats. But small bureaucrats of CNT prefer to say only CNT-F is good and are pure revolutionaries. I don't see the difference beetwen them and the bureaucrats we fight in mass unions in CGT. The same behaviour with the same words. They prefer showing differences that possibilities of unity.

We think CNT don't want CSR militants to participate because they don't want to show to foreign militants how little importance they have in industries compared to what we are doing in CGT.
They prefer hiding their weakness.

The way to class unity and self-liberation is not always easy ! The bosses can make profits without worrying !

Kaou
Railway worker
CGT
CSR

Faulse. We now say it is very difficult. CNT in France can’t developp because the union laws don’t give alternative unions the same rights that big trade unions. If you want to developp alternative unions you need to have enough workers organised to impose the boss the union.

The majority of radical workers are now in CGT in France. As Revolutionary-Syndicalist we know our force is the unity of workers in the fight against bosses. So the majority of CSR militants are naturaly in CGT. We have also the project of Revolutionary Union, we are just not enough to build it now in France. Neither CNT-F.

Most of the members of the CSR havn’t been in CNT-F ever. Most of them come from CGT like majority of the proletariat in France. Never say never ! We perhaps will join CNT-F one day if it is impossible to have a syndicalist practice in big unions like CGT.

Sorry but the comrade you talk about has made the majority of the work during the CNT steel industry meeting in Paris. Where was the CNT worker in car industry ? Our network of militants has more informations and activity than ghost CNT unions that exist only on paper for propaganda.
I’m not glad to say that but don’t try to fool foreign comrades about the reality of CNT membership and activity in enterprises.

The CSR is not crazy to think that. We are not a frog that want to be a bull. But we think and we have now some experience of the class war, we are more efficient in CGT than alternative unions like SUD or CNT.
Lots of comrades make a mistake about CGT. The bureaucracy is now weak. They can’t have a total control over unions like in the past.

Moreover, CGT still have a federal organisation with autonomy of the unions and local federations of unions on territories (Bourses du Travail). CSR militants made the choice to involve in CGT to keep that structure and defend it against bureaucrats. If we lose this battle, we will have to make other choice.

Is a union like SUD enough strong to do that ? Didn’t the boss rule the postal enterprise ? You should say that all the unions has lost rights in the Post and CNT has lost everything because it is not recognised.
Is it a good reason ? So you think the same of SUD-Railways who is really fighting union and present in the industry and making a great international work ?

CSR means Revolutionary-Syndicalist Comites. Isn’t that clear ?
The whole problem for CNT-F is to think being the only one and good Revolutionary Union. So CNT don’t want to invite other unionists from France. But CNT must realise that it is not the whole Revolutionary Syndicalism in France. If CNT want to developp, it should accept to debate with other syndicalists and convince them to re join. CNT should not be afraid to meet others.
Trying to ban militants from participating a meeting are methods of bureaucrats. It’s a shame to act like bureaucrats in CGT !
We should be together to fight bureaucrats and you should support us in our fight against bureaucrats in CGT. Because in the class struggle in France CGT is still 1000 times bigger than CNT. So there is an importance to be there if we want to do something in France. And the bureaucrats we fight in CGT are the same we fight together when want to develop general strikes.

If we were thinking that why do CSRs talk to you ?

Kaou
CSR
CGT

The CSR definitely seem close to the IWW, and it's possible they may eventually affiliate in some way. But why is this an either-or scenario? I think we'd hope that it'd be a move beyond the constant in-fighting and instead a further, real co-operation between revolutionary syndicalists and class struggle groups, including CNT-F.

I dont think CSR is going to become IWW-France. It was something we where considering but it seems like its not going to happen.

To be honest, I do not know the specifics. It is just seems from my seat that people are weaning away from the whole idea. CSR may have a similar platform as the IWW but that does not mean the politics of the members of IWW and CSR are the same.

As far as political posturing, I think its more important to keep stability and unity in the international revolutionary unionist movement than supporting small sects that may have a similar platform to yours.

The IWW has politics and its members politics will influence its positions and policies on things. The IWW isnt anti-political it is just politically broad.

Care to elaborate?

Like it or not babe, but Vignoles is publicly known as Vignoles. I even heard Vignoles international secretary calling his own organization Vignoles (no contacts, I was just standing next to the guy while he was talking =;>)

So, even if I could sympathies with the Vignoles left wing, and their intentions of de-Parising the union, still it is not going to stop me calling them by the name by which they are known. Even if that means you are going to treat me rough because of that. Everything else is much more confusing - in IWA procedures we are calling our section CNT-F, and I wouldn't like to make that kind of mix up, would I?

And what is with the "our" thing anyhow, didn't you leave them and join CNT-AIT?

Boul,

Yes, the situation is far more complicated than I made out.

First off I certainly don't believe the IWW should establish itself in countries where there's revolutionary unions we can already support (look in the latest issue of Bread & Roses for a round up ). In fact, personally I only hope that both CNT unions grow along with other anarcho-syndicalist initiatives where they have the possibility to do so.

There's several things to clear up though. You imply that Wobblies are trying to intervene and organise in France; which is completely incorrect. Instead, the CSR has given some interest in affiliating, which so far hasn't come to much (and may not anyway). It's a small, pre-existing group in the country making the move themselves and not the other way round. It's not even definite that members elsewhere would accept it.

Hypothetically, if this was to put the IWW in a position where it was directly in competition with the CNTs (etc.), I'd be completely against it. Yet, as I understand it, and as a result of their different approaches to organising, that generally need not be the case.

Following your logic it would seem that the best solution would be that the CSR (and any other current that differed) died off in favour of concentrating on a sole a/s union. That sounds seductively puristic but not very down-to-earth. My gut instinct says that the CSR, even remembering their size, is pretty sensible in much of their industrial strategies and could do a great many things that a/s unions aren't capable of doing.

When you ask, "What could the IWW possibly think it has to offer?", it's put wrongly because the IWW is not setting out to offer anything. But what could such a group wanting to affiliate to the IWW achieve? Well, potentially, it'd be an amazing step at transnational organisation, linking militant workers to a large, growing network. Immediately it'd be an interesting method of organising on both sides of the channel - like, say, on trains etc. There's not all that much difference between a/syndicalism and industrial unionism in the real sense, but essentially we differ in our broadness and flexibility. It makes sense for those concentrating on similar tactics (dual cardism, network of militants etc) to pull resources.

In short, I support multiple tendencies and believe they can often exist side by side. We don't oppose each other in our goals, and through organising in different areas and ways, we shouldn't oppose each other in strategy. If there was any chance of affiliation I'd hope co-operation with other syndicalist tendencies would be a pre-condition.

-

Btw, I've never heard anyone almost suggest that the Wobblies aren't international. We're concentrated in the States and the UK, but with Australia and recent projects in Germany (German-speaking region) amongst others, I don't think we need to prove it, mate.

Behold, my love, behold all that I simultaneously do: scandal, seduction, bad example, incest, adultery, sodomy! Oh, Satan! one and unique God of my soul, inspire thou in me something yet more, present further perversions to my smoking heart, and then shalt thou see how I shall plunge myself into them all!

I have to say that I am quite disturbed by many anarchist interpretations of "politics" (historically, and present). I don't believe you can be anti or a political. I guess Rocker was at his finest in Methods of anarcho-syndicalism (was it that?) when he explained that we are not against politics, but we don't think politics is made in the parliament...

They are into making existing unions (which in France are way different from US) into IWW like unions. I could say that CSR is more IWW than IWW itself is.

rata:

On this point I definitely agree with Rata.

OliverTwister wrote:
"I also think you're wrong when you say that the CSR are more in line with the IWW than Vignoles - the CSR exclusively concentrate on building influence in existing reformist unions and trying to make them revolutionary. That has nothing to do with the IWW."
rata:

well, in some ways yes, in some ways no. The CGT at one time was officially anti-capitalist and probably still is on paper, whereas no major labor federation in the USA has been officially anti-capitalist since the Knights of Labor in the 1880s.

There are, however, some unions in the US that were historically dominated by the anti-capitalist left (such as the ILWU and UE). These unions are usually more democratic.

The top officials of the CGT make, I think, less than $30,000 US per year whereas the heads of the AFL-CIO and the various "International" unions (as US unions are called) often make CEO level salaries. There are a number of local unions of lowly grocery workers here in California where the UFCW local presidents make anywhere from $150,000 to $500,000 a year.

The CGT does share one relevant feature in common with the mainstream unions in the USA: representativeness. The CGT has 700,000 members -- actually a significant decline from the several million it had some years in the past.

In the USA the IWW was completely marginalized from the '30s on, dropping to only 150 members in 1959. It's got maybe 1,500 in the USA now and a few genuine union organizing campaigns (starbucks, New York grocery warehouses) but it's not yet risen above its marginalized condition.

the fact that the IWW was completely marginalized during the massive worker rebellion of the 1930s strongly suggests that American syndicalists had an incorrect approach at that time. Their "apoliticism" was part of this.

The very fact that large numbers of workers are organized into major unions is itself an argument in favor of a rank and file strategy in relation to the workers in those unions. In other words, it is necessary to have a strategy of how to transform those sectors of the labor movement. it's true this argument may be stronger for the USA than France.

it may be true that it's easier to leave unions in France than in the USA. Labor law in the USA gives a recognized union a legal monopolly of bargaining and represetation rights. Nonetheless, apparently French labor law does limit the possibilities for small alternative unions also.

in the USA i'd say that building a union outside the established AFL or CtW unions makes sense only in cases where you have an unorganized company or industry and people have come together to build a major organizing project, so that it is at least feasible to do this. picking up isolated small groups opportunistically isn't a sensible strategy.

So rata and heartskat does that mean that the IWA will refrain from establishing sections in countries where the IWW has a presence? This question is meant rhetorically, I would be happy to see an IWA section in Canada, but what is considered the big threat here really? You disagree with their strategy? You've criticised each other a few times? So far I haven't seen any evidence that these folks are all that contemptible except some shrill screams about heresy.

I'm a reasonable guy give me some evidence that these folks are not solid revolutionaries.

I don't think anyone claimed that they weren't solid revolutionaries.. just that their thing was to only work in class-collaborationist unions. That's a strategy, with which one can honestly disagree

I agree with this. What I meant is that there are some who paint anarchist politics as "anti-political" and say that we are a-political, and therefore have nothing to do with "anti-political sects". I think that this is a reactionary position.

Syndicalistcat I don't mean to sound like the ICC, but the 30s in the US was a period of tying workers into the state. There was no very little chance for revolutionary action. The only thing the IWW could have done differently to not be "marginalized" would have been to "out CIO the CIO", and build unions which would have done as good a job of enforcing discipline on workers.

Or do you really think that the IWW could have done something which no other revolutionary union was able to do, remain a mass union which is not tied into Social Democracy or Stalinism?

Dear comrades,

I didn't intend to raise fuss. But it seams the topic is problematic enough, and I was stupid to start it at all. I'm sorry about that. As it is here now, I'll try to explain what I wanted to say. I was wondering how will IWW react in the situation in which there is a group interested in close cooperation on ideological grounds (CSR) and a much bigger union (Vignoles) to which it maintain relations and which is in very bad relations with IWW ideological companions. Situation in which there is no fight between the "tendencies" in a certain country is a completely different story.

I find that praxis to be a legitimate one. Some of our union members are dual carders with mainstream unions, and are working in base of those unions on their radicalization. I didn't find that problematic with CSR. They are counterrevolutionaries because they are authoritarian fucks. It is enough to read "analyses" like this, to know what is wrong with them.