Union selling out workers, making careers on their backs

Sometimes the main challenge for a workplace struggle is getting around the sell-out unions. This union, which pretends to be a fighting union, is just as bad as the rest. Now we can only warn the workers in OBI and FIAT to stay clear of them. Unfortunately, as it happens, some people think that any union, as long as it is a big mainstream one, is better than no union, but that is not the case.

AUGUST '80 UNION HYPOCRISY – SELLING OUT WORKERS, MAKING CAREERS ON THEIR BACKS

Election time is coming up again and the Polish Labour Party (PPP) is campaigning. The party – a miserable failure lead by a union careerist found guilty in court of violating workers' rights (B. Zietek) and a right-wing populist with an interesting political career (M. Olszewski) – which had its electoral origins in the right, failed with its coalition with third positionists from Polish National Rebirth (NOP) and took a left turn. Using the union to support its campaign, the PPP first found useful idiots in the form of French Trotskyists to support them. After they stopped their support and the PPP seemed like it would be buried forever, they have now apparently found fools in Italy to support their political ambitions.

While campaigning on a platform of workers rights, the reality looks a bit different. Staffed by a bunch of careerists, the union has functioned as a company union in various workplaces, but always peddles its supposed radicalism to anybody willing to believe it.

The most recent backpedaling in a workplace occurred in OBI in Krakow. There, workers were fighting for their rights. Convinced that they needed to have a union with „weight” behind them, the workers unfortunately chose to join August 80, which ultimately had the effect of discouraging real workers' action. First, one unionist was fired. Instead of fighting for reinstatement, the union encouraged her to quickly settle her case for some money and tried to keep the situation rather quiet. Radical workers pushed for a collective dispute. With no real solidarity from the union bureaucrats, people turned elsewhere. The ZSP and FAU organized solidarity actions for the workers. In Krakow, August 80 handed out leaflets and promoted itself as a fighting organization at the picket at OBI, but when called into see the management, signed a paper distancing itself from any protests against the shop. In the end, the one who was fighting most for the workers did not have his contract renewed. Despite the fact that he was also a member of the union, August 80 did not make any campaign on his behalf. Instead, they went to the management and ended the dispute, They instilled in the workers the sense that it is wrong to struggle and that those who fight should be left on their own with the consequences. We understand now that, thanks to the stance of this union, their was no solidarity for the unionist.

Despite cow-towing to the bosses in this building hypermarket, the PPP, using the union and traveling with a few paid union activists, campaign on a platform of fighting for the rights of super and hypermarket employees.

Of course, like in most unions, the stance of any workplace union depends on its members and leaders. In many companies, August 80 is a company union, with high-earning union bureaucrats enjoying life without work duties (they are freed from such obligations) and various fringe benefits. In FIAT, August 80 was known for years as a yellow union, making all sorts of deals with the bosses, its union leader driving a fancy car obtained at a huge discount. All of a sudden, FIAT workers were stunned to hear that August 80 is fighting for their rights. Only some of it is pure fiction, like the demonstration supposedly held in Warsaw on Nov. 11. People read about this in the Italian press and wondered where this demo was. It was especially odd since, on they day they claimed they were demonstrating, a huge nationalist demo and an anti-fascist counter-demo was taking place in exactly the same spot. Thousands of people came – not one of them saw any unionists. Later we heard that of course they weren't there, because their bus supposedly broke down. People in FIAT are not so stupid and know that what is happening now is mostly a show, and not by and for the workers in Poland, but for the union bureaucrats and politicians who start their hype about the workers' struggle some months before each election, and go immediately back to business as useful after their electoral failures.