glaberman-lynd discussion - job branches of work groups?

Thanks ftony for making a seperate thread.

I wrote:

"Much as I dig these folks workplace writings. However a point of clarification perhaps on Glaberman, Llynd and Weir "political organization is needed. They were/are marxian socialists who have a different "political/organizational" perspective than anarcho-syndicalists."

......Yeah, well, my comment was more directed at the nature of Lynd-Glaberman-Weir's desire to see some form of socialist political organization come about. This is where my criticism was coming from. This was more a responce to Oliver's previous comment. But I must say, I often grapple with the dilema of "unitary" organization versus "dual" organizations (political and workplace).

I would agree with pghwob to the extent that informal groups shouldn't be a substitute for more formal forms of organization---be it majoritarian or minoritarian. yet I would further say that Glabberman and Weir were coming from now historial periods and within certain industries. So some of their writings and experiances are reflective of those times or what was happening in, say, auto or longshoring in the late 1940s-1960s or so.

Been a while since I looked at their stuff. maybe I'll dist 'em off tonite.

As I recall, informal work groups, as Glaberman wrote, were often times an extension of workers in the same department or on the same job. My experiance has been that there can be a truism to this. Often times coworkers become "buddy-buddy" and informally act in concert against a certain shit boss or method of doing a particular job. I've only worked factory/warehouse jobs where we've practiced this, but I can assume it applies to other sorts of work. Does this sort of thing replace a larger, more organized collective action, no, not at all. Does it supplement this, perhaps. Is it practical when a larger more collective action isn't possible, yes, probably so.

As far as what's appropriate for the IWW (and I think this is the context of the orginal discussion), thta's up to the IWW of course. I'm not confortable with that discussion as my red card has been arrears for more than 20 years---and will probably remain that way for another 20 -:)

So where to take this discussion?

One place to start with this discussion is to place everyone in their particular historical and social time-periods. All are writing from a particular period of American capitalism that is long gone. Not that we can't learn from the experiences, but I think folks have a tendancy to grab it all or nothing.

Informal work groups always occur. Obviously, they would be important during the 1950s when a good percentage of jobs were unionized but the unions were becoming bureaucritized and integrated into the capitalist structure. This is when Glaberman did most of his best writing for Correspondence, etc. In this situation informal work groups make sense.

But when we're organizing in a highly atomized working class today, informal work groups make less sense to place emphasis upon. Turn over is high in most industries, unions have decayed, etc. making a Galberman type IWG less effective. Basically it counts on certain social weights - unions, memories of class solidarity to give power to the IWG.

What is needed today is centrality - places, organizations, workers-centers, even website ike this, etc. - where atomized workers know they can go to - and join together. Sure there are IWGs in workplaces, we are social animals, but I thinkthese days, we need create more sense of togetherness rather than informality.

EdWob:

I wasn't trying to minimize the ability of IWGs to accomplish great things. In my experience (last 25 years), IWWs, councilists and @s have tended to focus on informality, transient organizing, etc. or flip to the polar opposite, an over-rigid Labor Board style. We need to expect ups and downs in workers combativity, but still attempt to maintain regular meetings, halls/offices or contact points to come-together and to attract the militants whom always arise in the class war.

My point above (perhaps not well articulated) was that allot of Glaberman's are written as immediate critques of working class self-organization - ie what was happening at the moment in 1950s-early 1960s when the United Auto workers, the Mine Workers, etc were cracking down on local union independence, wildcats and worker self-activity. If you read it in context with other works that the CLR James and Raya Dunyevskya tendency were writing, they look quite a bit at older communities and the rapid transformations going on at that time in the US - civil rights, beginnings of women's movement, peace, student activism. IWGs at that time, took place with-in a context of more cohesive working class communities, often mono-racial, who were often stable over generations. IE people knew eachother much more than in contemporary capitalism, where we have to deal with many more cultural divisions, folks living widely dispersed, etc.

I think that's why we need to focus on strong and permanent branches (in the IWW context) which seek to faciltitate a multiplicity of workers activities and discussions.. Other groups could look into workers centers, community spaces, etc. this is something we have tried in Portland quite a bit, holding forums where discussions are held with speakers from multiple different tendencies, debates, etc. We have opened our hall to many groups to hold meetings, etc. building a loose community and developing contacts and more cohesion of thought and direction.

Lynd and Weir didn't intend informal work groups to be a substitute for formal organization but saw it as the human foundation of unionism, workers in union. A problem with informal work groups is that they are inherently limited and this also limits their potential power. For example, a work action i was a part of in 1970 initiated by some of my friends at a chain ended up getting us fired. We didn't develop a strategy or a campaign to reach out to others at other locations, which would have also forced us to deal with people of different races.

The idea of a formal structure that is democratic enables the organization to be less cliqueish and more accountable, and all these things are needed to avoid informal hierarchy and the informal reliance on certain more knowledgeable individuals who become leaders. In AFL unions this informal hierarchy is often simply codified into the formal hierarchy. So you have the union local with the president who is surrounded by a circle of cronies who he helps out and most members are passive and uninvolved. That's a certain type of informal hierarchical network that has gained control of a formal union structure. so even a formally democratic structure is not sufficient. There needs to be a systematic means of training rank and file people who are willing to be active, so as to reduce dependency on someone who holds all the knowledge about things like negotiations, the contract, where the bodies are burired, etc.

t.

Excellent thread. I think pghwob is right to point out the different tendencies in the IWW at the moment and others are right on about the problems with informal workgroups. Most importantly, I think tsiako is right about the need for more structure and more organization rather than less. I firmly believe that we need to be focusing on institution building at this juncture. What the IWW and the anarcho-syndicalist movement in the U.S. need are lots of halls, workers centers and cultural institutions (coffee houses, forums, dance clubs, mutual aid societies, etc.) to support struggle out of. If we have these I firmly believe that we can support all of the informal workgroups, etc. we want to...