Bordigists and Unions

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OliverTwister

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Joined: 10-10-05

Dec 23 2008 08:44

Apparently there is a small union in Spain which has a large Bordigist influence, named SUT (Workers Unity and Solidarity - nodo50.org/sindicatosut). It is a split from Solidaridad Obrera, a small anarchist union which itself split from the CGT. The SUT is small but seems to have some workplace presence - including amongst the Madrid Metro cleaners, who were recently on a tough strike. The SUT was the only union involved except for the CNT which refused the social peace clause.

I had always seen Bordigists as very ivory tower-ish. Is this an isolated example or are there other recent examples where Bordigists have been involved in workplace struggles and/or unions?

Out of curiosity, do the left communists on here think that this particular iteration of the PCI has crossed a class line by creating a union?

Alf

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Joined: 6-07-05

Dec 23 2008 21:16

The Bordigists have always had a policy of intervening in the immediate struggles of the class, and in that sense are not 'ivory towerish'. They tend to see the existing unions as integrated into the system and are in favour of other forms of what they call 'workers' associationism', which may include rank and file trade unions or strike committees etc. There have been major disagreements about what this means in practice - the 'Florence' ICP (which publishes Communist Left in English) is more in favour of 'red trade unions' in the tradition of the Communist International, though I'm not sure what would qualify as one. In the Italian school strikes of 1987, where real independent strike committees were set up, there were cases where we were able to work together with the Bordigists (not organisation to organisation, because they reject that idea, but as worker-militants).

To sum up: it's not that surprising that their conception should lead to the creation of mini-unions. This reflects the influence of bourgeois ideology, but it doesn't mean that the Bordigists involved have 'crossed class lines' in any definitive sense.

waslax

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Joined: 6-12-07

Dec 25 2008 05:54

The Bordigists have always (since their beginnings in the 1920s) been involved in union activities. As there are different factions and tendencies within Bordigism, so there are different approaches to the union question. Alf mentions one such approach taken by some. Another approach is the 'cellular' one, in which communists try to develop communist 'nuclei' within existing unions, to have a base within those unions over which the party has control. The purpose of that could be to show to the rest of the rank and file within those unions what a 'real' communist trade union practice is, or to form the basis of a breakaway 'red' or rank and filist union.

And, yes, the Bordigists doing this means they are crossing a class line, just as some of them are when they support national liberation struggles. But as Alf says, this crossing of the line is not definitive, it does not put them into the 'enemy camp'. For that, they would need to be directly involved in or clearly supportive of attacks on the working class by the state or capital.

Bilan

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Joined: 26-03-07

Jan 2 2009 02:43

Anyone have any links, or names, of any Bordigist text on unionism?
I always found that left-communists opposed Unions, so this is quite interesting (and bizarre at the same time).