unions - split from blood service

in the school where we work there are union meetings. These are not branch meetings. The school meeting is somewhere below that. Meteings recently have been open to all.

No i totally disagree and don't find someone handing out stuff like 'outside and against' the unions' at say the miners strike or at a postie wildcat to be acceptable since even if the actions of the union bureaucracy are shit in that dispute and the rank and file are opposed to them, chances are if you said you were outside and against the union at that time, you would be dismissed quite rightly as just another leftist sect.
Its why you don't go around wearing a t-shirt saying, 'by the way i beleive in armed revolution and arming the working class' in the middle of peckham. Just because something is a 'theoretically' correct political position does not make it acceptable to go around saying all the time.

The point is saying something as simplistic and pseudo-conspiratorial as 'the unions are out to get you' to a bunch of union reps is completely unnaceeptable looks mental and should be moderated out of the thread since it is pathetic and proposes no alternative other than ''don't join the union'', which is just a shit approach to things.

And i've never been in a union in my life and am aware that due to my job unison would just stick me in the local government branch which is completely innappropriate and forget about me, so you really don't have to point out to me that unison can at times be worse than useless, i find it a little patronising tbh mate. Point is that sometimes you can argue for communist methods and principles within a union, sometimes you can't, same principle you'd apply to any organisation surely no matter how 'revolutionary' it claims to be. I mean when the CNT voted to join the government, would you have been 'outside and against' it? Surely you can see that 'outside and against' in these contaxts is just another example of the sort of purist 'either theres bureaucracy or like no bureaucracy at all' nonsense that leads to things like the non-contact rule with SAC.

Forgive me if I sound trite with my responses, but I'm not going to sit here and spend more hours putting together labourious arguments on the issue, because this has been done ad nauseam already and frankly I'm bored of it. Your 'unions are exactly the same as the state' argument was in itself not something which prompted me to take this overly seriously.

I don't think this is going anywhere fast and it's yet another one-angle 'debate' trying to create a rigid structure of (non)engagement with unionism where a reasonable response should be dependent on circumstance.

That wasn't an argument. It was just a response to your statement about the unions being people saying that the state is also made up of people. I didn't argue that they were exactly the same as the state.

If you want to move on in this discussion, please explain how you think the unions can be engaged with, and in what circumstances. If you don't, it is fine by me.

Devrim

Cantdo, I am not sure I fully understood your post, however you are correct to say that it is pointless to simply denoucne the unions when discussing with others or when one is intervening towards strikes. Our experience of seeking to put forwards the interests of the struggle during the miners' strike is of interest in relation to this.
The biggest obstacle to the miners struggle was the NUM and its concerted isolation of the miners, with the help of the rest of the state. Thus, if one is going to make an intervention to put forwards the interests of the struggle it was first and foremost essential to underline that the only way forwards for the struggle was the spreading of the struggle to others sectors. In putting forwards this need one had to deal with the way the unions were working against this.
Putting forwards this position was not easy task. When you said that the struggle need to be spread no one disagreed and when you said the uions were standing in the way no disagreed because the "the TUC was doing nothing" but as soon as one put forwards the argument that the NUM was the main obstacle to the spreading of the struggle you were meet with puzzlement "how can you say that: we are the NUM" was a common response. We meet with this time and time again. However, there is no other option when one is trying put forwards the needs of the struggle.
When there was a very real chance of the m iners' and docker workers struggling together the ICC isssued a leaflet calliing for the unification of the struggle. Again no one disagreed with this (apart from the unions) but when it came to the role of the NUM there was incomprehension. This is the power of the unions.
Thus revolutionaries have to accept at times whilst putting forwards the needs of the struggle, one is also faced with going against the stream. What else should one do, seek to deceive the class or not show the role the unions were playing: do nothing when you seek an important sector of the class being crushed by the state?
It is probably true that at times we did not do this very well and could have done it better, but it is a process of learning.

but you can say stuff like 'if the we can't go through the union we'll just have to go round' - i mean i've been told of an ultra-left intervention in the miners' strike (wildcat i think; i was a baby so this is second hand), where the leaflet was headed 'AGAINST THE NUM' or something, which is just mental even if 'correct', because obviously the problem was that miners identified as the NUM. even if this story has been exaggerated, the point stands. the obvious thing to do seems to be to focus on the needs of the struggle and let others reach their own conclusions from any agreement there - i mean miners talking to dockers would seem like 'common sense' to both of them, so just get on with it and deal with union opposition/obstruction as and when.

Hi

The old chestnut. What happens when one of these poor unsophisticated lumpens asks you if you’re against the NUM or not? Do you lie in order to not scare them off? Do you avoid a straight answer like a politico? Perhaps you are actually “For” the NUM anyway? Say you fish them into your political group and then drop the bombshell that you’re against the NUM or whatever. I mean, your fresh-faced new flock are going to feel a bit conned.

The whole leftist philosophical tradition, existing on the level of “support” or “condemnation” of this-or-that, is at fault, regardless of how it plays out as far as a position on the unions is concerned.

Love

LR

if someone asks you just say what you think, without the leftist squirm if at all possible. it isn't going to come across as mental as saying 'solidarity brother - your organisation is a tool of the bourgeois state!' while the leader is getting arrested

But this is the heart of what a lot of us wobblies like Nate, Booey, Oliver, myself, and others have been banging on about for the past year. There is a dual meaning in the term 'union' to most workers. While the left communists want to impose their vocabulary on the average worker in times of heightened struggle, like on a picket line workers identify their class struggle, however isolated with 'the union'. This doesn't mean that they are for their own business union or blind to their leaderships lack of will to fight, quite the opposite. But they see their concerted activity, their solidarity as unionism, even when it is completely outside the limits that their own bureacracy is imposing on them. Just because you are against the bureaucrats, the grievance procedure, contracts and the entire labour relations circus does not mean you are against the union which at its most basic level is workers solidarity.

Hi

Ha Ha. Wait until they find out you’re an anarchist-communist using their struggle to develop the abolition of individual private property, you’ll come across as mental then and no mistake. You may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, if you’ve got a serious position against the union, then you owe it to the working class to be open about it. Let the dog see the rabbit. Besides, the bourgeoisie are continually arresting each other. Par for the course.

Love

LR

In the same way, a lot of workers see their concerted activity, their solidarity as patriotism, as working for, say, "a better Israel". I've heard that rhetoric a lot by rank-and-file agitators around here. Should nationalist rhetoric be glossed over in the same way that you propose unionist language to be?

Actually I'm working on an article that mostly deals with trade union nationalism right now. And no I wouldn't because a union for all its flaws (and there are many) was created by workers, and a state wasn't.

I don't know how you think we write EW. This slogan of 'outside and against', which seem to keep coming up is one that is not raised by us. I think that some people have the idea that our propaganda reads as completely mental. While some left communists may at times come across badly, the majority of it doesn't.

I agree on your comments about a 'dual meaning' in some ways. You write:

What you seem to me to be saying here is just because you are against the leadership, the way the union operates, and its entire structure, it doesn't mean that you are against the union. Your are defining union like this, and I agree many workers do to. Many workers also see the union as something alien, and in opposition to them (I don't like that formula, but I was trying to avoid the words outside, and against. It is different to suggest that the unions are outside, and against the working class though).

I don't think that this is merely a semantic argument. You are saying that the unions are bad, but the basic structure/idea is reformable/renewable. We are saying that the entire structure is rotten.

It comes across when you talk of the 'leaderships lack of will to fight'. It implies that a union can have a leadership with a will to fight. Therefore implying that the leadership must be changed, the structure must be changed. We say that the union will always oppose the working class, and that workers must fight for themselves.

Devrim

EdmontonWobbly, the Communist Left is not imposing its vocabluary on the class. Though you may not like it the working class has shown time and again that the only effective struggle is one which they organise themselves and which they spread to other workers. Poland 1980 being the most important historical example of this. The workers organised themselves through mass assemblies and spread their struggle through mass delegations. This powerful movement forced the state to negociate with the workers. What stopped this movement and laid the ground for the state to massacre the workers was the union Solidarity -which the unions of the West help set up-. A more recent example is the struggle of the French Students last year where they organised themselves and held demonstrations where workers could unite with them. When workers from the main private sector companies started to join these demonstrations -despite all of the efforts of the unions to avoid this- the government backed down. You could add the Vigo metal workers who held mass assembles for the whole population to join in, or the wildcat strikes in Vietnam which have gained workers improved pay.
These struggles were outside the unions, which is vital step, but to turn these defensive struggles into offensive ones means to go beyond this and to be against the unions. This is not something which will happen in the immediate on a mass scale but it will need to happen because it will mark a qualitative development of class consciousness because it will mean important parts of the class see the unions as the policemen of the state on the shop floor. Such an understanding will mark an important step towards direct mass confrontations with the state. To make the revolution the class will have to confront the states most powerful weapon: the unions.
Thus the Communist Left is not defending some abstract ideal but the absolute necessity of the class to consciously confront and overcome the unions if we are to get rid of capitalism and open the way to communism. The unions -not matter how you dress them up- are one of the ruling class most powerful weapons not only for stopping effective struggle but the movement towards mass class confrontations and the revolutioin. Hence as revolutionaries the Communist Left has to seek to show this as effectively as possible otherwise it is only paying lip service to the need to make the revolution.

what yo uconveniently leave out is your project to build a revolutionary party which historically have even greater rate of betraying of our class than unions do.

Anarcho-syndicalists argue a new kind of unionism, if the term "union" is disturbing you can replace it with something else describing permanent combined political and economical organisations.

Yes its pointless to denounced 'the unions' as if they were a single homogenous entity. No its not always pointless to denounce a specific union, it depends on the circumstances. The working class is miles ahead of the 'communist left' on this, since people generally use organisations to get what they want, and discard them if they are worthless rather than absurdly viewing an entire type of organisation as being a single entity and as having somke historical mission or role. Hence if a union can help me keep my job via a strike or via legalistic means i'll use it, whether some member of an ultra-leftist sect condemns the union and legal struggles or not.

Again the point is that this is just complete gibberish. You can criticise a unions tactics, criticise the way unionism is at the time, criticise its bureaucratic elements and argue for alternatives without starting your arguement with 'the union is out to get you' or 'the union is a tool of the bourgeois state' or 'you should quit the union right now'.
I mean what would be the point of being 'against the NUM' during the miners strike, when all you would do would be to split the strikers. The point is you should be argueing for is a set of tactics, and communist methods, not for supporting or denouncing this organisation or that organisation. Hence you argue for flying pickets, for solidarity strikes, for spreading the strike for community involcement and so on, but you don't start that arguement with 'i am against the NUM'.

true, i'm afraid

kinda irrelevant - i mean the Brighton bin men may have thought the anarchists who offered to help out their occupation were mental and that a world without bosses and the state is a shit idea, but they worked together on a concrete struggle, won a (qualified, as always) victory, and no doubt influenced each other (activisty types discovered class struggle, bin men extended their demands to a workers' co-op). whereas if those same anarchists had turned up and denounced everything they were doing as trapped within the logic of capital, co-operation would be precluded by said mentalness from the off.

but don't let that keep lazy's cat from the pigeons

just as true, but have you thought about the moment when, say, the anarchists and the brighton bin men realize they've got different ultimate goals?

do you, then, think such talk (or elements of it, ee.gg. abolition of private property and money) is mental? full disclosure: i do.

EDIT: there's a lot in here that needs to be unpacked. 'anarchists' are a group who have similar antipolitical golas, 'brighton bin men' are a group who are defined here as having the same job. to an extent that's apples and oranges. i'm not a workerist, so i'm using standard shorthand when i imply that bin men and anarchists are working at different purposes. if they 'influence each other', tho', does that mean that some bin men may become more sympathetic to anarchist ideas, AND that some anarchists may become more sympathetic to traditional labor concerns, one of which isn't anarchism?

such talk is mental, that doesn't make it necessarily theoretically wrong. on the matter of tactics/strategy, i don't think discussing it at a meta/abstract level is at all useful, because as acknowledged the signifier 'the union' means different things to different people, so wading in with 'against the NUM' or whatever is stupid. we should argue for effective tactics to the given situation in concrete terms - spreading the struggle with flying pickets etc - and as and when the union obstructs point this out - but ultimately people have to learn this stuff for themselves, nobody's born with shit-hot politics (and of course, they may learn something we don't know, given as we communists aren't in possession of some timeless platonic truth).

the fact the premise is struggles external to us is a sad reflection on the class struggle atm ...

it means

once of the first lessons i learned when i was a political lad was that just becuase an argument is consistent doesn't make it right. so, of the choices mental/sensible and theoretically right/wrong, the latter is the less important. not unimportant, but concepts are not validated by being not necessarily theoretically wrong.

Cant, the point of the post was to show that precisely that we did not start by saying the NUM was part of the state but underlined the needs of the struggle and the way the NUM stood against the spreading of the struggle: as did the whole of the state.
I think the point is that we see the unions as part of the capitalist state, whilst it is not clear whether you would agree with that. If you see them as part of the state it is essential to seek to try and help the rest of the class understand this role. How best to do that is the most difficult part. Even though you may not agree that they are part of the state, can you see the logic of the argument we are making?

so i f i want to use a unions legal aid to keep my job, i should quit this union because like its like part of the state man.

anyway the point is, you came across as utterly mental on a serious and quite useful thread, ended any chance of that thread going anywhere by stalling it with some shitty theoretical arguement, i mean do you think its a good thing that this thread has three times as many replies as the original one? does that not strike you as demonstarting the weakness of your approach?

plus what this thread is still doing in organise i don't know

Cant, I did not separate off this thread it would have been good to have kept it going in relation to the most effective way for healthworkers to struggle. We could have used the reality of the everyday activity of the health unions to discuss whether they are part of the state or not and how best to take the struggle beyond their prison.
What you do on a personal level in relation to the unions is not the point of this discussion. If you use the legal aid given to you by the union or that provided by your home insurance does not really matter: what matters is the quality of the legal advise given.
I have a friend who was being messed about by their bosses over their pay. The friend went to Unison who did nothing, then used the legal advise supplied by their home insurance which told her the laws the bosses were breaking: when this was pointed out to the bosses along with the fact it had been supplied to my friend by a legal advisor their pay was sorted out ASAP
In relation to this, there was a nurse who got a back injury and Unison said there was nothing they could do to help her get decent compensation, she went to a private solicitors and ended up getting £250.000. So if I was you I would be very careful not to put too much trust in the legal advise you get from a union. On the other hand, at a local level a shop steward can help their members get there pay paid correctly. As I have said if the unions were not able to appear to defend workers interests they would be useless to the state.
For an current example of the way the unions are an essential part of the state's attack on the class look at the Airbus strike in Wales where the unions have come out against the strike and have worked with management to downplay the extent of the struggle.
From your reply I take it you do not agree that the unions are part of the state

You've been called on this being untrue on another thread yet you continue to claim it. Of course the union officially stated they were against the strike because it was a wildcat - they have to. But they didn't downplay it - they countered management claims that it was small and said it was basically everyone. You've been informed 3 times on here that this is a lie, so why keep repeating it?

For an explanation and discussion of my 'lying' please read the Airbus thread on News.