Communist critique of the unions - reading suggestions

this sort of misses the point, though.

you won't be able to argue for open meetings on day-to-day issues within the union - which are arguably more important.

you'll be seen as an outsider unwilling to contribute to the running of the union but happy to come along and proselytise when you see an opportunity to speak about your own personal ideological convictions.

on the question of different unions excluding each other - yes, that's true, it's a good argument for industrial unionism rather than trade unions - but it's not a good argument for standing aside from union membership altogether.

It was just the word I chose at the time of writing. I don't see any great semantical difference.

Devrim

that's cool, it's probably a more important distinction in the anarchist/anarcho-syndicalist lexicon

OK, got to run as my girlfriend is going to kill me if I don't tidy up before she gets home!

I think I agree about meetings then, certainly when I was a rep we had meetings that were open to all those workers who agreed with a couple of basic principles, not just union members, generally there were about 25 - 30 workers present (a shift) and that's where the ultimate decision making rested.

But we recruited the vast majority to the union eventually as it gave us more facility time to make our own decision times, and the ability to subvert the union as and when required.

Obviously I don't have a problem with 300 or more workers assembling spontaneously to decide to take immediate action. But as part of a long term strategy - delegate or representative councils are essential for the reasons I set out above, 25 is really the optimal maximum in my experience for a meeting that can decide strategy and policy without people's voices getting lost.

SolFed are working on a pamphlet on the Workmates collective on london underground which would really inform these debates, but it's been delayed by the comrade concerned's involvement in the ongoing RMT dispute this summer. actual class struggle has to trump writing about class struggle, but we will get this finished and published asap.

DAM's Winning the Class War is interesting; it suffers some of the ambiguities over just what an anarcho-syndicalist union actually is that have been discussed extensively on here, but contains great passages like this:

edit: i don't know if this counts as 'ultra-left' - certainly the last bit shows a lot more nuance than 'Outside and against the unions' in acknowledging that unions don't just stifle militancy but often the bureaucracy pushes workers into tokenistic strikes to cement their role. i think it's pretty close to the de facto libcom group position.

Yeah, the thread did seem to wander off the mark, interesting as it was.

Anyway, critiques that are often over looked but fit the bill (or at least are part of the bill, as it were) would be these three pamphlets, that chronologically kind of reflect the development of thinking in general leading up to the IWW.:

What Means This Strike? (1898)
http://www.slp.org/pdf/de_leon/ddlother/wm_strike.pdf

The Burning Question of Trades Unionism (1904)
http://www.slp.org/pdf/de_leon/ddlother/burn_ques.pdf

Socialist Reconstruction of Society/The Preamble of the I.W.W.(1905)
http://www.slp.org/pdf/de_leon/ddlother/soc_recons.pdf

I'm sure we've got more, and more explicitly anarcho-type stuff in the WiC various links on our various sites. I'll try to pull the out when I have the chance. The International Communists of Holland piece that someone posted above is one, and very good, too. Later...

don't know if it was mentioned yet, but Herman Gorter's Open Letter to Lenin says quite a bit on the subject of trade unions from a left-communist perspective:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/gorter/1920/open-letter/ch02.htm

Steven, here you are. I hope you and others interested will read these. They are both original and different from the others offered so far.

-- Internationalist Perspective, "Trade Unions: Pillars of Capitalism" (2003):

http://internationalist-perspective.org/IP/ip-archive/ip_41_trade-unions.html

-- Anton Pannekoek, "Trade Unionism" (1936):

http://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1936/union.htm
(This link doesn't seem to work, and I don't know why. You may have to look up under the Pannekoek index, see 1936.)

Thanks to everyone for this thread. I coincidentally saw it online under 'recent posts' and I'm actually in the middle of reading about 100 pages (size 10 font, no margins) of critique of unions especially from a left-communist perspective. What I've read so far is the ICC's Unions Against the Working Class, 7. The Trade Unions: Yesterday organs of the proletariat, today instruments of capital, The unions were not anti-working class from their inception (polemic w/ wildcat-UK), Correspondence on the Union Question (brief but informative on the US unions), The revolutionary movement and the union question, 4. State Capitalism

also IP's text that waslax mentioned (above) was rather helpful as well

I'm going to start on Munis' text (mentioned on page 1 of this thread) tomorrow

One thing that's been rather helpful for me in understanding better the nature of the unions has been understanding the evolution of State Capitalism, not as a USSR/Cuba/etc-specific designation but as a global trend--first tested during the 1st World War, then resuscitated once the 1929 crisis appeared and never dismantled since (privatizations, for example, are generally the decision of the over-burdened state--not as "concessions to the capitalists, but because the state, as the main capitalist for a nation, can't afford to run them any longer). I think the collaboration/integration of the unions into the state via national committees and laws regulating strikes, the unions integration into maintaining the 'national' economy and productivity--is really important for understanding the function of the unions, and really, the whole edifice of leftism.

In that vein, Internationalisme(paper of the Gauche Communist de France, predecessor to the ICC)'s text, "The Evolution of Capitalism and the New Perspective" is fantastic.

Gorter's Letter to Lenin can't be recommended highly enough.

I'm interested in reading the Pannekoek article as well.

Apologies for only contributing texts from one organization (ICC)--they're the main group I'm in contact with. I'm definitely interested in reading the other texts as well. Anyone know of more explicitly (class-struggle) anarchist critiques of unions?

Dear Steven

You've asked for specific recommendations....You could try the articles in the Liverpool group's -Workers Voice in the 1970's which has articles written from the reality of attempting to struggle up and against union opposition on the "shop-floor", also good on the Shop Stewards. Also, at the same time World Revolution and Revolutionary Perspectives have exellent critiques of the unions.

melmoth

It seems melmoth is referring to the Workers Voice group (of Liverpool) before they joined with Revolutionary Perspectives to form the CWO (around 1975), now a section of the IBRP. World Revolution became the UK section of the ICC in '75. So you could try looking in the archives of the websites of those organisations, but they may not have anything by those early groups before they transformed into the larger organisations they became. Try googling "Workers Voice".

This isn't a coherent theoretical critique of the unions, but it's kind of my account of my experience with my union in the struggle I started a thread about here:
http://libcom.org/forums/organise/looking-advice-about-picket-line-stuff-where-i-work-01062009 (that's the thread about the struggle itself)
It's about my experience and my evolving perspective and what I saw the union doing--it's in the newest issue of Internationalism (US)

http://en.internationalism.org/inter/i52/letter

http://libcom.org/library/communication-workers-group-rank-file-critique-subversion

The KAPD's 1920 programme contain's probably the earliest critique of the unions from a communist perspective -- not without ambiguities, but it was caertainly a break with the past:

http://en.internationalism.org/ir/97_kapd.htm

Steven: why did you start this thread? Is it because of recent experiences of unions struggles, of an effort to make sense of them theoretically? How are your thoughts on the nature and role of the unions developing in the light of the stuff you've read recently? Just wondered...

Try this pamphlet from 1980

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pdf/tu.pdf

Steven. Have you read much Martin Glaberman stuff? I've only read his things on the '30s/'40s so far, but those are very good, and include theoretical views on the unions interspersed with the historical stuff.

I've just finished read "Poor people's movements: Why they succeed, how they fail" by Piven and Cloward (1979) ISBN 0394726979. It has an interesting chapter on the US industrial workers movement in the 1930s, which shows how the workers won concessions from the government and employers before the CIO was formed, and then gradually lost them as the industrial unions became consolidated. Lots of lessons in there...

Just off to start on Brecher's Strike! now...

Zinn also refers to this in his 'People's History of the United States'.

Devrim

That's where I found it

Bugger -- I bought the latest edition. What's changed?

He turned into a pareconist in the 20-30 years between printings, and apparently most of the anti-union stuff was edited out.

OK, in that case the first edition must have been incredibly harsh: the current version has hardly any examples of unions portrayed in a positive light - there might be one or two, but not much more than that. It's almost solid critique from beginning to end...

IMHO, one of the most interesting bits is when its talking about a general strike council of some sort (I think in one of the city wide general strikes), and every time new people are elected on to it, they start to compromise, then get chucked off, and then the new people do exactly the same... Beltov - if you come across that passage, I'd appreciate a page number...

just to third brecher's strike!

I was disappointed to learn he was a staffer for then US Rep now US Senator Bernie Sanders, the only avowed "socialist" in the United States Congress. Though I think he did resign over something to do with Iraq or something.