Why do we lose with the unions?

this is a good way to get the thread back on track. Alf et al, let's for the sake of argument say i accept your claims that all unions are part of the state, and the CNT is not a union. Ok, the question then is, how do some workers manage to organise their everyday struggles 'outside' the union form? So if instead of calling the CNT a revolutionary union, an oxymoron in left-communist lexicon, we call it somethign else, the question remains, how have some workers managed to organise themselves this way, and not others? i think the answer to that comes back to the mediation/representation issue, e.g. by refusing state funds, participation in representative bodies etc, the CNT is able to escape the fate that befalls other unions.* In other words, implicit in the question 'why do we lose with the unions?' is 'how can we win?'

* just to reiterate, there's plenty of criticisms that can be made of the CNT, but one thing they've been very clear about is Los tres NO.

Quick addenduum: In some cases where (again, accepting the terms and claims for the sake of argument) workers struggle outside of or beyond the union form, the struggle begin within the union form, or at least appear to do so, including in the beliefs of some participants.

Agree with JK here as well.

I disagree with calling our own organisations unions as has been discussed to death on other threads, but if we're looking at tendencies and existing organisations like the IWW and the CNT then both the analysis and the suggested approach to continuing the discussion are spot on.

I'm glad to see the discussion move in this direction. I think it gets at the core of the question 'Why do we lose with the unions?'.

In popular discourse and most revolutionary literature, 'union', 'trade union', 'labor union' all refer to the same thing. So then we have outliers like CNT, IWW, etc.

Commonalities between all labor unions (in the average sense), incorporating one or more of the following attributes:

-State funding
-Links to a bourgeois political party
-Engaging in mediation & negotiation via collective bargaining and legal contracts

I'm sure there are more, I jsut got off work so I'm a bit fried. Anyway, these are characteristics of all mainstream unions, whether left or right wing, independant or statified, part of a federation or labor council, etc.

These are characteristics that are absent (or almost absent) from anarcho-syndicalist/revolutionary syndicalist organizations.

In practice, groups like the CNT, IWW act as networks of militant workers united by a common philosophy. Assemblies of union and non-union workers are encouraged, little or no state recognition, no links to bourgeois-democratic or bourgeois-authoritarian political parties, workers across geographic, racial, national and industrial lines are organized, etc.

In this sense, I think there is greater potential for positive outcomes for the working class. A group of militant workers organizing themselves around regional or industrial issues with agreement on a revolutionary platform without trying to gain favor with or recognition from the state is a valuable group. The IWW does stray from this territory more than most anarcho-syndicalist groups, but not as much as a regular labor union (if they gave up NLRB elections, union recognition, etc theyd be closer to this model).

Because of that, I increasingly see anarcho-syndicalist and revolutionary syndicalist groups, for the most part, as revolutionary organizations or networks of militant workers- not as unions.

The potential for a struggle to move beyond labor union confines would require analyzing specific disputes, strikes, and other industrial strife where a union battle escalated into a proletarian uprising.

I think that you also play Humpty Dumpty with words Joseph, but I still think that the examples of the CNT and IWW offer theoretical problems for the ICC.

I don't think that unions are defined by 'their concrete reality as groups of workers organising workplace struggle', but by the role they play in representing workers. To me basing a definition around this is at least as valid as basing it around your definition. I think actually that most people would agree with me that the IWW isn't actually a union in the UK, and things like when Rata was claiming that the ASI, the Serbian IWA section, were a union would come across as blatant absurd.

In that sense members of the ICC can say that "some of us are not convinced that the CNT is still a trade union in any real sense". In general I don't think that the CNT usually operates as a union in any real sense if we define unions by the role they play in representing workers. I don't think that there is any problem in that.

Except for the word 'usually'. The IWW in a few shops does operate as a union, and I believe the CNT does also (If I remember correctly the Supermarket strike would be an example).

For me this is where the problem lies for the ICC. It is all very well to say that 'they are not really unions', but in some cases they obviously are unions.

Devrim

I don't know how many people think like this, but even if it is a small number it should mean that people in the ICC need to evaluate their approach to how they post on here.

Personally I also get frustrated at the way threads too often gravitate to discussing the ICC, but I don't think that the blame lies, at least wholly, with ICC members. I think that people who in threads which are not discussing the ICC in particular, nor even really its positions suddenly throw in comments about the ICC.

I think that tendency can also be seen on this thread.

Devrim

When I´ve been on strike, the union doesn´t usually have to "hold the workers back" because there isn´t actually this upsurge of proletarian rage breaking out, the workers are held back pretty effectively by their own fear of losing their jobs, losing pay, being under the axe in the next round of redundancies. People want a strike without too much risk, and therefore don´t want to escalate too much, stay out for longer, take wildcat action.
So, not a very profound point this... workers are atomised and demoralised and not very up for it. This is the norm for about the last twenty years or so. So, what makes struggles differ from this norm? When do workers feel confident?

I have seen the union "hold the workers back" a couple of times when people were really furious about their workmates being disciplined/sacked and it was a pretty disgusting sight.

Things that make us weak during a struggle:

Division between permanent and casual
Divisions between staff in the same workplace but different unions
Division between workers doing different jobs, feelings of superiority/ resentment

Fear of deportation/ repossession/ sacking/ whatever. Debt a big factor here.
Short termism caused by casualisation. "What do I care about a change in the work conditions? I´ll be somewhere else by then."
lack of experience of winning through struggle, so it appears an alien idea
Individualism

please add to this list

So part of the question of how do we win involves looking at how we can address these problems.

yeah, this is exactly the right approach: an analysis of the real internal weaknesses of existing struggles... and the critique of the union-as-structure and trade-unionism-as-ideology given their proper places within that.

I agree with that; the starting point is the real movement of the class, and the 'inner' obstacles that weigh on the minds and inhibit the actions of its members.

I'm aware of the irony complaining about this, whilst writing long posts contributing to it. i'd only state that in this instance i specifically responded to baboon's posts as an individual, the collective defence (of him, and positions) then followed, and that it has moved the discussion onwards.

So on that note, as a sort of hypothesis, there's the idea that workers lose whenever they mistake the representation of their collective power for that collective power itself. I don't know if that generalises - certainly workers well-aware of their collective power for what it is could still lose for a variety of reasons. But it seems a point of departure that helps situate both the structural critique of unions and the critique of trade union ideology. Debord said as much (although his target was political representation):

I guess the question then is why do workers do this? And why don't others? Is it a simple question of learning from experience? You join a union, so it's natural to see 'the union' as making you strong, but though experience of controlling your own struggle you realise where the power lies? That would marry with the structural critique, since most union struggles aren't self-organised, it would also help understand why some self-organised unions (or whatever you want to call them) point beyond representation towards unmediated direct action...

kinda thinking out loud here, but that relates to my own politicisation, which was through anti-war activity rather than industrial action. there, doing things in an anarchist way definitely changed the way i viewed things, and a few years later my political perspective caught up. i'd guess people on these boards who were politicised through industrial struggle are few and far between, but seems a workable idea. it would also explain how the unions maintain their control - by organising struggles when they have to in such a way that workers aren't empowered by the experience, but often the opposite; disillusioned and demobilised, sometimes to the point of quitting the union and writting off collective action altogether.

I'd guess it would also help explain why syndicalist-type unions can lapse into this. If they're truly democratic, and the above is true, success will bring in larger numbers of workers, who before being radicalised through struggle may largely hold the view that 'the union' is their power, rather than their unity, so there's always a tension between radicalising workers and democratically deciding on represention (e.g. to join a works council or whatever). that would suggest that syndicalist-type unions can both grow and remain on our side, so long as they adopt a controlled approach to growth rather than signing up anyone and everyone. I think that's probably the case (what i refer to as politcal-economic organisation, or the CNT sees as agreeing with their methods). If people don't want to call such organisations unions i'm not going to argue the semantics, but it does start to move from the explicit 'why do we lose?' to the implicit 'how do we win?'

I would agree with this. I think the same mechanism is at work in bourgeois democracy- the Obama campaign in 2008 is a good example of this. Masses of working class people demonstrating, marching, organizing, and finally voting- with their candidate winning. For a brief time after the election, there was a collective sense in the US that 'we did it'- reinforced by the media and various organizations (especially the US labor unions). Within a short time, the reality set in again that 'we did it' but it wasn't 'we who it was done for'.

I think the same reality sets in with union struggles. Workers become involved, excited about solidarity work, picketing, direct action, voting etc within the union structure- even if they win the struggle, it soon becomes apparent that it was a victory in name only, all of those efforts and all of that activity hits the brick wall that is the boundaries of union struggle. This is all the more nakedly apparent if the struggle loses.

I had an argument with a family member about this topic. I mentioned how the unions are an 'other', an entity opposed to the genuine interests of the workers they supposedly represent. My relative insisted that the union is the workers, it is only made up of its members, therefore it is representative of the workers. However, later in the same conversation he rants about the union beureaucrats and officials, the organizations structure, etc getting in the way and making decisions 'for' groups of workers against their interests, dictating the manner in which struggle will take place, the manner in which grievences will be handled, the manner in which strikes will be conducted, etc.

See this is kind of the problem isn't it?

Your uncle knows full well what you are saying the problem is, so much so that he identifies 'the union' as at its most basic level the organised solidarity of the workers. You identify 'the union' as the bureaucracy and its role in representation. This emblematic of the entire problem with this debate- the left communists are so wrapped up in their own vocabulary and have built an entire cosmology around something that most workers understand at its most visceral level. The problem it is so warped by their own introversion and nutty perspective that they can't see outside of it.

However huge swathes of the working class, especially in the British Isles in Canada hold out for a 'union' that doesn't do mediation and representation. This opens the door for generations of reformers who come in and promise something different but seize the same system of mediation and are forced into the same structural role. Instead of debating the vocabulary and shifting the labels around on jars I think some parts of Solfed and some parts of the IWW have taken the idea that the union can be at the most basic level uncompromising working class solidarity.

If most workers identify what we are talking about as 'a union' does it really make sense to take a stand like that for pure rhetorical effect? You should listen to your uncle, he sounds like a bright guy.

I think left-communists would argue that calling such organisations unions is a 'mystification' that conflates them with bourgeois organs. Aside from the fact they're happy to call for a centralised world communist party without worrying about the fact 'party' means bourgeois politics to most people, i think this misses the point. whatever we call our revolutuionary organs, the bourgeoisie will slander them and blacken their name, whilst leftists will create recuperative versions under the same nomenclature - if soviets erupted in Brighton tomorrow, the SWP would be the first to call a 'free workers soviet' and denounce the original one as sectarian anarchist adventurism and/or full of BNP/EDL (i.e. proley white people, with football shirts and stuff)*. So i think we need to be specific about organisational forms and social/political content, rather than arguing the semantics.

* at the last but one anti-EDL demonstration in Brighton, they slandered SolFed as 'dressing like fascists' (we were wearing jeans and t-shirts, i have a shaved head but i was wearing the same outfit tonight, it's utterly standard), as well as supposedly waving St George flags (that one's a total fabrication).

JK: How might we construct a wing such that we do not keep crashing the plane?
N: I think if we change the shape of the wing it will have more lift.
EW: Certainly the wing structure has something to do with it...
JK: I propose a modification that will...

ICC: THINGS FALL! Look! Rocks FALL!! Apples TOO!

JK: Uh... yes but we're trying to make an airplane.

ICC: WHAT GOES UP MUST COME DOWN!

It's like having a debate on aerodynamics with a caveman philosopher.

EdWob, you know I agree with you 100% here but in the interest of postponing a fight about Hakim Bey, I mean, the ICC, I think the issues you raise about the recuperability (or not) of the term and about working class experience and consciousness are best handled separately from the question in the thread's title. I see this question, translated now, as about what formations workers do and don't lose with and why, whatever we call those, and what the qualities of winning and losing formations tend to be in general. It seems to me that there are two aspects to this. One, some struggles start off on a better footing, some do well and some don't. Two, some struggles start off on a bad footing (in ICC style terms, they start off within the union form) and go beyond it. Hmm, maybe I'm just muddying things, I'm going to stop now.

Edmonton- I don't agree. Most co-workers I've talked to at different jobs all think of 'the union' as an outside entity, an organization interested in dues money and someone you call when you're about to get fired. I just had another one of these conversations at my new current job, with several co-workers, who all ridiculed the union as a pointless, defanged council of administrators who can't and won't do anything substantive for us. This idea that 'the union' is a symbol of 'working class solidarity on a visceral level' is far more idealistic and rhetorical than my attempts to define clearly what I'm talking about. If you read what I wrote, my relative (not an uncle) basically said the same thing- aside from an immediate reaction to defend the idea of unions, while not liking what they are or what they do (after dealing with more than one over a 40 year career) and, in his own words, criticizing the unions he had experience with for many of the same reasons left communists oppose participation ( whether entrism, reform, etc) with unions.

This is the the thing- they don't. You, and some other posters, associate 'union' as a blanket term for all manner of good and bad things, a laundry list of mutually exclusive attributes, as well as a dogmatic place within the working class as a whole. An all-in-one- negotiate, mediate, collectively bargain, operate assemblies, legal recognition, solidarity, sign contracts, form committee's, run strikes and make the revolution: all with the union.

I'm not interested in what the average worker thinks a union is- I am communicating with other political militants here, who have different ideas of what a union is, what their organizations are (whether it's a union, trying to become a union, acting as a union but says it isn't a union, etc) and what their opinions on unions is.

Nope.

I think this is an important part of the discussion.

Though I don't agree with the idea that a struggle that begins in one or more union-organized workplaces is on worse footing than one or more non-union workplaces as a rule. There have been plenty of instances where what began as union sponsored or recognized struggles/action moved outside those boundaries into revolutionary, open class struggle.

It would be helpful to have a few examples of these struggles to analyze- the TEKEL strikes in Turkey in '09 and the Greek public worker strikes (the first ones) in 2010 would be good starting points. In both cases what started as regular union-dominated industrial disputes turned into more or less open class struggle (more so in Greece than Turkey) outside the control of the unions- and in the case of Greece the GSEE HQ was occupied and anti-union, pro-committee resolutions were drafted and distributed by the workers.

Though when comparing these struggles to other recent large strikes/struggles which were also union started, sponsored, recognized and led, that didn't go beyond the union form, it's difficult to pinpoint the subjective differences on the ground. In general the only answer seems to be that class struggle is dynamic, a constantly in flux organism that can't be nailed down some of the time.

Both of these views on unions are fairly common, I've certainly come across both.

Just a technicality, but I'm a sympathiser not a member of the ICC.
The ideas above expressing the weaknesses in the working class in mistaking their solidarity and strength for union solidarity and strength are something I generally share.

I refute the idea that I've simply made out a list - the 5 year old joint assault on the conditions of the working class by the management and unions in Britain's airport is not an insignificant lesson for the working class. It's real, it happened (happening), you can identify it.

Similarly with the bin men strikes that JK seems to posit as winning with the unions. The background to these strikes, as I remember, was that legal action meant that local authorities had to pay equal pay or some sort of increase to some workers because of conditions. I think that this issue goes back years. What then happened was the local authorities said that they would pay the increases that they were legally obliged to but that it would come out of the existing wages pot, ie, some workers would lose money, conditions, etc.
Overwhelmingly, the local authority trade unions "negotiated" this sharing out of misery, doing what they do best, dividing the workers up into differenct sections and managing to implement the attacks piecemeal. The overwhelming action of the trade unions was the joint organisation with management of the attacks, their implementation and policing.

One of the elements of what I remember was a successful fightback in a couple of bin men strikes was the combativity of the workers involved. Another positive element to these struggles was the linking up with the local community and it with them, ie, although small steps, the spreading of the struggle within the working class. These weren't great strides but nevertheless positive. The unions would have been involved because one can't abstract them, it's their role to be involved. But compare these small, positive steps - mainly down to the workers and the community themselves (other workers were kept out of it) - and the overwhelming role of the unions in thousands and thousands of "actions" negotiating and implementing attacks on the workers. This is from an issue years old. How do you think the unions are going to be acting in this current round of even more swinging attacks on the working class?

I don't think that the struggles in Greece, or the struggle around Turkey ever went beyond the control of the unions.

Also if anything I would presume, and I am not that informed about the details of what went on in Greece, that the struggle around TEKEL probably had much more open workers anger against the trade unions.

It seems to me that in Greece there wasn't really any attempt by unionised workers to go beyond the limits set down by the unions. We could also say that about the struggle around TEKEL.

At TEKEL there was a great deal of anger amongst the workforce towards the unions. When the workers occupied union offices at the end of demonstrations. It seemed to be something coming from the workforce itself, whereas I get the impression that the occupation of the union building in Athens was the act of political militants (Yes, political militants are also workers but I think people know what I mean). I don't know of any mass questioning of the unions role amongst the workforce.

At TEKEL that questioning was there. However, there is a major jump from workers questioning and being angry at a unions control of a dispute and actually taking control of it themselves. The whole focus off the workers seemed to be on making the unions act, and there never seemed to be a strategy to take control of the struggle. This is what we wrote about it after the effective end of the struggle.

Personally I think that workers having the confidence, and experience to actually take control of a struggle into there own hands is a huge step. I have been directly involved in strikes myself where there has been massive anger about the behaviour of the unions yet an inability to transform that anger into something more when it came to the point of the union ordering us back to work.

Devrim

The thing could have happened in TEKEL was a strike... It did not happen though...

I guess this is where it comes down to what the term union means. Union is just a word and in my experience, it's a word that most workers of the younger generation don't really have that many associations with (good, bad or otherwise). And, as other have suggested, it doesn't matter what we call our organizations, if they're successful the state will try to recuperate them or repress them (a la the 'criminal syndicalism' laws passed in the US).

So let me put it this way: let's say that organizations were developed that fulfilled the ICC/left-communist model of unmediate struggle. What if, at a certain point, those groups choose to call themselves "unions"? Would that change their function, structure, or form of struggle? Would it make them part of the state?

Of course not, union is just a word. What we should be discussing is structural critiques of representative organizations and the inherent problems of mediation of struggle (whether by labour organizations, political parties, labor law, or contracts). Just because most self-identified unions fulfill those roles, it doesn't logically follow that any organization that calls itself a union automatically fulfill those rolls.

What's that analogy about white pigeons?

I found this an interesting statement. The IWW in Britain has trained workplace representatives. (With IWW-certified rep cards and everything!) The British IWW section may not have collective bargaining rights, but they are registered as a TU, and jump at the chance to represent workers on an individual level.

I think this is pretty much the same point I made at the beginning of this post, but it's well put, so I'm quoting it with some props.

I think its always a tricky to try and defend an anti-union position without coming across as a tool of management. I work for a large retail company in the US which has a strict anti-union history. All workers are required to watch anti-union videos, and the subject is frequently brought up as employees stay with the company longer. When I try to discuss why I am against unions, a surprising number of employees agree with me initially--because they have swallowed management's rationale of the "union" being an outside entity which interferes with workers' ability to communicate grievances.

Of course, this is part of the truth but not for the reasons which management provides! I do think the semantic distinction, while tiresome, is important to discuss and clarify.

Right, which is why this discussion is important. Definition is merely scratching the surface of this conversation- but it is, in my opinion, a necessary precursor to moving on to a more indepth analysis of historical events and situations and the rationale and results of various combinations of strategies, tactics, platforms, etc in periods of low class struggle or active clss struggle.

Many people object to any discussion of definitions on this topic, but if we jump right into the latter discussion, where we all use words as we see fit, everyone interjects with 'well what about the CNT/IWW' 'thats just business unions' 'thats just unions that negotiate/mediate' 'not all unions are part of a political party' and so on. The first few pages of this thread are an example of what I mean.

It muddies the waters of any attempt to discuss this topic.

Regarding Tekel and Greece:

I'm not suggesting that there was a widespread movement to work outside unions like Russia circa 1917 and Germany around the KAPD, only that these examples are qualitatively different and further advanced than typical union struggles/strikes of recent history.

Devoration; in what way you think tekel and greece were different? Actually I tend to agree but I wonder how you think?

The word union is in itself unimportant. It is the role an organisation plays.

The IWW certainly wants to be a union, but that doesn't mean it is capable of operating as one. Just because I have a driver's licence it doesn't mean I am a car owner. I think it is basically clear that the IWW in the UK isn't a union.

Devrim

Most people now work in non-unionised workplaces. I´d be interested to hear examples from people about workplace struggles they were involved in when there was no union, and how they got on.

You know what I would find really helpful is further debate on the definition of the word union and when that word is and is not properly used. I think this is definitely and absolutely crucial topic, I would say it is the second most important issue raised in this thread, without which no further fruitful discussion of workers struggles is possible. After that is finished, we can get to the third most imporatnt issue, ICC members' views of the IWW based on rumor and anonymous web posting, which should then get another 6 pages of posts, because this too is a crucial issue. Thankfully, I have no doubt that the comrades on this thread - and the ICC members too - will rise to this challenge. Forward!

After that, in the new condition of proletarian clarity achieved, if people still insist on discussing the banal and already resolved matter of what characteristics are shared by successful and unsuccessful workers struggles (and that obvious and uninteresting topic "what is success"), then there will be time to do so. But not until then. First things first, comrades.

Now, I will resolve the most important issue in this thread, which is the definition of the word 'refute.'

You mean "I disagree with the idea." Refute means you disproved it to the satisfaction of the other discussants who were disagreeing with you, rather than the satisfaction of yourself and those who already agreed with you. You disagree, to your own satisfaction, but you do not refute (that is, you have not yet refuted -- perhaps you might make further progress here via the unfolding of the two other issues I identified -- these three issues are dialectically related and that which is dialectically related advances together. This is what is known as A Theory).

Edit:
what does the ICC think about Hakim Bey?

While I agree with Nate's post, I'd like to briefly address these points.

Holla! But doesn't that undermine the ICC position (at least as I understand it advanced on this thread) that all unions are part of the state?

What doesn't make the IWW an union then? Surely part of the definitions of a trade union is that they represent individual members? In fact that's about all the most of the "business unions"" in the US do outside of periods of contract negotiation. And hell, my UNISON training courses always stress how effective stewards build membership through representation at grievances and disciplinaries.

More importantly, however, I'll advance what, in my opinion, is a worthy communist definition of success:

A struggle--collectively and democratically controlled--that builds a sense of collective interest and an 'us verse them' mentality toward management amongst our co-workers.

Obviously winning a demand is a big plus, but as communists our long-term goal is transform social relations. The first step to do that is to demonstrate that power (or lack thereof) is what determines how our workplaces and society at large functions.

I think of a story someone told me a while back about how London Underground had brought in a bunch of contractors. The regular workers went on strike and management assumed the the contract workers--who were not members of the union--would come into work that day. Now, as it turns out, all those contract workers had been miners during the '84 strike and damn well didn't cross that picket line. Needless to say, I would have loved it if the miners' strike was a success, but the experience of struggle has changed those workers so that crossing a picket line will never be a consideration for them. That's the kind of struggle--win or lose--that communists should be looking to foster.