Why do we lose with the unions?

My point was that there are a lot of factors that result in wage differentials between industries, other than whether they're unionised or not, I'm sure there are some I didn't mention, or some I mentioned which don't apply everywhere. The two jobs I've had which have been skilled (music teaching and software programming), have been much better paid than the unskilled jobs I've had (various kinds of office work, both temping and permanent) - the permanent office jobs have been in sectors with relatively high unionisation like education and health, but without any militancy in the actual workplaces, wages and conditions were shit, and attacked all the time.

The only high profile one I know of is http://justice-for-cleaners.org.uk/ - there's been some gains made I believe, but it's also a very targeted campaign, and quite a lot of attention given to the media. The TUC unions have only really started using the US organising model in the past few years - i.e. full time organisers targeting low-density industries etc. (one of the posters on this thread knows a lot more about this than me ). The UK has a very high union density overall, both compared to the US, and to places like France or Greece with a lot more militancy. I guess the other examples would be MWR and that cinema in Sheffield.

Everywhere I've worked in the UK has been one of these three situations:

* No union presence at all, in all those jobs I was a temp.
* Established union presence, high percentage of membership, union has very close ties with management/HR.
* Industry as a whole has an established union presence but the specific workplace, or my department, or the union that I was eligible to join (i.e. at a school I'd only be able to join Unison, while the teachers would be in the NUT or AUT) had extremely low density - mainly due to massive staff turnover, loads of temps etc.

Only the first would really be a candidate for a new unionization effort, the last would simply be a big recruitment drive by the already existing union, trying to get them to hold meetings etc. I know there's plenty of people on libcom who have some experience of the latter, I'm not aware of any/many where the former's happened.

Well obviously yeah, but all I was saying was that unionisation can be one factor there, and in many cases a significant one. Which I don't think you're denying. And it's not just about wages of course - culture of individual entitlement/rights vs culture of fear can be a big difference - and probably the best gain you could expect from a unionisation drive in situation 1 unless you're exceptionally lucky with the union and have very militant co-workers.

Long, long story. http://thecommune.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/latin-american-workers-in-unite-from-heroes-to-pariahs/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_wage_premium

Well even if you identify a workplace where the only obvious difference is the presence of a union or not, you then have to argue whether it's the unionisation that makes the gains, or worker militancy (which may be have been channelled through a union framework, or may resulted in unionisation after a struggle was more or less over (to take a really old example many Knights of Labor branches were formed almost immediately after strikes rather than before, according to 'Strike'). That's a different argument to have of course, and I think you alluded to that (or maybe someone else did, it's a page back).

reading now.

I don't know if it was on here or on another thread, but a post from a comrade in the US talks about the positive nature of the "check-off" system. If this is the case, and even if it isn't, then I don't think that there's anything positive about this for the working class. In the UK, among many major industries - and local authorities I think - the "check-off" system, the deduction of union dues directly from wages, is widespread. One could argue that this is a form of taxation that underlines the statist function of the major existing trade unions.
What happened before the "check-off" system? In my case as a shop steward it required myself or another, or the branch secretary, having to go around and collect dues from each individual worker. What this entailed was plenty of discussion with workers about the failings of the unions and quite often the refusal or reluctance to pay up for various reasons usually down to dissatisfaction with the unions. The "check-off" system avoided this and was beneficial to both the management and the unions.

That pretty much sums of dues check-off baboon. What's even more interesting was the trade off: Dues checkoff, which supplied the union with a steady flow of revenue and limited the democracy within the unions as workers didn't have the last resort of refusing to pay dues, was given in return for the no-strike clauses in contracts. And that was from the "militant" CIO....

Thanks MH. That 3rd option you mention doesn't exist in the US - every non-unionized place has to go through an organizing drive to become unionized. This may be some of the disconnect I'm having in getting what you're saying.

Baboon - I agree with you about dues checkoff. The IWW has a constitutional provision saying we're not allowed to have it, even when the IWW signs contracts. Dues checkoff is part of the model of unionism that is by far the dominant form in the US, but not all unions in the US use it.

The thread is much more interesting now, keep it up!

I´ve worked mostly in unskilled jobs where there was no union, catering and so on, and one skilled job where there was a pretty strong union (UCU, FE college). Yes, we had better pay and conditions at the college because we weren´t instantly replacable, etc, but I also felt a certain protection against the management, not just that the union would try to make them obey the law, but that my workmates would defend me, and they would do that partly through the union. I did, as I said earlier, see the union stop us all from defending a workmate and it was disgusting. But the workmates who were most prepared to stick up for other people, including me, were in the union. In a nutshell my experience of the union wasn´t monolithic. maybe I divided it emotionally into the "good union" which I was part of and the "bad union" which was something above me and repressive.

The third example was my experience in the public sector, I've not had a full time job as an employee in the private sector.

In the public sector I've worked at places where there's a national agreement with the union, but no density in the workplace, inactive branch etc. this means you get national deals (at the moment just over a pay freeze/real terms cut). But for anything at the level of the specific workplace (or lower, or a bit higher) there'd be no collective bargaining whatsoever, you might get individual representation from a branch or regional level in terms of legal support if you're a member. If you did a membership drive, started holding meetings etc., then it'd have to be an extreme situation for management to not recognise the union in those cases.

However a lot of people work in the public sector in the UK, and I'd say UK libcom users would be way over the national average for that, so when discussing with people here, it's very likely to be a factor in the differing experiences.

in the private sector with no union there'd have to be an organising drive and recognition agreement afaik, that'd be example 1.

However even in the case of the private sector (and quasi-private sector like Royal Mail/CWU), there are large companies with national recognition agreements. Tesco and USDAW for example - (warning trot site, but it gives you an idea what USDAW are like - http://www.workersliberty.org/tesco?page=2) - Tesco puts USDAW membership information in with it's job application pack, I'm sure you can work at Tesco and barely know USDAW even exists though.

I think the term "gains" is somewhat imprecise. If by gains you just mean certain advantages based on victories from the past, then yes unions tend to exist where there has/have been struggles in the past. Sometimes recognition struggles bring with them a host of other demands--sometimes workers feel more powerful/protected after they have a union, but I would argue that the union (I'm excluding the IWW and IWA here) from its birth attempts to get the workers to see the union as their strength and, along with the rest of the bourgeoisie attempts to make the workers feel quite powerless in subsequent struggles, particularly after the first contract is signed. I'm also again not sure if it can be shown that its the union or the struggle which brings gains--I would argue its the latter and unions tend to exist where there is enough struggle or at least disruption that it needs to be formalized and structured.

This is why one doesn't propagandize about the treason of the unions without establishing what struggling to win would actually involve and asked whether the unions are useful for this. What makes this thread so interesting is the dire need for revolutionaries to base their principles on materialist analyses and on the actual material needs of the working class--all traditions can do better at this.

Sorry for the shabby, late response. I'll try to get more thoughts together over the weekend (busy week this week!)

-soyons tout

On September 20 fingers asks for examples from anyone involved in struggles where there was no union and how they got on. In the absence of any other response I will volunteer to be that soldier.
There were 2-300 of us mostly concentrated in one factory during the late 60s. We were a non-unionised workforce including transport, packers, engineers, fitters, etc., working for a known paternalistic "good employer". There was a sudden increase in prices and it was a topic of discussion in the factory all day. As the day went on a hard core of militant workers continued discussions ending with a meeting of about half-a-dozen of us in the canteen after work. We wanted to respond, we wanted to strike and discussed how to do this. We decided to stand around the clocking-in machines the next morning and make our case to the workers coming in over an hour period. The more workers that came in, the more joined the blockade and argued for a strike. In the end only one guy, with learning difficulties, went in to work. The rest of us declared a stoppage, demanded a 10% wage increase, and milled about discussing in smaller and larger groups rather uncertain what to do next. Eventually the management, who were anti-union, called in officials of the local Transport and General Workers Union, who talked with management, advised us that our demand had been met in full and signed the majority of us up in the union.

On NCwobs earlier point about the miners being reluctant to cross picket lines during the 84/85 strike - I would point to the fact that at the end of the miners' strike all the miners returning to work, behind the union banners, crossed picket lines of workers who had been been sacked and disciplined, often the most militant workers during the strike.

If you're referring to his post#183; he was referring to ex-miners not crossing picket lines of London tube workers.

Ok, so we´ve had more than two hundred posts about why we lose with the unions, now we´ve just had a general strike called by the mainstream unions, so I´m curious. What do you all think is the best way to respond to that? To ignore it and go to work? To stay off work but not do any picketing? To go to picket? By supporting the strike are you just giving legitimacy to the unions? Why do you think workers chose to strike? And why did they choose not to?

There's a big difference between opposing unions as a form of organization that cannot become revolutionary and often stifles and contains workers struggles and discontent, to being out and out anti-union. I don't think even the most vocal opponent of the unions on here would try to get workers to decertify and quit their unions- or scab on union called strikes or ignore union related events.

Ok cool. That´s kind of what I wanted to know.

I felt it was a bit wierd to have this huge theoretical debate about the unions and then a big silence when there really was a big real life union related event happening.

Some people here who crossed picket lines said they did it because the unions Comisiones and UGT are corrupt and wankers, but I don´t really think they were coming at it from a left communist perspective. The papers have been full for weeks of anti-union stuff about how many liberados there are, how much the unions get from the government etc. Of course I also want an end to liberados and payment from the government, but the right just want to destroy the unions.

Most people who crossed picket lines didn´t "enter into debate" with us you could say, but I spoke to people I know who did it and they all said it was due to threats from their employer, no-body said it was a rejection of the strike. One was actually in tears.

For me, personally, unions are good so far as they useful and bad so far as they're not useful. However--and this is the important bit--I recognize that unions have structural limitations the mean at some point the interests of the union and it's membership will come into conflict. This may come sooner, for example when unions refused to defend a militant member when management come after them; or later, as when the Communist unions turned Paris '68 into a fucking wage dispute.

So, as an anarchist I see our role as always pushing the union boundaries (direct action grievances, for example) and preparing our co-workers to supersede the trade union form when the time arises (mass assemblies and the like).

So I'm a union member at work, I've been a steward, and at my new job I'm creating an organizing committee under the auspices of the union. And, of course, I always vote for strike action and would organize for it if we had industrial action coming up.

That said, if I was at a non-union job, I'd say fuck getting a union involved and just organize as an anarcho-syndicalist (which is what the SolFed training is all about, incidentally).

OK that sounds like a very reasonable position to me.

So come on, what do you all think of the general strike then? You can say it was shit and irrelevent if you want, hey. I´d just like some kind of idea what you all make of it, do you think it´s completely ritualistic and recuperated or what?

This.

I think devoration uses a very telling concept- 'the form of struggle'. Honestly the form can matter but May '68 is good example of what holds more weight. Honestly if we are in a May '68 kind of situation (highly unlikely but just for the sake of argument) form becomes pretty secondary to content. If the unions can turn a generalised insurrection into a labour dispute that does not just prove what side they are on. It means we did something wrong too because we failed to have a meaningful impact.

Well, for what it's worth I do think part of the role of the unions is to funnel discontent into manageable channels. A token one-day strike in which the goal is to force the government into negotiations/support their chosen politicians and policies doesn't mean much.

I'm not in Spain or France, but the impression I get is that (1) the union membership doesn't actually have that much say into how the struggle is organized, how it progresses, or how it is resolved. And (2) the unions ensure struggle remains within allowable bounds and doesn't break out into forms that actually challenge state--widespread civil disobedience, occupations, takeovers, etc.

But perhaps you're better placed to speak to my perceptions?

There was a lot of autonomous activity that came out of that general strike, including some impressive blockades and small scale riots. The unions would have to be daft not to have anticipated this and used 'that crazy CNT' as a means of furthering their agenda.

I think this does say something about autonomous activity without autonomous infrastructure (ie. organisation, funds raised, publications, meetings to coordinate etc). Unions don't in my experience don't have a problem with that stuff either because it isn't sustainable and tends to loose- leading everyone right back into the unions hands. How many officials have you seen condone a wildcat 'just to let the boys blow off some steam'?

Also the CGT for all its problems, still identifies as anarcho syndicalist and does not back politicians do they? From the reports I read they also played a pretty big role in this strike and I would think their unique variety of conventional trade unionism and revolutionary syndicalism is worth taking into account any analysis of these events. So dismissing them as merely backing their pet politicians might be more accurate with the CCOO but I'd want to see more of a case made for the CGT. Of course I'm speaking as an outsider here and would love to be corrected.

I´ll give it a go.

Yeah, Comisiones and UGT say when it starts and when it stops, the strike certainly isn´t called by workplace assemblies all across the country or anything like that. So yes, (1) the membership (in the mainstream unions anyway) don´t have that much say, sure, that´s true. and (2) yes that is true, but maybe (this is my impression, but my strong impression) it´s pretty different from the UK. My union branch hierachy (UCU) was obsessed with us doing anything which could get the union into trouble, and they really took that to absurd levels, although other branches weren´t as bad apparently. Now here I think the anti union laws are different because people do get up to stuff that has my eyes popping out, and not only in the general strike and not only in the radical unions. Some of Wednesday got pretty damn uncivil and disobedient Now of course this doesn´t mean that the union isn´t imposing a limit, it could just be a different limit. And yes, it´s just one day, everyone knows we´re all back to normal tomorrow, so it could be a way to let people let off steam. But- a lot of it didn´t FEEL fake to me. I think where there was effective picketing, it was involving civil disobedience- sure, but limited civil disobedience, sure.
Ok I´m being very incoherent so I´m just going to accept that you are right and shut up.

[edit- Edmonton posted that while I was typing this]

All fair points. Widely speaking, however, I think a lot of the stuff you're talking about goes beyond the trade union form and that's the key point.

And, of course you're right, the unions do use the threat of unmediated action to boost their bargaining position. Here in the UK, that's pretty much how the CWU operates--negotiate with us or those crazy posties will just wildcat. I'm sure the main Spanish trade union federation does the same sort of thing with the CNT.

However, I'm not so negative about autonomous action. Here in the UK, all the actual victories we've had recently have been outside the trade unions (although, to be fair, often trade union activists and even low level officials were organizing behind the scenes)--Visteon, the petrol drivers strike that won a 12% raise, Lindsey, etc. And, in fact, the trade unions either actively opposed the actions or did everything in their power to distance the larger organization from them. I'm with you 100% about the need for autonomous organization tho.

RE: the CGT. AFAIK, I don't think they endorse politicians. I think the CGT (and even the SAC) are in a weird position in that they are pushing the boundaries of unionism and are much more likely to encourage militant but will still come against the limits of trade unionism like any other representative, mediative labor organization.
As to the role of the CGT in the strike, I don't know any more than you, but I don't think their participation fundamentally transforms the character of the strike.

[Edit - Fingers Malone posted while I was responding to EdWob]

Yes, and workers´ combativity in general, and those pesky kids from the anti sistema too.

Can you say a bit more about this Ed?

Apart from the CNT and CGT who are active across the whole country, some of the regional federations are very combative. The Corriente Sindical d'Izquierda from Asturias, Solidaridad Obrera, and the SAT in Andalucia are all combative and with certain hotspots of strength in particular industries in their areas. The relationship to the state, (union elections, liberados etc) is different for each one and I can´t tell you too much about that. But they certainly all go outside the ´rulebook´ regarding strikes and public order.

Ok, ncwob and Edmonton Wobbly, so are effective blockades just you being used by the big unions, like cannon fodder (bearing in mind it´s a bit dangerous sometimes) or are they autonomous activity, and going beyond the union form?
My money is on that they are a bit of both.

No, that's incorrect. I know that in the case of Visteon - (and I expect much the same will apply in the main to the other disputes) initiatives to occupy were probably taken without official sanction of union bosses but were taken by union convenors/stewards who remained throughout leaders of the workforce and mediators between union hierarchy and workers. The Visteon dispute was not at all carried on "outside the trade unions". (See here; http://libcom.org/history/report-reflections-uk-ford-visteon-dispute-2009-post-fordist-struggle). The union had little trouble pursuading the workers to end the occupation and retained control over negotiations from beginning to end.

RM, I'm not sure you understood my post. By "activists and low-level officials" I precisely meant "conveners/stewards".

As to Visteon, I'll quote from the linked article: "On the 31st workers in Belfast responded to the closure announcement by occupying their factory spontaneously." The actions themselves were autonomous; it was the actions of the union which tried to turn them into something which the union could control. I refer to post 232 about unions using the threat of unmediated action to boost their own negotiating position.

The claim "the actual victories we've had recently have been outside the trade unions" is simply incorrect. The result was negotiated by the union from start to finish and the dispute was never outside the control of the union. The convenors weren't "organizing behind the scenes" - they were openly leading the dispute on the ground and mediating between union bosses and workers, meanwhile union leaders were negotiating with Visteon bosses; that's no way a struggle being conducted "outside the unions".

The initial act of occupation at Enfield and Belfast were necessarily spontaneous (but probably still led by the convenors) - but the workers expected the union to represent them from the first and to provide support. Because certain acts are not pre-agreed with union bosses, it doesn't mean there's been any break going beyond/"outside" the union. There was no autonomous break with trade unionism at all and to claim otherwise is to confuse the terms of any discussion about such a possibility.

NC, I'm gonna quibble on this - what's "the union form"? And why "structural limitations" rather than "structural pressures"? The former sounds way more hard and fast and ahistorical to me. It seems to me that if we're honest, our political groups face structural pressures as well but if I was to say, for instance, "SolFed faces structural limits because of the propaganda group form" that would discourage practical experimentation and actually shed very little light despite sound very smart and high minded. This also is ... well, occasionally there are exceptional things. The Republic Windows stuff, say. Lots of limits there, but I think the way you've laid it out here you have this weird locution like "the union temporarily surpassed the union form" or "these low level union officers/stewards and union members surpassed the union form,even if they experienced themselves as union members and believed the union as they understood it to be important in this" or something convoluted like that. I guess I mostly agree with what you expect to see happen in the world but I find the big concepts here (like social form or whatever) and the terminology unconvincing and unilluminating. "Why do the unions usually do what they usually do, and why do they rarely do otherwise?" "Becaue of their form, their form is such that they do what they usually do, when they very occasionally do otherwise it is because they have surpassed their form." In order to explain that occasional (and usually temporary) surpassing, you'd probably have to set aside the whole "form" thing. I'd bet that the "form" talk doesn't actually explain those instances. I'd also bet that any concepts that did help explain those instances would also be able to explain the standard behavior of the unions, without appeal to form.

I think our money is in the same place in this instance. The point I was trying to make is that it's not like the union leadership is not going to advance its agenda just because we are doing things they don't control.

Okay so about four years ago we had a big building trades wildcat where about 10,000 workers from 26 different craft unions shut down construction sites across northern Alberta. The first pickets were actually tacitly encouraged behind the scenes by the Carpenters union leadership(UBCJA) anticipating that it would be a quick job action that would put some pressure on the construction contractors to negotiate. They also figured a bit of militancy now could prevent a lot of militancy later if negotiations went very poorly- they were probably right.

The wildcat quickly got out of hand though and an ad hoc organisation called 'All trades solidarity' sprang up from various union reform caucuses across the 26 unions. Pretty much as soon as the Carpenters threw up a picket everyone, except the Teamsters, refused to cross. The strike was partly against the working conditions and also partly against what most workers perceived to be complacent unions. The strike lasted about a week (six working days) before it petered out.

Part of what made the movement unsustainable was a lack of clear demands, and a lack of any clear leadership etc. The mainstream unions do provide these but within a framework that intends to have a clear and definitive end to the agitation rather than extending and developing it and bringing it off of the picket line and on to the job.

At the end of the strike the workers had to return, many of the militants abandoned direct action and went back to trying to reform their union halls. In the end it just reinforced the workers lack of faith in themselves because it failed to put forward a model of self managed unionism that could compete with the mainstream unions.

It's very hard to nail down form vs content- because the history of working class struggles is full of contradictory information and experiences. Though overall I'd agree- content is the overriding factor in most cases, which is what allows union called and led actions and strikes to turn into mass or general strikes, solidarity actions, insurrections, etc on occasion.

Right, and thats why I don't necessarily consider myself 'anti-union'; I oppose unions in a number of situations, on theoretical grounds, etc but again, this is much different than say the right-wing media or business lobby being anti-union (in their case it is an attack on the working classes standard of living, in the form of attacks on unions and union connected struggles or unionized groups of workers).

In a lot of ways I agree with ncwob's comment:

Unions are a fact of life in many industries and workplaces, even communities. Even though the Closed Shop is gone and the Union Shop is rare in the US, there are a number of different reasons joining a union can be or feel mandatory. Plus there are a number of peripheral benefits (unions often act as professional associations and mutual aid societies apart from bargaining, negotiating, etc). So theres more to it than the theoretical arguments.

Every workers struggle deserves solidarity and support from the rest of the class- it doesn't matter if it was called by a union or not. Though the content, goals, outcome, etc of that struggle can vary widely on whether or not a union is involved. But that support and solidarity should be there regardless.