Why do we lose with the unions?

Re: Vistoen. I concede my statement that it occurred out the union was probably a bit hasty. It's true that while the national union did everything it could to distance itself from the dispute, they did want to make sure negotiations were completed through Unite and, unfortunately, the workers did still have respect for the instructions of the union officials.

I guess I was thinking about how the struggle itself was organized--from the spontaneity of the occupation to the organization of life inside. And which I still think it can be fairly argued that occurred autonomously.

I see what you're getting at, but since trade unions are, by nature, mediating bodies, there comes a structural limit at which certain acts of struggle will go beyond the union and into the realm of unmediated struggle.

I guess I should be more clear with my language. I would have been better off saying "trade union form"--as in a legalized, representative, hierarchical, mediative labor organizations.

Well Republic is an interesting one, but I think it's an example of militant trade unionism and didn't supercede the union itself. However, I do think a time could come where actions could precede consciousness with union members taking unmediated action, but still identifying with their trade union. Or, struggle could 'expand', if you will, into a mass assembly (a different form) and then be recuperated by the union. All that is slightly convoluted, but struggle is often full of contradiction and coming up with hard and fast definitions and explanations is never easy.

Thats the thing- unless there is a successful, global socialist revolution, every struggle, every assembly, commitee, council, etc will be recuperated by either the union form or the state directly. That's simply a guarentee. Though the struggles themselves are what is beneficial, in the form of experience and consciousness.

Sit-down strikes, workplace occupations, extra-union strike committee's, tent cities, solidarity direct actions, general strikes, etc are militant forms of struggle that seem to be more predisposed to moving outside union parameters. They are harder to control with the beueaucratic apparatus and stay within the acceptable, legal framework. If these more militant expressions of worker struggle become generalized, part of the consciousness of the working class, we are moving in a positive direction towards greater potential. I think for the last decade theres been a definite move towards more and more militant actions internationally.

From Lenin's introduction to the 1st Congress of the 3rd International:

The Republic Windows occupation is significant because it put a very militant struggle tactic back on the agenda of the class struggle- not because of what these workers demanded or gained, or whether UE was involved and to what extent.

Ok I think that´s really clear. I wasn´t sure if people felt that struggles which didn´t go beyond the union were therefore worthless.

As Lenin said, behind every strike lies the hydra of revolution.
As one who sees the unions as part of the state and against the working class (that is the great majority of the trade unions) then you have to support any struggles of the working class. The recent weeks show the combativity of the working class but it's way behind what is demanded of the situation. This is partially due to the role of the unions - one unemployed Spanish builder on BBC news said, "why have we waited for the 27th - we should have been on strike right away" - and the way they carve workers up into corporations and behind divisive compartmentalisations. But the main reason why the workers' response is lagging in my opinion is a certain fear in the class, certainly a lack of confidence in itself. What I think is needed to overcome this is more direct meetings between numbers of workers, more open expressions of solidarity. The trade unions serve to keep the class divided and weak and if there has to be a struggle they organise it effectively in order to let off steam.

It's not really guaranteed, because they can also get crushed via repression, or in some cases either quickly win or lose what they were fighting for, then fade out very quickly. I've been trying to remember that "the working class always loses, until it wins" quote somewhere but can't locate it.

NC, "by their nature" is just "form" again, it doesn't actually explain anything. All it really does is repeat the criticism of the organization's behaviors in ways that say "the organization could not have done otherwise." You're smart enough to quality that, by saying "well, there are exceptional circumstances sometimes, they're possible anyway..." but in that case, again, you have a situation where - in your terms - a union goes beyond the union form, or union members act in a way that they experience and beleive their actions to be part of the union but they are in actuality surpassing the nature of unionism. I don't see the appeal of this sort of vocabulary and I don't think it actually sheds light. I'm having a hard time telling how this isn't a tautology - "why do we lose with the unions? because the union form is antithetical to winning; it is in the nature of unions not to facilitate our victory." That doesn't really explain anything, as far as I can see.

Say we have an IWW group where the members disagree on whether or not to pursue a recognition+contract strategy or a non-recognition strategy. Or say there's a workplace group built by SolFed but not made up of SolFed members alone, as per the discussion in the "solidarity and revolutionary unionism" thread, with the same disagreements. Which organization doesn't matter here. Say the disagreement goes to a vote and the group opts for recognition and contract. They've now adopted the trade union form, in your terms, or have voted to try to create an example of the trade union form. How does that terminology help us to explain these actions or counteract attempts like this?

Also - sorry for my tone, I know I'm coming off as curt, not my intent, I'm just in a massive hurry and haven't slept near enough in days, I usually try to edit for tone and am not able to do so at the moment but I still want to have this conversation.

Ah, no worries about the language, you and I know each other well enough that I'm not worried

I want to very briefly respond, but I'll offer more later once I've had time to mull it over and while I'm not watching Snakes on a Plane (that's right...)

I think we first need to clarify "winning". Trade unions are perfectly capable gaining concessions from capital. The problem, for me as a communist, is that I think there's a limit to what can be gained from them and this limit certain includes revolutionary activity (not to mention the fact that trade unions develop their own set of institutional interests separate from their own membership and the larger working class). So if we are discussing "winning" long-term--as a revolutionary organization--this must necessarily preclude adopting the trade union form.

The reason I tend to stress the the trade union "form" is that it's shorthand for any organization (no matter how it self-identifies) that adopts a mediative, representation, and legalized position. I mean we can discuss how all these positions limit workers self-activity, control struggle, and integrate those organizations into the state-sponsored labor relations regime, but I think we already agree on those points.

Is that helpful or is it not really getting to the root of your concerns?

Few other thoughts....

I do think there is a certain point where a trade union can't allow it's members to do certain things and still remain true to its mediating role. There is a limit, for example, if workers abandon union representation and ignore the instructions/advice of the officials in favor of self-representation and self-organization. The trade union, if it wants to remain a representative of the workforce, will be forced to act in a certain, anti-worker way.

(This even more relevant as capital, in times of heightened class struggle, fully recognizes the usefulness of trade unions as a means to manage class strife.)

Well, a union can't surpass the trade union form, but trade union members can. And, this is all going to get very semantic, but they said workers still correctly believe they are acting in union with their co-workers, but have surpassed the nature of trade unionism even if they still identify with the name of their trade union. Does that make sense?

Well because trade unions--based their necessity to mediate struggle and on their function within the structure of capitalism--will impose limits on the the types and extent of struggle. We may have to do a bit of explaining about the dangers of mediation, representation, and legalism but these are all inherent aspects of trade unionism and therefore inherent to the trade union form.

Let me know if you find that makes sense (and not a bunch of repetitive ramblings...).

There's also this ridiculous shit from Boris the Cunt: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/9059964.stm

Tommy Ascaso, you should def do a write up about that. To be honest, with Ed's article, the one I'm working on ("How to be a Minister"--I must have told you about that), and your little find there, I think we could have a proper SolFed "On the Unions" series.

hey NC,

That is clearer, thanks. I'm still not sold on your implied second-order argument (ie, on adopting these terms) but I see where you're coming from. It seems to me that this terminology is likely to encourage thinking about ideal types - what we'd expect given the form - rather than actual practices. There's an important place for that (that's what Marx basically does in v1 of Capital, hence all his remarks like 'insofar as the capitalist is a capitalist...' because actually existing capitalists do conform to the logic of capitalism but rarely do so 100%), but it has limits too. I think that there are situations that pose choices to people and organizations, generally I expect to see the same outcomes you do and like you I think there will be exceptional circumstances (in your terms, where a struggles goes beyond the union form), I just don't buy the implied explanations here. Like I said I basically expect to see the same dynamics play out as you do, so I can live with bracketing the theoretical/terminological disagreement at least for now.

Only partly related, on the potentials of different organizations and all, I just started reading a book by Robert Boyer on the Regulation School. The passage on Fordism is interesting, and short, here:
http://tinyurl.com/337ypes

That suggests an explanation for why workers could win concessions from capitalism more easily in the mid-20th century US. I'm not sure it's right (makes sense to me but I don't really know about any of this), but I think it's a good example of thinking historically rather than about ideal types. It also fits with the "the NLRA was passed to encourage labor peace" sorts of claims that I/we like to make, and which are related to issues of winning concessions in relation to communism. (I do want to point out that I think you're saying something different from Ed here, who seemed to be saying that concessions weren't winnable via the unions, unless I misunderstood.) Speculating a bit, I've started to wonder if the current lack of willingness to compromise raises a radical potential in certain organizational approaches - workers will run more quickly into the limits of capitalist willingness to negotiate, which could be potentially radicalizing. I'm not sure about that, though, just a thought. Another thought - a friend reps Arrighi's _Long 20th Century_ a lot. He explains it this way: there's a historical dynamic between productive capital being most profitable (one specific leading sort of productive captial) and finance capital being the most profitable. We're in a finance phase. When/if a new productive center emerges, the profitability of that will likely make for greater ability to make concessions, and an interest in doing so because the increasing rate of profitability will give those capitalists more interest in not having production idled. (I guess this is in Beverly Silver's book Forces of Labor, which uses a similar framework as Arrighi.) I haven't actually read any of this but it sounds convincing to me on my friend's summary. If that is right, as part of this we will likely see an emergent militant but basically social democratic unionism - fight hard for concessions, win concessions, see the presence of concessions as evidence of being radical etc. If all that's right, my hunch will be that the centers of potential rupture will be less with those sectors where capitalist profit increases elasticity (in the sense of greater ability of capitalists to make concessions) and more with those sectors where capitalist elasticity is shrinking (because struggles there will not win concessions as much and so will, I think, be more likely to move to rejecting capitalism as such.) All very speculative and objectivist, I know...

I guess I am a bit like Marx, that's true:-)

I think a better way to look at it is that it is impossible to win lasting reforms, or durable concessions, from capitalism (in its epoch of decadence). This was possible under ascendant capitalism (the 8 hour day is the most striking example, as well as things like legal protection to form and join a union, etc) but is no longer possible- whether through labor unions or other means.

Yeah, because, like under "ascendant capitalism" bosses never tried to reverse gains. They did and they often succeeded. Then, as much as now, capital has an incentive to recoup losses to workers struggle. And I'm sure the the fact that there was a much more active labor movement 75 or 100 or even 50 years ago has nothing to do with the fact that gains won were more easily kept and defended....

And, mate, I literally do not want to get into it, but all you've done is made a statement. I don't really care to hear the 10,000 word response that will be needed to try and justify the statement--but just the fact that the ICC choice is an unsupported statement or a bloody treatise which can only be understood by academics should be pretty telling in and of itself.

i think that's precisely where Arrighi's analysis is useful (and Silver's stress on the 'subjective' component of struggle within it). It isn't capitalism that's 'decadent', but nodes of capital accumulation which pass though successive industrially then financially-based periods, the rise of one new centre for global accumulation typically overlapping the decline of the previous one. he makes a pretty convincing argument for this dynamic from the Florentine/Genovese city-states onwards, and it would allow us to understand for example the big gains being won in China and Vietnam etc. Just saying 'ah they're not really permanent since capital is decadent' doesn't really help.

Of course for Arrighi/Silvers argument, this will happen as workers drive up wages through struggle, creating a domestic market, further increasing production, until the surplusses begin to accumulate as financial capital invested in material production elsewhere (with domestic manufacturing being made less attractive by high labour costs). thus China enters its 'C-M' phase and a new centre of global accumulation begins to rise...

I think there are various potential problems with this analysis, but it seems strong enough to take seriously. I know Robert Brenner's written a critique of 'neo-Smithian Marxism' and 'the Long 20th Century' specifically which i want to read in the next few weeks.

Nate, I don't mean to single you out, but since I'm not familiar with the bin-men example that is used and these two things (MN nurses and Republic Windows and Doors) keep coming up, I feel the need to disagree with you about them being mixed victories. I really don't see them as such and I think some of the people involved probably feel similarly.

On the Minnesota Nurses, the dropping of the central demand (staffing levels) and the acceptance of the hospitals' offer on every other point is not what I would call a victory, plus the workers authorized indefinite strike action but the union only did a 1-day action, with 10 days notice (1-day actions are notorious ways for unions to let workers blow off steam while harming the employer either minimally or not at all). As biased as the Star Tribune is, I think the article here (http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/97611569.html?elr=KArksUUUoDEy3LGDiO7aiU) detailing the strike settlement is interesting, especially the nurses' comments on the facebook page. In the long-term, the hospitals get to decrease staffing before the contract is written because there's nothing in there about that, then the nurses stage a 1-day strike to have specific staffing levels in the contract and the next day agree that they don't need it there afterall but will work on hospital committees to make it happen. There may be something I don't know (and correct me if I've missed any of the details) but I would call dropping what had been propagandized as the central demand as a classic example of the union bringing a "mixed victory" that doesn't win anything and explicitly drops a defensive demand workers had fought for in response to worsening conditions (in this case the staffing levels).

Secondly, on the Republic Windows and Doors occupation, to call 'winning' severance money you're entitled to and still being out of a job two years later (when I saw Kari Lydersen, who wrote Revolt on Goose Island speak, she confirmed that this was the situation for most of these workers) a 'victory' is pretty empty, but it's exactly what the union did and I think circumscribes this problem of 'mixed' union 'victories' quite well. Yes the unions will win you good consolation prizes for job security, wages that keep up with inflation, health costs that don't rise, etc., and when the employers want to lay you off, they will brag about the 'victory' of reducing the number of layoffs--that is not a victory in my opinion (are the workers better or worse off than they were before the attack? how much of the attack was pushed through?), and calling it one plays directly into the hands of the trade union structures and the whole reformist ideology that looks for what can be won for workers without undermining national competitiveness or the fundamental objectives of capitalism, i.e. without becoming class struggle (taking the characteristics of workers seeing themselves as having a common identity and struggling as a class or beginning to take steps in that direction, like trying to get other workers to join the struggle for their own demands). An old comrade wrote a piece about the Republic occupation comparing it to the UAW's switching the fight from wage levels to union recognition which, while written in haste before the whole story was out, I think still stands (that article is here: http://en.internationalism.org/inter/149/chicago-occupations), but I'm more than willing to be persuaded otherwise.

I'm sure there are exceptions (the nurses strike in Philadelphia seems to have defended almost everything--the only real change was a decrease in the tuition benefit, also the central part of the struggle here, but this benefit was extended to more staff so its hard to say if it was a net gain or loss, and certainly, with the high prices of scabs the hospital didn't save any money not paying the nurses) but I don't think either the MNA strike or the Republic occupation are examples of union-controlled struggles resulting in victory. I don't mean to single you out, though, Nate.

-soyons tout

Talk about form vs content- way to ignore the meat and concentrate on the trimmings.

Decadence theory isn't necessary for having that discussion, so for your sake I'll cleave it and maybe we can try again.

Whether or not durable, permanent (or even lasting) reforms are possible is a very significant question. While relative strength (via numbers and/or militancy) of the labor movement is certainly a factor, the unrest in Greece and Spain etc over austerity are showing that in the face of millions of workers going on strike (wildcat, general and mass), occupying party and union buildings, demonstrating, and so on, these measures will not be halted or slowed.

The premise to a lot of the 'pork chop' material gains battles and the nationwide or international policy battles is that if we are strong enough, we can win. The possibility of international, nation-wide, multi-industry, industrial, company wide, city-wide, gains in the short and long term has not really been called into question.

Are the possibilities really there to begin with?

Exactly the same could be said for the Great Upheaval of 1877 which was more or less crushed with very few gains - although it did prepare the ground of worker militancy, maybe stave off things here and there - so far there's nothing to say that the present waves of unrest won't eventually do some of that if they continue and spread. There's plenty of other examples where strikes or uprisings were crushed and didn't win much, and from pretty early on.

You'd also need to explain why in China and Vietnam there are gains being made, right at the same time as they aren't in Greece and Spain. If and when those gains are eroded, will it be decadence of capital, a cyclic change along the lines of Silver, a shift in the balance of class forces, a mixture?

Rather than saying that capital couldn't offer long-lasting gains now, I think it's more accurate to say that it has never offered long-lasting gains without the clear and present threat of mass unrest.

JK, glad to know you rate Arrighi and Silver, I'm going to move them up on my reading list. (Off topic - got any opinions on the Regulation School?)

Soyontout, I don't feel singled out but I appreciate your comradely tone. A good friend of mine is a nurse and an MNA member. She was and remains angry at the rollover on the issue of staffing. They did get some other stuff but not their key demand, you're right about that. I hear you completley there. I agree as well about Republic Windows, it's a heartbreakingly small victory and like you I'm not sure I want to call it a victory. That said, four years ago there was a union drive at my work that totally lost and the loss washed away literally all of the organization built - it was a bargaining unit of about 4500 people with a committee of several hundred. At the two meetings after the loss there were 8 people total, and only 4 who went to both meetings. There was also a strike here two years ago of 3000 people, the workers went back in with I believe no ground gained at all - certainly no ground gained when we consider they went 2 1/2 weeks without pay. And here there was also the AMFA strike a while ago here, maybe 5-6 years ago, which got crushed completely. In the face of those total (and in some ways - definitely for the AMFA mechanics - genuinely catastrophic) losses, I *do* think the nurses strike and Republic Windows are qualified successes. The workers got some of what they were demanding - their list of desired concessions, some of them happened. That's not a full win. It's not a full loss. So I call it a qualified success. I'm not trying to pull one over on anyone, sorry if I came across that way, I just think we need a term for those outcomes which are somewhere between getting all the win vs getting fucked completely; I use "qualified success" as that middle term. (Also, I don't find this "plays directly into the hands of the trade union structures and the whole reformist ideology" much of a compelling argument, no more than "criticizing the unions plays into the current employer offensive.")

All that aside - are you arguing with these examples because of those cases themselves (if so, fair enough) or because you want to argue a larger point about how unions are not a viable route over all to getting concessions from capitalists? (I take that to be a point that some people are arguing on this thread.)

*

This bit of Marx seems relevant to some of the discussion here too, particularly the bit at the end that points out that even with concessions capitalism remains a society of misery --

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/wages.htm

Just a bit of a postscript to the Leeds bin men's strike to add to the list since it's suggested above that this is an example of how one can win with the unions:
first of all the context of this strike was cuts in workers wages and conditions arising out of union/management agreed "negotiations" around the Equal Pay Act from 1998 which were not being implemented in Leeds until 2009. Apart from Leeds and one or two other places, this negotiated sharing out of misery had been implemented, with union agreement and policing, in 99% of cases across the country. In Leeds it wasn't the unions who called the strike, according to Unison union boss, Alan Hughes, but the workers who demanded a strike ballot after union "negotiations" still left them fifty pounds a week worse off.

The "victory" in this strike, in my opionion, was the combativity of the workers and the extension of the struggle both from and towards the local community, ie, the working class. This had very little to do with the unions.

On the financial level, the workers lost eleven weeks wages except for some derisory strike pay. Further to this, in order for the bin men to maintain their wages (no pay rises), Unison "negotiated" with the council a "formula" for efficiency savings including lower sickness rates "producing potential savings of £2 million a year" (union boss Hughes). Effectively, in order for the bin men to stand still or take a wage cut in relation to inflation, Unison provided the basis for a more generalised attacks on the workers, which they will presumably jointly police, to the tune of up to £2m a year.

In short, I think that this is an excellent example of a union "victory".

Indeed- trying to extract whatever lessons or changes we can is made extremely difficult due to the laundry list of contradictory experiences the working class has had over the centuries.

I'd like to see this discussion take place- and not from any particular point of view. Above I asked the question- is it a possibility that capitalism currently lacks the ability to grant durable, permanent or lasting concessions? - I think if any of the possibilities you've listed (and others that exist) would be demonstrated to have more validity than the others it would be a step forward in this debate over unions/ union struggles/form.

Though in the case of China specifically, the threat of mass unrest has been much more than a threat for a very long time- especially among the rural proletariat and small farmers (who regularly riot thousands of times a year with as many as tens of thousands of people participating each time- going back many years).

http://itn.co.uk/28ce5e6d6d4ce3ff63de7582b1badb87.html

In this regard China seems to be an outlier, not a part of the rule. It seems to be operating on a type of 'strategy of tension' to keep a balance through an acceptable amount of unrest (an amount which would be entirely unacceptable in the West).

Though it gets back to what could be considered a lasting gain/concession/reform. It's common in the US for a group of workers to have a contract, hear threats of parts of their contract being taken away, engage in minor struggle, save a few parts of their existing contract, then within 1-5 years have everything they struggled to keep taken away in the end.

I wouldn't consider the boss relenting temporarily to keep in place provisions or benefits he is going to axe in a few years a lasting reform or concession (this type of example can be seen with the UFCW contracts over the last 20 years, or those of the Steelworkers and Teamsters in many areas).

What do you consider to be a lasting concession/reform? Are there specific examples from Vietnam or China that demonstrate it?

Respectfully, I don't think that's a very illuminating question. No concessions from capitalists are ever permanent, until capitalism is abolished. "Durable" and "lasting" are overly vague, and actually "concession" is rather vague as well.

In the US union members are not subject to "at will employment" in general in the way that non-union workers are. That provides some measure of job security, despite many limitations. That's a sort of concession, depending on how we look at it. It's "durable" depending on how much the employer decides to attack this. In general I don't think matters are particularly theoretically complicated here. Surplus value equals value advanced minus expenditure for production. "Concessions" that raise production expenses cut into surplus value. Provided there is some surplus value produced, a concession is always possible. And in some times and places periods it is/was more cost effective to make concessions in order to not have production stopped than it was to fight (this is the whole "unions secure labor peace, which is good for business" argument made by various critics and made by the framers of the National Labor Relations Act in the US in 1935), because those moments when production is/was idled cost a lot of potential wealth.

So, concessions are possible. Whether concessions are *likely* depends on a host of factors that are worth discussing, and what the best routes are to getting concessions (and the relationship between concession and communism) are worth discussing too, but that's all a different conversation than "do capitalists have the ability to make concessions currently?" They do have the ability. The fact of a thing not happening is not proof of a thing's impossibility, just as the fact of a thing happening is not proof of that thing's logical necessity.

This is only partly related, but here's a chart listing US minimum wage, in absolute dollars and in inflation adjusted 2009 dollars (real wages, measured in 2009 dollars).

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/History_of_US_federal_minimum_wage_increases.svg

A few things here. One, the number of increases in the 1960s and in the 1970s are high - minimum wage was increased more times in those decades. The increases in the 80s are few, there are some in the 90s, and none in the early 00s. These correspond pretty closely to who was in elected office. I've no love for the Democrats, but I think this is evidence that minimum wages are as much political as they are a product of the objective capabilities of capitalists. Two, each time minimum wage goes up, unsurprisingly, we see an increase in real wages (buying power) for minimum waged employees. This steadily erodes due to inflation, until the next minimum wage rise. Three, the working class is highly stratified, that's why I picked minimum wages as an example (plus it's easier to find data). So, "can capitalism give concessions" is not as useful a question as "under what conditions are concessions awarded, and for whom?" It's relatively cheap to give large concessions (as a percent of income) to low paid workers. For instance, from 2000 to 2010 minimum wage went up about $2 an hour, that's a 40% gain in absolute dollars, and in real wages it went up about $0.75, which is a gain in real wages of about 10%. Higher paid workers won't see comparable relative gains (and of course relative gains neglect real poverty). On a related note, I recently saw statistics somewhere about gender and racial disparity in pay in the US, in non-union and in unionized workplaces (I can find them if you like). Those disparities are lower among unionized workers. That's not particularly susprising - the worse off someone is paid the cheaper it is to raise their pay. Anyway, over all, my point is that thinking in terms of a single unit called "capitalism" in relation to a single unit called "workers" and asking if workers can get concessions doesn't tell us much. (I'm not rejecting class here, just saying that if we ask "can workers get concessions for capitalists?" the only honest accurate answer has to be "sometimes", which isn't very interesting.)

On a related note, I actually want to pick up on this....

Trade unions are capable of making gains in so far as they allow/encourage worker organization*, which is something they'll allow in a recognition dispute or when a narrow expression of militancy will further their interests.

This once again gets very complicated as it's the organization that gets results even if the negotiations/"victories" are achieved through the union. But, regardless, unionized workers are better off, in terms of wages, conditions, and a sense of entitlement (this is certainly true within the US.) This is why, generally, workers gain with the introduction of their first collective contract. Now, this is where Ed's argument comes in, the long-term (and sometimes short-term) consequences of contracts, labor legislation, arbitration, no-strike clauses, binding grievances procedures--in a word, mediation, something inherent to the trade union, ehhem, form--is to inhibit the exact sort of organization and activity that brought gains in the first place. To be able to mediate struggle necessitates the ability to control struggle. This, for me, is why we lose with the unions.

*Or, alternatively, are useful to the bosses. I think it was you and I that talked about how no-strike clauses come with price tag--the boss is willing to pay for that security.

The 8 hour day, overtime pay, minimum wage, legally protected right to form and join unions, etc. are examples I'd consider to be 'durable reforms/concessions' from the bourgeoisie.

This is a silly thing to say- it's part of the same conversation. Asking why 'the thing isn't happening' is whats going on here, not a declaration of immutable principles.

I'm not talking about precarious wage, benefit, safety, etc contracts and policies that constantly fluctuate. A durable concession or reform is, I think, one that is by nature not likely to change quickly or easily (for lack of a better definition). Such as those listed at the beginning of this post.

I think Mike Harman's question is really interesting:

The best example of such a durable concession would be the Chinese 2007 (really 2008) labor law:

http://www.chinalawblog.com/2007/11/chinas_new_labor_law_its_a_hug.html

However, unlike its equivalents in the West (such as the Wagner Act) it doesn't seem to have any teeth in reality.

Devoration, I think we're having a problem of scale/scope. The stuff you're talking about are things - all public policy, actually, which is interesting and I can't quite put my finger on it - that define general floors for most of the working class in a country. Specific groups of workers get written out of these floors a lot, and individual capitalists break these really regularly, but they still matter a great deal.

I've been thinking more at smaller levels - industries and specific companies. I'm not sure how to talk across those differences in scope. In terms of durable concessions, one that I mentioned is change in the minimum wage. So I don't think we agree on the degree to which (or whether) concessions are happening. This too is probably tied to this problem of scope.

The UK didn't get a minimum wage until 1999 - does that mean that capital granted a major long term concession as recently as 1999!?!?!

Also, while they're not exactly mainstream, there are commie criticisms of both the 35 hour week and the minimum wage, see http://libcom.org/library/35-hour-can and http://libcom.org/forums/theory/arguments-against-minimum-wage-24112009 for example. At the very least we can say that public policy concessions from capitalism are often not clear cut.

Thanks for the response, Nate. I wasn't trying to say you were pull one over on anyone, but I did want more details of those struggles to be known in the discussion thereof--especially because of the way that leftists sometimes overblow things and become like cheerleaders of the working class and especially of the organizations that supposedly "represent" the working class (specifically their own parties and the unions), which is I think there the "playing into the union's hands" thing comes in. I wasn't trying to accuse you or really anyone on this board of uncritically supporting everything unions do, but I think the sort of dramatization of events as employer vs. union/workers and the conflation of the union with the workers is an enormous problem, and particularly the "trumpeting of all that unions can do for the working class" especially by Trotskyists and unionists contributes to the paralysis of the working class' struggle and the difficulty in critically looking at what the concrete needs of the struggle are and what kinds of action would or could actually push back employers or win real gains temporarily, and what kinds of action could build toward some kind of a perspective within the struggles of the working class pointing towards a longer term solution (i.e. mass strike and eventually revolution). I recently got an email from a leftist listserv telling everyone to show up for a rally celebrating the anniversary of an 'historic' union election where the workers at this particular place voted to be represented by a union--as far as I know their employer still refuses to recognize it and I don't think they've gotten any material gains as of yet (I'm sure that on the level of militancy they've probably gained quite a bit, but in a way that is deflected toward the union structure which in my opinion is a dead end). I think there is already way too much self-praise and condescending cheerleading by leftists and trade unionists about all these dead ends and I think the working class needs critical evaluation of what the situation actually is and how to actually begin to fight back not just against specific employer offensives but against larger forces in society like the crisis as a whole, growing structural unemployment, etc.

I guess I'm arguing with these examples for both reasons--I think the times when workers have been able to defend themselves (static misery) even for an entire contract period through the trade unions or especially because of the trade union more than the workers own militancy pushing against this structure are extremely rare in the 20th century. My thoughts on this aren't as refined as they could be, which is part of why I find this thread engaging, but from a) what I know of the history of capitalism and the class struggle, b) my own experiences in my union and others' related experiences, and c) my own theoretical understanding of state capitalism (which is based on "a") I would argue that the trade unions are not a viable form for winning concessions for workers from the ruling class, that by their nature they are forced to act in certain ways which can only give them relevance in a booming world economy and which, after the state-ification of capitalism (measures taken to deal with the first "total war" under capitalism, WWI, and later with the great depression and another total war) lead them to becoming co-managers of austerity together with the state and the employers, but in a way that tries to get the workers the biggest piece of the shrinking pie possible without ever allowing the outbreak of real class struggle or even acknowledging that the pie is shrinking.

It's a good point to raise--the one question Marx wasn't really dealing with though was inflation, which complicates things further because depending on the economic climate, wage rises of even 10% per year (as opposed to 10% wage rises over the life of a contract) were technically "increasing misery of the worker" in a time like the late 1970s in the US, because inflation was running so high. So I'm inclined to say that most of what the unions get for us when they are given control of our struggles still amounts to "increasing misery of the worker" in today's society.

Lastly, the question raised about industrial vs. financial cycles of capitalism is interesting to me in that in the US this broadly coincides with the post-war boom (30 glorious years, whatever you wanna call it) and de-industrialization, the decline of the manufacturing sector in the US are usually linked with discussions of the return of the crisis, Nixon moving off the gold standard. I wonder how well (if at all) the idea of industrial vs. financial cycles coincides with the idea of cycles of "crisis, war, reconstruction" developed by Bilan in the 1930s (and the current trend that seems to combine the first two on a smaller but permanent scale). Clearly if enough fixed capital and variable capital was destroyed in the first half of the 1940s it allows for a relatively long period of industrial prominence, with manufacturing at the center, and with high demand on the world market making uninterrupted production-lines a priority for the bourgeoisie, who are raking in enough money from rebuilding Europe and Japan to possibly pacify workers when necessary.

more thoughts later, but this is what I've got so far.

-soyons tout

Yeah, but doesn't this simple exchange undermine the validity of the whole ascendancy/decadence theory? I've not read Arrighi, but it seems that's a much more logical explanation (plus I tend to see capitalism a process always in motion, circular, so this appeals to me.) On that same note, Nate have you not read Silver? You need to get on that, my friend.

Hmmm...but in reality every single thing you've listed is broken on a regular basis. The average American who's in full time work works over 40 hours a week; The average UK public sector worker work unpaid overtime each week; worldwide, much of the restaurant industry runs on undocumented laborers who are paid less than minimum wage; and union-busting is a multi-million (billion?) dollar business.... And I don't think this is something we've just come to experience in recent decades. I know at least in agriculture all of the things you've mentioned were never really enforced (and, sometimes, in law these rights weren't even "guaranteed" in law).

This goes back to what I argued earlier, gains are only "long lasting" or "durable" if there's struggle to back them up and continually defend them.

To throw something in which is an example of people winning "with the union" and is less based on militancy, though it played a part, is the post-privatisation pay increases of train drivers.
Post privatisation, the new rail companies did exactly what was expected and made redundant loads of experienced drivers. Because the companies were competing against each other, the unions were able to play them off against each other and win significant pay increases. I don't know the full details, but they clearly had some economic clout because of the scarcity which the bosses themselves had created.
Regards,

Martin