Anarkismo.net's union blurb

i agree with you on that one. the rationalizations i've run into have been from leftist flaks for the bureaucracy. i know you'll not like this reference, but CPers put out this kind of argument to defend the actions of Lewie Anderson and William Wynn at the time of the Hormel strike in the 1980s, and I've seen stuff like this in various left labor forums in recent years.

Why would it bother me that the CP defended fucked up UFCW leadership? Seems like a perfect relationship to me. Neither of them can figure out how to be good at what they want to do.

that's okay todd. i'm not a very patient person and i sometimes i can be tough on people.

duke:

totally true.

totally true.

I'm becoming a social darwinist in relation to unions and political movements. Totally content with the incompetent ones dying out.

okay. i agree with you to the extent that i have little sympathy for political incompetence myself.

what ultimately counts is what actually contributes to increasing the power and potential liberation of the working class. it's a question of keeping one's eye on the prize.

I don't think unions have revolutionary capacity, so we would probably disagree a bit on what a successful union would mean.

well but how could a revolution emerge? i'm sort of broad about how i define "union". i would tend to agree about the kind of union that we're familiar with right now in the US. a revolution presupposes a different sort of mass worker organization. i tend to think of unionism, broadly, as having two souls or divergent tendencies, and so the type of organization i think would have revolutionary potential i tend to think of as deriving from the more grassroots "soul" of unionism.

I think unions exist as a defensive/offensive form of working class organization under capitalism and the first person that yells about forming a union post revolution should get shot.

No I work for a union because it advances the interest of my class. However, its not a job. No exploitation of my labor.

SC, what would you think if... say... the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, which claims 9,000 members, were to initiate a "rank and file" front in... say... the building trades? (Not that that's where their own base is, but they might see it as the most strategic and winnable point of entry.)

Duke, you're not exploited cuz you're a boss. You THINK no one employed by a union is exploited because you don't understand Marx. I'd be happy to teach you about it sometime. And about this:

That's bullshit. I know you know people (and have worked under) people who have used the "the union represents the broader interests" kind of line this way. You're just doing your "anarchists are marginal and my union is important and if I'm honest with other anarchists online it will get used against my union so I have a right to be dishonest" thing again. You're right about one thing, which is the spirit of your remark, that this is not the biggest problem facing unions or workers in the US today.

JB2, can you same more on this, please? What level does this apply at? The individual workplace? If so, I agree completely. If you're in a shop with a union, join it.

Or do you mean the industry? If so, then I think I agree but it's messy. For one thing, there's more than one union in an industry at least in the US (I don't know about this stuff for any other country, sorry) and this can vary in the same city sometimes. A nurse in the US might belong to SEIU, AFSCME, a number of different nurse associations, etc. According to the logic of your post, it sounds like the anarchist nurse should prioritize becoming a member of the biggest union. Is that right?

If I understand you right here, or even if not, is there a recommendation here about how to get involved? Should anarchists in an industry seek work in the existing unionized shops in that industry? Or should they try to organize in a currently non-unionzied shop? Or is there no picking sides between the two here - anarchists in shops with unions should join the union, anarchists in shops with no union should be part of organizing a union?

Something else I'm not clear on, is the statement saying anarchists should join the union in the shop/industry, where they work or is it saying anarchists should get jobs that will get them into unions? The difference is the difference between "an anarchist nurse should be in SEIU (or whatever) or be organizing to make their shop a union shop instead of being a scab" and "some anarchists who are not currently working in healthcare should start doing so in order to get involved in SEIU." (or become electricians in order to become IBEW members, or become teachers in order to join the AFT, etc.)

Nate, it's quite possible for three people in the same workplace doing the same job to be in three different unions over here. Happens a lot with teachers for example.

I have friends who are teachers who have people in six different unions doing their job at school.
Devrim

1. I understand Marx just fine. Of course what I say is what I think. I have a postion on union staff, not so different than Wayne Price's and Phebus' on what they tend to refer to as 'movement staff' as far as I can gather from them. (Unfortunately they both speak different languages than I do)
2. I'm discussing the libertarian, eh, milieu,,, of course the leadership of unions argue they represent the broader union. WTF point would it be to bring that up? Its like saying Revols a cock or Chendricks is an idiot. Tom brought up the CP. Of course the authoritarian left holds wacky positions. Whats your point?
3. Your inferring things I didn't say. Try again.

it was in a particular context where CPers on the staff of UFCW were writing propaganda for the international, to justify concessionary bargaining and suppression of the struggle initiated by P9 including their efforts to broaden the struggle. it wasn't some isolated whacky cult. it was used as propaganda by the UFCW itself.

while acting against their efforts to build a coordinated struggle they, inconsistently, accused them of "going it alone" or trying to protect a privileged position compared to other meatpacking locals. but the thing is, the UFCW was unwilling to use what was left of its industrial concentration in meatpacking to mount a counter-attack on concessions but persistently engaged in concessionary bargaining, their main priority seemed to be preservation of the union as an institution.

Tom, people often talk to me in terms of the leftist scene in the US like I know it well. I don't. Never did. So when I say they have wacky positions I mean it in terms like, they supported concessionary bargaining, not in terms of leftists cults. I have little to no experience with leftist loonies. Having said that, I have run across plenty of fringe party types in labor over the years. They generally fall in three categories. People who were more revolutionary than thou years ago and have subsequently mainstreamed, people who are hell bent on taking positions of authority in unions for whatever they see as important for their party, and people who are hell bent to oppose anyone in authority to better bring the dissatisfied rank n file to their party's membership. Anyhoo, by wacky I just meant it didn't surprise me that the CP would align themselves with the UFCW brass.

Hmm, that's actually pretty close to my experience too. What would you say radical groups in unions should be doing? I mean aside from joining P-CRAC.....

In that case the answer to "who rationalizes support for the bureaucracy this way?" is "the bureaucrats and their supporters," whereas your question implied the answer "nobody."

Catch, thanks for clarifying. That's really stupid. It makes JB2's remarks make more sense. How is membership in this case determined? Do people just like pick a union? If so, then in those situations I'm with JB2.

I don't know whats up your ass dude, but I clearly explained I was talking about the libertarian milieu. Not the general public. Not fringe political parties. Rather, the people who would say... post here. Are you having some sort of fucking life crisis and trying to take it out in inane arguing for no reason? If so find someone else to play with.

I honestly have no idea.

Yes it is.

Eh? Which ones? The idea that you meet workers via the unions, when in your workplace the workers could be in at least three unions (and bearing in mind at schools and colleges there are likely to be a further 2-3 unions representing non-teaching staff as well) is starting from the wrong point.

Yep that's what happens. In the case of schools some will be 90% NUT, others might be 90% NAFTHE (now UCU) - a lot of people will stick with the same union while changing jobs, I'm not a teacher so someone like Knightrose could explain better.

In Britain there are not as many different unions as in some European countries. In our country for example there are four main union confederations. People often pick a union based on political allegiance.

Devrim

Because I have got sick of repeating myself in relation to discussions in this vein there are points that are pertinent to this debate on these other threads:

http://libcom.org/node/6599
http://libcom.org/node/7006

Well where I worked we had four unions, one (a general union) was open to any type of worker (I was a member of that) the other three were for particular types of technical workers. The general union had an industrial structures in terms of it branches, i.e. my branch involved all workers in that sector across the city and not just my specific employer/location.

And as Devrim points out elsewhere in Europe things are even more complex with multiple federations and members often choosing which one to join based on the political alignment of the particular federation.

The North American system of a single union getting the exclusive right to represent a particular workplace is pretty unusual although it does exist for so called 'sweetheart' deals where a particular union will give away the 'right' to strike etc of a particular group in return for workers being signed into its ranks on starting work there. (a 'closed shop from above'), the Dublin tram system works like this. But, although this is decreasing, you can also get a 'closed shop from below' where new workers come under pressure from fellow workers to sign up for a union, my father worked somewhere like that Historically there were some major disputes arising out of disciplinary action when unionised workers refused to work with scabs who wouldn't join a union but I'm pretty sure legislation now makes that sort of action illegal.

IMHO a lot of the union discussion here is flawed because posters don't understand the rather huge differences between the way things work in different judicial set ups and so typically launch into denunciations on the (false) assumption that things 'there' are the same as things 'here'. This is also why the Anarkismo statement is quite general rather than specific - to get the thread back on track.

Joe's right here, but I think here that Catch's example of the teaching unions in the UK was better as they were doing exactly the same job.

The 'closed shop' is illegal in the UK. I am probablely one of the few people on here who worked in one, and it was actually illegal then.

It is important to remember that they were also used against militant workers to break workers' struggles, and solidarity, Grunwicks being a prime example.

I think a lot coming from the North American side is. Nate being shocked by the idea of their being multiple unions in a work place is a prime example.

The positions of the communist left (whether you agree with them, or not) are not based on a particular national system though. Both of the major left communist organisations have members in the US, and the positions come from the collective experience of the class, and the organisation.

Devrim

Alternately, maybe they *don't* reflect the experience of the class here, which is why we extend the derision and ridicule those groups' members attract here to their possibly more worthy and sensible comrades abroad.