Political discussion of the Dispatch public pay bulletin
Aug 27 2007 16:46
#32
Lucy parsons wrote:
No, you do not understand the basis of our disagreements. Your website is devoid of British New Left material and without that you don't understand the British context nor the theoretical disagreements we have. Dave Douglass is strongly out of the New left. You are trying to superimpose a sweet (and innocent) pure politics but that is part of the robotic ultra left turn I have already mentioned. Face it, we do disagree, you may grow up then
BTW John - I never said it wasn't written by a participant, go check. I said it wasn't written with a 'participants perspective', that is different to one that is devoid of humanity and talks about things in an ultra left dry way (a la ICC). Characteristics of such de-humanised writing include; no discussion of what the writer personally did to forward the struggle where they worked, and the attempts made to spread the dispute with relevant others. A style of writing which talks about institutions as things, thus 'the union', 'the management', and not institutions as created by people, the real living warts and all story of how things happened involving things people did, preferably with names where managers and bosses are involved. But I am particularly interested in the dynamics of mobilisation, what persuades people to wildcat? What are the arguments put forward by those who do not join in etc.
What I personally did? What, is this a resume? Am I trying to prove to some people I don’t know that I am “the real deal”? If I am not someone outside the fight, then my co-workers know damn well what I did, which matters a lot less than what we did unless I didn’t do something I said I would do. If I am outside supporting the strike, then I ought to be working with the workers I know or offering assistance based on what they need and want, and those workers will be able to judge fair and well what I do and do not do. It serves no purpose that I can see, except maybe as self-promotion and egotism to proclaim oneself a true leader and militant.
Attempts to spread the dispute would be a good thing to discuss, esp. if they fail where they were expected to succeed or if they succeed, and in what way. It can be a very concrete way to discuss who is blocking the strike from spreading, and how, and conversely who is really extending the strike. Who are our real friends and who are our real enemies? But that is not merely a human interest story, it is about politics. As such, it will talk about institutions as things because the ones in this society are not controlled by people, they control them, they shape them. You can only hope to show up this or that union official as good or bad in the way liberals talk about good and bad cops. Good or bad, a cop is a cop, and arm of the state. Good boss, bad boss, good manager, bad manager. Not that it isn’t useful at a given moment to make an example of this or that cop, manager, union official, etc., but that is not something to throw around because people already often have the idea that things would be better if we just replaced so-and-so, and the communist viewpoint is that replacing so-and-so doesn’t solve the problem, it fails to get at the root, it is decidedly not radical. Just because you have the dried out remnants of a monarchy does not mean that you can depose capital by cutting of its head. Capital is exactly autonomous of the people who enact its will, it is democratic in that sense too.
What persuades people to wildcat? You don’t persuade people to wildcat, generally. There is no recipe for militants looking to incite strikes. It’s both annoyingly generic and desperately concrete: people wildcat because they can’t not fight anymore and because they don’t trust or have time to wait around for “their” organizations or “their” organizations are also the target of the fight. The only people looking for a recipe for generating wildcats are the professional organizers (in mentality if not by profession) hoping to find a technique by which to ply their trade.
The arguments for not joining are only of interest insofar as one wants to confront the logic and argument of people who don’t join. That’s a useful thing to do in as propaganda and to win over people on the fence, but it is also necessary to determine the willingness of those who did walk out to enforce their walkout by stopping scabbing.
Overall, even where I do agree, there is only so much one can put in a flyer, too. Is their energy, resources, etc. to do more than a flyer?
Also, is it always necessary for the self-sodomizing unionist realists to be such smug, arrogant, condescending fucks? “…a sweet (and innocent) pure politics…”, “Face it, we do disagree, you may grow up then”. I mean really, fuck off. What makes you think your advice is worth having to drink a cup of your piss for? Striking against being insulted and degraded in order to have some self-enthralled, self-impotent activist telling you what to do and expecting you to put up with being degraded is a bit much. Its manipulative and disgusting and typical of the way the unionists try to manage anyone to their left (abuse/infantalize/feminize the left, faun/conciliate/bow to the right).
Chris
Aug 27 2007 21:46
#33
I don't think the fact that the 'founders' of Dispatch are 'politicos' changes its nature and its potential, at least, to act as a focus for a class intervention, to be an effective centre of discussion about the struggles, etc. A number of the groups that appeared in the 80s were initiated by 'politicos' and as we said at the time if the situation demanded it and the potential existed, revolutionaries should not hesitate to take such initiatives. Contrary to what Devrim and others say, I get the feeling that people are underestimating the possibilities here. There wasn't really time to develop them on this occasion, but future practice will tell us a great deal more.
On the other hand, while the willingness of workers to use royalmailchat is an interesting development, I don't there's much doubt that this was a rank and file union initiative.
Aug 28 2007 05:57
#34
redtwister wrote:
“Public sector pay dispute”
As someone who does not know the details, is this strike motivated by pay cuts? Are there other sore spots?
Gordon Brown (new Labour Prime Minister just in case anyone doesn't know, he's not that memorable) has called for 2% or under pay increase in the public sector to keep inflation down. Inflation is at 3.8% or so, which means a significant real pay cut for a lot of people - into millions. It's worse than a lot of recent deals plus affects a lot of people at the same time. There's been some local strikes recently which were interesting - 600 Glasgow social care workers this month (20 days all out, got nearly all their demands met according to lefty/union/mainstream sources), other stuff on a smaller scale, very sporadic.
The way things are in the UK at the moment, just about any large scale strike action initially is going to be a result of union called ballots about this particular pay cut - it's about the only way we'll see different groups of workers out at the same time in any co-ordinated way, even if it's just a single day and relatively unlikely. There's been a couple of wilcats in the private sector which appeared to be outside union control (usually about redundancies), but not much, and I'd say there's very little appetite for anything more at the moment. So the way I'm looking at it is trying to develop any tendencies to go beyond this as soon as it gets started (i.e. the Royal Mail wildcats, although they were anything but against the union - this could change if there's a shit deal done), people aren't going to walk out cold at the moment but once they're out once then the connections can be made I think to push things further.
In Royal Mail there's a whole load of other issues - loads of "strings" attached to the pay rise, and the separate issue of later starts in the morning ( which means a further pay cut from shift allowances, worse service to customers, missing football start on Saturday afternoons, lots of things) plus another dozen or so. However this issue was primarily directed at Royal Mail workers who already know all that. A lot of more experienced workers on royalmailchat have said they'd accept the pay deal if all the strings went, so there's definitely an understanding of how the efficiency savings and the rest are at least as important. The work to rule I think constitutes the main pole of opposition to the strings at this point, and it's likely later starts will provoke local wildcats when/if they get introduced.
Around the public sector in general there's a few other major issues:
* NHS trusts have been put into debt around the country due to intentional government policy around funding and targets, and are slashing whole departments and hospitals around the place. This has led only to rallies/marches so far, not even one day strikes yet, although nurses and midwives are being balloted about the pay cut at the moment.
* A lot of local councils are also slashing budgets and laying people off, this is relatively localised though since they all operate quite differently, with different budgetary concerns.
* Pensions, just about everywhere are under attack. Royal Mail's there was a big scandal when a document detailing all kinds of nastiness got leaked (just around where we went to press so not much opportunity to make much from it). Massive one-day strike - over a million people last year, couple hundred thousand civil servants this year. Again one day strikes, not worth much, but large numbers of people - most since 1926 or something.
Pretty much everyone knows about these, so our intention was more to focus on where active resistance is occurring - the strikes roundup, which isn't well publicised (, rather than the general information, which would have taken at least an extra page Royal Mail workers wouldn't know detail of some of the wildcats or the extent of the work to rule - since neither the union nor management communicates much about these between offices). A survey of what's been happening the past couple of years in terms of attacks on the public sector and the responses there's been ,and trying to draw the various strands together would be a good idea though. Since although people are aware of them, they might not be connecting them as much, and certainly the unions aren't, either for a future issue if it happens, or on here.
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Royal Mail Workers
This seems like the general slogan.
er, no sure about that, but still..
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As others have made note of, the issue cannot be restricted to Royal Mail, either within the industry or outside of it, if they want to win. The question remains for us what it might mean to win. Would it mean to get the demands? Would it mean to increase the confidence of our class? Would it mean to find some ways, even if small, to get beyond the sectoralism/corporatism that denies our existence as a class and rather affirms it as this or that “kind” of worker, that Posi makes a fetish of and argues to reinforce?
Royal Mail are the first out, all other workers are waiting on interminable consultations and ballots. As such, we figured if they keep things going for a month to six weeks, then other sectors may come out with them. If we see a "sell out" on September 4th and it's swallowed, then it's going to have massive repercussions on the possibilities for other groups of workers, since most of them are in a weaker position and less militant. As such we reckoned it was worth focusing the tactics of this particular dispute during the month as well as the potential for extension to other groups of workers as soon as possible.
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“Doing the job as it’s meant to be done”. I think that if with the ebb of the strikes, people have returned to a work-to-rule tactic inside Royal Mail, it is not a bad thing if it is a way to regroup and re-open the fight later. It can certainly be an effective tactic, especially if it allows people to get a paycheck for a bit to keep from being broken financially, while still allowing a kind of resistance and sense of solidarity. But will it simply grind on? And at what point do workers get tired of management being unable to get people their mail? How do the postal workers view what they do?
A lot of people on royalmailchat - many of whom were running around with overloaded bags of mail in their own cars etc. - have said "now I've started working like this I'm never going back". It's not even a work to rule really - Royal Mail actively encourages staff to break all kinds of health and safety regs, and just about anyone using their own car is breaking their insurance terms (essentially driving uninsured). Having said that some places have docked pay locally for doing this, which again may provoke wildcats (or possibly just legal action since it's illegal to do so). So I think it's likely that entire offices could continue working like that for months or years, until the actual terms they're working to are changed beyond recognition and it becomes actual unofficial action. It's not every office, or every worker in most offices even - again another reason to communicate how it's going around the country since many offices doing it were told they were the "only ones" etc. etc.
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When I ask this, I am not slagging off on the idea that workers often feel that management impedes them from doing a good job, that “political” and money concerns over-ride the technical common sense of the people who do the job. That is a huge issue in my experience of over 10 years in Information Technology. The question is how we address it. Do the postal workers have a sense of this? Do they have a sense of being a kind of public service and proud of it? What are the sorts of things in this that go beyond simply the issue of a pay cut?
Yeah there's lots of that. They're very happy to create huge backlogs whilst on strike (this is a matter of pride I think), but the work to rule is seen very much as protecting the service and the conditions of the job long term. When people take their cars out, they go quicker, get more work piled on, paid hours cut etc. etc. The job in most places is "job and finish", so a lot of workers have dived into getting rounds done as quickly as possible and going home early, but there seems to be a growing realisation that this is causing massive problems long term in terms of pay and conditions, and if late starts come in then there'll be no benefit to doing this anyway I think.
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Because if it is just the pay cut, it is harder to spread it to other workers who are not immediately under financial attack, either within the industry or outside of it.
Agree with that, in this case millions of workers both in the public sector and many in the private sector are facing below inflation pay deals so I think it's got a chance of spreading on that basis - although it's more likely localised issues that are likely to provoke action outside of this framework. We're trying to cover as much of this on-line as we can of course.
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Most people (not even just workers), whether they feel ok with their pay or not, often feel like they are somehow treated with disrespect, disregard, devalued, etc., especially in the current period. Again, this is just a question of the mood of the workers, but also of those here involved personally as workers. There is nothing wrong with being clear that even as politicos we have our own anger to express, our own reasons for fighting, and we should trust that those reasons can echo with people in unexpectedly strong ways. The problem is not to try and find out what every other worker feels (which is impossible anyway, because what they think, what they feel and what they are ready to do can be completely out of whack with each other), but to express our anger and willingness to fight, and to not let our demands or means be limited by the kind of trade unionist limitations and substitutionism of posi and Lucy Parsons.
Yeah this is all true. Overall I think we tried to avoid specific demands in favour of arguing for particular tactics to be used - since as mentioned before, the issues involved with this are many and complex even with in the terms of what could be negotiated within capital let alone a deeper analysis.
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On the PCS members being “consulted on further strike action”, such consultation needs to be explained. What does that mean? Is the union in the process of polling people in order to figure out how to deflate/avoid a possible fight? I think that action should not be contingent on “members being polled” because the problem is not to get a majority to agree on a strike, but to actually do it. If the members voted and 75% went against a strike, why shouldn’t the 25% still fight? Shouldn’t we express that the only sure way to lose is to not fight?
It means they send out a consultation survey on the pay offer, asking if you want to be balloted to take strike action or not - some unions will recommend strike action, some not, Unison at the moment is actively sabotaging it's own strike ballot by victimising local rank and file activists who argue in favour of it. This generally means that the leadership never loses a strike ballot since they know the answer beforehand. Obviously they could get a positive result on the consultation, then a positive strike ballot (numbers are around 70% for RM, a recent Tube maintenance ballot was 97% or something), but then still not call strikes of course. I've only had one of these things once (from Unison over the pensions, where they said we should vote for their shit deal anyway), someone else may have more details on how exactly it works. Of course it's a way for them to show they're doing something, and to delay taking action for longer than a straight ballot, but there's significant pressure in some workplaces (PCS is a likely one since they've been out a lot recently) to force a strike even if the leadership don't want it. I think the chances of workers jumping the gun before ballots are in are very slim (obviously I wish they weren't), if we see a complete sabotage without even symbolic strikes by the unions then it'll be worth at least trying to get to particularly pissed of workers in the various sectors to discuss how it happened and possible responses.
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That said, I like the point re: a range of actions in other industries. But it is not followed up by the fact that regardless of industry, we all have a reason to stand together. We are not strong, in the most practical sense, if we follow sectoralism/corporatism and trade union complicity with it.
Yeah it's not stated explicitly, and we could definitely have made more of it. There's quite a lot of stuff we didn't get in that would have liked to, but working fast it's easy to leave things out. Some of the gaps you and others have outlined we'll probably try to get into the next issue.
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Practically speaking, and posi is right about this, the company and the unions and various other recuperators will emphasize the competition between workers, the need to not destroy the company, etc. Now, we don’t give a fuck about the company, but it also seems unlikely that the postal workers are ready undermine that. That would only be likely in a much broader struggle. But, who else is involved? Could postal workers stamp mail for no fee? Give out postage and envelopes and such? Could they actually win public support by in practice providing an even bigger public benefit?
That side of things is done by the Post Office - which is a separate company in the same corporate group. They're subject to massive closures (and are on strike during the Royal Mail hiatus), another thing we could've made more of although it's mentioned. I think there's pretty much nothing Royal Mail workers can do to provide a "better" service and hurt the company at the same time - in terms of tactics maintaining a big backlog is the most effective. Worth noting that not many people get personal mail (or paychecks or social security) via the post anymore - nearly everything is junk mail and bills - which hurts small and large businesses but less so individuals.
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Again, all of the examples were also about pay, but pay is the ground of the unions because then they can claim the right to negotiate the contracts, and argue that only the company workers work for can pay the workers, so there is no point in attacking other companies or reaching out to other workers (aside from the obvious point of a radical unionist, who would want to use a spreading of the strike to increase pressure on the real target boss.) Again, the fact that in health they were insulted by the offer indicates something more than just pay.
Again, I agree with all this. Most of the recent strikes have been around pay or redundancies I think. The work to rule is about conditions, and the wildcats are almost always about management bullying or diversion of blacked mail. Certainly there's a lot of bad feeling about how services to the public are being attacked at the same time as jobs etc., but this hasn't yet translated into action and we wanted to give examples more than say how nice it'd be if such and such happened.
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I also don’t know how labor law works in the U.K., but in the U.S. technically sympathy strikes are banned/severely limited.
Yep, illegal. Co-ordination of local and national strikes around the same or different issues is possible, often talked of, rarely acted upon. Secondary picketing/flying pickets are also illegal - one union rep got suspended for going to a different mail office during the rolling strikes even, despite it being the same dispute.
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But these are just technical suggestions, more meant to show that workers have a broad network of people they can look to for support in action. Whether people feel capable of doing it or not is another matter. But if the comrades here try it and it works, it sets an example that can inspire others.
Yeah again there's no signs of this developing much - maybe a bit around the Social care workers strike in Glasgow (a few postal workers attended a public meeting, other departments were possibly going work to rule since they were partially affected - although this would have been union run as well). If we see multiple places out in the Autumn (which still might not happen at all, a lot of the unions have close links with Labour and there's likely to be a general election in December) then it could develop though.
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First and foremost, somewhere it ought to be pointed out that the postal workers are being squeezed so the profits can go up. Whether it is a wage cut, productivity increases, etc. it is driven by making profits go up.
Again that's a good point - the CWU are very often enthusiastically behind efficiency savings and involved in carrying them out.
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Is the union going to call off action once it has been re-recognized as the legitimate intermediary for the workers?
Already has for now, although indications are that Royal Mail won't actually offer any concessions, and new strikes may follow. Or they might be able to persuade workers to accept a really shit deal, which will decimate the job as it is now and also probably result in local wildcats. There won't be a "good" deal offered on September 4th, so it's a matter of whether a shit one can be sold. Either way, backlogs will be nearly cleared by then, but at the same time mail volumes massively increase in Septembe (August is the quietest month), so we'll see. I think a lot of the more militant workers are fairly despondent about regaining momentum for a second round of strikes after this three weeks, so it's likely to worst of those two scenarios may happen.
We genuinely thought the further two weeks of action was going to happen, since things were just getting started and there'd been no signs of negotiations previously so didn't include anything about this possibility although it was in the back of my mind for later. Big misjudgement although I think everyone was surprised it was called off so quick. The wildcats got much bigger as we were writing it, and it's likely that both sides moved towards negotiations as a result of those (I think another two weeks of rolling strikes with the same suspensions could have led to national wildcats potentially, certainly those in the South and Northern Ireland on rmc were waiting for any excuse).
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So what if Royal Mail is breaking down the union-management coordination of the labor process? The union wants to keep its position as co-management, Royal Mail is clearly tired of that. Why should you, fellow communists, want to protect the union-management deal?
Yeah we don't give a shit about that. There was a lot of frustration with the union (leadership) on rmc when the strikes were called off, and I think many would've gone out anyway (one office wildcatted the next morning even), but there's been a lot of "maintaining discipline" until the talks are over with management provocation, apart from the 318/work to rule not much has happened. A local strike in SE and SW London was just called off for fresh negotiations as well - again this has angered shop stewards etc. but I don't think it'll go beyond being pissed off.
Also both Billy Hayes and Dave Ward are involved with the Labour Party, the CWU funds it, and since they appointed Royal Mail management and are pushing the pay cut and competition through, there's a lot of talk about withdrawing from the union political fund, getting rid of Hayes (Ward is seen as better) etc. - this is normal rank and filism stuff but the actual close personal links between the leadership and the government are getting more attention than usual I think.
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Now the deal is being broken. And not just if Royal Mail wants it broken. If the struggle goes too far, demands too much, demands what form the point of capital is unreasonable and from our point is not only reasonable, but only the beginning of the demand for the end of capital, then the union-management collaboration will be of no benefit anyway. If the fight dies and the union is unnecessary to killing it, then it is still unnecessary. So the union has an obligation to allow a big enough fight to be needed to put it down, to limit it, to divert it into the proper channels with the union as the indispensable first mate to the Captain. At the same time, the union has every reason to limit and control the workers, to undermine their actions, their militancy, their initiative. That point is not clear enough.
Yep. I at least thought we'd be at issue 2 or 3 before this process really kicked in, (although the rolling strikes were really odd for loads of reasons - people crossing each others picket lines depending on which day it was with letters from regional branches etc. which led to the wildcats). I've been making that point very strongly on RMC though since the strikes were called off (and a little before), and at least some workers tend to agree with it overall rather than looking at it just as a "wrong leadership" question. There's a lot of identification with the CWU by postal workers, and the postie who wrote the back page of Dispatch made the point that nearly all of them want the union to do its job of negotiating because that's what it does etc.
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Which beings us to assemblies. If you think that assemblies will solve the problems, I think that is a mistake. The action of the workers, even minorities of workers, to extend the fight, that is what matters. People shouldn’t have to vote on it, wait for a vote, wait for the union to hold a straw poll or consultation, etc. Assemblies may be a good way to get workers to talk to each other, where they might otherwise feel isolated, but what should be promoted clearly is that we support the independent action of any workers ready to fight, that we support acts that go beyond sector boundaries, that go beyond employed/unemployed/homemaker, etc. I don’t believe that assemblies will make a good place for acting and workers should not wait on the decisions of assemblies to act. They might use them after the fact to discuss what they have done, how it is going, but it should not be expected that action will happen because it follows deliberation. If anything, the union knows how to manipulate that to kill action, to convince workers that the majority isn’t ready for a fight. Support independent organs of workers control of their own actions, but let them be organs of action and struggle, not talk shops. And don’t let the forms of organization become more important than the content (even if the form was the union!)
There's a strong history of mass meetings in Royal Mail which has run widespread wildcats in the past (2003 notably, loads before), so this wasn't an abstract thing we were arguing for but more for the continuation of something that's been effective in the past - yet undermined in recent years since more and more workers skip meal breaks then run around in their car instead of eating together then taking the vans out.
Generally in Royal Mail there'll be only a tiny number of scabs, and it takes very little for any wildcat to occur - managers just give some blacked mail, even to quiet/non-militant workers, suspends them when they don't touch it, and everyone follows them out the door. Postal workers here are famous for not crossing other people's picket lines, so it's less a case of a minority deciding to take action against the rest I think. Where your point stands up more is when people are actually on wildcat - and mass meetings decide whether to go back to work or not. I think this happened at least in Oxford, not sure about the others.
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What we want is for workers to fight, to go beyond boundaries, to demand what they need not what they or the union think capital will allow or what capital claims is possible. If our needs are impossible, then it is capital that is impossible, not us. Even if we can’t put that in a flyer in those words, every flyer we do should make us feel that idea in our very bones.
A couple of people have said it lacks punchiness, and I think that's a fair comment. Certainly I think we were trying to avoid the hectoring Trot "call on the union leadership to call a general strike" type bollocks which is both unrealistic and a diversion from any kind of effective action, but it's possible to swing too far in the other direction as well.
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None of this is to say that it is bad. Its pretty good overall, especially as it is shit loads easier to think of this stuff when you're not the one in the fight. Everyone can analyze the boxer when their not in the ring. Not so easy when you're on the receiving end of the punches and kicks and sending your own too. So these are just some thoughts on having read itChris
p.s. catch, good stuff!.
Appreciate you taking the time to comment on it. You exposed some gaps that I assumed would be obvious reading between the lines, although it's possible UK readers would fill in the blanks themselves.
Aug 28 2007 06:12
#35
Alf wrote:
I don't think the fact that the 'founders' of Dispatch are 'politicos' changes its nature and its potential, at least, to act as a focus for a class intervention, to be an effective centre of discussion about the struggles, etc. A number of the groups that appeared in the 80s were initiated by 'politicos' and as we said at the time if the situation demanded it and the potential existed, revolutionaries should not hesitate to take such initiatives.
Well we've had some contact via it which is a good sign for any future issues (although postal workers who also post on royalmailchat rather than people who got it from us when we handed out - couple of decent chats when we did though). Like Devrim says, if it was a few different groups trying to do the same thing, it'd be quite encouraging, certainly I'm not that encouraged by it despite the good responses from just about everyone except Lucy Parsons, some indymedia posters and CoffeeMachine.
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Contrary to what Devrim and others say, I get the feeling that people are underestimating the possibilities here. There wasn't really time to develop them on this occasion, but future practice will tell us a great deal more.On the other hand, while the willingness of workers to use royalmailchat is an interesting development, I don't there's much doubt that this was a rank and file union initiative.
Well just about everyone working for Royal Mail is a "rank and file union" member. The moderators seem to be mainly shop stewards, but I think that's pretty much guaranteed as well at this stage. Certainly there are tendencies towards "rank and filism" on there, but it's definitely got the potential to go beyond that - both the general momentum of the site and the positions of individual contributors. I've been very clear about not being a postal worker whilst posting on there, and even when slagging unions off have been well received most of the time, so again I think there's a potential for it broadening out as well as the already exponential expansion of postal workers using it.
Aug 28 2007 09:26
#36
that's a bit unfair catch. I say fair play for producing a leaflet. I haven't as yet commented on its content, just the reasoning behind its creation.
Aug 28 2007 15:03
#37
Alf wrote:
I don't think the fact that the 'founders' of Dispatch are 'politicos' changes its nature and its potential, at least, to act as a focus for a class intervention, to be an effective centre of discussion about the struggles, etc. A number of the groups that appeared in the 80s were initiated by 'politicos' and as we said at the time if the situation demanded it and the potential existed, revolutionaries should not hesitate to take such initiatives. Contrary to what Devrim and others say, I get the feeling that people are underestimating the possibilities here. There wasn't really time to develop them on this occasion, but future practice will tell us a great deal more.
It is not that I don't see this as a good thing. I just feel that it is wrong to draw conclusions about tendencies, and real movements within the class from single events such as this.
Devrim
Aug 28 2007 17:31
#38
Devrim wrote:
It is not that I don't see this as a good thing. I just feel that it is wrong to draw conclusions about tendencies, and real movements within the class from single events such as this.
I know where you're coming from, but this isn't what we actually said. In our article on Dispatch we wrote,
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During the long retreat in class struggle in the ‘90s, there was not much sign of such struggle committees. But since around 2003, we have seen a general revival in the international class struggle, sometimes taking the form of massive protests against attacks on jobs, conditions, pensions, etc, sometimes of expressions of solidarity between different groups of workers, sometimes of wildcat strikes, sometimes of general assemblies like those last year in the anti-CPE movement in France and the steelworkers' struggle in Vigo, Spain.
At some point quantity takes on a new quality. From a series of 'single events' over the past four years patterns and tendencies have emerged. Circumstances have changed, the 'balance of class forces' is shifting. That's all we're saying really. So, on this basis, I don't think think it's unreasonable for us to say that,
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In these circumstances, we can expect to see the re-emergence of militant minorities of workers seeking to push the movement towards higher levels of autonomy and unity.
Did the ICC help distribute Dispatch? Well, on the ground we had two leaflets of our own to distribute, although I'm not 100% sure that none of our comrades distributed Dispatch. Some may have, but the dispute was suspended as soon as Dispatch came out. (Surely not a coincidence? Only kidding!). Saying that, we did give a link to Dispatch in our article, so we did kind of help to publicise it over the internet. I think quite a lot of people probably came to Dispatch via the ICC's site.
B.
Aug 28 2007 19:25
#39
Beltov wrote:
Devrim wrote:
It is not that I don't see this as a good thing. I just feel that it is wrong to draw conclusions about tendencies, and real movements within the class from single events such as this.I know where you're coming from, but this isn't what we actually said. In our article on Dispatch we wrote,
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During the long retreat in class struggle in the ‘90s, there was not much sign of such struggle committees. But since around 2003, we have seen a general revival in the international class struggle, sometimes taking the form of massive protests against attacks on jobs, conditions, pensions, etc, sometimes of expressions of solidarity between different groups of workers, sometimes of wildcat strikes, sometimes of general assemblies like those last year in the anti-CPE movement in France and the steelworkers' struggle in Vigo, Spain.At some point quantity takes on a new quality. From a series of 'single events' over the past four years patterns and tendencies have emerged. Circumstances have changed, the 'balance of class forces' is shifting. That's all we're saying really. So, on this basis, I don't think think it's unreasonable for us to say that,
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In these circumstances, we can expect to see the re-emergence of militant minorities of workers seeking to push the movement towards higher levels of autonomy and unity.
Yes, I think that this is reasonable. I also think that there is a significant though small development of class struggle.
However, I don't think that one leaflet means that you can draw any conclusions about workers' groups.
Devrim
Spontaneous Comments on “Dispatch” leaflet (I wrote notes as I read down, so sometimes I ask things that are not apparent until later, but which are answered. Hopefully this conveys some sense of how an uninformed reader sees it. Though the average British person will know much more about this than I do, no doubt.)
“Public sector pay dispute”
As someone who does not know the details, is this strike motivated by pay cuts? Are there other sore spots?
“Royal Mail workers: Fighting to win”
This seems like the general slogan. As others have made note of, the issue cannot be restricted to Royal Mail, either within the industry or outside of it, if they want to win. The question remains for us what it might mean to win. Would it mean to get the demands? Would it mean to increase the confidence of our class? Would it mean to find some ways, even if small, to get beyond the sectoralism/corporatism that denies our existence as a class and rather affirms it as this or that “kind” of worker, that Posi makes a fetish of and argues to reinforce?
“Doing the job as it’s meant to be done”. I think that if with the ebb of the strikes, people have returned to a work-to-rule tactic inside Royal Mail, it is not a bad thing if it is a way to regroup and re-open the fight later. It can certainly be an effective tactic, especially if it allows people to get a paycheck for a bit to keep from being broken financially, while still allowing a kind of resistance and sense of solidarity. But will it simply grind on? And at what point do workers get tired of management being unable to get people their mail? How do the postal workers view what they do?
When I ask this, I am not slagging off on the idea that workers often feel that management impedes them from doing a good job, that “political” and money concerns over-ride the technical common sense of the people who do the job. That is a huge issue in my experience of over 10 years in Information Technology. The question is how we address it. Do the postal workers have a sense of this? Do they have a sense of being a kind of public service and proud of it? What are the sorts of things in this that go beyond simply the issue of a pay cut? Because if it is just the pay cut, it is harder to spread it to other workers who are not immediately under financial attack, either within the industry or outside of it. Most people (not even just workers), whether they feel ok with their pay or not, often feel like they are somehow treated with disrespect, disregard, devalued, etc., especially in the current period. Again, this is just a question of the mood of the workers, but also of those here involved personally as workers. There is nothing wrong with being clear that even as politicos we have our own anger to express, our own reasons for fighting, and we should trust that those reasons can echo with people in unexpectedly strong ways. The problem is not to try and find out what every other worker feels (which is impossible anyway, because what they think, what they feel and what they are ready to do can be completely out of whack with each other), but to express our anger and willingness to fight, and to not let our demands or means be limited by the kind of trade unionist limitations and substitutionism of posi and Lucy Parsons.
Rather then emphasizing “unofficial action”, it seems that one could use the idea of “Doing what needs to be done” in relation to the unions, the division of workers into sectors, etc. as well.
On the PCS members being “consulted on further strike action”, such consultation needs to be explained. What does that mean? Is the union in the process of polling people in order to figure out how to deflate/avoid a possible fight? I think that action should not be contingent on “members being polled” because the problem is not to get a majority to agree on a strike, but to actually do it. If the members voted and 75% went against a strike, why shouldn’t the 25% still fight? Shouldn’t we express that the only sure way to lose is to not fight?
That said, I like the point re: a range of actions in other industries. But it is not followed up by the fact that regardless of industry, we all have a reason to stand together. We are not strong, in the most practical sense, if we follow sectoralism/corporatism and trade union complicity with it. Hey all you Wobblies, one big union, right? One big class. Practically speaking, and posi is right about this, the company and the unions and various other recuperators will emphasize the competition between workers, the need to not destroy the company, etc. Now, we don’t give a fuck about the company, but it also seems unlikely that the postal workers are ready undermine that. That would only be likely in a much broader struggle. But, who else is involved? Could postal workers stamp mail for no fee? Give out postage and envelopes and such? Could they actually win public support by in practice providing an even bigger public benefit?
Again, all of the examples were also about pay, but pay is the ground of the unions because then they can claim the right to negotiate the contracts, and argue that only the company workers work for can pay the workers, so there is no point in attacking other companies or reaching out to other workers (aside from the obvious point of a radical unionist, who would want to use a spreading of the strike to increase pressure on the real target boss.) Again, the fact that in health they were insulted by the offer indicates something more than just pay.
I also don’t know how labor law works in the U.K., but in the U.S. technically sympathy strikes are banned/severely limited. But workers can exchange picket lines with each other if one gets banned, which happens here (court injunctions on pickets, or limiting them to 4-5 people). Also, non-employees can be brought in to make bigger pickets and non-employees (like family of employees) can also go to other workers where it might be dangerous for a striker to do so. But these are just technical suggestions, more meant to show that workers have a broad network of people they can look to for support in action. Whether people feel capable of doing it or not is another matter. But if the comrades here try it and it works, it sets an example that can inspire others.
Ok, so as I read on, clearly the strike is about a lot of things and pay may be the least of it in some ways. The postal workers too feel insulted, as well as made to pay for a set of problems that are not theirs. First and foremost, somewhere it ought to be pointed out that the postal workers are being squeezed so the profits can go up. Whether it is a wage cut, productivity increases, etc. it is driven by making profits go up.
Is the union going to call off action once it has been re-recognized as the legitimate intermediary for the workers? So what if Royal Mail is breaking down the union-management coordination of the labor process? The union wants to keep its position as co-management, Royal Mail is clearly tired of that. Why should you, fellow communists, want to protect the union-management deal? It is clear that at one time management in many countries felt the need for such collaborative relations with the unions, but it was in order to subvert militancy and class action, to canalize it into industrial or sectoral or even single-company actions where it did develop. And the only reason the deal was ever brokered was management’s fear of the workers’ willingness to fight.
Now the deal is being broken. And not just if Royal Mail wants it broken. If the struggle goes too far, demands too much, demands what form the point of capital is unreasonable and from our point is not only reasonable, but only the beginning of the demand for the end of capital, then the union-management collaboration will be of no benefit anyway. If the fight dies and the union is unnecessary to killing it, then it is still unnecessary. So the union has an obligation to allow a big enough fight to be needed to put it down, to limit it, to divert it into the proper channels with the union as the indispensable first mate to the Captain. At the same time, the union has every reason to limit and control the workers, to undermine their actions, their militancy, their initiative. That point is not clear enough.
Which beings us to assemblies. If you think that assemblies will solve the problems, I think that is a mistake. The action of the workers, even minorities of workers, to extend the fight, that is what matters. People shouldn’t have to vote on it, wait for a vote, wait for the union to hold a straw poll or consultation, etc. Assemblies may be a good way to get workers to talk to each other, where they might otherwise feel isolated, but what should be promoted clearly is that we support the independent action of any workers ready to fight, that we support acts that go beyond sector boundaries, that go beyond employed/unemployed/homemaker, etc. I don’t believe that assemblies will make a good place for acting and workers should not wait on the decisions of assemblies to act. They might use them after the fact to discuss what they have done, how it is going, but it should not be expected that action will happen because it follows deliberation. If anything, the union knows how to manipulate that to kill action, to convince workers that the majority isn’t ready for a fight. Support independent organs of workers control of their own actions, but let them be organs of action and struggle, not talk shops. And don’t let the forms of organization become more important than the content (even if the form was the union!)
What we want is for workers to fight, to go beyond boundaries, to demand what they need not what they or the union think capital will allow or what capital claims is possible. If our needs are impossible, then it is capital that is impossible, not us. Even if we can’t put that in a flyer in those words, every flyer we do should make us feel that idea in our very bones.
None of this is to say that it is bad. Its pretty good overall, especially as it is shit loads easier to think of this stuff when you're not the one in the fight. Everyone can analyze the boxer when their not in the ring. Not so easy when you're on the receiving end of the punches and kicks and sending your own too. So these are just some thoughts on having read it.
Chris
p.s. catch, good stuff!