Should communists be union reps?

As an anarchist I do not want to cut myself off from the working classes, something the movement has done in its past, abandoning unions does that in my opinion. Historically speaking has there been a bigger working class organisation than the trade unions? But as Monatte said in 1907 "far from hiding [unions] faults I think it is wise to always have them in mind so as to react to them". While not revolutionary organisations ecomonic struggle at work can and does radicalise workers whether wildcat strikes or formal disputes.

The decline in the strength of the trade union movement since the 1980s has been a major reason why the capitalist class has got richer and more powerful. In reality I struggle to see how union membership is holding the working classes back - the decline in trade unionism didn't lead to radicalism but a decline in the class's position.

I am also practical - we can, sadly, point to few examples of sustained self organisation, we need to work in unions as well as trying to establish alternative structures.

As far as union reps are concerned, again as an anarchist I am encouraged that so many workers are willing to volunteer as reps - it is a thankless task. Given the ratio of FTOs to reps in Britain for day to day matters union reps have a lot of autonomy.

Monatte also said that an anarchist who became a full time official was lost to anarchism (and that FTOs were as bad a politicians - I am glad I no longer work for a union!)

And whats stopping you being a shop steward and voicing that opinion, if you ask me this goes right back to knightrose saying he had to represent three groups, when infact you only have to represent one.

Again, not wanting to be repetitive but the only group of people you need to represent as a shop steward are the people who elect you - not the bosses or the union hierarchy. As a shop steward myself and others maintained the practise at our workplace of holding regular meetings of members of our union (which were open to non-members who were also effected by what was going on) in order to make sure our mandate was based on what our fellow workers decided. We also ensured that elections were held on an at least annual basis, and on occassions when there was an amount of disquite about the current incumbents. Ensuring this occurs, which is beyond the remit of many TU rulebooks, was as much a tradition in the workplace as anything else.

This did piss off the fulltimers, but, basically fuck them. We do often have to fight full-time officials before we even get to bring the fight to the bosses but that means we need to be organised enough to do that. Opting out of the union that has recognition in your workplace or grade means that they are free to agree whatever the fuck they want with the bosses without having to refer to you as a worker!

Again I am fully aware of the problems that are involved in working in the existing unions but where we have them they can at least be used defensively. In fact in my previous workplace we did actually win improvements in relation to our terms and conditions a number of times. The importance of this in building the confidence of workers cannot be understated. We also now have a significant amount of workers who do not regard anarchists as complete loons, and even if most don't agree with our politics we are at least taken much more seriously.

We have had experience of being mightly shafted by the unions officaldom but I was not shafting any of my fellow workers and was still one of them - ie being shafted along with them. We organised unofficial action on occassion and also put pressure on the union hierarchy. Y'see I do believe that its tensions like these that will develop more revolutionary currents in the labour movement. This is where the development of an alternative will come from, its where, in Ireland, the IWU and ILDA splits occurred and its where we could potentially see the development of a more concious, revolutionary labour movement. Again as I said before if we are not part of that process we remain the irrelevant loony lefties preaching ideological purity from the outside.

A few points I want to clarify here:

1). Not all unions are the same. In some unions there is more of an opportunity for radical agitation to push workers beyond simple trade unionism. The purpose of workplace agitation is to go beyond simply the workplace, and simple negotiating.

2). Not all union positions are the same. A shop steward is very different than a paid organiser. Some unions use all appointed officials and some unions elect lots of people from the rank and file. My business union (CUPW) has no paid officials that are not directly elected, and is mostly run by volunteeers. It has a long history of illegal strikes, and has been in hot water from the rest of the labour mvoement many times for being perceived as too radical.

3). Obviously we aren't trying to do what the trots do and get in and take over. We want to win the hearts and minds of the working class so as to undermine petty officials and bureacrats. The question then is not should we or shouldn't we but what is a serious breach with principle. I see nothing unprincipled about taking a voluntary elected position in order to agitate.

October Lost wrote:

I was trying to expalin the various pressures that a steward can feel under. I am quite aware that I didn't have to follow the other two sets. It's just that you have to always be aware of what's going on. It is very hard to do that - and if anyone says otherwise, I doubt they are really aware of them.

I've got a feeling though, that the union can remove your union credentials if it wants to. In other words, sack you as a steward.

There are always going to be pressures to follow the union line, regardless of whether or not you are an independant agitator or 'part of the union'. I see no reason why any other group of millitants isn't going to feel that pressure to act like a bargaining agent, union or not. The question is how do you best agitate your fellow workers, sometimes this may be outside the union, but in some cases the union may be a valuable tool. As far as I'm concerned it depends on the level of struggle in the shop and the culture of the union in your workplace (some unions do still have some rank and file tendencies) and how many people you think you can win over.

'Sack' you as a steward is a bit misleading as you are not employed as a shop steward in the first place - but this is something that its quite important to be aware of. To an extent the procedures differ from union to union - in my former union we (that is the majority of shop stewards elected to our union branch/section) tried to get shot of our full time official (on behalf of our fellow workers who wanted shot of him) only to be summonsed to union HQ to find that we could not do fuck all about the incumbent fulltime official who was as an employee of the union protected by legislation and further that according to the rule book he was entitled to (and threatened) the removal of all the stewards present from their elected posts to be replaced by any union members he chose to appoint (not that I think he could have got all of us replaced there would prob just have been a severe lack of stewards) and that the replacements would stay in place pending a future election that he could call at his leisure. Upshot was he couldn't have gotten away with this but we also could not get shot of him.

During unofficial action if a shop steward is asked if they support the action they have to say no we are endeavouring to get our members back to work (even if they are involved and have agitated for the action) or the union will be in a position where they'll basically have to ditch ya of face sequestration of funds. In relation to the recent CWU wildcat in Belfast stewards and fulltime officials were giving the line that the action should not have happened the way it did, that it was not official and that the workers should return to work - however in this instance the blame for the action was laid squarely with management and the stewards and officials made it clear that they did not believe the workers would return until their grievances were addressed.

Of course there are tensions, and we may be called upon to publically say things we don't agree with (I never had to actually do that, on occassion I did play dumb and give it 'fuck, I don't know why nobodies working right now, morale is pretty low, but I'll talk to everyone and find out what the problem is', knowing all along what the problems we wanted addressed were, & this has actually worked and won minor bits and pieces along the way), but the most important thing here is what our role actually is in the workplace. And a fulltime official going ahead and ditching an entire shop stewards committee, or actually (as opposed to making statements simply to cover their ass legally) shafting workers on unofficial action is the type of thing that leads to the tensions, and potential to move beyond Trades Unionism, that I talked about before.

Things do indeed vary from union to union. I'm pretty sure our unelected FT regional officer couldn't come and de-steward (?) any of our reps. The local branch can suspend reps. I've seen this happen, but it was pending an alleged case of sexual harrasment (by the rep, a branch welfare officer, ffs!) not a situation where the rep had been in conflict with the union per se.

My section's stewards committee have all just announced their resignations and afaik, nobody has volunteered to replace them. To a great extent this resignation is because they have such a hard time from the membership at section meetings etc. This is partly because they have very little idea of how to run a bloody meeting! The membership also see the union as something very distant/hostile. Unfortunately, with no reps all the negotiations and representations are taken by our Regional FTO - who nobody trusts and is unlikely to be available at short notice anyway.

But i digress.

I think shop stewards are under a lot of pressure to become integrated into the union machine and become not the delegated voice of the members but the voice of the union to the members. A lot of this is subtle pressure. Most unions do not lavish their new reps with all kinds of incentives and perks. And members do not appreciate junket-merchants who are always away from the shop floor...

However, I agree that stewards can and do attempt to represent fellow workers interests against the union's. It's knowing how much good you are doing in such a position is the key. After a year as a steward in one union I resigned as i felt i could do as much not being a steward as I could as one.

A pragmatic but principled approach is required so I disagree with the idea that libertarian communists should never be stewards as much as I do with the idea that we should all become reps as some sort of principle.

yes, why do people keep mixing up shop stewards with paid union officials?

What do people think of people working for unions as a job but having no illusions about their role? It's interesting, cos union organisers are blatantly exploited by the union too. Is there any room for organising on the basis of their class interests?

i'd rather start a thread on the BBC's attitude towards Portugal but I suppouse one on union organisers might be more "right on".

Yeah go for it.

people who think there are benefits to be had from being a radical shop steward (Steve) seem to keep saying that we need to be clear about the distinction between co-opted/coercive union organizers (bad) and radical shop stewards (good) - but presumably there would be no unions without union organizers, in which case why is this distinction so important? To join and be radically active within a union surely presumes the existence of union organizers and so even by being radical you're still working towards the form of delegated authority that includes union organizers.

Surely the more important question is whether union membership itself can be beneficical?

A member of the IWW and Class War, who is a union organiser, said he's trying to organise his mates (paid union organisers) with the IWW, don't know where he's at with this at the moment.

No, there would still be unions without union organisers. Someone may correct me on this (RPG?) but I think the union organisers who have appeared in London around the T&G are a very recent innovation. There have been full timers for ages, but their role is not really one of "going into unorganised workplaces" etc, but more of looking after the union's (corporate) interest. I remember meeting some UCW FTOs at a party about a decade ago and they were complaining about the number of wildcats in the post threatening the union.

Most unions here (and I think it's also true in the US/Canada/Oz) are fairly well entrenched in their respective industries - the decline in union membership has a lot to do with the decline in those traditional industries and the difficulties of moving into service sectors.

On another matter, I think it does have to be stressed in relation to the unions that structure matters. Nalgo was a much better* union than Unison is - a lot of this is to do with the centralisation achieved by the bureaucracy after the merger and the co-option of self organised groups and discouragement of lay representation.

Regards

Martin

*By better I mean more could be achieved

I feel that I am being quoted out of context here. What I wrote in full was:

Also I think that there has been a bit of confusion on this thread between the Yanks, and the Brits. I think 'i'd rather be drinking' was discussing a very different thing from British shop stewards.

Anyway on to Boulcolonialboy's points:

I think that this sums up a lot of the contradictions involved in being a shop steward. Without casting aspersions on Boulcolonialboy's integrity, I think it shows how people can get sucked into the internal politics of the union, and how that helps to maintain the illusions that people have in the unions. If we are trying to remove a certain full time official, it shows that we must think that there is a possibility of having a better full time official. How far should these things be taken? Right up to the General Secretary?

I am not suggesting that Boulcolonialboy believes this, but it does seem to be result of his position taken to its logical conclusion.

I think that one of the most important things in disputes is for militants to actually say what is right. It seems that what you are suggesting here is that at those times your role as a steward prevents you from doing this. Yes, I know you are only talking about public pronouncements, but they are also important, and it can lead to confusion.

I was on the branch committee of the same union for a year, and I also resigned.

Devrim

I think this is ultimately the wrong way to pose the question. It is not the question of whether or not to become a shop steward. Even if you do not become a union rep you are involved in class struggle, and if you become a union rep you are involved in class struggle. Thus the question must be posed in another manner: how do we radicalise class struggle?

And the answer to this question is not handed down by some "revolutionary principles", as the ICC assumes, but rather through the involvement and direct intervention in dirty class struggle. The fact of the matter is that all class struggle is capitalist, every workers' struggle, be it anti-unionist or unionist is ultimately the reproduction of the relationship between capital and labour. The fetter that class struggle (ie. capital) produces for itself is the crisis which class struggle (ie. capital) overcomes. Marx puts it nicely in the third volume of Capital: "Crises are always momentary, violent solutions of the given contradictions, violent eruptions which temporarily reassembles balance." Capital (class struggle) produces its own limitations (Schranke) and is thus thrown into crisis: momentarily and temporarily. It is capital's immanent movement which produces the crisis and its overcoming.

For these reasons there can never be a dogmatic or principal answer to the question of how to radicalise class struggle, it must be found in the dirty and unclean involvement in the class' capitalist struggles. No "revolutionary principle" will ever change that.

If there is a union strike, why should a communist reject it? If there is a wage increase due to a militant union, why should a communist reject it? We can never find communism in class struggle anyway, we have to find it in the abolition of class struggle (ie. the abolition of the relationship of capital).

I can see the logic. If the working class does not need to affirm itself as a class, to assert its class identity, as a precondition for the communist revolution, then there's no need for revolutionary principles, which are aimed precisely at demarcating the working class from other classes, in particular the bourgeoisie. So you might just as well be for unions as for struggle outside the unions, because both are bourgeois.

But if the proletarian class struggle does not contain the dynamic towards communism, where does it come from?

It is this concept of the proletariat as a class-for-capital which led poor old Jacques Cammate, who did some good work in his earlier years, to decide that everything was fucked and it was time to head for the hills.

Apologies for spelling Camatte as Cammate.

Among his better contributions, publicising the existence and documents of the KAPD and Miasnikov's group. And on Bordiga, I would strongly recommend Camatte's book Bordiga et la passion du communisme, which contains Bordiga's studies of Marx's Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts; also the very moving article about the attitude towards death in 'primitive' societies, 'A Janitzio on n'a peur de la mort'.

Camatte is interesting in some aspects, but his main flaw is abandoning the proletariat as the origin of a communist movement. But this origin is by no means "already there" (somewhere beneath all the "dirty", unionist struggles that are fought by the proletariat), which the concept of revolutionary principles implies. The communist movement must be created, it must be built on the everyday struggles of the working class, but not as a Trotskyist transcroissance (overgrowth) of current struggles, but rather as a dismantling of the relationship which makes us proletarian and the production of communist, non-mercantile, relations.

Class struggle does not contain a dynamic (except that it is capital, ie. a dynamic movement in the reproduction of capitalist social relations). It is impossible to split class struggle into two separate movements: capitalist and revolutionary. Essentially self-organised struggles and union-organised struggles are both trade-unionist in their essence.

Equating self-organised with revolutionary, as left-commies do, is actually impossible to comprehend, if you by revolution mean the destruction of class society (including the proletariat). There are no evidence whatsoever that self-organised struggles are revolutionary, quite the contrary.

Théorie Communiste has produced several quite good critiques of this moralist approach, eg. Normative history and the communist essence of the proletariat or Self-organisation is the first act of the revolution....

However, the proletariat is not identified with capital, but it is capital's constant negation. Therefore the affirmation of the proletariat reproduces the relationship which poses the proletariat as capital's negation. This negation is however not opposed to the relationship of capital between not-capital (proletariat) and capital. For this we need the positive organising of the negation of the negation: communisation. And this can be accomplished in a unionist struggle, when the unionist struggle breaks its shell, as well as in a non-unionist struggle, when the non-unionist struggle breaks its shell. The time for moralism and identity-political blind-folds is over, it's time for struggle!

To finally quote some of Camattes "earlier" work:

One awaits the revolution in vain, for it is already underway. It is unnoticed by those who await it, expecting a particular sign, a 'crisis' releasing the vast insurrectional movement which would produce another essential sign, the formation of the party etc...
Jacques Camatte, About the Revolution

This excellent text shows that the dicotomy between unionism and non-unionism is essentially false: http://www.troublemakershandbook.org/Text/Shopfloor%20Tactics/Krehbiel%20The%20Quota.htm

While being union reps, they show how they self-organized a prevention of an increase in productivity.

i work for a farely large grocery chain which is part of a sizeable union. given that the union is very distant from the workers, it would seem ridculous to participate in its activities. About 2 years ago the head of the union gave himslef a 140% payraise, which essentially made him one of the highest paid union bosses in canada. not to mention two years prior the union had voted to drop the starting wage from 11 dollars an hour to just under 8.the fact that the store is so big, however, opens the possibilities for a more direct form of rank-and-file organization which has been developing of late(a product of union-dissillusionment no doubt).

Hey mole, probably UFCW right? I think this brings up an important point. Not all unions are the same, and in some there really is zero opportunity for useful work to be done. However, I really think a militant needs to look at their union and their local first before they write it off. The individual culture of that union is going to count for a lot as far as how far you can go agitating beyond the bounds of simple trade unionism.

I for one would write UFCW off, they are as Devrim would put it, 'worse than useless'. Labour activism mostly revolves around the contract and if your contract is exactly the same as any other grocery store that isn't union (or is CLAC a comapny union that is very large out here) I would recomend raising hell from the margins too.

As a side note, yay another cannuck.

ya your exactly right. I joined the union when i started(about 5 months ago), but have had a chance to work mostly with older employees who have gone through the motions with the unions and union activities . Most of this activity revolves around our contracts. I definitely agree that using the unions resources against its general "line" is a a good strategy, but as i say, the UFCW is hardly ever to be seen and has a damn good relationship with management(despite their magazine's soft-sell stories, The Voice,which would lead one to believe otherwise). There have also been false allegations filed by less-than-respectable union reps regarding the conduct of employees as of late, which further distances most of us from our 'represntatives'.

Two weeks ago, the store manager gave a presentation on why we must compete against walmart "as a team". Even those regarded by most of the rank and file as the manager's "lackeys"(those who spy on others employees)didnt seem too amused.

Im guessing by your name that your involved with the Wobblies. I've read about the history of the IWW, but dont know too much about what their up to these days.
i know that in ontario the major unions are pretty much as reformist as they come. whats the situation like in alberta?

haha, i know, finally someone outside of britain!

We are ouside of Britain too.
Devrim

my mistake comrade!

im not to sure if shop stewards are equivalent to union reps we have here. I'd imagine their probably quite similar. What does the process of electing stewards entail?

Yes John Communsist should be union raps so they can represent the working class and oppose the upper capitlaist class.http://libcom.org/modules/contrib/smileys/smiles/starred.gif
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