Workplace struggle dead? And Bookchin. Discussion.
Feb 20 2006 17:40
Admin - split from http://libcom.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6651
Catch wrote:
Dalston Theate occupied today!http://34broadwaymarket.omweb.org/modules/news/
you just posted this community bolloxs on here cause your "workplace struggle is dead" Bookchin bullshit got torn asunder by the posties. 
Feb 20 2006 17:39
#2
Catch wrote:
revol68 wrote:
you just posted this community bolloxs on here cause your "workplace struggle is dead" Bookchin bullshit got torn asunder by the posties.
Never said workplace struggle was dead revol. Said separate workplace organisations were pretty much dead and struggles in workplaces were not much of an option for many people and unlikely to effect real change any more.
This is why revol's attacking you - and rightly so, to be fair. The workplace is the centre of capitalism, and always will be, since wage labour is what it's based on. But this isn't the thread for this. I'm going to split it. Please no one reply to this in the next 30 seconds!
Feb 20 2006 19:51
#3
Look at JDMF and Jef Costello's posts on the 200 years thread:
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we may be coming up to another one day strike soon, and it's bollocks! Just means we all do 5 days work in 4 on that week, lol!
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The raise won by the strike was a fair bit less than the wages lost on the strike, as it was a public sector organisation which didn't lose money by not producing they actually made a profit on the deal
I and many other communists have never been in a strike, but here's two whose recent experience of industrial action is that it's at best ineffective, at worst just unpaid holiday to be made up with increased intensity the rest of the working week. There are exceptions to that, but they're often, not always, in transport, construction, manufacturing etc. - the old strongholds, not the jobs that most of us end up in now. John. like you said on that strike thread - there may be less strike days, but there's likely much more sickies (and web-surfing etc.) instead. The struggles are still there, albeit in modified (to an often highly individualised and atomised) form, but they're less and less of a threat as time goes on.
In North East London, you can make a fuck load of a lot more more money from property speculation than you can from investing in industry. House prices going up say 20-30% a year for years in a row (slowing down now though), very little industry outside low-level retail and the public sector. I doubt it's been very much different in other cities in the UK for the past few years either. That money isn't made from surplus value from the wage labour of construction workers, it's made on land rent. It doesn't make industrial struggle irrelevant (and neither I nor Bookchin would say it is, it's not as if he ignores the economy at all), but there's other areas just as important in terms of capital's expansion.
Thanks for splitting the thread by the way.
edit: and not to discount the victory - but here's the BBC reporting a lot of extra work being done by Royal Mail staff (either overtime, agency or work rate) now the strike's over:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/4729312.stm
Feb 20 2006 20:48
#4
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edit: and not to discount the victory - but here's the BBC reporting a lot of extra work being done by Royal Mail staff (either overtime, agency or work rate) now the strike's over...
and yer point is what? The posties won their strike action have have given a great example of the strength workers have at the point of production in attaining their demands. Those demands have been attained whether or not the posties are now working overtime or have had temporary agency staff called in (it is mostly temporary sorting staff recruited through agencies. It used to be covered by overtime after shorter disputes - and that actually gave workers the opportunity to earn back more than they lost in the same amount of hours if they wanted).
Its extremely unlikely that there is any credence to your suggestion (at least implied) that posties are increasing their productivity for an employer they have just won a victory against. I'll ask the next time I'm chatting to a postie - but forcing them to work harder after a dispute over management bullying and harassment doesn't seem likely unless Royal Mail want another strike. And they don't.
That you and many other communists have never been on strike does say something about the levels of resistance in many sections of the working class but your point about recent experience of ineffectual industrial action is made without any hint that workers actually have any agency at all. Postal workers embark on unofficial industrial action because they are well aware of the limitations imposed on the processes involved in the official variety - legal processes designed to make industrial action ineffectual. Ever ask yourself why the state and employers went to such lengths to enforce such a legal framework?
The posties in Belfast engaged in tactics that many of them thought were new - they did recognise a need to go beyond disputes that simply had people standing about on picket lines for the duration getting more and more demoralised. They wanted their demostrations to be about unity across the sectarian divide, and they were, they wanted their protests to be defiant and jubilant, and they were, they went out and got support on the streets instead of standing about isolated and being increasingly demoralised by one sided media coverage. Links were fostered across trades union divisions and there was a great amount of practical solidarity given. A lot of the 'new' approach they adopted seems new given the moribund state of the trades unions but they were simply relearning lessons that workers had learnt in more radical times in other struggles.
To write off workplace struggles as being "incapable of effecting real change any more" is truly appalling coming from a communist. Particularly a libertarian one - how else are we actually going to effect real change? The Capitalist system is after all an economic one that, as john points out, is centred on wage labour and the point of production - the workplace.
Feb 20 2006 20:54
#5
Catch wrote:
In North East London, you can make a fuck load of a lot more more money from property speculation than you can from investing in industry. House prices going up say 20-30% a year for years in a row (slowing down now though), very little industry outside low-level retail and the public sector.
Too right, I'll have to leave soon can't afford to stay really. I might be middle clas enough to manage it but it's not easy.
Strike action only works when the workers can't be scabbed and the company can't be shut down. Which favours monopolies and utilities etc.
I think in a lot of cases now occupations are the way to go. Did anyone hear how the Irish Ferries thing turned out in the end by the way? I was coughing up my lungs at the time and sort of forgot about it.
It reminds me of the Cellatex story John. mentioned before. You need to fight really hard just downing tools when they can tell you to fuck off isn't enough, not that many of us have tools now.
Feb 20 2006 20:55
#6
Boulcolonialboy wrote:
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edit: and not to discount the victory - but here's the BBC reporting a lot of extra work being done by Royal Mail staff (either overtime, agency or work rate) now the strike's over...and yer point is what? The posties won their strike action have have given a great example of the strength workers have at the point of production in attaining their demands. Those demands have been attained whether or not the posties are now working overtime or have had temporary agency staff called in (it is mostly temporary sorting staff recruited through agencies. It used to be covered by overtime after shorter disputes - and that actually gave workers the opportunity to earn back more than they lost in the same amount of hours if they wanted).
Its extremely unlikely that there is any credence to your suggestion (at least implied) that posties are increasing their productivity for an employer they have just won a victory against. I'll ask the next time I'm chatting to a postie - but forcing them to work harder after a dispute over management bullying and harassment doesn't seem likely unless Royal Mail want another strike. And they don't.
That you and many other communists have never been on strike does say something about the levels of resistance in many sections of the working class but your point about recent experience of ineffectual industrial action is made without any hint that workers actually have any agency at all. Postal workers embark on unofficial industrial action because they are well aware of the limitations imposed on the processes involved in the official variety - legal processes designed to make industrial action ineffectual. Ever ask yourself why the state and employers went to such lengths to enforce such a legal framework?
The posties in Belfast engaged in tactics that many of them thought were new - they did recognise a need to go beyond disputes that simply had people standing about on picket lines for the duration getting more and more demoralised. They wanted their demostrations to be about unity across the sectarian divide, and they were, they wanted their protests to be defiant and jubilant, and they were, they went out and got support on the streets instead of standing about isolated and being increasingly demoralised by one sided media coverage. Links were fostered across trades union divisions and there was a great amount of practical solidarity given. A lot of the 'new' approach they adopted seems new given the moribund state of the trades unions but they were simply relearning lessons that workers had learnt in more radical times in other struggles.
To write off workplace struggles as being "incapable of effecting real change any more" is truly appalling coming from a communist. Particularly a libertarian one - how else are we actually going to effect real change? The Capitalist system is after all an economic one that, as john points out, is centred on wage labour and the point of production - the workplace.
don't be daft the real battle is a parochial one against gentrification. 
Feb 20 2006 21:04
#7
dont forget there are other manifestations of class struggle than just strikes, and we as communists can do loads in our workplaces to agitate/organise.
ok, i may have come across as being cynical in my comment about our upcoming strike, but it is more of a criticism of how unions handle the genuine discontent among the workers, rather than disbelief on the potential there is in the education sector for communists to organise.
oh, and the compulsory star:
Feb 20 2006 21:51
#8
Bookchin's dead?! Shit.
Feb 20 2006 21:55
#9
888 wrote:
Bookchin's dead?! Shit.
don't get my hopes up! 
Feb 20 2006 22:10
#10
Catch wrote:
I and many other communists have never been in a strike, but here's two whose recent experience of industrial action is that it's at best ineffective, at worst just unpaid holiday to be made up with increased intensity the rest of the working week. There are exceptions to that, but they're often, not always, in transport, construction, manufacturing etc. - the old strongholds, not the jobs that most of us end up in now. John. like you said on that strike thread - there may be less strike days, but there's likely much more sickies (and web-surfing etc.) instead. The struggles are still there, albeit in modified (to an often highly individualised and atomised) form, but they're less and less of a threat as time goes on.
You're arguing from completely the wrong end of this. These are results of the fact that workers' power has been massively damaged in the workplace. Not that the workplace isn't an important location of class struggle. It's by far the most important - I mean it's what defines class, and our existence as workers ffs!
TBH like boul I'm massively shocked you could say this.
Are you also trying to argue that land ownership is now more central to capitalism than wage labour? And so what you're advocating class struggle purely by squatting?
Feb 20 2006 23:05
#11
Boulcolonialboy wrote:
Its extremely unlikely that there is any credence to your suggestion (at least implied) that posties are increasing their productivity for an employer they have just won a victory against. I'll ask the next time I'm chatting to a postie - but forcing them to work harder after a dispute over management bullying and harassment doesn't seem likely unless Royal Mail want another strike. And they don't.
Not much of a point really, and I'm not trying to downplay the importance of this at all, merely point out that normal service is resumed pretty quickly. iirc there've been other royal mail strikes where mail has simply been moved to other sorting offices (although that's often resulted in further strikes as well).
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That you and many other communists have never been on strike does say something about the levels of resistance in many sections of the working class but your point about recent experience of ineffectual industrial action is made without any hint that workers actually have any agency at all.
Sorry I don't get this. A lot of industrial action has moved from something which had an economic effect on companies to something very much symbolic - in the case of SuperSizeMyPay almost entirely symbolic from what I've seen.
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Postal workers embark on unofficial industrial action because they are well aware of the limitations imposed on the processes involved in the official variety - legal processes designed to make industrial action ineffectual. Ever ask yourself why the state and employers went to such lengths to enforce such a legal framework?
Yeah of course. It makes me very happy to see unofficial action occurring, the strikes in New York were another encouraging example. You seem to have got the impression I'm anti-wildcats. I've got no problem with people organising in the workplace, what I'm arguing is that the limitations of it are very, very severe. And I've argued previously that a lot of workplaces most people would rather get shot of than organise in for better wages - as they've no real use to anyone apart from as a source of surplus value to employers.
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A lot of the 'new' approach they adopted seems new given the moribund state of the trades unions but they were simply relearning lessons that workers had learnt in more radical times in other struggles.
Again nothing I've said disputes this. What I did dispute is whether the old, tried and tested methods of all-out wildcats can apply any more to service sector, public sector and other 'non-essential' jobs that have little impact on the rest of the economy. Transport and communications (and manufacturing) work is a pretty specific area IMO, and Bookchin's arguments, esp. in the '60s and '70s were very much against the old Maoists who were sending people into the factories to prosletyse - could equally be applicable to all the precarity/new social subject bollocks that's put around now. 70, 80 years ago, taking over the existing means of production and self-managing them was a possibility. The productive forces have developed so much, and so often been put to ecologically and socially destructive (or simply useless) ends that a fundamental reorganisation of production is necessary, one which will require the dissolution of many, many workplaces, massive retraining of many, many workers.
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To write off workplace struggles as being "incapable of effecting real change any more" is truly appalling coming from a communist. Particularly a libertarian one - how else are we actually going to effect real change? The Capitalist system is after all an economic one that, as john points out, is centred on wage labour and the point of production - the workplace.
Capitalism is centred on the mediation of production and consumption - via money and the commodity form. Consumption is as much affected by the commodity form as wages are - what do wages buy after all? To put the workplace above all other sectors of struggle - particularly those of the unwaged - claimants, pensioners, home workers - is to ignore the very much economic struggles that go on every day outside the workplace. If nothing else struggles over rent and prices.
Feb 20 2006 23:07
#12
Simple withdrawal of labour is not enough anymore, but a lot of the best strikes have required more than simply not going to work.
In the example I gave (I was non-unionised and on holiday btw) the pickets did fuck all allowing the place to function. People could have gone in and shut the place down. Occupied it, or at least set off the fucking fire alarms or something. The managers ran a skeleton service using casual summer staff, who were all students and non-unionised. There were no attempts to win us over.
In my current workplace I'm hindered by the fact that for most of the people there its a cushy number. They do fuck all work, can't get fired and get reasonable money for it.
For those in the same boat as me we've sorted ourselves out better conditions by alowing things to go wrong and proving that when we aren't there it goes to shit. I don't think we could risk a strike, I know I'm the only one who'd be willing to do it. All I can do is minor on the job stuff, but its a way of passing the time.
Feb 20 2006 23:26
#13
John. wrote:
You're arguing from completely the wrong end of this. These are results of the fact that workers' power has been massively damaged in the workplace. Not that the workplace isn't an important location of class struggle.
Do you think that power can be regained in the workplace to any where near as much the extent as it used to be? You'd agree that capital has expanded more and more into the free time of workers? What if I said "struggles outside the workplace" are increasingly as important, rather than the workplace is less important There's been a massive decomposition of the working class since the late-'60s early-'70s, and although as I'll readily admit there's some great exceptions to the decline in power, I don't think it'll be got back in the same way as it was at all - to say so is ahistorical.
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It's by far the most important - I mean it's what defines class, and our existence as workers ffs!
Be a good communist and don't write of pensioners, students, home workers and the unemployed as members of the working class. Our relationship is not defined by whether we have a workplace or not.
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Capital no longer merely subjugates the worker inside production, in the factory, but in the whole of his life. To this end it fights against the worker's spontaneously communist tendencies. Its action is at the same time economic, ideological and political. It develops a mind-numbing mass consumption. [50] It speaks in praise of the worker and the waged condition, thus creating a mythical world of work where the worker is a king. « Workers » parties play a primary role in this mystification : Labour Day as a national event, workers festivals, workers culture, which are grafted onto the workers traditional attempts at self-expression, dating from the time when a minority of skilled workers reached a level of cultural consumption (and perhaps, to a certain extent, of cultural creation) denied to other workers -- quite simply, for example, because they could not read. One speaks in praise of work, and one celebrates its « dignity », whereas another type of activity is possible and necessary for economic and social development. The organisations of the labour movement also claim to continue the efforts towards the advancement of workers during the last century, an attempt which is purely reactionary today. The only social « advancement » which is possible is that of all workers (and of humanity) producing social relations adapted to contemporary social development. One could show the extent of this ideology of work : in the reformist labour movement; in the most brutal counter-revolution (Nazism); in the Russian counter-revolution and generally in all « socialist » countries which glorify the proletariat and the proletarian condition. [51] This is the opposite of the Communist position which is the destruction of the proletarian condition as an out-of-date social relation. The goal of capital is to simultaneously drown the proletariat in the ideology of consumption, and in the consumption of ideology. It also meets an economic need : to fight against the tendency to overproduction. [52] Exchange must be spread as widely as possible : it is the colonisation of society by the commodity. But, in its function, the commodity is only at the service of capital : any destruction of the reign of the commodity by-passes that of the domination of capital.
http://www.geocities.com/~johngray/capstat.htm
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But the role of work has also been reinterpreted in a different light, since the 70s, mainly in France: up to now, the labouring classes have only tried to assert themselves as the class of labour, and to socialise work, not to do away with it, because up to now capitalist development prevented communist prospects from emerging. Whatever the proletarians (or radical minorities) may have thought, they were fighting for a capitalism without capitalists, for a worker led capitalism. A real critique of work was impossible in the 60s-70s, and the "68" period is analyzed as the last possible effort of labour to pose itself as the dominant pole within the capital-wage labour couple. Now things would be completely different, because a restructured capital no longer leaves any scope for a "workers" capitalism. Théorie Communiste has been the main exponent of this perspective. (5)
http://libcom.org/library/to-work-or-not-to-work-dauve
Just so's you and revol can't restrict this discussion to me and Bookchin.
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Are you also trying to argue that land ownership is now more central to capitalism than wage labour?
Nope. I'm saying that in the area you and I live, land ownership often provides a much higher return on money capital than any industries that might occur on that land. Therefore someone preventing (or even delaying for a short while) a multi-million pound development in Dalston may do far, far more economic damage than going on strike at their job, if they even have a job (and no I'm not talking about professional activists). Similarly, rent being such a high proportion of income, a rent strike might well have far more economic impact (and incidentally applies to as many people as wage labour does) than striking off a job.
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And so what you're advocating class struggle purely by squatting?
Feb 20 2006 23:29
#14
ahh right cos the point is to cause economic disruption , thats why strikes are important?
I think you'll find it's because the necessity of the struggle necessitates the widening of struggles, their spread. not to mention the realisation with a strike that the world is not ran by commodities but by your own labour power.
Feb 20 2006 23:35
#15
revol68 wrote:
ahh right cos the point is to cause economic disruption , thats why strikes are important?
That tends to help. If they don't cause economic disruption they can be safely ignored no? Look at the tea garden lockouts in India http://libcom.org/news/article.php/tea-garden-lockout-180206 - workers had to go back to work in defiance of their employer, and only did so after three had died. And they produce stuff that people actually use!
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I think you'll find it's because the necessity of the struggle necessitates the widening of struggles, their spread.
To increase the economic disruption ne c'est pas?
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not to mention the realisation with a strike that the world is not ran by commodities but by your own labour power.
My labour power don't run much mate, and neither does yours iirc. That's the whole fucking point of this discussion you started but are wilfully ignoring.
Feb 20 2006 23:39
#16
Catch wrote:
revol68 wrote:
ahh right cos the point is to cause economic disruption , thats why strikes are important?That tends to help. If they don't cause economic disruption they can be safely ignored no? Look at the tea garden lockouts in India http://libcom.org/news/article.php/tea-garden-lockout-180206 - workers had to go back to work in defiance of their employer, and only did so after three had died. And they produce stuff that people actually use!
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I think you'll find it's because the necessity of the struggle necessitates the widening of struggles, their spread.
To increase the economic disruption ne c'est pas?
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not to mention the realisation with a strike that the world is not ran by commodities but by your own labour power.
My labour power don't run much mate, and neither does yours iirc. That's the whole fucking point of this discussion you started but are wilfully ignoring.
sorry it does run much. It's all part of the perpeuation of capital that in turn sets to work all the useful and useless shite in the world.
Feb 20 2006 23:52
#17
Catch wrote:
John. wrote:
You're arguing from completely the wrong end of this. These are results of the fact that workers' power has been massively damaged in the workplace. Not that the workplace isn't an important location of class struggle.
Do you think that power can be regained in the workplace to any where near as much the extent as it used to be?
If not, then we might as well give up now.
I believe at some point we will have all the power in workplaces. If I didn't I wouldn't bother with any of this shit!
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You'd agree that capital has expanded more and more into the free time of workers? What if I said "struggles outside the workplace" are increasingly as important, rather than the workplace is less important
But you didn't, you said this:
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struggles in workplaces [are] unlikely to effect real change any more
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There's been a massive decomposition of the working class since the late-'60s early-'70s, and although as I'll readily admit there's some great exceptions to the decline in power, I don't think it'll be got back in the same way as it was at all - to say so is ahistorical.
Again - what you're doing here is you're taking Bookchin's critique of factory-mad Maoists and trying to apply it, completely falsely, to us. No anarchosyndicalist is saying things are going to be the same as back then.
I know why you're saying workers are weak, cos jobs are temp, casual etc. - but that's because workers are weak. Job security was won by workers' struggle - in conditions far less favourable than today. It's now being eroded as struggle has lessened. If you're saying capital can't grant reforms now, like job security again, then that sounds like you're arguing ICC-style decadence. Which is just weird.
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It's by far the most important - I mean it's what defines class, and our existence as workers ffs!
Be a good communist and don't write of pensioners, students, home workers and the unemployed as members of the working class. Our relationship is not defined by whether we have a workplace or not.
a: I didn't do that, and b: no not as individuals but as a class it is.
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Therefore someone preventing (or even delaying for a short while) a multi-million pound development in Dalston may do far, far more economic damage than going on strike at their job, if they even have a job (and no I'm not talking about professional activists).
I don't see what the relevance of "economic damage" is. For me, the point is to improve the conditions of workers, but mainly to develop alternate forms of organisation which can take over the running of society.
Which in real terms means taking control over every workplace on the planet, and converting production to meet the needs of the 6 billion (and all the rest by then) people on the planet. Occupying a theatre or a cafe or whatever, while it can be useful and beneficial to workers is still small fry compared to this.
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Similarly, rent being such a high proportion of income, a rent strike might well have far more economic impact (and incidentally applies to as many people as wage labour does) than striking off a job.
That logic doesn't really apply if you're saying "what's more important", cos wages will always be more than 100% of rent, and thus always more important. That's not to say travel, rent, consumable price struggles aren't important, just not nearly as important.
Feb 21 2006 00:06
#18
whats hilarious was that in the 50's and 60's we had every other cunt talking about the end of the proletariat, amazingly the 60's and 70's saw a huge rise in working class militancy.
Do you really think that the proletariats current situation in this country is not historical and temporal? Perhaps akin to the period between the complete proletarianisation of peasants and artisans and the recomposition of the proletariat in unskilled industrial organisations?
What about the proletariat in India and China? Don't you think that they will force the hand of capital as the working class in the west did? Can capital continualy stay in flight?
Feb 21 2006 00:33
#19
John. wrote:
If not, then we might as well give up now.
I believe at some point we will have all the power in workplaces. If I didn't I wouldn't bother with any of this shit!
Ok maybe I didn't put that so well - I'll blame lack of sleep and real ale this evening.
The workplaces as physical spaces yes, but I don't think "power within the workplace" is sufficient. In other words, I don't think that power can be regained on the same terms as it was before - within the workplace as workers. The workplace as a separate arena of human existence needs to be superceded, not reinforced.
Jack in a certain very popular interview wrote:
we should work towards eliminating the exploitation and root causes of it, rather than trying to manage it ourselves; if people were ever to be in a position to be able to manage it in any significant way, then I think they'd have power to do a lot better than that.
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struggles in workplaces [are] unlikely to effect real change any more
hmm, I don't think I'm putting this well since that's not really what I think. It's not enough, and it's not an option for a large number of people in any real sense, and a lot of individual workplaces are largely irrelevant to capital, let alone a future communist society. That doesn't mean people shouldn't fight for better wages/conditions, it doesn't make stuff like Zanon-style self-management unimportant, but those struggles will not result in a communist society if they remain on those terms since they're firmly within capital.
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Again - what you're doing here is you're taking Bookchin's critique of factory-mad Maoists and trying to apply it, completely falsely, to us.
I think asking me if I think the class struggle should be confined entirely to squatting is worse, as are Revol's one-liners about parochialism to avoid answering Dauve (or for that matter never quite getting around to the Bookchin thread from months and months ago.
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I know why you're saying workers are weak, cos jobs are temp, casual etc. - but that's because workers are weak.
Workers are weak because workers are weak?
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Job security was won by workers' struggle - in conditions far less favourable than today. It's now being eroded as struggle has lessened. If you're saying capital can't grant reforms now, like job security again, then that sounds like you're arguing ICC-style decadence. Which is just weird.
Fordism, Keynesianism - yes they were won by struggle, but they were also concessions granted by Capital to head off potentially much further reaching struggles (say council housing in response to the post-war squatting movement) - co-opting certain elements into capital and marginalising others. That strength wasn't broken down because there was less struggle, years and years or 'reform' against very hard-fought struggles were necessary to erode the centres of working class strength which had built up. That quote looks like you're attributing all agency to workers and none to capital tbh. I'm not into this decadence stuff, but I like Werner Bonefeld's things on monetarism, and a lot of the fordism/toyotism discussions around Cleaver and others. I think there's a whiff of decadence in some of that though.
TBH I think ecological collapse/energy crisis is more likely to make improvements in quality of life and standard of living unsustainable fairly shortly more than economic imperatives either way.
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b: no not as individuals but as a class it is.
Then the class as a whole needs to act against capital as a whole. All people in the working class have to buy the means of life as commodities, that's more universal than the capital/wage relationship.
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I don't see what the relevance of "economic damage" is. For me, the point is to improve the conditions of workers, but mainly to develop alternate forms of organisation which can take over the running of society.
Tube drivers are able to gain better working conditions because their strike has an economic impact across many different sectors. The effectiveness of a strike is often (not always) linked to the economic impact it has on the company - either directly or via pressure from affected industries. Strikes (or even moves towards unionisation) at employers like Starbucks or ASDA don't have the same effect - in fact they often result in open victimisation, sackings, union bashing etc. Do you disagree with this? Do you think the lack of workers' strength in those areas is tautological, or due to the way those sectors are organised and re-organised.
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Which in real terms means taking control over every workplace on the planet, and converting production to meet the needs of the 6 billion (and all the rest by then) people on the planet. Occupying a theatre or a cafe or whatever, while it can be useful and beneficial to workers is still small fry compared to this.
So's a one day symbolic strike, what's your point? Are cafes and theatres (and schools in Glasgow) not workplaces? Are the people occupying them doing so 'as workers'?
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That logic doesn't really apply if you're saying "what's more important", cos wages will always be more than 100% of rent,
Actually mine aren't at the moment, although obviously that can't apply across the board all the time.
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That's not to say travel, rent, consumable price struggles aren't important, just not nearly as important.
Why not? I'm interested in how people can effect change in their day-to-day lives, to undermine the commodity form. This may well be in the form of struggles against rent, against fare hikes, against regressive taxes, against property development - these will be the only recourse for many different groups of people at certain times. Otherwise you restrict all the potentialities of communism to workers as 'workers', not against that condition.
Feb 21 2006 00:42
#20
revol68 wrote:
whats hilarious was that in the 50's and 60's we had every other cunt talking about the end of the proletariat, amazingly the 60's and 70's saw a huge rise in working class militancy.
The thirties saw the end of the last proletarian revolution. The '60s and '70s saw the growth of the civil rights, feminist, ecology, unwaged and other movements that all had their faults but also pointed to new forms of struggle. The industrial militancy in the '70s was in many cases a defensive response to attacks that began well before Thatcher and Reagan.
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Do you really think that the proletariats current situation in this country is not historical and temporal?
I'm arguing exactly that's it's historical and temporal.
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What about the proletariat in India and China? Don't you think that they will force the hand of capital as the working class in the west did? Can capital continualy stay in flight?
Force the hand in what sense? I don't think we'll see fifties style jobs for life/consumerism/baby booms in China and India no, not unless it comes out of a world war as catastrophic and as destructive of existing capitals and populations as the conditions which led to fordism and keynesianism - and that'd likely be one that few of us would be around to say 'I told you so' after.
Feb 21 2006 12:16
#21
This is a highly interesting and salient argument.
I had thought reading that first page that Catch was going to get tanked (as I usually have every time I've stated my views on this subject) but I think some sensible points have been raised here. I've also been thinking a lot about this subject because the question arises when you start (and bear in mind I'm one of these neo-Leninist, yah-boo, anarcho-Trots) to have some power in your communities and be causing problems (as some comrades evidently are at the moment), what about the rest of the time.
So on that note I thought I'd add some sententious comments to muddy the waters - given that in the past I have been quite, quite wrong and off the mark on this issue.
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I know why you're saying workers are weak, cos jobs are temp, casual etc. - but that's because workers are weak. Job security was won by workers' struggle - in conditions far less favourable than today. It's now being eroded as struggle has lessened. If you're saying capital can't grant reforms now, like job security again, then that sounds like you're arguing ICC-style decadence
Yes. In fact the very nature of casualised jobs and fuckall rights and so on was the basis for the IWW's workplace strategy. Given enough solid work and enough good arguments and a few examples of where solidarity can bring about achievements then the struggle can only spread as casualised workers spread to different jobs elsewhere. This can lead to a phenomenal growth in power.
I think this is what these IWW types in New York seem to be at with their starbucks stuff.
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I don't see what the relevance of "economic damage" is. For me, the point is to improve the conditions of workers, but mainly to develop alternate forms of organisation which can take over the running of society.Which in real terms means taking control over every workplace on the planet, and converting production to meet the needs of the 6 billion (and all the rest by then) people on the planet. Occupying a theatre or a cafe or whatever, while it can be useful and beneficial to workers is still small fry compared to this.
Catch is maybe just looking at this through a very different strategy John. I think to be honest we have to be doing both, alongside each other. I can totally see how that old IWW strategy in relation to casualised workers and so on can help towards what you are outlining, but I think in reality it is just a really cool propaganda weapon which will also make a real difference to some workers lives; enough in itself maybe and I don't seek to devalue it. However as a revolutionary strategy, and not a gradualist takeover of the workplace, what matters is key workers, energy sector employees, transport workers, dockers, haulage workers and distribution workers [I'd list production and agriculture but we don't really have those in this country to any great extent anymore]; by and large capital has had the good sense not to fuck too much with the rights and job contracts of workers in these sectors, and where it hasn't it has seen resistance (for example these victorious postal workers).
I'm sorry to say it but I don't see much - other than public relations and the possibility of spreading dissent amongst other workers in the same and related sectors - coming from the TK Max shopworkers union.
I think it's great and all but it's not quite the same as a working class community causing millions and millions of pounds worth of lost revenue to individual developers by making their plans impossible.
We have several working class struggles going on at the moment in Glasgow that, if victorious, will be causing very serious damage to the local ruling class. Here's three:-
1) There is a tenants association in Sighthill which is trying to resist demolition of their scheme. The council plans to build an olympic village on the site - which is prime real estate right next to the M8 motorway and the city centre. The village will consist of a training ground and luxury flats. As part of the city's plans to turn pupate it into the most used conference city in Europe (currently it is number three) the city council has identified a need to build 20,000 new luxury houses for sale to yuppies - for the image they project - and companies - who'll buy the flats based on the image and who'll use them as conference infrastructure.
There is very real money riding on this - and it's tied into the 'regeneration' of the canal next to my house - which we're begingin to build up to contest now. It's obviously not just a 'parochial issue' for Sighthill as well (so Revol68 can go and fuck himself with statements like that) because the GHA wants to demolish 1/3 of its stock (29,000 houses) almost all of which will be in the city centre area, and in every single case the city council owns the land that those houses currently sit on - kerching $$$£$£$£$££$$$$! Moreover many of the tenants there have sought to form links in other areas, and through other agencies (Glasgow Save Our Homes Campaign, Scottish Tenants Organisation) precisely BECAUSE they don't see it as a purely local issue.
2) The closure of 28 schools being contested in some areas. These sites will become prime real estate - again, just like Sighthill, they are owned by the council, and the plans are much the same.
This has the side benefit of causing areas of parkland and greenspace to be developed for the new superschools to go in their place. This sets a fine precendent which ties nicely into number 3. And as we have seen parents and campaigners have sought links across the city.
3) The parks are about to be developed. New arenas for capital are always being sought and the Glasgow ruling class have broadly decided that the lastest avenue for the expansion of markets is into city parks, either by directly building on them, or by opening up public buildings closed for years due to cutbacks in the civic infrastructure - for use as shops, pubs, clubs, bistros/restaurants. We've seen the risible spectre of a 'fairtrade' cafe which absolutely must be built in one park's public toilets because of their committment to freetrade, when across the road (not in the park) we have a lovely council shop that has laibn empty for years; we've seen housing built on Thornwood park, football pitches being sold off to housing developers in Milton and North Kelvin, we've had contested plans to open bandstands and pubs and we have a costa coffee (ASFAIAA) moving into Elderslie park in Govan, and as a result of the 'public consultation exercise' GCC held with about 1000 children and special interest groups we've been told that parks now 'have to be opened up' to city services because what is lacking is a place to buy sweeties.
This is being contested in local struggles everywhere.
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So in summary, and sorry to have been a bit rambly, I think really there is a need for two workplace strategies. One which is focused on casual workers, the other on key sectors. The approaches need to be very different.
I think all of this also needs to be done completely in parallel with a community strategy, which in many ways should form the basis on much of our organisation. For example there is a lot of scope for the use of welfare advice centres/social centres and a cross over with claimants unions and workers rights/workers education, as well as the use of such places as labour exchanges to fuck up temping agencies (the scourge of the 19th century). We can beat this stuff using the same tactics that worked in tha past, but it shouldn't be divorced from a community strategy. A busy community centre with the workers running it popular in their own communities and involved in community campaigns will have a lot more clout educatingf other citizens about their rights in the workplace, and how 'how they might seek to assert them', no?
Feb 21 2006 13:11
#22
not to state the obvious, but it's about people really isn't it? if people occupy a theatre, and get what they want through this form of struggle, then it's pretty relevant to the class stuggle since it increases their autonomy, equality, solidarity etc.
revol's point about seeing that the world is run by labour power only really makes sense in terms of a really big fucking strike. small scale strikes do operate in terms of economic blackmail, between workers and bosses. (although actually i think, these are the same in practice, being conscious that the bosses depend on our work is assumed by a strike)
the precondition of a major strike is a conscious and solidaristic working class, which is developed through class struggle, whatever its manifestation. i think calling such actions parochial is juvenile at best, people dont usually start with a class consciousness, they start with small things, like wage cuts, or disrespect from managers, or bin taxes, or whatever.
oh for a beard..
Feb 21 2006 14:56
#23
Catch wrote:
John. wrote:
If not, then we might as well give up now.
I believe at some point we will have all the power in workplaces. If I didn't I wouldn't bother with any of this shit!
Ok maybe I didn't put that so well - I'll blame lack of sleep and real ale this evening.
thank god for that. I was really worried!
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The workplaces as physical spaces yes, but I don't think "power within the workplace" is sufficient. In other words, I don't think that power can be regained on the same terms as it was before - within the workplace as workers. The workplace as a separate arena of human existence needs to be superceded, not reinforced.
Sorry I don't think that's a relevant argument. Power in the workplace is a very concrete idea. It's about having a say in what you do at work - which is where most of us spend most of our waking lives. Why can't people get more say over what they do with more of their lives' activity as "before"??
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Jack in a certain very popular interview wrote:
we should work towards eliminating the exploitation and root causes of it, rather than trying to manage it ourselves; if people were ever to be in a position to be able to manage it in any significant way, then I think they'd have power to do a lot better than that.;)
I know this is tongue-in-cheek, but I've seen other mis-references to self-management on here in the past 2 days. Self-management under capitalism is pointless and shite. Increased workers' power in workplaces is not.
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struggles in workplaces [are] unlikely to effect real change any morehmm, I don't think I'm putting this well since that's not really what I think. It's not enough, and it's not an option for a large number of people in any real sense, and a lot of individual workplaces are largely irrelevant to capital
That doesn't matter though. Individual workplaces have always been "largely irrelevant". Struggles take place *within* workplaces though - for a boss his workers refusing to work is still relevant, even though it may not hit the Dow Jones.
Workplace struggle is much more of an option now than it was in say the late 19th/early 20th century. On what basis are you saying it's "not an option"? It's only "not an option" cos we've lost our culture of struggle after years of defeat.
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let alone a future communist society. That doesn't mean people shouldn't fight for better wages/conditions, it doesn't make stuff like Zanon-style self-management unimportant, but those struggles will not result in a communist society if they remain on those terms since they're firmly within capital.
again, you're not arguing against me here
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Again - what you're doing here is you're taking Bookchin's critique of factory-mad Maoists and trying to apply it, completely falsely, to us.
I think asking me if I think the class struggle should be confined entirely to squatting is worse
I was being glib - you seem to be being serious. Also of course mine was even less insulting, cos despite the negative associations you hold with "squatting" it's one of the most advanced forms of class struggle there is. So i think i was being quite generous.
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I know why you're saying workers are weak, cos jobs are temp, casual etc. - but that's because workers are weak.
Workers are weak because workers are weak?
No - workers aren't weak BECAUSE of casual labour temp agencies - we have them because workers were weak and allowed them to creep back in. This isn't an argument against workplace struggle - it shows we need to start struggling again.
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Fordism, Keynesianism...
so are you now saying capital can still grant consessions to workers? In that case then your statement I was disagreeing with - that workplace struggle can't effect change - is false.
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Then the class as a whole needs to act against capital as a whole. All people in the working class have to buy the means of life as commodities, that's more universal than the capital/wage relationship.
!
Are you really saying struggles around consumption are more important than production??
Of course they're not separate, but the point of production is always where workers will have the most power. Not to mention the biggest part of their lives!
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Do you think the lack of workers' strength in those areas is tautological, or due to the way those sectors are organised and re-organised.
I don't know what you mean by this. But obviously some sectors it's easier for workers to be strong than others. Hence the importance of solidarity. I don't see how this affects the argument though.
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So's a one day symbolic strike, what's your point? Are cafes and theatres (and schools in Glasgow) not workplaces? Are the people occupying them doing so 'as workers'?
ok fair point. have more to say but gotta get back to work...
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Why not? I'm interested in how people can effect change in their day-to-day lives, to undermine the commodity form. This may well be in the form of struggles against rent, against fare hikes, against regressive taxes, against property development - these will be the only recourse for many different groups of people at certain times. Otherwise you restrict all the potentialities of communism to workers as 'workers', not against that condition.
You know I'm not a workerist. You said workplace struggle can't affect change any more, I guess cos workers are more atomised. You then mention these types of struggle - in arenas where workers are far more atomised (since w/c organisation is MUCH stronger in the workplace than anyone else). Most of these kinds of struggles have never happened here at all, and elsewhere hardly ever have (save 1970s Italy). Workplace struggles still do win workers big gains in this country - and throughout the world. These kinds of community struggles are far less widespread and have far less success. Why do you think they can change things when workplace struggles can't?
Feb 21 2006 19:57
#24
John. wrote:
Sorry I don't think that's a relevant argument. Power in the workplace is a very concrete idea. It's about having a say in what you do at work - which is where most of us spend most of our waking lives. Why can't people get more say over what they do with more of their lives' activity as "before"??
"Having a say in what you do at work" sounds like my team training sessions every couple of months. Fighting for higher wages is great (although most fights now are to stop wage cuts in one form or another, not for real increases), so are other struggles over conditions. However, a lot of people really don't care what they actually do at work, aren't going to be there for very long, and will probably move to another job if they want any serious change to happen, whether that'll actually happen or not. That's a result of both strength and weakness depending on the job but the identification with a particular occupation has been very much eroded over the years, and I don't think that'll come back - a lot of people don't want job security in the old sense (bites tongue to avoid this becoming a discussion about some very popular euro-words).
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Individual workplaces have always been "largely irrelevant". Struggles take place *within* workplaces though - for a boss his workers refusing to work is still relevant, even though it may not hit the Dow Jones.
To a large extent I'd agree. However there's also the fact that many, many individual workplaces are franchises of national or international companies. Some (like Starbucks) even run some of them at a loss quite happily due to tax structures and attempts to crowd out competition. There's increasingly more remoteness between bosses and workers, and that poses many, many more challenges than it used to. And that's not even mentioning agencies where I'm not aware of any strikes having occurred (which may well be because I've not heard about it, not because it hasn't happened).
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Workplace struggle is much more of an option now than it was in say the late 19th/early 20th century.
What makes you say this? Mortgages, consumer debt and other loans, people have a lot more to lose by all out workplace struggles than they used to.
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No - workers aren't weak BECAUSE of casual labour temp agencies - we have them because workers were weak and allowed them to creep back in.
No I think they were brought back in to erode and/or break the strength of workers - as with outsourcing, privatisation etc. We have all those measures brought in because workers were so strong that capital had to significantly reorganise in order survive. So yes I think the current weakness is partly due to these forms of organisation which have been introduced, '70s/'80s management theory like 'teamwork' etc. - all devised to counter shop floor strength, not because shop floor strength was already weak.
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Fordism, Keynesianism...
so are you now saying capital can still grant consessions to workers?
I'm saying capital granted massive concessions to workers, at the end of the most promising revolutionary period in the inter-war years- heading off a great deal of unrest and directing it into increased consumption, the nuclear family etc. etc.. Those concessions (like pensions, the NHS etc.) are now being attacked massively, and I'm certainly not sure that we'll see new concessions in their place at the moment no. What we've seen in the past 25 years is a massive increase in repressive measures instead, with capital expenditure going on that rather than granting concessions. What do you have in mind exactly - better wages, shorter hours, longer working life? We may see that a bit in China and India (though nothing like American in the '50s), but I don't think it'll happen to a significant extent here no, not widespread. I'd love to be proved wrong of course.
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In that case then your statement I was disagreeing with - that workplace struggle can't effect change
Can't effect real change. Of course it's possible to win something sometimes, but as the 'main' or 'most important' form of struggle, I don't think it can win everything no.
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Are you really saying struggles around consumption are more important than production??
No I'm saying that capital as a social relation is to do with the opposition of use value and exchange value in the commodity, and it's that we have to fight against. Wage labour can't operate as a social relation unless the means of life are presented as commodities - separating the two doesn't work. Many of the crises we've seen recently (such as recent famines) have been crises of consumption - insufficient money - not production. In many industries there's over-production, sale restrictions etc. Capital isn't necessarily about increasing productivity any more - it's often about making the cheapest, shoddiest goods possible so they break quickly and have to be replaced, or so they don't fill you up properly. Or for that matter microsoft making broken websites to shut out other browsers, bloatware. Or providing business services, agencies that leech off both capital and labour and have no capacity to generate productive capital themselves. In many industries it's not a lack of workers' strength in the industry that's the problem, but the industry itself.
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So's a one day symbolic strike, what's your point? Are cafes and theatres (and schools in Glasgow) not workplaces? Are the people occupying them doing so 'as workers'?
ok fair point. have more to say but gotta get back to work...
Cool looking forward to it.
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You know I'm not a workerist. You said workplace struggle can't affect change any more, I guess cos workers are more atomised. You then mention these types of struggle - in arenas where workers are far more atomised (since w/c organisation is MUCH stronger in the workplace than anyone else). Most of these kinds of struggles have never happened here at all, and elsewhere hardly ever have (save 1970s Italy). Workplace struggles still do win workers big gains in this country - and throughout the world. These kinds of community struggles are far less widespread and have far less success.
Not sure about this - there's always dozens of campaigns against school/hospital closures, housing sell-offs etc. etc., but they're hidden on page 15 of local papers across the country. There may be very few occupations (although would we know about the Glasgow school ones if it wasn't for Nick and afraser?), but similarly a lot of workplace struggle never makes it to strike action, or never gets reported - or is done in the form of loo breaks, fag breaks, web surfing, nicking stuff, arriving late, leaving early etc. that's not winning many tangible gains either.
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Why do you think they can change things when workplace struggles can't?
I don't think either of them can change things as they are - the division between those community campaigns and workplace organising (not just an ideological division, the very real divisions that are actually out there) - is the main barrier to any kind of change. Nick said the same thing. It's not just that we've lost a culture of resistance and militancy, a lot of strikes result in outright hostility from customers, scabbing is often seen as people helping out to keep things going etc.
Stuff like those school occupations blurs that terrain, because although it's a place of work, it's a lot of other things as well - as are most workplaces where people still deal face-to-face to any great extent. I know you won't disagree that these things need to be joined up much more, but I also think it requires a move away from the idea of workplace organising as an activity in itself, and quite possibly the same thing in terms of community organising. The divisions, although they're there, have to be breached for anything serious to occur, and that will mean treating work as one of several activities that occurs in an area, with those 'at work' and those 'at leisure' in largely the same position regardless of the function they're carrying out at any particular time.
Feb 25 2006 14:03
#25
Hey sorry to arrive a bit late on this, but surely the priority should be taking heed of the nature of the struggle in your locality and offering solidarity?? I mean, to restrict yourself to workplace struggle is short-sighted. If there is a history of working class neighbourhood organising, why the fuck shouldn't you get involved?? As I understand it, the aim is increase working class self-confidence, encourage working class organisation ("autonomously"...although I don't like that word) and facilitate the communist tendency in society. Noone needs another Trot front group to continue fabricating campaigns for their own sake and as a paper-selling opportunity.
As far as I can see, it would be a mistake to present as polar opposites workplace struggle and so-called "parochial anti-gentrification campaigns", the two can surely operate in tandem. Whether there needs to be discussion on the worth of anti-gentrification campaigns is an entirely different issue, as far as I can see (although possibly a good idea for another thread).
Feb 25 2006 14:13
#26
Alan_is_Fucking_Dead wrote:
I mean, to restrict yourself to workplace struggle is short-sighted.
No one has said that though - you're arguing against a non-existant position.
Catch said "workplace struggle can't affect real change" - i disagreed.
And so catch then please answer this: if workplace struggle can't, what can?
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If there is a history of working class neighbourhood organising, why the fuck shouldn't you get involved??
obviously no reason why not to. But in UK society where the fuck is there this? If anything - even though it's tiny - there's still far more tradition of struggle in workplaces than any geographical areas.
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As far as I can see, it would be a mistake to present as polar opposites workplace struggle and so-called "parochial anti-gentrification campaigns", the two can surely operate in tandem.
Again, as I can see no one has said that (other than revol in gest). I think of course you can't separate the workplace from other areas of w/c life - but the workplace is the place where we're strongest. The only person who's said categorically one of these is no good - is catch. Though I'm thinking he's just not explained himself well...
Feb 25 2006 15:47
#27
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Again, as I can see no one has said that (other than revol in gest).
Revol wasn't gesting. He has said time and time again that he views community struggle as a waste of time, and somewhat obfuscatory in that he feels it takes energy away from fighting the man down the local PR consultancy.
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obviously no reason why not to. But in UK society where the fuck is there this? If anything - even though it's tiny - there's still far more tradition of struggle in workplaces than any geographical areas.
This is simply not the case John. Haven't you heard of the rent strikes? The closest anywhere got to a revolutionary situation was in 1919 when English tank regiments were deployed to Glasgow, after it became clear that the HLI (Highland Light Infantry - Glasgow's garrison, put in place in the 19th century because "there [were] now over a hundred thousand fenians resident in the city, many of them republicans") would mutiny (and we have secondary source evidence, in Glasgow, that in fact they did and that gun battles were only staved off by the swift actions of various people who were subsequently all granted lordships).
Also during the general strike all of the fighting that took place was based in communities, as a community response to the national event. In Brigton armed gangs of men and women fought the scabs in the streets, when they were seen driving trams, and I believe half a dozen polis were killed and dozens were injured, the events culminating in a tram getting overturned in the street, preventing future trams from running through the East End along London Road.
The left here historically, and the left here (NOW) derived/es its support from its community activities. This is more true now than ever as the trade unions - even the better ones - have utterly abandonned organising to defend their members interests. The prospect of any strike lasting more than a few days now before the bureaucrats sell-out is a product of fantasy, and there are no syndicalist unions nor even a syndicalist presence anywhere else other than the London underground.
Obviously we have to start organising in the workplace because before long the Trots (RMT is affiliated to the SSP) and the fascists (Solidarity) will be in there, and if folk don't have a background in libertarian forms of organisation it'll be their paradigms of organisation that will bear the gree come the imminent global energy crash and subsequent wars and restructuring. We should not however see it as Revol does as to be honest there isn't a bloody great deal of harm going to be done to the system if all the power people can't sup their lattes coz the baristas are on strike, however we can make a difference to people's lives and encourage them to take action in other fields where they can make a difference.
Feb 25 2006 16:09
#28
Its seems obvious that casual workers cannot simply strike.
Its equally obvious that strikes are carried out to produce an economic disruption. The basic aim of a strike is to make force the employer into concessions by making it too expensive not to.
When you have workers who are irreplaceable, due to labour shortages/skills/experience etc then they can simply stop working, otherwise they need a more militant approach.
Call-centres are held to be typical workplaces that cannot be unionised. The companies would lose a fortune if you could arrange a one week walkout. Staff absences were so bad where I worked you got a £20 p/w bonus just for coming in. I know its a big if but I reckon it could have been done, if you could have avoided the sack for starting to organise it.
Hardly any companies can instantly replace staff en masse and they know it. Shutting down production isn't always an option either, they have a capital investment that will be lost. As long as it is cheaper to give concessions capital will give them. By winning concessions we can increase w/c confidence. As it is most people are facing losses in real wages.
I think we should define strike. A token one day stoppage is not a strike.
Walking out, refusing to work, picketing the workplace and preventing scabbing until victory is a strike.
In case you're wondering, no I've never been on strike.
Feb 25 2006 16:15
#29
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Again, as I can see no one has said that (other than revol in gest).
Revol wasn't gesting. He has said time and time again that he views community struggle as a waste of time, and somewhat obfuscatory in that he feels it takes energy away from fighting the man down the local PR consultancy.
Nick, he's communist, so you'll know that's totally wrong - and a smear for that matter.
Not wanting to defend him, but I will cos I know I partly share his views - what he doesn't do is spunk in his pants every time someone mentions the IWCA because he sees the limitations of "community organising" which are much more obvious in Northern Ireland than here, cos there there is at least a tradition of it. You saying there was a rent strike in one town 87 years ago, which perhaps has 5 surviving participants and maybe 100 people who heard first hand accounts of it once doesn't quite wash with me.
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obviously no reason why not to. But in UK society where the fuck is there this? If anything - even though it's tiny - there's still far more tradition of struggle in workplaces than any geographical areas.This is simply not the case John. Haven't you heard of the rent strikes?
Course I have - how many people in the UK have been involved in rent strikes? How many in labour strikes?
Most people don't share a common landlord in their area anyway - not to mention that 70% of people are owner-occupiers - so it's a much less strong connection than the workplace
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The closest anywhere got to a revolutionary situation was in 1919
I'd say the thing that brought the uk closet to revolution was the wave of mutinies ( http://libcom.org/history/wars.php ) post WWI, though of course that rent strike played a part. However there has been nothing equivalent since, unlike big labour disputes - the winter of discontent '79, miners 84-85, dockers 95, posties 2003. 1919 was a fucking long time ago - that tradition is not here any more.
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Also during the general strike all of the fighting that took place was based in communities, as a community response to the national event.
Straws... clutching...
Seriously what does that even mean?
The general *strike* was in response to miners' wage demands. Of course if people stop working - the point of a strike - their activity will then be based in "communities". And are you seriously
A: calling street fighting "community activity", and
B: saying street fighting was more important in the 1926 strike than the years of organisation, solidarity and militancy leading up to it?? FFS!
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We should not however see it as Revol does as to be honest there isn't a bloody great deal of harm going to be done to the system if all the power people can't sup their lattes coz the baristas are on strike
A: please stop being obsessed with revol
B: I think you're showing a "kick it till it breaks" approach. Baristas going on strike won't "harm THE SYSTEM!!1111!!", but it'll stop their bosses' profits, and help them win wage demands - thus strengthening the position of the working class to make future demands.
Feb 25 2006 16:16
#30
Jef Costello wrote:
Its seems obvious that casual workers cannot simply strike.
All workers used to be casual, before workers' struggle - mainly strikes - forced employment rights and security to be granted.
Never said workplace struggle was dead revol. Said separate workplace organisations were pretty much dead and struggles in workplaces were not much of an option for many people and unlikely to effect real change any more. The posties being in a still highly centralised, quasi-monopoly industry which is still pretty much integral to the rest of the economy is an (fucking great and encouraging) exception which proves the rule IMO. If it was a hairdressing chain I doubt they'd have had as much luck.
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And most of the stuff I've posted up at http://libcom.org/news/index.php?topic=work has been similar. Iranian bus drivers, London underground, airport workers (Gate Gourmet, BA pilots, T5 construction workers), firemen, Indian autoworkers, Dundee posties, MTA.
The stuff in retail/service - IWW/starbucks, ASDA, SupersizeMyPay are the most defensive, limited and often defeated struggles in that section, or just reports of further attacks on the workers in those sectors esp with ASDA.