strikes over oil prices

What sort of strikes are these? I don't imagine that they are strikes against the management, or in defence of worker's living standards.

They look more like 'strikes' organised by the management.

Devrim

The lorry driver protests in the UK a few years back and the smaller ones today are generally organised by small owner drivers/private haulier firms and I would think many of the fishermen's movements are similar in their ownership structure. They do express the increasing pressure from the economic crisis on the 'classic' petty bourgeoisie but they don't offer any perspective for the development of the class struggle.

I think you might be right about these fishermen 'strikes'. But thats a pretty crass understanding of the lorry drivers strikes. There's some interesting articles/letters on that struggle published by Wildcat in germany.

http://www.wildcat-www.de/en/zirkular/58/z58e_uko.htm

http://www.wildcat-www.de/en/zirkular/58/z58e_tru.htm

I share Alf and Devrim's scepticism that anything positive can come out of these movements. True, the class nature of lorry drivers is not clear cut but they quite clearly, at best, represent a weaker sector of the working class which are being easily pushed onto the bosses terrain, precisely because of their confused status as owner-operators.

Devrim's point about strikes being organised by the management is crucial here. There is clearly a great deal of common ground between "workers" and the bosses in this struggle. This will undoubtedly put a break on any autonomous class response that may spring out of this struggle.

In a more general sense, it's true the higher oil prices can (and are) having a massive impact on most workers. The price of petrol is crippling people in my office! But the way these protests are framed is around a conflation of both companies and individuals as having common ground as consumers of oil. There is no real common demand that the "workers" in this struggle can raise without being submerged in a populist interclassist campaign.

Workers can respond to high petrol prices as they can respond to inflation generally: demand a pay-rise. Populist struggles, on the other hand, are ultimately impotent in terms of pushing forward proletarian struggle.

Demogorgon303

I share Alf and Devrim's scepticism that anything positive can come out of these movements. True, the class nature of lorry drivers is not clear cut but they quite clearly, at best, represent a weaker sector of the working class which are being easily pushed onto the bosses terrain, precisely because of their confused status as owner-operators.

Given that most sections of the working class could be described as 'weaker', and many are in some combination of short term contracts, self-employment and the rest, when there's something as significant as the 2000 fuel protests it deserves proper attention, albeit with a critical eye, but I've not seen much other than those two (pretty decent) articles in Wildcat about those events.

In a more general sense, it's true the higher oil prices can (and are) having a massive impact on most workers. The price of petrol is crippling people in my office! But the way these protests are framed is around a conflation of both companies and individuals as having common ground as consumers of oil. There is no real common demand that the "workers" in this struggle can raise without being submerged in a populist interclassist campaign.

I don't see anything much inter-classist about food riots. Ret's article from a month ago covered them in Bangladesh and Steven found this article which mentions them in a number of other places: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/4/8/stuffed_and_starved_as_food_riots

Similarly the rice riots in Japan in 1918 were country-wide, a combination of rural protest, urban riots, miners and steel workers struggles - and many, many strikes in between have been about food prices when they started out - and sometimes in cases where the management was providing the food. Now it's possible for a food riot to be quite reactionary - focussing on foreign food traders instead of landowners for example, but no less than some strikes are pushed into xenophobic or other cross-class ideological territory while having as their basis class demands.

So I think what's needed is a bit of reflection on these, simplistic dismissal on the one hand is as bad as Daily Mail-esque cheerleading on the other.

I was actually referring specifically to the fishermen's 'strikes' (if you look at the article that the link is too, it is almost entirely about fishermen), but I am also very dubious about 'strikes' by HGV owner-operators.

Devrim

Given that most sections of the working class could be described as 'weaker', and many are in some combination of short term contracts, self-employment and the rest, when there's something as significant as the 2000 fuel protests it deserves proper attention, albeit with a critical eye, but I've not seen much other than those two (pretty decent) articles in Wildcat about those events.

All social movements deserve a crtical eye. That doesn't automatically mean they're positive, of course. I think you're wrong about most sectors of the working class being weak in the sense you describe. Short term contracts are a reality, of course, but I'm not sure they form the majority of contracts of employment today. It would be interesting to know actually. Regardless, "precarity" (whether short-term contracts or dubious self-employment) is surely not the same as owning your own fixed capital as owner-operator truck drivers do.

Incidentally, the ICC did a piece on the fuel protests in the UK.

I don't see anything much inter-classist about food riots.

Leaving aside the question of "riots", which I'm not going to go over again here, I'm not saying its impossible for proletarian struggles to emerge from struggles over consumables. The initial formation of soviets in Russian Revolution began as a protest over bread rationing, I believe. But this was in a context of massive strikes across Russia in previous months. The workers were already beginning to assert themselves as an autonomous force and were able to link the struggles together. The bread strike quickly became political in that it demanded the end of the Tsarist state.

The question is what the current fuel strikes represent and, given their context, I don't see anything proletarian emerging from these. The class status of the vast majority of those involved at present is questionable to say the least. The framework is clearly that of an alliance between parts of the bourgeoisie, petit-bourgeoisie and some quasi-workers. Now, if the workers and quasi-workers were getting together and demanding better contracts to cover the price of fuel from the haulier companies that give them their contracts that might be a different story. Then, at least, there would be a clear demarcation between the haulier bosses and the truckers. There may be an increased potential for the proletariat aspect to push itself forward. But I see no prospect of this in the present situation precisely because the nature of the quasi-workers makes it very difficult for them to take up this kind of struggle and there is no visible, wider struggle of the rest of the class for this to link to.

It would be interesting to know actually. Regardless, "precarity" (whether short-term contracts or dubious self-employment) is surely not the same as owning your own fixed capital as owner-operator truck drivers do.

This is a true point, but its not one that is chosen out freewill. Most "owner-operators", were at one time or another, simply employees. In the United States, a decade or so ago, the motor carriage laws were changed and essentially deregulated things into the kind of "independent contractors" people are today. I mean think about it; what other job do you actually have to supply the capital yourself in order to work for piece rates? I can only think of a handful of factory jobs (usually steelworking) where you are required to purchase and maintain your own tools. The Teamsters, for all their foibles, have been fighting this exact kind of thing with Fed Ex, which uses "independent" contractors to deliver their goods and they've beaten them, winning "employee" status and hence contract bargaining with management.

In America, especially on the west coast, fuel price protests are distinctly against management, especially since management has not raised their rates at all to deal with fuel charges. In fact, the "fuel surcharges" you often see from logistics companies go straight into their pocket, not to ameliorate the fuel situation for truckers. but to simply profit more. So in that sense, those kinds of protests are oriented a bit different than some appeal for government amelioration or subsidy.

Sean Siberio

In America, especially on the west coast, fuel price protests are distinctly against management, especially since management has not raised their rates at all to deal with fuel charges.

In what way?

Devrim

The CGT is supporting a strike and demonstration about fuel prices by owner drivers in Barcelona on 9 June. There's an article from Rojo y Negro (in Spanish) here, though it doesn't really give a lot of information. It lists some independent regional unions supporting the strike together with the CGT transport and communications union. It isn't clear from this whether the CGT actually organises owner drivers.

Devrim

Sean Siberio

In America, especially on the west coast, fuel price protests are distinctly against management, especially since management has not raised their rates at all to deal with fuel charges.

In what way?

Devrim

In the major ports of California (LA/Long Beach, Oakland, Lathrop & Stockton) the short-haul troqueros are independent contractors in name only. When President Jimmy Carter signed off on the Motor Carrier Act of 1980, truckers who had been mostly employees unionized with the Teamsters suddenly were forced to become "owner-operators" and the number of trucking brokers nearly doubled along with them. The troqueros lease the trucks back to the brokers who compete for contracts with the shipping lines by bidding down and based on this pay the troqueros piece rates. When fuel prices spike upwards, the brokers are often able to get surcharges from the shipping lines, but rarely pass them on to the truckers.

When challenged by the Internal Revenue Service, the brokers have at times been penalized for not paying their tax contributions for the truckers who are considered their employees. In the U.S. truckers' wages are driven down because as independent contractors they are legally responsible to pay their own taxes without any employer contribution -- which the latter must do for normal employees. It's a paradox because some bourgeois bureaucracies prevent them from collectively organizing as independent business people while others, like the IRS at times, correctly see that their relationship with brokers is a wage relationship (i.e. the broker determines the time, place and manner in which the work must be performed -- the legal definitions of wage work).

Here's the FedEx case:

Fired FedEx Driver Tells Congress About Job Misclassification
PR Newswire
Daily Work of 'Independent Contractor' Controlled by FedEx
July 24, 2007: 12:25 PM EST

WASHINGTON, July 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A former FedEx driver told a congressional panel today that the company misclassified him as an independent contractor though it controlled most aspects of his daily work as it would an employee.
Bob Williams, who worked for FedEx Corp. subsidiary FedEx Home Delivery in Northboro, Mass., testified before two House Education and Labor subcommittees. The hearing was titled "The Misclassification of Workers as Independent Contractors."
As an independent contractor, Williams was not covered by many federal and state labor laws covering wages, benefits and worker protections.
"I was responsible for the cost of the vehicle, for the fuel, for the tires, for the maintenance, and all operating costs, including breakdown and emergency expenditures," said Williams, who lives in Berlin, Mass. "I paid for a worker's accident policy, in lieu of workmen's comp weekly deductions, and I also paid for liability insurance."
Williams was fired by FedEx in December 2005 in part because of his protests over the company's policies and in part because of his union activities. The National Labor Relations Board Region 1 determined Williams and fellow drivers were wrongly classified as contractors and were employees under the law.
The NLRB also investigated unfair labor practice charges stemming from the termination of Williams and other union supporters. In March 2007, the board filed a consolidated complaint against FedEx Home Delivery; a hearing is set for August.
Since 2001, the NLRB regional offices ruled six consecutive times that FedEx Ground and FedEx Home Delivery drivers are employees under the National Labor Relations Act.
FedEx Home Delivery drivers in Wilmington, Mass., and Windsor, Conn., have voted for Teamster representation in the last year. The NLRB certified Teamsters Local 25 in Boston as the collective bargaining agent for the Wilmington drivers. FedEx has indicated they will refuse to bargain with Local 25.

Obviously the above relates only to the American situation, but I can't imagine that truckers in Europe are much different. There a number of positions that are "independent contractors" and require operating capital upfront, but which are in essence and in fact controlled by larger entities. Arguably the American medical system is like this; doctors with independent practices are entirely subservient to HMO and insurance company rates, as well as to Medicare and Medicaid rules. Its hard to see how "independent" they are. In fact, what limited medical unions there are in America are completely reliant upon the standard reimbursement rates that the government entities and private insurance companies set.

I think this will be increasingly the case across industries; I won't be surprised when companies start moving towards some sort of personal "franchise"/licensing agreement with workers in order to work in a field or have the pleasure of earning an hourly wage. Arguably its occurring right now with the increasingly more expensive certification and licensing issues in certain industries.

I think something similar happened in Britain with truck drivers. (To be honest this isn't something I know a lot about these the lorry drivers thing, I was 15 when they happened.) Anyway, the first wildcat thing I linked to above includes this:

The enormous defeat of the working class here and crucially the destruction of the miners in 1984/1985 among the bitter and often violent disputes of the '80s including urban insurrections, was to have a huge international ramification, especially in terms of the rapacious de-statification of the Russian and East European economies by a rip-off, free market gangsterism. Internally, it meant the State here with its now gung-ho, economic neo-liberalism was viciously out to punish everybody (famously described by the butcher Thatcher as »the enemy within«) who'd dared question it. Appropriate terms were used »dinosaur« etc for those who didn't embrace this new shift in capital. Except that dinosaurs may prove to have more longevity if there isn't a social revolution, now that capital for the sake of profit, ist quite prepared to set fire to and drown the planet both at the same time.

With the asset stripping destruction of a lot of factory-based production, aided and abetted by financial concerns in a triumphalist City of London, side by side with the tendency towards hollowed-out companies in building, engineering and what have you and who no longer had many permanent workers on their pay roll, many laid-off workers were FORCED (more or less) to become self-employed; to acquire the services of an accountant, to buy their own fixed capital (trucks, small workshop and what have you). Well, it was either that or welfare and the prospect of constant harassment and punishment disguised as ridiculous pseuso-job training or slightly more lenient forms of workfare than experienced in America. It was basically Hobson's Choice. This mini-mass of intentionally pseudo-individualised people became a veritable army of »reluctant entrepreneurs« as we began to call them. It marked the petite-bourgeoisification of the proletariat.

I don't see any indication or possibility of any directly employed truck drivers (food, chemicals, etc) joining this strike (nor did I see it in 2000). If they did they would taking action for a number of bosses who may or may not have been workers at one time.

Sean Siberio

I think this will be increasingly the case across industries; I won't be surprised when companies start moving towards some sort of personal "franchise"/licensing agreement with workers in order to work in a field or have the pleasure of earning an hourly wage. Arguably its occurring right now with the increasingly more expensive certification and licensing issues in certain industries.

What does this really mean though? More insecure contracts of employment and a push towards so-called self-employment for certain workers. Their fundamental asset is still their labour. That is not the same as an owner-operator truck driver who effectively owns his own means of production (his truck) and buys his own raw material (fuel).

The increasing concentration and centralisation of capital make it more and more impossible for most workers to own their own means of production, hence the reason they have to be employed by capitalists that can afford to buy such things. This is the foundation of capitalist social organisation and the dominant trend in society.

In fact, we are witnessing a general proletarianisation of the middle classes. For the so-called "professional classes" such as doctors, lawyers, bankers, etc. there has been a certain proletarianisation due to the increasing difficulties of the old partnership models of business being able to effectively compete. Take, for example, stock broking which is now the province of large investment banks as opposed to the old small partnerships. The same has occured in law, with the larger firms now predominating more and more as the old family practices decline.

This is not to say every accountant or lawyer is a proletarian (yet) even when they work for such firms (although for accountants this process is far more advanced than for lawyers, thanks to computerisation, etc.) of course. But the point remains that there is simply no way that a net transformation of workers into petit-bourgeoisie can happen in capitalist society, even if this might happen to very limited sections.

I think you're missing the point entirely. It's not that workers will be turned into petit-bourgeois, it's that workers will be given the trappings of self-employment (mainly negative) in order to cut the costs of long-term employment. Similarly, pointing out that many low-paid jobs, especially in service industries, increasingly take on some form of supervisory role doesn't mean that those workers are suddenly 'managers' in any real sense. In both cases the responsibility is pushed down the hierarchy and used to divide workers and break up certain working practices.

I've read the two articles from Wildcat Germany. They make some valid points about this strategy of turning workers into petty bourgeois owners. If I recall righly they did the same with a lot of milk delivery drivers some time ago. This element is missing in the article we wrote about the blockade in 2000. However, the first Wildcat article makes some rather 'wild' claims about the possibilities of the movement in 2000 turning into a real threat to capital, which plays down the whole problem of class identity and class interest - precisely what the 'petty bourgeoisfication' strategy was aimed at undermining.

What we can say is that with the deepening of the crisis, more and more strata of the population will be forced to protest and revolt. The problem is that the only prospect of such protests becoming part of a direct struggle against capital is if the working class throws its weight into the scales. For leftists (who, as both the WR article and the Wildcat article point out, were unstinting in their denunciation of the blockades as being more or less fascist) this means a return to good old trade unionism. For communists it means discerning the tendency towards the mass strike.

I think you're missing the point entirely. It's not that workers will be turned into petit-bourgeois, it's that workers will be given the trappings of self-employment (mainly negative) in order to cut the costs of long-term employment. Similarly, pointing out that many low-paid jobs, especially in service industries, increasingly take on some form of supervisory role doesn't mean that those workers are suddenly 'managers' in any real sense. In both cases the responsibility is pushed down the hierarchy and used to divide workers and break up certain working practices.

I agree with much of what you say here. But what has all that got to do with the owner-operator truck drivers who own their means of production? Turning workers into "self-employed" individuals as part of the general attack on wages and conditions, is not the same as turning them into petit-bourgeois individuals.

The thing which separates the owner-operators from the working class is precisely the fact that they own their own means of production. At best, they exist on the outer fringes of the working class. In that sense, their current action has exactly the content that Alf pointed out at the beginning of the thread: it represents a revolt of the petit-bourgeoisie against the increased pressure of the economic crisis.

The working class needs to respond on its own terrain rather than this kind of populist movement.

I own a saxophone and a computer, and I've been 'self employed' as both a musician/saxophone teacher and done bits of self-employed web development in the past. I don't think either of these constitutes owning means of production though - after all, I don't own any venues, recording studios, schools or server farms (and most people who own musical instruments and computers don't earn money off them either). I understand Alf plays in a band, does he own any musical instruments himself?

A lot of people have to buy their own uniforms and tools to do their jobs Now a truck's on a somewhat bigger investment, but if there's people leasing trucks from their employers and the rest, then IMO it needs to be seen somewhere on a scale between wage worker and petit-bourgeios - especially considering the attitude to this 'ownership' displayed in the articles. More importantly we should be examining the social relationships people have as workers (or bourgeois, petit or otherwise) rather than engaging in these classification games.

fwiw I think there's some useful stuff around attitudes to these fringe areas in some of the communisation stuff the integration of the petit-bourgeois into the working class.

I agree with catch in that some of you are still missing the point. The "owner-operator" truckers in the U.S. are doing exactly the same work that they had done as employees in the Teamsters union until Carter passed the Motor Carrier Regulatory Reform and Modernization Act of 1980. This movement to deregulate the trucking industry had its origins with Nixon as a reaction to the 1971 Steelhaulers Strike. Saying that truckers are petty bourgeois because they own their trucks would be the same as saying that taxi drivers, bicycle messengers and building trades workers are petty bourgeois because they own their vehicles and tools. This simply is not true because it misconstrues what the means of production are.

I have my own example. Last year a friend fell ill with a serious heart condition and needed someone to fill in for her as a teacher in a county administered welfare program. Thinking that I would help her save her job when she recovered, I offered to do it on a temporary basis. The pay as stated wasn't too bad, but after working a few days the boss had me fill out tax forms. She placed in front of me a 1099 tax form for independent contractors and evaded my questions when I explained that the work I was doing didn't fit that category. The next day I printed out the IRS definition of independent contractor and showed it to her. The boss tried to guilt trip me by saying I should be willing to "sacrifice a little" for the students, but fired me when I refused to go along with her moral appeal. Later I found out that that particular county tries to make all workers, especially at remote sites like where I was working, into independent contractors because they cut their own contribution to employee costs (for things like income taxes, medicare and workers comp) by as much as 30%. So, I would have had to pay my own taxes, making my income 20% less than the purported rate of pay.

I've met the troqueros at the Port of Oakland and talked extensively with them. They have to file the same 1099 tax form for the IRS that the boss was trying to force me to accept in the above example. But with the competitive nature of the piece rates work they do for the brokers that employ them, they earn very little. When fuel prices spike up and the brokers increase what they charge shipping lines, the truckers get very little of this and at times operate at a loss. But they are like indentured servants because they bound to their work by their debt obligations for buying their trucks. And they can only work for the broker that leases their truck back from them, who often co-signed the loan for them to buy the truck. So they are trapped. They clearly are not self-employed business people, but instead are wage workers entangled in convoluted labor relations that essentially allow they employers to exploit them more thoroughly by saddling them with the cost of the maintenance of the trucks.

Below is a link to an excellent article by the LA Weekly that explains how bureaucrats at the LA/Long Beach port complex are trying to revamp the trucking system with new trucks using cleaner burning fuels because of the severe health problems caused by the older diesel fleet. But in so doing they want to rationalize the labor relations to eliminate possibly explosive situations like the May Day strike in 2006 where the port was 90% shut down by the troqueros (and LA/Long Beach handles something like 40% of imports coming into the U.S.). They want to do this by gradually returning the truckers to employee status. So in the U.S. the class relations of truckers aren't as simply black and white as some of the above posters make them out to be. Here's the link.

Here's an excerpt from the LA Weekly article (linked above) about the conditions of a troquero:

Before sunrise on a Monday morning, outside a sterile office park in Compton, a convoy of small, beat-up cars, none of them newer than 1995, arrives at the offices of the trucking firm Calko Speedline. One by one, the car’s drivers emerge, ranchera and mariachi and estás escuchando a Piolín por la mañana! competing from their radios. They buy coffee from the taco truck that follows them in, and assemble in small groups, huddled in circles among their big rigs — hulking red, green, blue and white mammoths lined up along the curb, their diesel-burning engines grumbling into action one by one.

The drivers’ day of waiting begins.

“My name’s Chicho. Everybody knows me. You can ask anyone, ‘Do you know Chicho?’ and he’ll say yes.”

Chicho, born Hernan Robleto, is short, round, nearly bald and, when he speaks, energetically animated. His English is nearly indistinguishable from his Spanish; sometimes, while listening to him, it’s possible to lose any conscious sense of which language he’s speaking. At the Calko office, he paces among the various groups while office personnel inside quietly field calls from terminal operators at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach about ship traffic and schedules; later, they’ll give each of the men directions to their first load of the day, a container of goods destined for an intermediate shipping facility somewhere inland or farther down the coast, where it will be transported still farther, to distribution centers all over the country, by truck or train.

“I am from Nicaragua,” Chicho tells me, with a sideways look and suspense in his voice. “I came here 25 years ago. It was a revolution; they were killing everybody. If you could leave, you did.” He said goodbye to his family and began the thousand-mile journey over two borders to the U.S., where he went to the ports and looked for a job.

“I went into one company and said, ‘I want to be a truck driver,’ and they say, ‘Okay, let’s go get you a truck.’” He jumps back and forth as he tells the story, acting out both sides of the conversation, turning one way and then the other as he switches characters. “They take me to the place where you can buy a truck, and we pick one out. I have no credit — no trucker has credit, and the ones that do have bad credit — but they sign for me, and I have a truck.”

It still works this way. Trucking companies act as co-signers on lending agreements so long as the trucker works exclusively for that company and carries its logo on the truck’s driver’s-side door. Truckers cannot enter the port without a specific pickup assignment from the dispatcher at the trucking company that “leases” their truck.

“But still they say we are independent workers. I don’t understand this. How can we be independent if we can only do what one company tells us to do?”

While Chicho talks, his friend Honorio Rivera takes out a sponge mop and goes to work on his 2004 Freightliner as the sun comes over the horizon. He washes the windshield, the hood, the doors, then lifts the hood and wipes down the insides of the engine with a rag. The white metal gleams in the day’s new pinkish light.

“It was an expensive truck,” Rivera says. “I have to take care of it. It cost me $69,000.”

If port truckers like Chicho and Rivera are lucky, they can squeeze in two or three loads a day, at anywhere from $70 to $180 each, depending on the shipper and the route (trucking lines such as Calko pay drivers per load, a sum first determined by the shipper; 70 percent goes to the trucker). At most, a driver earns about $300 a day, including the fee for returning the empty container. Working 50 weeks a year, he can gross close to $80,000. But since drivers work as independent contractors — or “independent owner-operators” according to industry euphemism — they pay their own fees, taxes, insurance and fuel. These expenses, combined with monthly payments on that $69,000 truck, easily whittle a trucker’s salary down to around $30,000.

Which means that Chicho, after 25 years of hard work as an independent contractor without health care or retirement, has never been able to buy a house. He can’t even rent one in Los Angeles. Instead, he lives in a $700-a-month two-bedroom apartment 180 miles away in Morongo Valley with his wife and two children, 5 and 14. He has never taken a vacation, he has never seen a doctor.

“I am tired,” says Chicho, who says he is 50, but looks a decade older. “I am at the point in my life where I want to be taken care of. I am also at a point in my life where I wonder who will take care of my wife if I die.”

admin: made link more visible.

Hieronymous, I think that there are two things here;
1) The discussion is based on truckers in Europe. The situation of truckers in the US is not necessarily the same.
2)

Saying that truckers are petty bourgeois because they own their trucks would be the same as saying that taxi drivers, bicycle messengers and building trades workers are petty bourgeois because they own their vehicles and tools. This simply is not true because it misconstrues what the means of production are.

I think that taxi drivers are petit-bourgeois too. I think that they are very different from bicycle messengers, and builders. They are essentially, self employed (this of course may vary from place to place) whereas builders although they may own their own tools are employed (even though sometimes they may be technically 'self employed')

Devrim

It seems clear that truckers in the U.S. have different conditions, but don't you think the trend is towards what's happening here?

Having been a taxi driver at one time myself, I have to point out that it's not the same everywhere and it has changed over time. I was employed, but it was in the days before cell phones, so you had to get work by being contacted by a radio dispatcher (I had been a bike messenger before that and it was almost exactly the same). But in the U.S. it's now more like the situation with the truckers. The trend of capital is towards proletarianization and as my example of the independent contractor teaching job shows, it often involves manipulating labor and tax laws so that the boss is able to transfer more and more of the cost onto the worker -- further driving down wages.

I think the examples above of lawyers and doctors are true in the U.S. as well; they are becoming increasingly proletarianized. I have a friend who recently finished medical school $200,000 in debt. There's no way that he could hang up a shingle and start his own business. He had to leap at the first shitty HMO that offered him a steady job, although his dream was to open a low-cost clinic in a poor working class neighborhood. And it's like the speed-up in production, he has quotas about how many patients he sees per hour. He's on salary so he works ungodly long hours, sometimes 7 days a week, that begin to make his seemingly high salary seem not so great when you compute how many hours he works -- and how hard he works. The assembly-line nature of the medical industry seems more alienating than many other types of work, which is compounded because it's more stressful.

What does this really mean though? More insecure contracts of employment and a push towards so-called self-employment for certain workers. Their fundamental asset is still their labour. That is not the same as an owner-operator truck driver who effectively owns his own means of production (his truck) and buys his own raw material (fuel).

Thats like saying a farmer "owns" his land cause he has a very expensive mortgage that has his name on it. In almost all the cases stated above, the "capital" that is used to purchase start up things, such as a truck or a taxi, etc. are all financed by extortionate credit, often with some piece of it going back to the bastards to you work for as an independent contractor. And few, if any, ever pay off the term of the loan or ever achieve full ownership before they either sell their truck or their cab on to someone else, whom then purchases it with the same kind of loans. The bit in The Jungle where the landlady "sells" houses only to raise the interest rates on the mortgage a couple months later in order to drive people out and keep their security deposit is a more simplistic version of what is going on here.

I don't know, it seems atleast that its hard to argue that these people even have the freedom ascribed, traditionally, to the concept of petit-bourgeoisie. As indicated by Hiero above, some these sectors could just as easily be a straight employer-employee relationship, but are not by the choice of management to shed certain costs off their back and unto their own employees.

Sean Siberio

Thats like saying a farmer "owns" his land cause he has a very expensive mortgage that has his name on it. In almost all the cases stated above, the "capital" that is used to purchase start up things.

The buying of pretty much any capital is financed by credit. MNCs borrow, Goverments borrow, everyone borrows but that doesn't mean MNCs/the governement/everyone is proletarian!!! How a capital purchase is financed is close to being irrelavant.

The buying of pretty much any capital is financed by credit. MNCs borrow, Goverments borrow, everyone borrows but that doesn't mean MNCs/the governement/everyone is proletarian!!! How a capital purchase is financed is close to being irrelavant.

No shit Sherlock. And thus it IS important to analyze how capital is financed, the terms in which it is done, and who holds the ultimate strings. Otherwise your suggesting anyone who has purchased a house, a car, or done any number of things that require you to get a loan (including credit terms foisted upon peasant farmers) is some sort of rapacious capitalist. Especially as more and more industries move to a scenario where one-time employees now have to provide "Capital" in order to get paid a wage. Declaring certain groups, as indicated above, that are essentially stuck in a very convoluted and shady labor market, "petit-bourgeoisie" is absurd.

Especially as more and more industries move to a scenario where one-time employees now have to provide "Capital" in order to get paid a wage. Declaring certain groups, as indicated above, that are essentially stuck in a very convoluted and shady labor market, "petit-bourgeoisie" is absurd.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you, but this seems to imply you think there's a mass movement to this kind of arrangement. The whole point about being a worker is that you don't have capital. Now, I'm not saying that capitalism can't (and doesn't) try and change purely juridicial aspects of social relationships while the fundamentals remain unchanged. And that's why I've described some elements of the owner-operator trucking community as "quasi-workers" or being on the "fringes of the proletariat".

Nonetheless, it remains the case that this condition does change the nature of their economic interests and makes them easy prey for this kind of campaign which is of a purely populist nature.

But, again, as I pointed out above it's simply not viable for capitalism to generalise this condition throughout the proletariat and the general trend is to push the petit-bourgeoisie into the ranks of the proletariat while "lumpenising" the most impoverished layers of the latter.

I think you're also confusing different sectors of the labor market here. There are considerable differences between agricultural small-holders, peasant farmers, semi-proletarians that live on a mixture of temporary work, small handicrafts and petty crime (particularly common in third world slums and sinkhole estates in the developed countries), and owner-operator truck and taxi drivers.

I don't know, it seems atleast that its hard to argue that these people even have the freedom ascribed, traditionally, to the concept of petit-bourgeoisie.

I think georgestapleton's point was well made. So far your definitions of petit-bourgeois seem to orientate around their level of "independence", rather than their relationship to means of production. Independence from who? Even the big bourgeoisie aren't really independent - manufacturing is largely in hock to the bankers and the bankers are largely dependent on the state. This has become abundantly clear in the current crisis.

I also think part of the problem here is that there's a tendency to assume the petit-bourgeoisie are better off than workers. While this is generally true for "professionals" and functionaries, it's certainly not always the case for your average small businessman who are the petit-bourgeoisie proper. Part of my job forces me to mix with these types and while on paper they may have much more income than me, the amount that is actually dedicated to their personal consumption is often quite small. This is partly compensated for the fact that some of their capital - such as cars, PCs etc can also be used for personal rather business use, of course, and some may still have a higher standard of living than me. However, my general impression is that they work all the hours that god sends, are in hock up to their eyeballs and usually prime candidates for a stress-induced heart attack. Rather them than me! And in periods of crisis, the pressures on these people are enormous.

The petit-bourgeoisie is a class in a state of permanent disintegration. Capitalism is a damaging to their class interests as it is to the working class. More so, in fact, because while capitalism can live quite happily without them it can't live without workers.

A large proportion, if not the great majority, of lorry drivers and tanker drivers today are employed directly by their companies, ie, on the books.
Why should the drivers of Sainsbury's, for example, go on strike or take part in some sort of demonstration, in order to press for cheaper fuel for their bosses Sainsbury's? There's no end to this sort of "industrial action" in support of the boss.

The owner-drivers layer is being squeezed by the crisis and obviously affected. That, in itself, doesn't give it any potential for the development of a movement of the working class. Their individual actions point to the contrary.

The wildcat by 35,000 lorry drivers in 1978 (wage rates were national and tended to be a minimum) was a militant affair that provoked a great deal of solidarity within the working class. The T&G union made the strike official in order to control it and cooperated in the development of laws against "secondary picketing".
With Thatcher, important parts of the industry were subsidised and privatised (no contradiction here in the role of the state) into owner-drivers who largely came into their own on the back of scabbing and strike-breaking (including the miners' strike). The individualism of the owner-drivers today contrasts with the solidarity of 1978. The protesting owner drivers, lauded by the Sun as "workers" today, have been given a very different press than the same paper (and the rest of the media) gave in its bilious coverage to the strike in 78.

Devrim

Hieronymous, I think that there are two things here;
1) The discussion is based on truckers in Europe. The situation of truckers in the US is not necessarily the same.
2)

Saying that truckers are petty bourgeois because they own their trucks would be the same as saying that taxi drivers, bicycle messengers and building trades workers are petty bourgeois because they own their vehicles and tools. This simply is not true because it misconstrues what the means of production are.

I think that taxi drivers are petit-bourgeois too. I think that they are very different from bicycle messengers, and builders. They are essentially, self employed (this of course may vary from place to place) whereas builders although they may own their own tools are employed (even though sometimes they may be technically 'self employed')

Devrim

Are owner operators in europe all that different in terms of class from their US counterparts?
Effectively we're talking about classifying them into who we as communists should or should not support, depending on whether we see them as working class or petit-bourgeois and their revolutionary potential. When the original qeustion that arose is whether the protest taking place is worthy of our support, isn't the problem that the protests is /are populist.
By the above (devs point 2) we need to be looking at bike couriers in the same context?

Effectively we're talking about classifying them into who we as communists should or should not support, depending on whether we see them as working class or petit-bourgeois and their revolutionary potential. When the original qeustion that arose is whether the protest taking place is worthy of our support, isn't the problem that the protests is /are populist.

But the reason why they have a populist direction is precisely because of the large petit-bourgeois composition of those involved. Without the leadership of the proletariat, these kind of movements can only express themselves in a popular form.

This doesn't mean workers in general don't have sympathy for them. But again, because the proletariat itself has not yet regained a more mature consciousness of its own methods of struggle, it's unable to express its support in any other way than tailing the populism rather than providing a proletarian perspective for them.

Demogorgon303

Effectively we're talking about classifying them into who we as communists should or should not support, depending on whether we see them as working class or petit-bourgeois and their revolutionary potential. When the original qeustion that arose is whether the protest taking place is worthy of our support, isn't the problem that the protests is /are populist.

But the reason why they have a populist direction is precisely because of the large petit-bourgeois composition of those involved. Without the leadership of the proletariat, these kind of movements can only express themselves in a popular form.

I was gonna edit my post in that direction as it developed in my mind, but work got in the way.

So from that angle it does come down to whether we see them as petit-bourgeois or not.

[quote=BB]Devrim

Are owner operators in europe all that different in terms of class from their US counterparts?

I am not sure. I just didn't want to get into an argument in which I had no idea about the facts.

By the above (devs point 2) we need to be looking at bike couriers in the same context?

I don't think so, and I didn't suggest that.

Effectively we're talking about classifying them into who we as communists should or should not support, depending on whether we see them as working class or petit-bourgeois and their revolutionary potential. When the original qeustion that arose is whether the protest taking place is worthy of our support, isn't the problem that the protests is /are populist.

Don't you think that the aim of this struggle is relevant?

Devrim

[quote=Devrim]BB

Devrim

Are owner operators in europe all that different in terms of class from their US counterparts?

I am not sure. I just didn't want to get into an argument in which I had no idea about the facts.

Fair enough.
Devrim

BB

By the above (devs point 2) we need to be looking at bike couriers in the same context?

I don't think so, and I didn't suggest that.

Bit lost, you don't think bike couriers are owner operators? You didn't suggest that and i did or i quoted the wrong poster.
[quote=Devrim]
BB

Effectively we're talking about classifying them into who we as communists should or should not support, depending on whether we see them as working class or petit-bourgeois and their revolutionary potential. When the original qeustion that arose is whether the protest taking place is worthy of our support, isn't the problem that the protests is /are populist.

Devrim

Don't you think that the aim of this struggle is relevant?
Devrim

BB

Yes as it has a direct affect on what comes out of my pocket, as such i'm trying to get my head round it, hence the questions. And the conclusion that as a populist struggle in haulage terms it can't move any further (in a revolutionary sense) as it's aims are to maximise profits in that business, hence the support by a section of bosses, big and small.

I hope the qoutations make sense, i spent more time trying to tidy it than write my replys.

BB

Are owner operators in europe all that different in terms of class from their US counterparts?

I am not sure. I just didn't want to get into an argument in which I had no idea about the facts.

By the above (devs point 2) we need to be looking at bike couriers in the same context?

I don't think so, and I didn't suggest that.

Effectively we're talking about classifying them into who we as communists should or should not support, depending on whether we see them as working class or petit-bourgeois and their revolutionary potential. When the original qeustion that arose is whether the protest taking place is worthy of our support, isn't the problem that the protests is /are populist.

Don't you think that the aim of this struggle is relevant?

Devrim

Nonetheless, it remains the case that this condition does change the nature of their economic interests and makes them easy prey for this kind of campaign which is of a purely populist nature.

I would point out that the proletariat is often involved in equally populist rhetoric and actions, especially amongst traditional business union's. The tendency, or inclination to such, does not express anything intrinsic, other than the weakness of support for a class-based alternative. I think the same is true of owner-operators; the fact, as you and others have pointed out, that the current protests are populist in nature doesn't express some intrinsic fact of the truck-drivers owner-operators position.

I disagree that you can simply collapse the type and character of the loans and "capital" of the owner-operator and others pushed into the marginal areas.

I think georgestapleton's point was well made. So far your definitions of petit-bourgeois seem to orientate around their level of "independence", rather than their relationship to means of production. Independence from who? Even the big bourgeoisie aren't really independent - manufacturing is largely in hock to the bankers and the bankers are largely dependent on the state.

My use of that term was a bit sloppy, and I'll agree with what you said. I'll agree with the petit-bourgeoisie definition as it is generally understood.

This has become abundantly clear in the current crisis.

This is where I disagree, and its because I don't believe that there is a "crisis", outside of opposition to the conditions that the funny numbers and arbitrary policy dictates, supposedly, what we should have. If people would just roll over and take it, then there wouldn't be much of a "crisis"; people would just sadly take their lot. The fact there not is causing the voodoo math of the world's elites to fall by the wayside.

would point out that the proletariat is often involved in equally populist rhetoric and actions, especially amongst traditional business union's.

Oh, undoubtedly. But whereas the proletariat can, however difficult this process may be, develop its own autonomous struggle the petit-bourgeoisie cannot. The petit-bourgeoisie can only break outside of populist struggles because of the leadership of the proletariat.

I think the same is true of owner-operators; the fact, as you and others have pointed out, that the current protests are populist in nature doesn't express some intrinsic fact of the truck-drivers owner-operators position.

I'm not sure I said that. On the contrary, I think the populist nature of the struggle (or at least the incapacity to break away from it) springs directly from their status as owner-operators. I think I said there was a way to push this onto a more proletarian footing but that this would be extremely difficult without leadership from the proletariat proper i.e. a developing strike movement in other sectors of the proletariat.

This is where I disagree, and its because I don't believe that there is a "crisis"

I disagree with this and would happily discuss this on another thread, but I think it'll derail this one if we get into that discussion here.

Lets try again?

Devrim

BB

Are owner operators in europe all that different in terms of class from their US counterparts?

I am not sure. I just didn't want to get into an argument in which I had no idea about the facts.

Fair enough.
Devrim

BB

By the above (devs point 2) we need to be looking at bike couriers in the same context?

I don't think so, and I didn't suggest that.

Bit lost, you don't think bike couriers are owner operators? You didn't suggest that and i did or i quoted the wrong poster.

Devrim

BB

Effectively we're talking about classifying them into who we as communists should or should not support, depending on whether we see them as working class or petit-bourgeois and their revolutionary potential. When the original qeustion that arose is whether the protest taking place is worthy of our support, isn't the problem that the protests is /are populist.

Don't you think that the aim of this struggle is relevant?

Devrim

Yes as it has a direct affect on what comes out of my pocket (price of fuel), as such i'm trying to get my head round it, hence the questions. And the conclusion that as a populist struggle in haulage terms it can't move any further (in a revolutionary sense) as it's aims are to maximise profits in that business, hence the support by a section of bosses, big and small.
However i don't think it's as simple as just a classification, as nothing ever is.

Demogorgon303

But whereas the proletariat can, however difficult this process may be, develop its own autonomous struggle the petit-bourgeoisie cannot. The petit-bourgeoisie can only break outside of populist struggles because of the leadership of the proletariat.

So the proletariat can only break out of populist struggles if it develops it's own autonomous struggle. And the petit-bourgeoisie can only break outside of populist struggles if the proletariat develops it's own autonomous struggle? I think we could possibly add that the proletariat can only negate itself if it's able to integrate large elements of the petit-bourgeoisie and other strata as part of that autonomous struggle - protests and blockades around prices or other issues not directly to do with production are likely to be a part of that.

So the proletariat can only break out of populist struggles if it develops it's own autonomous struggle. And the petit-bourgeoisie can only break outside of populist struggles if the proletariat develops it's own autonomous struggle?

Yes. The petit-bourgeoisie as a class is incapable of developing any autonomous struggle beyond impotent revolts. They may contribute to social instability but they can't offer the same kind of historical perspective that the proletariat can.

I think we could possibly add that the proletariat can only negate itself if it's able to integrate large elements of the petit-bourgeoisie and other strata as part of that autonomous struggle - protests and blockades around prices or other issues not directly to do with production are likely to be a part of that.

The first part of this I agree with. Of course the proletariat will have to pull other strata behind it, including the petit-bourgeoise (and the peasantry). But it can only provide this leadership once it has, itself, felt its own class power on its own terrain and eliminated petit-bourgeois ideologies from its own ranks.

With regard to blockades and price protests, no, I don't think they will play a significant part in struggles although they could prove a detonator for larger struggles as the example of the Russian Revolution showed earlier. But the proletarian response to the bread crisis in Russia wasn't blockades - it was the development of a mass strike dynamic organised through factory committees and soviets. In other words, the proletariat didn't simply respond as consumers (as the current movement does) but as producers, demonstrating that the immediate problem (rising cost of living) was linked directly to the crisis of the means of production. This was quickly coupled by a realisation that this problem couldn't be simply solved economically but politically i.e. the abolition first of the Tsarist state and then capitalism altogether. The future political struggle will undoubtedly involve confrontations on "issues not directly related to production" but this will be because the struggle itself demands the elmination of national, ethnic, sexual divisions as well as the abolition of the capitalist state and no doubt other issues we haven't even thought of yet.

I'm not condemning general struggles against living conditions, far from it. I'm saying this protest at this moment in time doesn't offer any perspective for advancement of the class struggle. But I think you're looking at the situation in a very abstract way, rather than looking at the balance of class forces, the nature of the different classes involved and their specific interests. I think this springs from a tendency often expressed on libcom to look at any revolt as positive rather than asking who is revolting, why and how.

Well I don't see this as particularly positive, I'm not sure where I said it was such a great development.

However some elements of the 2000 strike do appear to have gone in an interesting direction (at least going by the two wildcat articles - I wasn't in the UK when it happened and haven't read much else about it). More importantly, I think simply complaining about what it's not - not a strike over wages, not a strike by TESCO truckers - runs a very real risk of missing any developments that might occur later on. It also deserves to be looked at in the international context of inflationary pressure and financial crisis - the aforementioned food riots, factory strikes in Vietnam etc. etc. - since oil prices show no signs of going down, and given retail price stickiness will almost certainly go up in the next couple of months even if there's a drop in crude prices, then, again, it's worth looking at this seriously as opposed to dismissing it - neither cheerleading nor dismissal (and I've not seen any elements of the dismissal which go much beyond those quoted by RTS to be honest).

We should ask ourselves why this isn't incorporating other logistics workers, why we're not seeing strikes over wages in the public or private sector on any scale - regurgitating stuff about 'owner-operators' doesn't make any inroads into this.

I think that owner-drivers are a minority among lorry drivers. I've been taking bulk tanker deliveries of chemicals and fuels from over a dozen leading suppliers for over twenty years and only come across one owner-driver. Made him a cup of tea as the code requires and had a chat with him - nice fella.

After the 78 strike the bourgeoisie particularly targetted lorry drivers and their national agreements. Unions aqiesced and assisted in this attack. The 78 strike and the solidarity it aroused shows part of the role of lorry drivers in the productive process and, still today, the important connections that they make between different industries.
As I remember, the Thatcher government encouraged individual drivers with grants to buy their rigs and made sure that they got certain government contracts, some of them involving strikebreaking.

Many owner-drivers are employers of several other drivers. If there are working alone, they are definitely being squeezed by the crisis and will be even more so, just like other elements on the edge of the class. Their situation is difficult and their future lies in rallying behind the proletariat or becoming part of it. Only the class struggle offers them a way out in the longer term.

There are a lot of building working directly employed (big lay-offs have already started) but there are also a lot of builders who work for themselves alone, or there's a couple, or several, owning their own tools, own transport and driving longer and longer distances. They are in a similar situation to owner-drivers but also a similar situation to the working class (the individualisation of their wages is a growing tendency throughout industry). In Britain, and on the continent, these sub-contracting builders and craftsmen have begun strikes themselves or have supported struggles of other workers and directly employed workers have supported them, joining in their fight. Self-employed builders have tended towards the working class, self-employed owner-drivers have tended towards the scabbing end of the spectrum.

Local authority home care workers, mostly women, have to provide their own cars for work in exchange for a pittance in mileage. Workers (probably the great majority) who have to travel to work by car are also being hit by high fuel costs. Does their future lie with lining up behind or alongside owner-driver fuel protests with their "special case" and subsidy demands, or of joining and enlarging the struggle of the workers?

I remain unconvinced by the food riots. They definitely are a response to the crisis, but as to whether they are a proletarian response (which is the crucial question for me) I remain doubtful. Having said that, I don't know enough about these to give a definitive answer and I certainly wouldn't rule out the possibility of a positive direction for them for precisely that reason.

On the face of things, the factory strikes in Vietnam seem more positive and able to provide a more positive starting point for a more generalised struggle over living standards.

As for crude prices, there's been a lot of speculation in the financial pages that the current oil spike is actually just another bubble and one that could be about to burst. There's certainly a lot of speculation in oil at the moment and I think this and political issues (Iraq, Iran, etc) are driving the instability far more than fundamental issues like China's consumption, even if the latter is also an issue. But the jury's still out, I think.

I agree that any decline in crude is unlikely to have any immediate benefit for the proletariat and I also think, generally, inflation is here to stay. I don't think the bourgeoisie are consciously trying to return to an inflationary strategy - it's more the byproduct of their efforts to prevent a total collapse and they're worried about it getting out of control. But they're definitely using it to put more pressure on the working class.

We should ask ourselves why this isn't incorporating other logistics workers, why we're not seeing strikes over wages in the public or private sector on any scale - regurgitating stuff about 'owner-operators' doesn't make any inroads into this.

The first teacher strike in what, 20 years, was only last month and was specifically orientated around pay vs the rising cost of living! This was combined with a long-running dispute in the public sector, not to mention all the postal strikes that there were last year. So I think it's a bit odd to say there's nothing happening on any scale. But it's obvious that this is nowhere near the level needed to successfully push back these attacks, let alone provide a revolutionary perspective.

As to why the struggle is lagging, given the seriousness of the attacks, there are several factors both contingent and long-term. The most obvious is that the proletariat is still recovering from the long and deep reflux of the 90s and is still in the very earlier stages of reappropriating its methods of struggle. This is why many struggles are orientated around the question of solidarity. Another dampening factor, paradoxically, is the very depth of the crisis - it's obvious, even if only unconsciously, just how little room for manouvre the bourgeoisie has and thus limited capacity to fulfill demands. The threat of unemployment is also very difficult to strike against in the current climate.

Without a political perspective that provides an alternative to the current system, its difficult for the proletariat to move forward - this is being partially answered by the growth of politicised minorities (of which libcom is a part), but it has yet to generalise enough in the class a whole to have a visible effect. And the bourgeoisie is also an active factor, hampering the process - especially in Britain, the grip of unionism is very strong and it will take a series of bitter confrontations with them before workers begin to break outside of their framework.

Having said that, when the proletariat does begin to move, I think there's potential for a rapid development of massive struggles. When this does happen, some of the factors which are currently having a negative effect (the obvious severity of the crisis, the threat of mass unemployment) will have a radicalising effect because they will also reveal the complete bankruptcy of the system. This will also push forward political reflection, thus breaking another hold over the proletariat while the struggles themselves will see increasing confrontation with union structures.

The first teacher strike in what, 20 years, was only last month and was specifically orientated around pay vs the rising cost of living! This was combined with a long-running dispute in the public sector, not to mention all the postal strikes that there were last year. So I think it's a bit odd to say there's nothing happening on any scale. But it's obvious that this is nowhere near the level needed to successfully push back these attacks, let alone provide a revolutionary perspective.

'On any scale' wasn't really what I meant. We've had the initially encouraging but eventually depressing post strikes, and some numerically large one-dayers, and a few ongoing disputes with multiple strike days which didn't spread much or make any links. Of these, I'd say the post was probably the most interesting, but I'd not included it since it was before the recent fuel price hikes (given this thread is about protests specifically in response to those).

BTW there could be a Shell tanker drivers strike - definitely not owner-operators in this case, and definitely not an employers' strike. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1024076/Tanker-drivers-close-hundreds-petrol-forecourts-series-strikes.html

edit: and Bulgarian bus drivers (although this does look like an employers' 'strike'):
http://www.sofiaecho.com/article/bus-drivers-protest-against-high-fuel-prices/id_29504/catid_66

'On any scale' wasn't really what I meant. We've had the initially encouraging but eventually depressing post strikes, and some numerically large one-dayers, and a few ongoing disputes with multiple strike days which didn't spread much or make any links.

I'm not sure I see the reason for your pessimism. I went to a local union meeting on the day of the teachers' strike and it was quite interesting how much talk there was of "joint action" between the different unions and across sectors. There were speakers from the NUT, a health workers union (Unison if I remember rightly) and a guy from the FBU.

Obviously, the aim of the unions in spouting this verbiage are suspect, but the fact they're being essentially forced to talk this kind of language shows there's an appetite within the class for this. For the moment, of course, this will be smothered by union actions which still retain a very strong grip, but the potential is there.

The postal strikes demonstrated the willingness to resist a whole series of attacks on workers and the increasing use of wildcat strikes shows a determination to get around all the union obstacles, even if there isn't anything like a conscious rejection of the unions yet. Just as importantly, these strikes also pushed small minorities into organising themselves to try and spread the strike. Dispatch was a very important and positive step forward in that arena, however embryonic.

The point is that there is a clear development of an underlying positive dynamic at both the level of the mass struggle and also the activity of the most conscious parts of the class.

I think joint action is less likely this year than last - see Steven.'s post here: http://libcom.org/news/council-workers-vote-action-22052008 - yes there are definitely some encouraging signs, and in the UK as well as internationally - and it probably wouldn't take much to have me feeling optimistic again.

For a start if the tankers strike goes ahead then it's going to have a big impact, be about wages, and will either force some unity with the owner-drivers or show them up as scabs (since the Mail is already painting this as a move to push up prices further).
Couple more articles:
http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5j4Hp4K1mm5oJ402w__j6pIdqpQTg
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2080478/Petrol-crisis-looms-as-Shell-faces-drivers-strike.html

Looks like talks have collapsed: http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/uk/talks+with+tanker+union+breaks+down/2272882

I have no doubt that the unions will do everything in their power to prevent any joint action. Nonetheless, an appetite for it remains in the class however confused this may be at present. This doesn't mean that we'll see any immediate movement on this - it'll take some time before the inevitable questioning of union policies manifests in anything like an explicit rejection. We should also bear in mind that many of these sectors are inexperienced in struggle.

Teachers, for example, haven't been on strike for 20 years. I was at school in the 80s during the last one and there's a whole generation of teachers in schools today who might only just remember that. However, these younger teachers are also feeling the violence of the crisis most severely and this is what is pushing them forward. Young teachers were the most vocal non-platform speakers at the meeting I went to. More and more, I think people are beginning to think they have nothing to lose.

I think the role of minorities is going to be crucial in the coming period. It's going to be up to them to explicitly challenge the union shackles, point to alternative methods of struggles and spread the lessons of each individual struggle as widely as possible. This why its important for those minorities to organise themselves in order to intervene but also to develop a real culture of discussion both amongst themselves and within the working class as a whole. This is the only way the proletariat can develop its consciousness of the real stakes in the situation and raise its struggle to the level required to meet them.

There have been local teachers strikes in the past twenty years, afaik the recent one was the first national strike in 20 years.

There have been local teachers strikes in the past twenty years, afaik the recent one was the first national strike in 20 years.

You're probably right, but I'd still be surprised if anything like a majority have had experience of it, especially recently. Though it does remind me that the FE lecturers who came out with the teachers were on strike a few years ago and that was national.

Anyway, I think we need to look at the development of future struggles as a process. I think most of the strikes in the immediate future are going to pose questions rather than answer them. But hopefully we'll see the slow reappropriation of lessons which will reappear in the struggles that occur in the medium term.

Owner-driverss are victims of the crisis of capitalism, a crisis that is only going to get worse. But their demands, and similar demands from similar sectors: "special case", "dispensations", "exemptions", "subsidies for our sector", go in the opposite direction to that the working class needs to take. These sectors are small minorities (who work alone) that need to begin to join the struggles of the working class, even if, and particularly if, the latter are not providing a decisive lead. The fairly recent struggles of self-employed builders, craftsmen and sub-contractors gives the example: forging links, unity, solidarity.

Truck drivers - all truck drivers - have an enormous and almost natural respect within the working class. They are a physical link, a face to face connection across the country, across industry and integral to the production process. In however small steps, these links should be built upon in a positive fashion.

According to the BBC, owner-driver protesters blockaded a Shell refinery in Stanlow, Chester yesterday. A "number" of directly employed Shell tanker drivers (I suspect against their union's instructions) refused to cross their picket line and stayed in the depot. The picket line was largely imaginary as it was kept well back by a strong police presence.

I haven't yet read the links above but 500 directly employed tanker drivers under Shell have rejected a six per cent pay offer and want their minimum wage increased by two grand a year.

SOME NOTES CONCERNING FUTURE PROLETARIAN INSURGENCY

Part one: The Dynamics of “Protest” Seen in the Recent Petrol Blockades in Britain

Below are some brief notes regarding the recent petrol blockades in Britain (September and November 2000). What hooks our attention in these events is not the “consciousness” of the protesters, whether the protesters were “reactionary” or “petty bourgeois/middle class”, but the dynamic of the struggle; the truisms it laid bare; the potential for utilising some of the tactics employed, and lessons that might be learned, in the future struggles of wage labour.

September 2000, an outbreak of effective popular spontaneity occurs, i.e., a non-formal organisation takes the State unawares, the police back off, approaches are made to identify leaders so as to enter into a condition of negotiation and thus out of crisis.

The size of public support takes everyone by surprise. The left condemn the fuel protesters as fascists because the protesters reveal no apparent ideological consciousness, and are often petit bourgeois/middle class, even being employers themselves.

Many people comment on the pleasurable quietness of the world, people start talking to each other - the privations generate a sense of pleasurable solidarity. “Social dislocation” is not as unpleasant as the media try to make us believe.

Objectively, the blockades bite very quickly into the reserves of the ‘Just in Time’ economy - the State seems paralysed, unable to strike out in all directions at once, its counter insurgency measures appear to simply rely on information gathering. But as there is no intelligence (i.e., there is no overt, formal leadership as yet: everyone is involved), it sits and does nothing.

Protesters call off the blockades, formalise a pressure group, set timescales and make demands.

A propaganda offensive is begun by the State particularly through progressive and green journalists.

Leaders are identified and very quickly are divided into moderates and extremists, debates are set up between them, on Channel Four News etc., in order to establish rivalries.

The formalisation of the protesters organisation places it within the State’s discourse. What matters now is not the statement of feral power on the roads but of having opened up a direct route of negotiation with the State (a Trojan horse in reverse, the State allowed such an opportunity precisely because it could neutralise that kind of organisation).

When it was publicly perceived that this was not a peasants revolt but just a bunch of petty capitalists trying to get a little bit extra then public support very quickly dwindled. What they had liked was the “aggro”, the sight of workers confidently taking on the state, when that proved to be not really the case, they lost interest, “the public” has no interest in issues (consciousness) only in power and counter power. p>

Of course the enticement of negotiation was a lie, the state will exact a revenge on the individuals involved. Melville writes in Billy Budd of a system of power whereby the ship’s master-at-arms has means at his disposal for punishing individuals who may not have broken any rules but have become subversive of the ship’s spirit. It is described as being down on you, Billy Budd finds that he encounters all sorts of inexplicable bad things happening to him, petty things but annoying all the same. And all the while the master-at-arms, who orchestrates Budd’s perplexity, smiles at him.

The build up to the proposed actions planned for November are portrayed in the media as indecisive, weak and confused. The protesters, in a classic tactical error, but under immense pressure and no doubt destabilisation strategies, decide in favour of adopting a policy of gaining State recognition (and respectability) and forget the blockading lessons of their earlier efforts. One ‘leader’ publicly declares that if any unruly drivers picket a fuel depot he will personally go to them and demand they stop. There has developed within the drivers leadership an aversion to the tactic of the blockades, a vertigo at the prospect of so much instant power, a terror of what they have done.

In general terms we should see this stage not so much as a crisis of consciousness but a forgetting of the nature of power in the rush to be heard and to be accepted by the State. The impulse to act within the law, to appear respectable and within the pale is very strong - most protest groups see the adoption of a rational, media acceptable face as the only way of getting things done. But the public were not interested in the ‘issue’ what they admired was the actualisation of power created by the blockaders, power attracts support – from this we can infer that a large section of the populace will become pro-revolutionary almost immediately in any similar crisis initiated by a proper working class intervention, and they will do so not because of the issue at hand but because they sense their direct access to power.

Police anti-convoy tactics. Splitting up convoys, individual harassment, setting routes and no-go zones (firstly they just want to negotiate, open up channels, they then use these ‘channels’ as a means for dictating terms to the protesters). Changing of plans, abandoning agreements without notice. Provocation and intimidation, including videoing (in one incident a driver demanded that a TV camera crew observe the blatant police surveillance he was suffering, the camera didn’t move). Given that the September blockades had conveyed a sense of power, solidarity and strength, the harmonised work of the police and media was now to generate images and actions of weakness and division. We saw hysterical, frustrated drivers, the derisory ‘convoy’ of a few lorries and the protesters represented (as are all non-establishment political entities) as a minority divided from the normal and neutral population as a whole.

The informational forces of the State had, by November, plenty of time to gear up, the State shepherded the ‘convoy’ down to London like it was droving sheep for market day. The despair of the drivers in the convoy became apparent as they realised they’d been had. “Now it’s gloves off,” snarled one of them to the TV news, impotently. The lorry drivers suddenly became another squealing TV protest group like the Greenham Women. The shrillness of tone in itself indicates powerlessness and interrupts any potential solidarity or support.

It seems therefore that making demands on the back of popular revolt is automatically a disaster because revolt cannot be called back, also it cannot be called for in advance, there is an alchemy to it, a mystery, it just happens, it cannot be made into a political entity. The Situationists had it right: the only call to revolt is to say to it, “Call that a revolt, that’s nothing! Take courage you pussyfooters, one more step.” Revolt is a blind bull feeling for a way out of the field and into a different arena, what it lacks is not consciousness but tools that are applicable to the job.

It seems the move to symbolic action (as opposed to real action) is a disaster and everyone who had previously pricked up their ears lost interest.

Local negotiation with the police is a disaster as they will use any agreement as a lever.

Announcing in advance what you are going to do is a disaster because the State will stop you, there should always be alternatives and contingencies including absolute silence and doing nothing.

What we have learnt:

When revolts of this nature occur we tend to begin to speculate about ways that we (as radicals) might have related to such an event, or how we might relate to a similar one in the future, especially if the revolt in question had a proletarian character. We can see how the methods used in this revolt might be taken up by proletarian insurgents; therefore it is useful to think about how we might react to such future possibilities.

The petrol blockades show the apparent importance of using “anti-informational techniques”. Most (repressive, dividing, and controlling) State activity works by identifying individuals and relating them through organisational structures, all membership organisations, therefore, are built with flaws present from the outset which the State is able to exploit, usually to the detriment of the whole “movement”. (Look at the film, The Battle of Algiers.)

In general terms spontaneity is one anti-informational technique, another is the absence of significant individuals. In particular (as radicals who desire the overthrow of capitalism), we can also draw the lesson that “the revolution” is not the (“revolutionary”) organisations’ preserve. Still another anti-informational stance is group openness, explicitness and coherence (not openness to the State but to comrades: no fronts; no issues; no hidden agendas). Nothing can be found out that is not hidden. Structurally, genuinely radical “political” groups will never be more than pro-revolutionary, so if they are neutralised then it will make no decisive difference because the action is going on elsewhere (this is only a rationalisation of what is already true). The role of organised groups is very specific, they are not a vanguard but can have a decisive role, they are never revolutionary, they are pro-revolutionary and as such can bring things as a kind of service provider to workers engaged in direct struggle. Therefore, in a similar situation to the fuel blockades, the pro-revolutionary group will agitate to clarify what is going on, to maintain the situation, to further the sense of power and progress by interventions on small ‘second fronts’ (in their localities or at work, for example), to provide communication and information. When nothing is happening these organisations should do nothing more than maintain networks at a minimal level.

The most important lesson of the blockades, and their subsequent translation into symbolic protest, is to do nothing unless you have the power to do it successfully (give the State no chance to practice its techniques) and then do nothing that feels like a retreat or a crossing over into a terrain described by the State (i.e. don’t let them set the terms, it would have been better if the fuel protesters had done nothing after September, that way the threat would have remained).

What is certain is that most of the radical movement will instantly pass over onto the terrain of the State in the event of any crisis but this may be just a short term thing (most of the left supported both the action of the State against the blockaders and the bombing of Serbia) when they have regained their nerve they may return to their radical democratic (and thus, still anti-proletarian) positions. It is quite plain that these radicals are a miserable shower.

Red Robbie, Proletarian Gob, Nov. 2000

I've just read the first Wildcat link above and one point I agree with is how truck drivers were forced into becoming owner-drivers within the bourgeoisie's counter-attack of the early 80s in Britain. It was the bourgeoisie that engineered this counter-offensive and that's an important point. Also I have no truck with anyone that has no truck with truckers - it's mentioned a couple of times above how leftism has labelled them "fascists".

When, in the early 70s, working in the main production and distribution centre of a beer industry, we attempted to spread our strike to outlying depots, it was the drivers that spread the word. Face to face information and discussions about decisions supported by the majority countered the disinformation of the management and other shop stewards. Artic drivers were particularly successful in spreading the strike over a 300 mile radius, as if the size of the vehicle gave weight to their mandate.

The lorry driver's strike of 78 was a magnificent push forward in struggle by this sector of the working class and their example led not only to the extension of solidarity but the extension of other wildcats, not least thousands of steel workers on the streets in 79.

The particular revenge of the bourgeosie on the drivers was terrible; it was if they brought a curse of biblical proportions down on their heads. They turned this sector of the class, or the image of this sector of the class, into its anti-thesis, into greedy scabs. Mostly manipulation and ideology and the directly employed majority of drivers were also tainted - which is what the bourgeoisie wanted. And this ideology contained an element of truth as the miners' strike was to prove later (though, as the Wildcat piece above says, the real scab was the NUM).

I haven't heard any more about what happened at the Shell depot at Chesire on Saturday, but news this morning is that tens of thousands of Spanish truckers are involved in some sort of protests?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7443257.stm

BBC

Tens of thousands of Spanish lorry drivers have begun an indefinite strike over the soaring price of diesel, which has risen by 20% this year.

After stopping work at midnight, many disrupted traffic at one of the border crossings between Spain and France.

A number of lorries crossing the picket lines had their windscreens broken, lights ripped out and tyres slashed.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080609/ts_afp/europeinflationprotestenergytransport;_ylt=AmKoMKafJmgo9arVl60_f7as0NUE

Report (in Spanish) of a CGT backed demo with a hundred or so lorries in Barcelona - http://www.rojoynegro.info/2004/spip.php?article22670
More reports from around Spain - http://www.alasbarricadas.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=35979

The Shell drivers' strike is on: http://www.google.co.uk/news?hl=en&ned=uk&ie=UTF-8&ncl=1220947814

I thought it'd get called off after all the hype. Of course David Davis resigning has dropped it off the front pages.

Panic buying everywhere and I heard from a tanker driver today that the picket lines were being respected by other drivers (he heard it on the radio).

On the assumption it continues past today, I've started a new thread for the Shell strike here: http://libcom.org/forums/news/shell-drivers-strike-13062008

Article (in Spanish) from Rojo y Negro about the situation of owner drivers in Spain - http://www.rojoynegro.info/2004/spip.php?article22753

Reasonably interesting WSWS article with the usual caveats: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/jun2008/shel-j20.shtml