How might others see their own role as an anarchist and syndicalist (I'd prefer anarcho-syndicalist) in a practical, hands on, daily shop floor way? How do you carry out your work? Or in the case of some of us older, not on the shop floor no mo peeps, how did you go about that work? How do you/did you build the bridge between militant shop floor unionism and trying to bring folks into understanding anarcho-syndicalism and becoming anarcho-syndicalsts themselves? How do you or did you try and actually bring folks into becoming anarcho-syndicalists?
Hello, I didn't really try
Hello, I didn't really try and bring people into becoming anarcho-syndicalists. I would argue for more militant, more bottom up and democratic tactics during disputes and against top down ones, and I just hope that if the a/s tactics work, they will speak for themselves.
People know I'm an anarchist and I also try to make a lot of effort to be supportive to workmates and be committed in the workplace organising so hopefully their image of an anarchist is not a bad one.
dp
dp
Interesting. I kinda had two
Interesting. I kinda had two tracks to my approach.
Build militant shop floor organization. Seek out most
militant workers and engage with the hope of helping
to develop their thinking of anarcosyndicalism as a
specific and conscious belief. With the longer term
goal of bringing into our organization.
I’m stepping forward on my
I’m stepping forward on my workplace in every conflict situation I can. In most cases it’s more about exposing conflict situations, companies are smart (for the most part) as in they choose the language in which issues are addressed. Usually, “challenge” is corporate tongue for “problem” and so on. Dusting the fluff off their words, describing the matters from a workers perspective.
One funny example is from a “Workplace meeting” (at my work that means a meeting arranged by the company to lay down THEIR visions and issues, while pretending to listen ours) from about a year ago. The bosses bragged, as usual, about how much profit the company have made due to their; (brace yourselves) “Cultural change efforts”. One worker laughed “-What’s that in Swedish?!”. The corporate representatives now made a long explanation on how they had streamlined every part of the workforce. I then raised my hand and said “-Oh, you mean austerity measures?” The room broke out in laughter, and the corporate representatives faces broke out in red. This sparked awareness in a situation where otherwise we were just being dictated the usual crap, waiting for it all to be over so we could go home. For the rest of this meeting questions, of a seldom nature in these situations, where raised by workers and troubled by this the bosses called it a day way earlier than usual. At least we won a couple of hours of free-time that day and a couple of seeds were sown.
Step forward, being a good workmate means everything, that’s where solidarity begins no matter how insignificant the matter may seem. Free, descent coffee at work comes before the General Strike (and who gets anything of worth done before coffee anyhow?). If you start out winning small, even “micro”, struggles that will show possibilities for bigger issues.
Paint the bigger picture with all the small issues when given the chance, usually the hardest part is trying not to be too preachy.
After quite a few IWW
After quite a few IWW trainings and a decade of experience attempting organizing I’d say I try to build close social relationships with my coworkers and move them to build a union committee. Once we are already talking about work people are fairly open to learning about politics these days so I educate about anarcho-syndicalism.
I'd agree with the breaking
I'd agree with the breaking the ice concept based on relationships and collective shop activities
Sometimes the next step forward or up the "political ladder" is harder in larger workplaces.
Here others social and other connections are key and come into play.
My own activities were always "two track", so to speak. Shop floor and "political". Trying not to get too out front and finding a certain overall balance can, at times, be tricky
This is a really great
This is a really great question and discussion point. I think basically I think of myself as having two roles. My shop is non-union so on the shopfloor my role/goal is eventually organizing a grassroots union. Outside the shopfloor I'm working on organization & movement building with the long term goal of making libertarian politics popular with ordinary working class people in my area. So I see building a bridge between shop floor unionism and anarcho-syndicalism as a long term sort of dual role, involving organizing in the shop as well as organization and movement building in my metropolitan area.