Anarcho-Syndicalism in the US

Submitted by syndicalist on April 6, 2014

Starting a new thread strictly devoted to discussion of US anarchosyndicalism

syndicalistcat

9 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by syndicalistcat on April 6, 2014

There are several problems for anarcho-syndicalism in the USA that we should start with trying to understand, and only from the reality can we base ideas about what to do about it.

First, there is our very thin numbers. This is a very long term problem, going all the way back to the destruction of the U.S. Section of the IWPA after 1886.

From 1905 on most anarcho-syndicalists in the USA emersed themselves in the IWW & the project of building that revolutionary union. We need to think our relationship to the IWW but that's not the problem I am getting at here. Rather, the IWW has a rather low key revolutionary ideology that is its basis. In the context of the USA I think this makes sense. I'm not arguing against that. Whatever the weaknesses of the IWW are, I'm not sure if "not being ideological enough" is the problem. Until the late '90s, I would have said that not having a focus on building actual workplace base unions was the main problem of IWW, it's General Membership Branches were more like political groups than organizing centers. I think things have changed for the better since then.

Rather, what I'm getting at is that without a more ideologically specific organization that pushes & develops anarcho-syndicalism, it's hard to have a pole of attraction around which to build a specific anarcho-syndicalist understanding of the situation in the U.S. and attract militants to work together. That was why we formed WSA originally.

I suspect the problem of thin numbers is related to this problem of not having an organization to do education around anarcho-syndicalism.

Second, there is the organizing situation, the situation that we face for workplace organizing, and any other forms of mass organizing we may wish to do. We need people who are willing to make a long term commitment to build a social base for our ideas. This takes time. You have to be in a workplace or other location for some time, to just build relationships, become an accepted member of that population, listen to others, find out what is going on.

OliverTwister

9 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by OliverTwister on April 6, 2014

Briefly I think American leftists inferiority complex also plays a huge role. Our entire point of reference is Europe (with maybe a little bit of South America). This falls especially short when we can not grasp American workers' combination of industrial militancy (eg 1887, 1934, 1946 strikes) & political apathy (no history of ideological affiliation); and the specific history and role of African-Americans in US capitalism & labor movement (completely distinct from any European context and for the most part South American ones as well).

s.nappalos

9 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by s.nappalos on April 6, 2014

Briefly & schematically. I also think we underestimate ourselves, our ideas, and the American working class. We should be building a no-holds-barred anarchist workers organization like the Argentinian FORA whose objective is stateless classless society. There will be a dialogue between our politics and our activity, and I don't see ideology as either the main limiting factor or tool to grow; it's got a different role. We should be looking for places where revolutionary unionism would be likely to grow strategically. The trickier part is navigating the existing landscape of people doing de facto anarchosyndicalist organizing. I see commendable work being done in the IWW, solidarity networks, anti-eviction organizing, and immigrants struggles. An anarchosyndicalist initiative should be built of peoples experiences and commitment in those fights, and reflect the perspectives and needs of those concrete issues viewed through the prism of our objectives. A political organization will have a hard time like syndicalistcat says with thin numbers, but also trying to advocate without that activity. Likewise without us actively educating, advocating, and agitating for the strategy, it's hard to see the activity moving in that direction. My own thought is to create test cases that show it in practice, and hone our ideas through publishing, events, and creating materials.

Pennoid

9 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Pennoid on April 6, 2014

I feel like Nappalos has a good point. Ideology matters for us because we know where we're going. But newer members or workers off the street, are more than likely to be drawn in based on our ability to provide concrete gains as well as like a medium term vision of how to get those gains and their moral justification.

I think the condition of militancy and political apathy might be thought of in this light. The I.W.W. had a broad, over-arching vision of industrial democracy and a cooperative commonwealth. It is the classic worker organization in American labor besides the CIO, and the only to articulate something approaching A/S strategy and theory. But it didn't really coalesce around a good paper or theorists, but around the WFM and several other unions, as well as popular agitators, most of whom were experienced working class/ union organizers, correct? In other words, it had a vision that it wedded to practically useful activity around working class needs. In that sense, Syndicalistcat is correct, we do need to increase our acquaintance with our class. This is itself a project that is incredibly complex for most contemporary leftists. This isn't to say the IWW always won it's fights, but it waged them in a way consistent with it's principles and aiming to win. This kind of activity has long term effects. Stan Weir of course talks about how Wobblies taught him about taking direct action on the job. Cultivating that working class sense of resistance, that idea of workers having their own collective standard of what abuse they will suffer at work, is vital at this point.

I hope what I'm saying isn't too muddled. I'm trying to write something up that is hopefully more clear than this.

syndicalistcat

9 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by syndicalistcat on April 6, 2014

I think Pennoid's last point is very important....rebuilding practices -- a "culture" -- of resistance & solidarity between working people.

The vast militancy & quasi-revolutionary tendencies of the '30s in the USA didn't fall out of the sky, but came after a very long period of development of a culture of militancy, of solidarity, of radicalization. There were thousands of revolutionaries on the scene in the '30s. There was a strong mood favoring horizontal solidarity, shown in things like general strikes. But, as I say, there were lots of active workers who to one degree or another had experiences & ideas that led them to build unions from scratch & act in solidarity. Altho the IWW had diminished, revolutionary unionist tendencies de facto actually were greater in early '30s than in World War 1 era. It's just that growth of Leninist influence tended to muddy the waters as far as ideological influence is concerned. Ideology does matter.

Looking at the situation now, the low level of resistance, I'm not sure that "apathy" is the right word. I think fatalism is a better description. I mean, people do discuss political events & such among themselves. They pay attention to the extent it is relevant to them. But the problem is a lack of any sense of power, of any ability to do anything about what goes down.

This piece talks about this: http://www.libcom.org/blog/leadership-myth-apathy-04042014

Pennoid

9 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Pennoid on April 6, 2014

Yeah, Syndicalistcat, I think fatalism is a good way to put it. Most co-workers I've ever talked to about fighting back seem to think the end is written: They get fired, the boss wins. I think that any fight we take has to be capitalized on (pun!!!) to give ourselves experience, to raise consciousness about what is possible, and to push others to fight back.

Certainly, small scrappy groups of ideologically similar wobblies or others have to figure out how to make the most of their limited time and resources to effectively build resistance. How do we consolidate gains? What are good strategies for convincing workers? Beyond AEIOU, and one-on-ones, a lot of workers will have to see or know the union to even consider getting committed. New organizers or small groups need to be prepared for these different obstacles to building support and how to engage them.

The most convincing argument is winning. So getting good at finding fights/demands and winning them with workers seems like project number one, and something that IWWs/solnets seem to be doing well. The "service" problem is one that comes up, but honestly, it might be part of building a reputation and gaining experience that the first few fights your group wins don't necessarily "recruit" the aggrieved. How do we move past this?

Fnordie

9 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Fnordie on April 7, 2014

Pennoid

The "service" problem is one that comes up, but honestly, it might be part of building a reputation and gaining experience that the first few fights your group wins don't necessarily "recruit" the aggrieved. How do we move past this?

I'm not sure if this answers your question - but I've definitely been in more situations where defeats 'activate' new activist-workers, rather than victories. Sometimes people who get fired and fail to win their jobs back become lifelong class fighters. At my old job, we recruited the most folks to the committee at the same times that a lot of people were getting fired unfairly. Victories mobilize people too, of course, but the best organizer is still the boss.

Pennoid

9 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Pennoid on April 7, 2014

I think you're right fnordie, which runs counter a bit to my "winning is the best argument" thing. Winning is an argument, let's say.

;)

syndicalistcat

9 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by syndicalistcat on April 7, 2014

I think the key thing about Fnordie's point is that these were defeats, that is, people took action. Not doing anything is not a defeat.That there was initiative is the key thing. The first action I was ever involved in....a rule disobedience at Chevron...we were all fired. But I became more committed, I learned from mistakes we had made.

s.nappalos

9 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by s.nappalos on April 7, 2014

That was what I saw in the Portland IWW when I was first cutting my teeth. I can point to all the committed organizers in the branch and they all came out of failed workplace organizing attempts. Some of us recomposition people came up with the phrases "winning by losing" and conversely "losing by winning". Easy wins tend to breed that sort of service mentality often.

We put a lot on ourselves, in part because we're used to dealing with people who are barely convinced they should bother spending their time trying to build something. I do think many of us underappreciate the larger context that shapes our actions. Solidarity networks have strong pressures to become short-term services. I would argue that isn't inherent to the work, but reflects a situation where the working class is not self-organizing. Part of the challenge for anarchosyndicalists today is that workers are largely skeptical about struggle, and tend to vote with their feet in jobs. We are working against that context but in ones and twos. Syndicalistcat and pennoid are right that there's a connection there with cultures of solidarity. I think part of our task will be preparing militants for when the context for action shifts and workers begin to form their own organizations and wage struggles. A lot of our theory and writings we draw from come from eras like that where the workers have outpaced the unions, and revolutionaries swim in that stream. We are in a situation where the unions/ngos/whoever, even when they make attempts, are unable to mobilize the workers. That's key, and strangely I see little discussion of it.

syndicalist

9 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by syndicalist on April 7, 2014

Right quick. Scott, there are more class struggle anarchists, wobblies and anarchy-syndicalists and others today (in the US) then ever before in the post WW2 era. A problem with many of the varied groups and organization they either can not (capacity) or do not think strategically/try concentration/coordination. And even within some of those organizations and groups there is no real tactical unity and approach. The numbers and resources are much more there then in the past. And, sadly, even in the past, we had this same problem.

Gots to run. I want to come back to some of the other things later.

syndicalistcat

9 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by syndicalistcat on April 7, 2014

Scott:

We are in a situation where the unions/ngos/whoever, even when they make attempts, are unable to mobilize the workers. That's key, and strangely I see little discussion of it.

what would you make of this?

s.nappalos

9 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by s.nappalos on April 9, 2014

I don't think it's enough to say they organize poorly. While true, my own experience in organizing is that most workers have a very cost-benefit analysis, and see other options (like changing jobs, working more overtime, etc) as a better use of their time. When people do fight, it's because they're motivated by something bigger. Unions are particularly bad at that kind of motivation, but that's where they're trying to go with the whole invite the church, moral mondays, reinvigorated liberalism stuff.

I agree with syndicalist on some of the problems. It's tricky. I mean anarchists are extremely fractured and the reality is very few are actually doing work that interfaces regularly with people outside activist circles. I'd love to see hundreds of people around the country coordinate on a campaign, I'm just skeptical it could work in this environment.

syndicalistcat

9 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by syndicalistcat on April 9, 2014

seeing a way out thru seeking a different job was very common also in the '80s and '90s. it's a long time thing, especially in USA.

unions in USA historically haven't had values -- AFL unions anyway. so, yeh, how can they motivate people by putting forward something bigger that is at stake? often the radical left in the past provided a value system, a context for the struggle, but this sector is weak.

klas batalo

9 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by klas batalo on April 10, 2014

From 7 years back, right about the time I became an anarcho-syndicalist:

http://libcom.org/forums/organise/n-american-anarcho-syndicalism-today

syndicalist

9 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by syndicalist on April 10, 2014

klas batalo

From 7 years back, right about the time I became an anarcho-syndicalist:

http://libcom.org/forums/organise/n-american-anarcho-syndicalism-today

And I don't think we advanced the question or answers in all this time
But it's clear that there will be different efforts/specific focuses by a small variety
If peeps

syndicalist

9 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by syndicalist on April 10, 2014

I'm on a cell now. I'm gonna come back to this. The above reply is lacking and incomplete. And not very satisfying.

klas batalo

7 years 6 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by klas batalo on September 5, 2016

If you are interested in building the anarcho-syndicalist movement in the USA please feel free to get in touch with all of us over at WSA:

https://www.workersolidarity.org/
http://www.ideasandaction.info/

[email protected]

syndicalist

6 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by syndicalist on January 28, 2018

"Funny" rereading this.