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Workers Solidarity Movement position paper
THE TRADE UNIONS
WHO CAN CHANGE SOCIETY
1.1 Anarchists know that "the history of all previously
existing societies has been the history of class struggle".
At every stage in the development of society - from
ancient times through feudalism to the present day -
there has been an oppressed class whose labour has
created the wealth of society, and a ruling class which
controlled that wealth. At almost every stage the
oppressed have not accepted their lot without fighting
back. There were the slave revolts of Greece and Rome,
the peasant risings of the middle ages, the revolutions of
the 1600s and 1700s.
1.2 But all these struggles ended with the old parasitic
rulers being replaced with a different gang of parasitic
rulers. The failure of the oppressed classes to keep control
of the revolutions they fought in can be explained by these
main factors:
(a) the generally low level of wealth in society,
(b) the fact that the everyday life of these people
did not prepare them to run society.
The majority were illiterate peasants who had no idea
what things were like outside their own locality. Their
everyday life divided them from each other. Each peasant
had to worry about his own plot of land, and hoped to
enlarge it. Each craftsman had to worry about his own
business, and hoped to enlarge it. To varying degrees each
peasant and craftsman was in competition with his
fellows, not united with them. He couldn't think in terms
of class.
1.3 The workers who create the wealth under capitalism
differ from all previously oppressed classes. Firstly, they
create enough wealth to feed and clothe the world and still
have plenty to spare for science, culture, luxeries and so
on. Secondly, and more importantly, their everyday life
prepares them to take over the running of society. Under
capitalism we are brought together in large workplaces,
into towns and cities. Capitalism makes us co-operate
everyday at work. Each person has to do their bit so that
the person at the next stage of production can do theirs. In
the services it is the same, from the office to the
hospital, workers have to co-operate with each other in
order to get their jobs done. This means that the modern
working class can be a force capable, not only of rebelling
against the existing set-up, but of taking over and
recreating society in its own interests - and not as in the
past merely help a different section of the ruling class in
its battles against the more backward sections of that
class.
1.4 Why then don't workers use their numbers, their
collective power and take over? Mainly because we are
told that we are not able to do just that. It is a message
hammered into us, from school to the newspapers to the
television. We are being constantly told that workers can
only follow orders and that is the natural order of things.
1.5 But there is one point, in particular, at which workers
no longer feel powerless and at which they see in a much
clearer way the reality of class rule. That is when they
use their collective power that runs the factories, offices,
schools, transport, etc. - to stop them. They can get a
glimpse of the potential of their own power.
THE NATURE OF THE TRADE UNION MOVEMENT
2.1 From their early beginnings back in the 1600s one thing
is very clear - for a worker to join a trade union means
having to recognise, to some degree, that he or she has
different interests from the boss. There is no way to
explain the survival of the unions other than the reality
that there are different class interests, and workers have
understood that to promote their own interests they have
to organise on class lines. No amount of conservatism,
bureaucracy or backwardness within the unions can
obliterate this essential fact. The very existence of the
unions testifies to the existance of some level of basic
class consciousness.
2.2 Trade unions are not revolutionary organisations. They
were formed to defend and improve the lot of workers
under capitalism. Trade union struggle is an absolute
necessity. In the course of these struggles workers begin
to see their potential power, they can be radicalised and
can be brought into the revolutionary movement.
2.3 After all, what is anarchism? When we get down to
basics, it is workers collectively running a free society.
Instead of taking orders from the boss and serving his/her
mad rush for profit at any cost, it is about working
together for the common good. This doesn't mean that
strikers set out with clear anarchist goals in mind. They
don't. But collective action is the only way to win a strike
- so the logic of the workers' position: collective action in
production, collective action in struggle; takes us in an
anarchist direction. And once in struggle peoples' ideas
can change. They gain confidence, a sense of their ability
to take control of their own lives. This is why many
workers who go on strike with faith in the "impartiality"
of the police or with sexist ideas (to give but two
examples) can find these ideas challenged by their
experience in struggle. That is why we in the WSM get
involved in workers' struggles, though it is not the only
reason - we also act from a position of solidarity with
other members of our class. It is in struggle that large
numbers of people can be won to anarchist politics. As our
forerunners in the First International said "the
emancipation of the working class can only be brought
about by the working class themselves".
2.4 Central to our politics is the position that the working
class will lead the fight for anarchism. It is only the
self-activity of masses of workers that is capable of
mounting an effective challenge to the bosses and their
state. The trade union movement is the most important
mass movement the working class has built and no matter
how progressive or reactionary the attitudes of its
members, no matter how conservative they can become, it
does not alter the fact that they are the most important
mass organisations of the working class. For the WSM, as
anarchists, activity within them is our most important
ongoing activity.
THE BUREAUCRACY
3.1 The unions are dominated by a bureaucracy, a collection
of (usually unelected) full-time officials with too much
power and undue influence. They are not responsible to the
membership except in the most formal way, not in any real
sense. They may take the side of their members but the
point is that they do not have to. They are not under the
control of the members, they earn much more than those
they 'represent', they often sit alongside bosses and the
government on commissions and the boards of semi-state
companies, they enjoy all sorts of perks. In short they
enjoy a lifestyle quite different than that of the people
they are supposed to be working for. Most of the newer
officials have never even worked in an ordinary job.
They see their union work as a career. More than a few of
them change sides and take jobs with the employers'
organisations. Their career is that of an arbitrator, a
fixer, a conciliator, a negotiator.
3.2 What is important to them is proving their skills as
smart negotiators, not pulling out all the stops to win
their members' demands. They have narrow sectional
interests, they only look after their own patch regardless
of the general intertests of workers. These people rarely
lead or initiate strikes. Instead they will have you running
back and forth to the Labour Court, Rights Commissioners,
the Employer-Labour Conference and every other talking
shop they can find. They will negotiate "until the cows
come home", and it is all aimed at finding a "reasonable"
solution. They see striking as very much a last resort, and
condemn - without hesitation - unofficial action (i.e.
action that has not been sanctioned by them).
3.3 These people do not usually lead strikes but sometimes
will, as when employers are refusing to negotiate or the
negotiation procedures are being threatened. Most of the
time, however, they will go to almost any length in order
to cobble together a deal ....any deal, rather than opt for
industrial action.
3.4 These people are not nasty individuals. They behave as
they do because they have too much power and are
unaccountable, in any real way, to their members. Power
corrupts, no matter who you are. This behaviour is
inevitable, no matter how radical or left-wing they are at
the beginning, their role sucks them into the business of
conciliation. Furthermore they have to be able to control
their members - which usually means stopping them
fighting the boss - if they are to have anything to bargain
with at the negotiation table. This may sound odd but the
point is that the union official has to sell the employer
labour discipline and freedom from unofficial strikes as
part of its side of the bargain.
3.5 It is self-evident that the more power, initiative and
control that lies with the bureaucracy - the less it will lie
with the rank & file membership on the shopfloor.
3.6 As a whole, the bureaucracy swings between the
position of mediator and that of open defender of the
status quo. But as a grouping they can not go over
completely to defending the bosses' interests; to some
degree they have to respond to their members' demands
because they are working in workers' organisations.
Likewise they cannot become totally responsive to to their
members' demands as that would see the end of their role,
power and careers. There are individual exceptions to this
but, as a collective grouping, this remains the case.
3.7 This bureaucracy, not just because of the individuals in
it but because of its objective position in relation to the
membership, has to be opposed to workers' self-activity on
most occasions. It is, by its nature, authoritarian.
ONE STEP FORWARD, ONE STEP BACKWARDS
4.1 The response of the left social democrats, Stalinists
and mainstream Trotskyists is that we have to elect
and/or appoint 'better' officials. They see the problem
primarily in terms of the individuals who hold the posts.
This stems from their conception of "socialism" as some
sort of giant state enterprise bureaucracy where things
are done "for the workers". Workers' self-activity occupys
no leading role in their scheme of things, just as real
workers' control is not part of their plan for a "socialist"
society. Their ideas are rooted in an authoritarian view of
the world.
4.2 A problem which, from time to time, has manifested
itself in other countries is the view that workers should
leave the unions and destroy them; that no permanent
organisation of workers under capitalism can avoid
becoming totally integrated into the state and a tool in the
hands of the bosses. The people who promote this
nonsense claim that the unions are holding workers back
from making a revolution ....now! As these people claim to
have made a serious and scientific study of the needs of
workers under capitalism, the forces required for a
revolution and the way in which workers gain the
confidence and political will to change society - we are
very easy on them when we dismiss their position as
childish, infantile and ultra-leftist.
4.3 A third position we come across is that of breaking
away and forming new unions. The effect of this is to take
the minority of combative and radical workers out of the
old union, leaving it totally at the mercy of the
bureaucracy whose antics had provoked the split. We urge
those workers to remain and fight within the union, to win
over the membership - not to leave them without a
combative focus.
Breakaway unions offer no alternative in the long run as
the problems that led to their formation will develop in
the new union. Ireland's labour history is littered with
examples of this. The ITGWU and FWUI (which merged to
form SIPTU), and the National Busworkers Union, to name
but a few of the main unions, were all born as "left"
breakaways.
While we refuse to advocate breakaways, except possibly
in the most exceptional cases, we ultimately stand for the
right of workers to make the decision themselves.
SYNDICALISM
5.1 Syndicalism, and especially anarcho-syndicalism, has
been an important current in many countries - particularly
in Southern Europe and Latin America. Its basic ideas
revolve around organising all workers into the "one big
union", keeping control in the hands of the rank & file, and
opposing all attempts to create a bureaucracy of
unaccountable full-time officials. Unlike other unions
their belief is that the union can be used not only to win
reforms from the bosses but also to overthrow the
capitalist system. They hold that most workers are not
revolutionaries because the structure of their unions is
such that it takes the initiative away from the rank & file.
Their alternative is to organise all workers into the "one
big union" in preparation for the revolutionary general
strike. They see the biggest problem in the structure of
the existing unions rather than in the ideas that tie
workers to authoritarian, capitalist views of the world.
5.2 Syndicalism does not create a revolutionary political
organisation. It creates industrial unions. It is a-
political, arguing all that is necessary to make the
revolution is for the workers to seize the factories and the
land. After that it believes that the state and all the other
institutions of the ruling class will come toppling down.
They do not accept that the working class must take
political power. For them all power has to be immediately
abolished on day one of the revolution.
5.3 Because syndicalist organisation is the union, it
organises all workers regardless of their politics.
Historically many workers have joined, not because they
were anarchists, but because the syndicalist union was the
most militant and got the best results. Because of this
tendencies always appeared that were reformist.
5.4 Syndicalists are quite correct to emphasise the
centrality of organising workers in the workplace. Critics
who reject syndicalism on the grounds that allegely it
cannot organise those outside the workplace are wrong.
Taking the example of anarcho-syndicalism in Spain it is
clear that they could and did organise throughout the
entire working class as was evidenced by the Iberian
Federation of Libertarian Youth, the 'Mujeras Libres' (Free
Women), and the neighbourhood organisations.
5.5 The weakness of syndicalism is rooted in its view of
why workers are tied to capitalism, and its view of what
is necessary to make the revolution. Spain in 1936/7
represented the highest point in anarcho-syndicalist
organisation and achievement. Because of their a-
politicism they were unable to develop a programme for
workers' power, to wage a political battle against other
currents in the workers' movement (such as reformism and
Stalinism), and to give a lead to the entire class by
fighting for complete workers' power.
Instead they got sucked into support for the Popular Front
government, which in turn led to their silence and
complicity when the Republican state moved against the
collectives and militias. The minority in the CNT,
organised around the Friends of Durruti, was expelled when
they issued a proclamation calling for the workers to take
absolute power (i.e. that they should refuse to share power
with the bosses or the authoritarian parties).
5.6 The CNT believed that when the workers took over the
means of production and distribution this would lead to
"the liquidation of the bourgeois state which would die of
asphyxiation". History teaches us different. In a situation
of dual power it is very necessary to smash the state.
5.7 In contrast to this the Friends of Durruti were clear
that "to beat Franco we need to crush the bourgeoisie and
its Stalinist and Socialist allies. The capitalist state
must be destroyed totally and there must be installed
workers' power depending on rank & file committees. A-
political anarchism has failed". The political confusion of
the CNT leadership was such that they attacked the idea of
the workers seizing power as "evil" and leading to an
"anarchist dictatorship".
5.8 The syndicalist movement, organised in the
International Workers Association and outside it, refuses
to admit the CNT was wrong to "postpone" the revolution
and enter the government. They attempt to explain away
this whole episode as being due to "exceptional
circumstances" that "will not occur again". Because they
refuse to admit that a mistake of historic proportions was
made, they are doomed to repeat it (should they get a
chance).
5.9 We recognise that the syndicalist unions, where they
still exist, are far more progressive than any other union.
But the anarchist-communist organisation will organise
within its ranks and everywhere else workers are
organised. We will not liquidate our specific politics and
organisation into the a-politicism of syndicalism.
PARTY POLITICS AND THE UNIONS
6.1 In Ireland, as in many other countries, there are formal
links between social-democratic (in some countries
nationalist or liberal) Parties and the unions. The largest
general unions in Ireland are affiliated to the Irish Labour
Party. Far from providing a "political voice" or "weapon"
for workers it helps to disarm them politically. In the
unions; where we have real, if unused, strength; the
bureaucrats can argue against taking up issues outside the
workplace on the grounds that "that is what the Labour
Party is there for". Political affiliation attempts to put
the political struggles of workers under the control of
professional 'representative' politicians. It aids passivity.
6.2 In Ireland the Labour Party does not even enjoy the
electoral support of most trade unionists. Properly
speaking it is not the Party of the unions - it is the Party
of the union bureaucracy.
6.3 We support the concept of a political levy but urge the
unions to disaffiliate from the Labour Party. Instead we
seek to mobilise the strength of the unions to take direct
action on political issues. The first step towards this is
the raising of political issues at section and branch level
through arguing for sponsorship of specific
demonstrations, for the passing of resolutions on issues
such as repressive legislation and gay rights. All such
resolutions should be linked to some action, no matter how
minimal it may be at the beginning.
WSM ACTIVITY IN THE UNIONS
7.1 Our perspectives for activity within the unions are
centred on encouraging workers themselves to take up the
fight against the bosses, state interference and the TU
bureaucracy. Our most important area of activity is on the
shopfloor.
7.2 We encourage 100% union membership and all WSM
members are members of their appropriate trade union.
7.3 No WSM member will accept any unelected position
that entails having power over the membership.
7.4 Members elected as shop stewards consider their
position as that of a delegate rather than that of a
'representative' who can act over the heads of the
members.
7.5 When going forward for elective positions we make it
clear that we are not accepting the structure as it now
exists. We will fight for more accountability, mandation,
information for members, etc.
7.6 The following points serve as guidelines for our day-
to-day activity and link it to our goal of anarchism,
because of the method that lies behind them.
WAGES
(a) Opposition to centralised wage bargaining. Defence of
free collective bargaining.
(b) Encouragement of joint claims and action across union
and craft divides.
(c) For cash claims, in preference to percentage ones, on
the basic with no strings attached.
(d) For equal pay without job evaluation.
(e) For a national minimum wage.
JOBS
(a) Opposition to all job losses through strikes and
occupations backed up by the greatest possible solidarity
action throughout the TU movement.
(b) That all closures be met by the demand for continued
employment with no reduction in pay, or worsening of
conditions or union rights. We are not concerned whether
this is done by bringing in a new owner or by
nationalisation.
(c) We point out that nationalisation is not a cure-all, and
that state ownership brings us not one inch nearer to
socialism.
(d) Opposition to all productivity deals that involve job
losses.
(e) Opposition to 'natural wastage' of jobs, forced early
retirement and attacks on married womens' right to work
outside the home.
(f) Full membership rights in the unions for unemployed
workers, for unemployed sections within the branches.
(g) Where possible, organisations of the unemployed should
be set up. These should keep in close contact with those
still in work by helping on picket lines and building links
with the unions. They should also aim for closer links
with bona-fide tenants' and residents' associations.
(h) For trade union support for the demands of the
unemployed, e.g. providing facilities, refusing to cut off
services such as ESB and gas, etc.
(i) For putting pressure on the state to inject money into
industry that is both labour intensive and socially useful.
For a programme of public works paying union rates. For a
crash programme of housebuilding using direct labour
employed by the local authorities.
(j) For unionisation of people on schemes, for TU rates of
pay.
(k) We reject the idea that unemployed people should be
thankful for any 'job' they are offered. We call for decent
jobs - ones that are well paid and socially useful.
STATE INTERFERENCE
(a) Opposition to all laws restricting the right to strike,
and all laws which seek to interfere in the internal affairs
of the unions. Opposition to "union bashing".
(b) We are opposed to schemes for "worker directors" and
"workers participation". They are a confidence trick to
deny the reality of class rule by the bosses. Workers'
interests are opposed to the interests of the bosses.
(c) When possible, we encourage workers not to use the
Labour Court and other supposedly "impartial" institutions.
Instead we call for solidarity action.
(d) We argue for the withdrawal of the ICTU
representatives from the Employer-Labour Conference, the
N.I. Police Authority, state and semi-state boards. We are
against participation in all bodies that try to destroy the
independence of the unions by involving them in "social
partnership".
(e) We are against the "sweetheart deals" negotiated by
some unions and the Industrial Development Authority
which grant negotiation rights to a single union without
the agreement of the workforce. We stand for the right of
workers to join the union of their choice.
(f) We are for 100% trade union membership.
WOMENS' RIGHTS
(a) For positive encouragement of women to participate in
the unions, and to take lay office.
(b) We are against the concept of "reserved places" on
union committees for women. It is undemocratic and
tokenistic. The real alternative for the unions to seriously
take up womens' issues.
(c) For equal rights and benefits for all members
regardless of sex, age or whether they are full-time or
part-time workers.
(d) For six months paid maternity/paternity leave.
(e) Opposition to the use of maternity leave as a
disentitlement to pay related benefit.
(f) In order to enable women to attend union meetings we
call for childcare provision at the expense of the union.
(g) To defend womens' right to work we call for childcare
provision at the expense of the bosses, and under the
supervision of the workers using it.
(h) For 'flexitime' arrangements where workers with
children desire it.
(i) To commit the unions to support a woman's right to
control her own fertility, including the right to avail of
contraception and abortion, and to give moral and material
support to campaigns seeking to achieve this end.
UNION DEMOCRACY
(a) We fight to change the role of the full-time officials -
not to change the individuals who occupy the positions.
Their decision-making powers have to be removed and
returned to the rank & file membership. They should be
elected and paid no more than the average wage of the
people they represent. They should only serve for a fixed
period of no more than five years after which they they
return to ordinary work. The unions will have to win the
demand for jobs to be kept open in order for this to be
realistic.
(b) All officials to be subject to mandation and recall.
(c) We are totally opposed to the ICTU "two tier" picket.
(d) For regular branch and workplace meetings, in working
hours where this is possible.
(e) For direct elections to all committees, conference
delegations and national officerships, subject to
mandation and recall.
(f) All strikes to be automatically made official as long as
they do not contradict trade union principles.
(g) Support for all disputes, official or unofficial, in
pursuit of higher wages, better conditions, jobs, trade
union principles or any issue in the interest of the class.
(h) For the publication of minutes of all union meetings.
(i) Where revolutionaries can gain enough support to win
election to national officerships in large unions, or indeed
small ones, this support should not be used to merely elect
a candidate. Instead it should be used to fundamentally
change the structure of the union in such a way as to
return power to the membership and turn the officers into
administrators and resource people rather than decision
makers.
RANK AND FILE MOVEMENT
8.1 The rank and file movement is that movement within
the unions of militant workers who are prepared to fight
independently of the bureaucracy, and against it when
necessary.
8.2 The form it has taken in Ireland has been that of
combative shop steward committees, inter-factory
committees, and groupings of activists within particular
unions and/or trades.
8.3 Such a movement arises when workers go into struggle
and are attacked not only by the boss but also by their own
union officials. It requires the confidence to fight on both
these fronts, and to be generalised to the degree where it
can appeal for solidarity action over the heads of the
bureaucrats.
8.4 In the case of building around a programme or list of
demands, it should be broad enough to attract workers who
are militant but would not see themselves as having a
particular political outlook. The basis for building is (as a
general guide): 1. for union democracy, 2. for womens'
rights in the workplace and in the union, 3. against wage
restraint, 4. for a fight for jobs, 5. support for strikes.
8.5 Within the rank & file movement we fight for our
politics, we never hide them. But we do not want to take
over, the movement should be independent of any one
political organisation. While we seek to convince as many
workers as possible of the need for anarchism, we do not
do this in an opportunist manner at the expense of the
growth of the movement. It should never be made a front
belonging to the revolutionary organisation. Its role is to
provide a focus for workers moving to the left and wanting
to fight.
AID FOR WORKERS IN DISPUTE
9.1 In line with our recognition of the need for solidarity
the WSM, within the bounds of its resources, offers to aid
workers in dispute. In this we do not seek to "provide a
service" but to encourage self-activity among the strikers.
We push them to pressurise the union into providing
material help. Only when this is not forthcoming do we
provide leaflets, etc. We will put our organisation at their
disposal in terms of help with fundraising, collections,
publicity, contacts for blacking and other solidarity
actions - but we do it WITH the strikers, not FOR them.
9.2 Our most immediate aim in any strike is to win a
victory. But it is not our sole aim. We are political
militants and not just good trade unionists, we argue our
politics. We seek to win support for our politics, we seek
to win members to our organisation.
THE CLOSED SHOP
10.1 When we say we are in favour of 100% trade unionism
we mean just that. A fighting union will gain the support
of the vast majority of workers. But there will be that
small minority, from whose ranks hardline parasites and
scabs appear, who will refuse to join. As they
automatically benefit from every claim the union wins
they should not be allowed to opt out of the struggle for it.
Where the majority of the workforce decide they want a
closed shop agreement we support them. However we do
not support single union agreements that are forced on
workers from above. The important thing is that everyone
is in a bona-fide union, it is less important which union
they join.
UNIONS AND REVOLUTION
11.1 Trade unions will not become revolutionary
organisations, they were never set up to be that. However
from within trade union struggle will arise the embryo of
the workers' councils of the future. The early beginnings
of this are seen wherever workers create their own rank &
file organisation (without mediation or "all-knowing"
leaders) to pursue their class interests.
11.2 Towards this end we push as hard as we can for
independence from the control of the bureaucracy.
11.3 The role of the WSM within these struggles is to unify
the different sectional struggles into an awareness of the
overall struggle between the classes; to act as a
"collective memory" for the movement (i.e. able to explain
the lessons of past struggles); to take on the politics of
reformism and Leninism within the movement; to explain
and popularise the anarchist-communist idea. Essentially
our role is that of a "leadership of ideas" - as opposed to a
leadership of elitist individuals.
January 1991