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Title: Building radical unionism Author: Adam Weaver Date: January 2009 Language: en Topics: syndicalism, the Industrial Worker, Industrial Workers of the World Source: Retrieved on 10th December 2021 from https://libcom.org/library/building-radical-unionism-providing-services-without-creating-service-unionism Notes: This article appeared in the Industrial Worker in January 2009.
In the IWW many of us have a critique of the service unionism of most of
the large, mainstream unions. This is where the union is seen as a
service that workers pay for with dues. The service the union offers is
representation with and protection from the boss.
On the Organizing Department email list a small debate arose over how
services relate to our organizing. How do we not become the service
unionism we criticize? Opposing service unionism is an important
critique about unions and social movements in general, but whatever we
may call them, services can play a useful role in building radical
unionism and social movements.
We need to understand what service unionism is. It is usually defined as
a passive relationship where workers expect union staff, outside
representatives or even shop stewards to “fix things” for them. The
model is prevalent throughout the US labor movement and can even occur
in professed radical unions like the IWW. Unions promote this type of
thinking through offering services such as credit cards, discounts or
similar benefits. Slogans such as “Union membership pays!” suggest that
the benefits of being a union member are like the advantages of signing
up with Bank of American instead of Wells Fargo.
The part of service unionism we are trying to avoid is a relationship of
expert and worker who needs help or leadership. What we want to create
are services that are member to member and build leadership of workers.
Such services play a role in integrating members into the larger union
and the theory and practice of class struggle. Our consciousness around
class struggle provides us with an important contrast to the mostly
apolitical service unionism. We are trying to build a different world
than the adherents of service unionism are. We try to make a concrete
link between our ideas and the way we fight the bosses.
Service unionism creates vertical relationships where workers look to
politicians, the government, lawyers, experts and even the bosses to get
what they need. What we are trying to create are horizontal
relationships between workers where workers look to each other, people
in their communities or other workers around the world to address their
needs. We often use terms like “solidarity” or “mutual aid” to describe
this. This also doesn’t mean we will never use labor lawyers to support
our fights. We will use them to support our organizing but we do not
rely on a legal strategy and courts to do our work for us. Some of our
fellow workers won’t take on leadership or expert roles. We seek to
ensure that these roles do not become permanent and try to teach skills
to as many people as possible. We want everyone to become a leader.
An example of this is the IWW’s Organizer Training Program, which is
somewhat based on an expert-like relationship. What doesn’t make this
service unionism is that we encourage participants to share their
experiences. We build on those experiences during the trainings. Overall
goal is that participants take these tools, put them into practice and
they become the future trainers.
There are a number of other examples in the union. Many of our campaigns
actively recruit workers sympathetic to our goals and help them with
their resume and references to get a job in the industry they are
organizing. In New York, Spanish speaking immigrant Mexican members
working in food warehouses meet with English speaking members and they
learn each others language from one another. Also recognizing that the
fight of immigrant workers is the fight of all workers, New York members
are referred to local immigration support services. The Chicago Couriers
Union has a program that allows members to borrow a loaner bike if their
own is suddenly damaged. The defunct South Street Workers Union in
Philadelphia would organize clinics where the workers they were
organizing. This allowed low wage retail and service workers without
health insurance to get health screening and a check up by a nurse. They
even had a member who was an accountant showing them how to get a rebate
on their taxes many low-income workers do not know about (the Earned
Income Tax Credit).
There are countless other examples of these currently throughout the
union but also in history. The influence of late nineteenth century
anarchist mutualists on the workers movement in Mexico is very strong.
North of the US border, small towns made up of Mexican workers were run
through various associations. Also practiced throughout the Mexican
labor movement are worker run savings programs, banks, discounted food
stores and health services. These can be important programs that help
workers in the short run, reduce their dependency on capitalist
institutions and allow them to gain experience with cooperatively run
institutions.
The choice between providing services as a union and not providing them
is a false choice. We need to keep the critique of service unionism. But
we also need to provide services for our members by developing
member-to-member relationships, building leadership and supporting
programs that meet our needs. This will integrate workers into the union
and connect them to the class struggle.