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Title: Ready to Fight
Author: Shane Burley
Date: 2015
Language: en
Topics: community organizing, community syndicalism, anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism, organization, Black Rose Anarchist Federation, community unionism, dual power
Source: https://anarchiststudies.org/communitysyndicalism/

Shane Burley

Ready to Fight

There has been an effort by scholars and organizers alike over the last

forty years to segregate anarcho-syndicalism from the rest of the broad

anarchist movement. The labor movement dominated social struggles in the

first half of the twentieth century, but as large business union

bureaucracies were formed and new shop organizing began to diminish, the

participation of anarchists in labor began to wane as community

struggles around environmental issues, LGBT and women’s struggles, and

housing justice took precedence. The syndicalist strategies that defined

the earlier successes of anarchism internationally diminished to only

the most hardcore adherents of a labor strategy, though these ideas have

had spikes during periods of economic crisis. This shift away from

syndicalism as a strategic foundation has robbed movements of some of

their tactical inspirations, and organizers from the New Left forward

attempt to reinvent the wheel every time, completely reimagining every

struggle as though it was disconnected from the entire history of

libertarian social movements. This is a loss as these developing

community struggles can still look towards these syndicalist battles in

the workplace as a model for how to democratically structure movements.

The idea of community syndicalism, bringing the syndicalist organizing

strategy out of the workplace and into other aspects of life, can be a

way to intentionally create a specific set of tactics. These tactical

choices could take the form of solidarity structures that form as a

union, which mean that they unite a set of interests against an

adversary that is in control of a particular sector of society, such as

labor, housing, or healthcare. These different sectors are the different

puzzle pieces of social life that are all intimately affected by access

to resources, and one in which a real element of class is present at all

times. Since syndicalism in the workplace does not rely on simply one

tactic, but instead on the use of solidarity, trying to utilize

community syndicalism could simply mean a whole range of strategic

points all building on some of the basic ideas of anarcho-syndicalism.

The question then arises: what are the core elements of

anarcho-syndicalism that can be boiled down and moved from the shop

floor to the neighborhood, from workers issues to healthcare and

environmentalism, and to all the sectors where class struggle takes

place?

Finding Anarcho-Syndicalism

One of the first places people return to when trying to create praxis

for anarcho-syndicalism is the foundational text Anarcho-Syndicalism:

Theory and Practice by Rudolph Rocker. As an “anarchist without

adjectives,” Rocker used his experience working within organized labor

to help develop anarcho-syndicalism as an approach within anarchism or

as a set of tactics, rather than an ideological orientation separate

from other schools of anarchism. Through this theoretical development he

can be seen as uniting anarcho-syndicalism with anarchist communism and

individualist anarchism in equal branches within an entire ideological

framework, where syndicalism is the revolutionary approach of anarchism

within labor. This both fights for the position of the working class

within their workplace while simultaneously building a structure that

runs counter to the existing mode of production. In Theory and Practice,

Rocker identifies the organized solidarity between workers as the key

political organization for syndicalists.

“Just as the party is, so to speak, the unified organization for

definite political effort within the modern constitutional state, and

seeks to maintain the bourgeois order in one form or another, so,

according to the Syndicalist view, the trade union, the syndicate, is

the unified organization of labour and has for its purpose the defence

of the interests of the producers within existing society and the

preparing for and the practical carrying out of the deconstruction of

social life after the pattern of Socialism. It has, therefore, a double

purpose.

• As the fighting organization of the workers against the employers to

enforce the demands of the workers for the safeguarding and raising of

their standard of living.

• As the school for the intellectual training of the workers to make

them acquainted with the technical management of production and economic

life in general, so that when a revolutionary situation arises they will

be capable of taking the socio-economic organism into their own hands

and remaking it according to Socialist principles.” [1]

The fundamental approach presented here is to demonstrate that the

methods for challenging the bosses now will create an organizational

structure that can then take over once this opposition eliminates the

owners from the workplace. Syndicalism rests on this notion of

dual-power: our fighting organizations now must be directly democratic

so as to reflect the revolutionary character of the society we want to

see. A transfer of power can take place from a ruling minority to the

producing majority over the course of struggle, and so their organs of

change better be ready for this transfer without replicating unequal

structures.

Though anarcho-syndicalism has often been put at ideological odds with

broader and more open social anarchist and anarchist communist ideas,

Lucien van der Walt and Michael Schmidt call for an end to this

ideological clash. They build on Rocker’s idea that the organization of

battle now is also the organization of the future: that the tools of the

future are also ones that can produce immediate benefit in terms of

progressive reforms: “The syndicalist position that existed within mass

anarchism centered on two positions: the view that reforms and immediate

gains were positive conquests for the popular classes, and played a

central role in improving the lives of ordinary people, building mass

organizations, and developing the confidence of the popular classes in

their abilities; and the notion that the unions could take the lead in

the struggle for revolution and form the nucleus of the new society.”

[2]

Schmidt and van der Walt’s definition of syndicalism creates a

methodology for drawing together a reform trajectory that rests on the

union form as the seed of a new social organization. Opinions could

differ on the idea as to whether the union itself becomes the whole of

the new social organization, or if it simply does so within the

workplace and subsequently other areas of social life take on similar

forms.

Syndicalism, in this definition, presents a radical vision of the labor

union: a force that gives workers power at the point of production. A

union is made up of workers who are not in a position of power over

their workplace, but unite along the power that they do have in their

position at the point of production and their ability to withhold their

labor. Individually this is useless, but collectively it transfers the

power from management or ownership directly to those who do productive

labor. In this way, syndicalism refers to the core solidarity between

workers, the power of which is necessary to conceive of a transition

from reforms within the workplace to an entirely revolutionary

transformation in the way workplaces function and the constructs of

social systems and hierarchies that stem from them. The union itself

sustains this core solidarity between workers and the empathetic

connections between them where they consciously understand that they

cannot be successful without their co-workers’ support and success. The

union structure acts simply as an entity to give this solidarity some

form of permanence, first to give collective struggle a structure to

keep things stable and, secondly, to form a legal entity for the state

to recognize. This infrastructural requirement often forces actual

unions to run counter to the foundations of what a union ought to be,

mainly in that they exist in the same framework as the state while the

organization of workers in solidarity inevitably comes in direct

confrontation with the state.

There are then a few key principles that we can broadly say make up the

syndicalist project, both inside and outside the workplace. These hinge

on the type of tactics used, the long-term vision for struggle and

establishment of a new social order, and the methods for establishing

power.

• Solidarity, meaning the shared experience among workers along a common

goal, is central to all tactical decisions.

• Workers use this united front to exploit a crack in the system that

exists because of their role in that system. In the workplace, this

exploitation comes from the ability to collectively withhold labor,

grinding the productive cycle to a halt.

• The structure of the organization takes on a form of “social

organization” that includes the mass of the exploited class in decision

making, prefiguring a post-revolutionary social organization for that

sector and possibly society as a whole.

If syndicalism organizes and focuses solidarity, there is no reason it

has to be relegated to the workplace. The applicable ideas are in the

creation of strategies that force people in common circumstances to

strike at the point where they are powerful in connection with each

other, acknowledging that each individually does not have enough power

to initiate the change.

Bridging to Community

Community syndicalism simply takes these ideas and attempts to transfer

them to another sector, continuing to base its organizing principles on

the solidarity between people in similar circumstances and their ability

to exploit their unique position in a given system. As the economy and

social life force us into a number of different sectors as

non-controlling participants, we can see how community syndicalism can

be envisioned in a growing myriad of forms.

Ian McKay in his mammoth Anarchist FAQ project outlines community

syndicalism as a form of directly democratic control through mass

participation.

“As would be imagined, like the participatory communities that would

exist in an anarchist society, the community union would be based upon a

mass assembly of its members. Here would be discussed the issues that

affect the membership and how to solve them. Like the communes of a

future anarchy, these community unions would be confederated with other

unions in different areas in order to co-ordinate joint activity and

solve common problems. These confederations, like the basic union

assemblies themselves, would be based upon direct democracy, mandated

delegates and the creation of administrative action committees to see

that the memberships’ decisions are carried out.” [3]

In this passage, McKay fundamentally takes the ideas of workplace

organization and transfers them to the specifics of other areas of life.

In a particular sector, a mass of people unites first to oppose those

who control that sector and then, after the challenge is complete, to

form a new democratic way of organizing the sector.

Tenants unions have become an obvious example of this use of community

syndicalism in that they almost perfectly replicate the notion of the

workplace union. In this case, a collection of tenants in a building or

across a development come together to make demands of the owners and

property managers in regards to their living quarters. Repairs, fair

rent prices, issues of property organization, and even utilities can all

come together as points to force through the collective participation of

the tenants. Their power is not in the ability to withhold labor, but

with the ability to withhold rent. Just as in the workplace, a single

person withholding rent will simply get him or herself evicted. With the

union, however, hundreds, even thousands, of tenants withhold rent,

which is enough to entirely shut down a complex and cease its

functioning. The process for evicting all the tenants would be too

massive and getting new tenants in would take so long that the owners or

property managers would not be able to recover, forcing them to shut

down. In this way, the tenants maintain control when they are working as

one force.

Across the entire housing movement this presents an incredibly powerful

idea for how ordinary people can address foreclosure and the housing

crisis. First, tenants in large buildings, especially public housing,

have an immediate organizing model to start addressing injustices

collectively. Homeowners in a more conventional neighborhood, however,

have a completely different format. Here, mortgages are held by

individual banks and then packaged and sold internationally through the

securitization process, often times switching ownership multiple times

over the years. Instead of having a common target, each homeowner on a

given block may have his or her own unique master to serve.

In a situation where multiple homeowners have mortgages from different

lenders, much of the same principles apply as when there is a common

target for successful organizing campaigns. In homeowner-centered

eviction and foreclosure resistance campaigns, the same structures of

solidarity have to be true. First, the person receiving the foreclosure

and risk of eviction has to lead the charge. She is only successful if

she brings in community and neighbor support along with the idea that

this situation could easily be theirs and the eviction of another person

can drive down property values in the neighborhood, forcing mortgages

underwater and actually increasing foreclosure rates. When the

neighborhood decides to unite around a common goal, such as establishing

an “eviction free zone” or resisting all external development, the other

homeowners do it in anticipation of this possibly happening to them.

This is reminiscent of an industrial union model where all workers can

be united in the “one big union.” In this case, all non-bourgeois

homeowners are actually in the same situation, so it is useful for them

to unite across the neighborhoods even if they do not appear to be

vulnerable.

The homeowners also need to find a point of power from which to exploit

their position. This situation is more complex for homeowners than it is

for workers, but the campaign can take on a variety of tactics adapted

from the sit-down strikes of the 1950s-60s. Instead of leaving, the

homeowner in question stays in his or her house and refuses to leave.

The neighbors show solidarity in that they literally prevent removal

through a blockade and a general protest, the goal of which is to stall

authorities and, eventually, force the bank back into negotiations since

the foreclosure process is no longer financially viable. Collective

action here involves an entire community’s refusal to acknowledge or

cower to the standard forces of removal, which is the marshal’s office

executing an eviction with the coercive authority given to them by the

state’s police force. By subverting law enforcement’s authority and

reinvigorating homeowners’ negotiating power, a general neighborhood

assembly and union can be formed so that they can make decisions

collectively that will be enforced by their solidarity.

Housing exemplifies how community syndicalism or unionism can be applied

in a number of possible sectors. Obviously, labor movement can expand

outward and be used to target austerity by enforcing support for public

sector workers, but there are tactics that can be developed from this

model in areas of healthcare, anti-war work, prison abolition,

anti-police brutality, and environmental struggles. The question is not

how to take the “strike” and convert it to a new situation, but how to

isolate the key elements of the syndicalist project and move them

between sectors. The tactics can then develop from the way that

organizers unite the resistance project today with the “new world”

later.

Developing these tactics can be another matter because if we want to

achieve a syndicalist vision of how to transform the world, we need to

devise tactics that reflect that framework. This is difficult when the

syndicalist pathway was envisioned through labor struggles, but we still

need to study the successes and losses of syndicalism’s development to

draw lessons for our own situations.

Developing a Tactical Skillset

Instead of simply looking at the success and failure of the syndicalist

or union models, of which there are many, we could easily just look at

the moments when those models transcend their original battles. For much

of American history, unionism generally was not reflected within the

state. The fight within the workplace designed Unionism, resulting in

about half of the American workforce being unionized by the serene

1950s. This reflected that the American Left had become so prominent

that it had to be absorbed into the apparatus of the state, or else come

into direct confrontation with it. It is at this point that we began to

see the shift away from simply being a workplace organization project,

where issues of workers power and resources were centered on the

struggle into the workplace, to being a general Left wing of the

existing system. Here we see the beginning of the use of union dues for

lobbying and electoral projects, hoping that labor could influence areas

of the state in favor of larger union agendas. This shift also marked

the decline in union numbers as new shops began to shrink and existing

union locations began to be expelled as a change in perception was

orchestrated from the Right.

The syndicalist project truly succeeds on those occasions when the union

expands beyond its accepted role to become a revolutionary force that

challenges the basic assumptions of the present order. These successes

depend on striking workers deciding to re-enter their workplaces, to

kick out their bosses, and to start the machinery of production on their

own. These “workplace occupations” are the most basic aspect of the

syndicalist strategy, and it is not complete until workers win and

finally take over, initiating a new social organization that is in line

with their values. To do this successfully, several elements need to be

at play to ensure change occurs and to model workplace occupation on how

we envision a post-revolutionary world to function.

First, countering the old representative forces is important for

re-imagining the workplace as a place of social organization. Sheila

Cohen, in her entry into the popular volume on worker’s control Ours to

Master and to Own, argues that direct democracy is a foundation of this

worker’s council:

“[A] fundamental feature of the formation of workers’ councils is the

instinctive adoption of direct democracy. This, unlike the

“representative” type of democracy purveyed by conventional political

and trade union electoral processes is a form of democratic

decision-making that directly voices the will of the majority, as

expressed through workplace-based delegates who are immediately held to

account if they fail to hold to the decisions of the workforce. Direct

democracy is demonstrated in mass meetings, delegate structures, and

accountable, revocable “local leaders” typical of many workplace

situations.” [4]

A directly democratic organizing model not only transforms the way that

the workplace functions from a top-down autocracy to a collectivized

movement of all workers, but also shows a clear example of how direct

democracy can function. This example presents a model that can expand

outward from the workplace into the rest of society. As a result, basic

confrontation with the bosses, as a form of social struggle, can lead

into the functioning of a new social order.

Escaping the mediation of beauracratic institutions is also represented

in how workers actually take on this confrontation and choose tactics.

Shutting down the bureaucratic functions of the workplace necessitates

direct action, which often predicts direct democracy in that it inspires

a non-mediated approach to problem solving. Emmanuel Ness points out

that while workers naturally gravitate towards direct action as a

foundation, successful workplace occupations have depended on a few

distinct factors:

“We start with the assumption that labor seeks democratic control over

its work, and factory takeovers are just one step in the process of

workers’ control and self-management. From the 1930s to 2010, factory

occupations have been contingent on four main factors:

• Development of working-class consciousness, rooted in collective

needs.

• Calculations of the economics of workers’ capacity to confront

capitalists.

• Institutional arrangements in capitalist society regulating workers

through the state. The state always privileges business over workers,

except in crisis conditions, when modest concessions are provided to

insurgent workers who demand control over social and economic resources.

• Capacity and support of workers’ efforts to self-organize and mobilize

under repressive conditions.” [5]

If we take workplace organization in its most fully realized form as the

point of inspiration, we need to find ways of applying these key lessons

to our community struggles.

These lessons can be transplanted across sectors where solidarity and

the exploitation of people’s particular position are in play. Instead of

just considering our relationship to the means of production and the

ways that the shutdown of labor can be a bargaining chip, we must

consider how we can unite into a collective or council to make similar

demands in profoundly different circumstances. Avoiding the transition

to acting as a lobbying agent and focusing on direct action and direct

democratic organizing is central to developing a community syndicalist

strategy. Housing remains one of the clearest examples, as we have seen

this happen in housing most specifically, and it shows how strategies

from labor can be easily transferred to something else. In this

situation, the relationship between the tenant and homeowner to the

controlling stake of their household, whether the bank or the landlord,

needs to be considered. As mentioned previously, the exchange of rent is

exemplifies this relationship. As is pointed out in In Keir Snow’s The

Case for Community Syndicalism, there are several options for action

that can adapt to very different circumstances:

“Classically the withdrawal of labour is seen as the weapon the workers

may wield to gain results, this works because such a withdrawal, through

strike action, causes their employer to lose money. If we think about

levers in a similarly economic manner in the community, where there is

no labour to withdraw, we realize that the obvious means of financial

damage is the withholding of rents. However, issues in the community

often centre around service provision rather than being directly related

to the land lord, and so levers must also be found that can be used

against the local council. There are several options here, which broadly

fall under the category of “direct action,” for example, blocking major

roads will have a knock on economic impact about which the council will

be concerned.” [6]

In these cases, we cannot allow one person’s struggle to be a “one

situation” campaign. Instead, solving the conflict must lead to a

permanent organization that can both target change for all people

immediately and in the long run. This shift must eventually lead to a

revolutionary change, while providing a new model for it to be organized

with:

“Just as in the workplace, in the community working class organisations

are best when they are permanent, not temporary and based around single

issues as the latter does not allow a body of experience and influence

to grow from struggle to struggle… In the community, ultimately,

socialists wish for the working class to take control. In order for such

control to be exercised effectively, the working class needs local

organisation as well as workplace organisation, as whilst the running of

the economy might naturally be decided upon by workers deliberating in

their places of work, it would seem to make little sense to have

workplace-based unions decide over which roads need tarmacking in a

residential area.” [7]

The best options create community organizations to manage the community

outside of the workplace, while workplace syndicalist unions handle

specific workplaces. Community unions can handle all areas of life if

the working class has already unified, but it may also make sense to

have unions specific to certain areas of work.

What separates community syndicalism is that it attempts to be both a

force of opposition and a prefigurative model. We literally want to

develop the “new world within the shell of the old.” Whenever organizers

use the power of solidarity and a directly democratic process that

models a possible liberatory structure, they are operating under the

banner of community syndicalism.

The Boston-based organization City Life/Vida Urbana is a several-decades

old community non-profit that works to stop foreclosures in some of the

most economically deprived sections of the city and the surrounding

metropolitan area. The organization brings together different homeowners

who are going through foreclosure and creates a sense of connection

between them, ensuring that people support each other both emotionally

and practically in terms of organizing. As was mentioned in the recent

profile on them from Labor Notes, the idea is to take the union model

out of the workplace and into the rest of life:

“The Association is a project of housing justice organization City

Life/Vida Urbana. Steve Meacham, the group’s organizing coordinator,

began his career at a Boston shipyard in the shipbuilders union. When he

became a housing activist, he coined the slogan “A union at work and a

union at home!” Under Massachusetts’s law, landlords can increase rents

as often as they like and evict without cause—much like nonunion

employers. Tenant associations like those organized by City Life have

been able to win, essentially, collective bargaining agreements with

landlords, Meacham explained. ‘Where the labor union negotiates wage

increases and prevents unjust firings during a contract, a tenant

association negotiates limits to rent increases and prevents unjust

evictions during a contract,’ he said. ‘We adapted this organizing model

to build a tenants association for people whose landlord is a bank, in

order to fight for collective solutions to the foreclosure crisis.’” [8]

This use of the “collective bargaining” agreements signals the

connection between housing organizing and union structures.

The Harvard Law School chapter of Project No One Leaves, is another

example. They are a group that focuses on getting law students to help

people resist foreclosure, coming together with other community

attorneys to give legal advice. The organizing and the legal strategy

unite with a community banking option in a model of attack for

homeowners facing eminent eviction. These organizations have modeled

themselves almost entirely on the successes of organized labor,

representing the building of unions both inside and outside the

workplace.

When we think of a bargaining unit, the material gains people can make

through collective action come first and foremost. These material wins

are more foreseeable for tenant’s unions since they negotiate in unison

for better repair protocols, lower rent and utilities, and a general say

over property management. The part of the Tenants United project of

Buffalo Class Action’s proposal for a citywide tenant’s union

demonstrates that a tenant’s union can gain power through a few distinct

areas, such as public pressure, eviction blockades, direct actions such

as disruptions in owners functioning, rent strikes, and relying entirely

on solidarity:

“In the struggle against our landlords, there is one important

realization. Our landlords don’t do anything for us that we aren’t

capable of doing for ourselves. We are more than capable of organizing

ourselves to make repairs and maintain the buildings where we live.

There are cooperative housing associations throughout the world that

show us proof of our ability to live without landlords. So, if we can

organize ourselves to maintain our housing needs, what do landlords do?

That is exactly the point. Landlords exist purely to take rent from us.

As we develop true power as renters, we will realize that the real

battle is for a system of housing that recognizes our right to decent,

affordable place to live no matter what. This means getting rid of a

world of for-profit housing. No one should exploit a system of vulgar

inequality to create massive profits from our need to survive. We know

that these inequalities will only exist as long as we permit them.” [9]

The language used in this passage identifies landlords in the same way

that syndicalists identify bosses in workplace organizing, because they

serve the same social function. They extend the interests of the ruling

class by initiating points of control, so, as mentioned above, they can

be countered with this syndicalist strategy.

The question is what can be included within this community syndicalist

strategy. Tenants unions have not been the most dominant form of housing

resistance in the US, and because of the unique nature of the 2010

foreclosure crisis, resistance to foreclosure-based evictions have often

taken prominence. Take Back the Land became popular coming out of Miami,

Florida, both housing homeless families in empty banked-owned homes and

using direct action tactics to defend homes against evictions. Occupy

Our Homes took these same tactical ideas out of the Occupy movement,

creating dozens of local organizations and employing a great deal of

eviction defense options.

How, then, do these groups use solidarity to exploit a crack in the

system? If the people are uniting along an entire neighborhood to create

an organization that works in their interest rather than simply

contributing to “activism” or “charity,” then this reflects community

syndicalism modeled from workplace unionism. What this can generally

show us is a form of internal critique, a way for us to see how

effective our strategies are from taking us from a single campaign to a

workable working class defensive organization to a prefigured new model

for a particular sector, such as housing. The community union or general

assembly can then implement direct democratic features in order to show

people an alternative model to the commercial housing we have today, one

that operates through general participation to secure community control

over land and housing. If this organization becomes powerful enough to

really threaten the current order in a given area, banks retreat,

possibly allowing a new system of self-management to take over, just as

when workers take over a workplace.

Prefigurative Politics and Dual Power

Much of what we are looking at when developing a tactical skillset for

community syndicalism comes from how we are able to transfer the

structures we create to a post-revolutionary society. If we are to

successfully push back the bosses and landlords with any effectiveness,

we need to live now with a counter-structure that shows the possibility

of working-class control, so we need workers/community members to be

stable enough to handle actual control. Community syndicalism offers

solutions/tactics not in a sector-specific way, but in a way that

benefits the entire community.

“The community syndicate would ideally be based upon the mass assembly

of members, where issues like local services, education, rent etc. could

be debated and decisions made on how best to win improvements. Beyond

the locality, the syndicate should federate with similar organisations

in other areas to collaborate on campaigns that have a wider scope. Each

syndicate would send delegates to the federal assembly with a strict

mandate and the right to recall and elect new delegates in their place

if they abuse their mandate.” [10]

This model could be done for the community as a whole or replicated in

specific form. In order to ensure application or replication of the

model, there must be a degree of autonomy amongst the community-based

“bargaining unit.” It then connects to other communities in a federated

fashion for common projects, but not to create a centralized structure.

Keeping the community units separate maintains the structure’s ability

to adapt to the unique needs of people in a given area. This structure

would then function more effectively in major struggles that arise,

while planting the seeds for how a future society could operate. As the

piece “Single Issue Campaigns, Community Syndicalism & Direct Democracy”

points out: “Ultimately such an organization would be a libertarian

communist society in embryo. It would have to overcome modern problems

such as suburbanisation and rebuild the idea of community, but if

organised in every neighbourhood, along with an industrial wing it would

have the wherewithal to bypass the capitalist state and create a new

society within the old.” [11]

The new structure primarily focuses on the form of decision-making and

meeting style. In the classic option, members create assemblies and

councils for democratic decision-making, both in campaigns and once

power is seized. To facilitate this, organizations need to develop

spaces where all people affected by decisions are invited to participate

in decision-making, and if there is a delegate structure, it is merely

to relay decisions made in broader assemblies. A whole library of

tactical options remains available for the important process of

experimentation, which enables groups to find what works for their

particular set of issues and membership. This emphasis on

experimentation can give organizers insight into how to approach

different sectors and try to employ the syndicalist strategy within

them. If a sector responds differently to the decision-making necessity,

then it may help us visualize what tactical choices will work and what

may fail.

As with housing, the larger sector can be made up of various

decision-making bodies that help coordinate federated areas. This could

mean that neighborhood assemblies make decisions for homeowners and area

tenants, tenants union delegate councils make decisions for a complex,

and a larger federation makes decisions based on delegates sent from

assemblies for larger projects that unite them all. Again, this

envisions a model for self-governance in the absence of the bourgeois

state and corporate management, as well as allowing for affairs to

remain governable at the local level while facilitating collective

accountability over large-scale coordinated projects.

Housing presents an easily adaptable model, but a variety of other

sectors of struggle in social life need to be addressed. The syndicalist

methods of solidarity, collectivity, and exploitation of cracks in the

system find strategies that work to advance the interests of the working

class while presenting a vision for the future. For instance,

environmental struggles often seem too nebulous to apply these ideas

since they do not always have an affected body that is separate from the

rest of the mass working class. In the environmental sector, the way

that organizers conceptualize of the body needs to be altered somewhat,

and the method is something members of the IWW have advanced as Green

Syndicalism. As Javier Sethness Castro, in a speech called “Green

Syndicalism vs. Anti-Civ: Social Revolution or Primitivist Reaction? A

Polemic,” and delivered at the Boston Anarchist Bookfair, states,

“Strategically, green syndicalism seeks to integrate class struggle into

environmentalism: to overthrow the capitalist class and do away with

productivism, bother material – as in production – as well as

ideologically – in culture and social relations.”

This is simply a broad statement of how a syndicalist anarchist approach

to ecology differs from, for example, Deep Ecology, which is embraced by

many eco-anarchist philosophies. It could simply be a vision to be

employed in the other sectors of syndicalist struggle that involve

environmental factors, or it could be the foundation of a new praxis

entirely. Castro continues,

“Concretely, we can point to several tactics with which to move toward a

green syndicalist future for humanity: workplace militancy, social

antagonism, agitation, indignation, direct action, occupation (or

decolonization), blockades of capital, general strikes, and particularly

ecological general strikes. I see a militant transitional period as

including two critical moments: one which would work to interrupt the

drive of the death-economy that is capitalism, and another which would

seek to construct a participatory and inclusive counter-power as an

alternative to regnant barbarism.” [12]

As Castro illustrates here, ecology exists as an aspect of current class

struggle, though he does not say how it can stand out as a sector in the

same way as labor or housing struggles. Instead, it may make sense to

have ecology exist in a similar framework to housing-centered community

syndicalism. If a particular ecological issue affects a population of

people, a specific instance of hydraulic fracking for example, the group

can unite in common solidarity to combat this since it affects all

involved. Climate change, on the other hand, expands across the globe

and affects people in myriad ways that are not all common. In this

situation, it may be more difficult to identify it as a particular

sector and may mean simply that the traditional community syndicalist

strategy is just not fit for a particular approach or it must be used

only in certain aspects of the struggle.

None of these modes of community syndicalism succeed without a militant

wing inside workplaces. The point of production is an obvious place to

create a rupture in capitalism and assert workers’ control. Housing

presents a fundamental contradiction in capitalism with the large number

of empty homes exceeding the number of homeless people in America, and

many are familiar with this crisis of overproduction. If this

contradiction was to be solved and all people were to be promised safe

and adequate housing, it would be too much for the system to bear and it

would already have shifted into a state of revolutionary transformation.

Syndicalism exploits these cracks with the vision of smashing both

capitalism and the state entirely, and labor has traditionally had the

largest success on the Left. If we are going to create a self-managed

society in the interests of our diverse needs and desires, we will have

to take over production and remold it in our own image.

There is an easy way to test your tactics. Ask yourself both if they

have been successful pushing any forms of progressive reforms, and if

you can see in them the twinkle of a new world of direct democracy. We

should be able to see a possible future every time we get together, hash

things out, and see our world developing through our collective

decision-making. When the institutions of mediation begin to wane, and

our collective power begins to challenge their money, we know that there

is something fundamentally remarkable taking place.

Toward a New Movement

The difference between having a radical vision and actually doing

organizing work means taking your ideas and outfitting them with a

tactical mindset. Without keeping cause and effect in context, you will

not be able to assess your moves in a realistic way, and envision how to

approach various stepping stones, much less know the endgame.

Syndicalism is the way that you can develop a conscious set of tactics

to accompany an anarchist vision, a way of collectivizing our work and

creating direct action as a daily course of living. Tactics have a shelf

life, and if they are debated abstractly for too long, they eventually

stop being relevant. Instead, we need a tactical framework that realizes

anarchist principles in a real way that can give us a structure to move

forward, constantly developing and attempting new things. Our ideas stay

fresh if they retain an imaginative spark, and we can continue to apply

them on a foundation of participation and direct democracy.

---

Shane Burley is a writer, filmmaker, and organizer based in Portland,

Oregon. He has worked on housing and labor organizing for years with the

Take Back the Land movement, Metro Justice, Rochester Community Labor

Response Committee, Housing is for Everyone, and, more recently, on

tenant and wage-theft campaigns with the Portland Solidarity Network. He

has written on labor and social movements for publications like In These

Times, Labor Notes, Waging Nonviolence, Red Skies at Night, and the

recent book The End of the World as We Know It? (AK Press). His most

recent film is a documentary on Take Back the Land Rochester and its

intersection with the Occupy movement, called Expect Resistance.

[1] Rocker, Rudolf. Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice. (Secker &

Warburg, 1938. Sixth Edition: AK Press, 2006), 56–57.

[2] Schmidt, Michael and Lucian van der Walt. Counter-Power Volume 1:

Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and

Syndicalism. (Oakland: AK Press, 2009), 138.

[3] McKay, Ian. “What is Community Unionism?” org,

www.infoshop.org

.

[4] Cohen, Sheila. “The Red Mole: Worker’s Councils as a Means of

Revolutionary Transformation.“ Ours to Master and to Own, ed. Immanuel

Ness and Dario Azzellini. (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2011), 56.

[5] Ness, Immanuel. “Workers’ Direct Action and Factory Control in the

United States.” Ours to Master and to Own, ed. Immanuel Ness and Dario

Azzellini. (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2011), 304.

[6] Snow, Keir. “The Case for Community Syndicalism.” Anarchist Writers,

November 29^(th), 2010,

anarchism.pageabode.com

.

[7] Snow, Keir. “The Case for Community Syndicalism.” Anarchist Writers,

November 29^(th), 2010,

anarchism.pageabode.com

.

[8] Blanco, Marla Christina. “Fighting Your Eviction When Your Home is

Your Workplace.” Labor Notes, December, 2013, 6.

[9] Conetz, Juan. “Tenants Union: Fight Your Landlord and Win.” org,

December 11^(th), 2011.

libcom.org

.

[10] “Single Issue Campaigns, Community Syndicalism & Direct Democracy.”

Worker’s Solidarity Movement, June 13^(th), 2012.

www.wsm.ie

.

[11] “Single Issue Campaigns, Community Syndicalism & Direct Democracy.”

Worker’s Solidarity Movement, June 13^(th), 2012.

www.wsm.ie

.

[12] Castro, Javier Sethness. “Green Syndicalism vs. Anti-Civ: Social

Revolution or Primitivist Reaction? A Polemic.” Industrial Workers of

the World: Environmental Unionism Caucus. Speech given at the Boston

Anarchist Bookfair, November 11, 2013.

ecology.iww.org

.