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Title: Revolutionary Labor Conferences Author: Mike Hargis Date: 1993 Language: en Topics: conferences, history, anarcho-syndicalism, Libertarian Labor Review Source: Retrieved on September 26, 2005 from https://web.archive.org/web/20050926081124/http://www.syndicalist.org/archives/llr14-24/14c.shtml Notes: From Libertarian Labor Review #14, Winter 1993
The 19^(th) Congress of the IWA took place on April 17–19 in Koln,
Germany. Attending the congress were delegates and observers from some
15 countries, including IWA sections from Argentina, (FORA), Brazil
(COB), Bulgaria (CNT), England (DAM), France (CNT), Germany (CNT), Italy
(USI) Norway (NKS), Spain (CNT), and the United States (WSA), as well as
delegations from Finland (SAL.which became an IWA section at this
congress), ex-Soviet Union (ILA and SMOT), Bolivia (COB), and
individuals representing a number of organizations from Holland,
Mongolia and Switzerland. Australian, Danish and Japanese sections were
unable to send delegates.
The three-day congress included reports from the various sections on the
situation in their respective countries and the activity of their
organizations since the last Congress, illustrating growth in the
quality and amount of work being carried out.
Taking place within a context of “really existing socialism” in the
“east,” the delegates were well aware of the challenge being posed by
the new lease on life being granted to the ideology of liberal
capitalism and the alarming growth in nationalism and racism being
experienced all over Europe. Add to this the continuing slide of really
existing capitalism into crisis, with its accompanying poverty and
misery, and you have the makings for an increasingly explosive
situation. The challenge for the future is for the IWA to develop a role
for itself in posing a global political alternative to this situation.
In its final act the congress voted to move its secretariat to Spain.
(based on report published in Lotta di Classe, May-June 1992)
Over 100 anarchist and libertarian workers gathered June 28 for an
assembly in Bologna, Italy. The conference objective was to develop a
dialogue around the libertarian workers’ experiences within the labor
movement since the late seventies and to draw some conclusions
concerning strategy and tactics from those experiences.
Three positions confronted one another at the assembly: “boring from
within,” revolutionary syndicalism, and (for lack of a better term)
“basism.”
The first position was represented by comrades working within the
left-wing of the Italian General Confederation of Labor (CGIL), the
trade union influenced historically by the Communist Party. These fellow
workers made the hoary argument that it would be a mistake to abandon
the major mass organization of the working class and that through this
organization they could more effectively defend the interests of the
workers in regard to wages, automation,m the right to strike, and trade
union democracy.
Fellow workers from the Italian Syndicalist Union (USI), Italian section
of the International Workers Association, argued on the other hand for
the need to create specifically revolutionary, self-managed unions
within the work-place.revolutionary unions that recognize the
internationalization of class conflicts. Such unions are needed not only
as an alternative to the reformism of the bureaucratic unions, but also
to struggle against the fragmentation and corporatism that have hampered
the rank-and-file movements represented by the base committees.
Comrades active within the base committee movement, on the other hand,
argued that it was necessary for anarchist and libertarian workers to
remain within these organizations of the masses in order to move them in
a libertarian direction and to oppose their bureaucratization. These
organizations, after all, have been the main expression of workers’
autonomous struggles in the last few years.
Needless to say, this one conference was not able to resolve the
different positions; however it was decided to do the following: 1)
prepare a map of the libertarian presence and alternative unions in the
various industrial sectors; 2) to deepen the analysis of the
restructuring process that is taking place in specific sectors as well
as within the general economy; 3) to develop instruments for continuing
the dialogue begun at the conference, such as a regular page in Umanita
Nova, the bi-weekly newspaper produced by the Italian Anarchist
Federation (FAI); 4) to pay more attention to new problems, such as
co-management, toyotaism and the “new industrial relations,” with an eye
to developing consensus among libertarians on how to approach them.
(based on a report of the conference by Renato Strumia appearing in
Umanita Nova, July 12, 1992).
Boliviana (COB)
Taking place in a context of narco-trafficking, increasing poverty and
new threats of military coups attacking the weak and ineffective
“democracies” in Bolivia and Latin America, this 9^(th) congress of the
Bolivian Workers’ Central drew over 1,000 delegates from all over the
country.
Controversies emerged early around the seating of delegations. Some
delegations, such as those of the oil industry, were challenged because
of the involvement of their leaderships in governmental structures
against this wishes of their rank-and-files or because they involved
themselves with the Free Labor Institute, the notorious AFL-CIA’s (sic)
trade union front. On the other hand, the organizations of fired miners
and peasant women demanded to be seated because they did not feel
represented by their respective unions. At one point the delegations of
the manufacturing sector, railroads and banks abandoned the meeting
demanding that a fifth COB vice-presidency, to be occupied by a
representative of the manufacturing sector unions, be established.
The COB leadership emphasized a number of areas in its report: the
necessity to amplify workers’ class struggle, implanting the trade union
struggle in the center of national preoccupations, the full
participation of workers in the process of structural reforms (both
institutional and legal), as well as the political constitution of the
state itself. The great challenge is to make the union movement a
central part of a great popular movement that can struggle against
increasing poverty and misery; that can impede the dogmatic brutality of
the market, with its accompanying unlimited individual greed and
unemployment, and instead promote collective contracting and labor
stability; that can stem the assault of the new agribusiness on rural
property, that can get better credit terms for campesinos, artisans and
small businesses; that defends communal property and the right to land
and territory of the indigenous peoples. A movement that is aware of the
progressive erosion of democratic institutions. Victor Lopez Arias, a
miner of the independent current and, until this congress, executive
secretary of the COB, presented a document indicting the neo-liberal
economic model of capitalism that now engulfs the globe with
particularly disastrous consequences for the so-called Third World. The
document points the accusing finger at the International Monetary Fund,
which continues to impose its conditions resulting in tremendous
upheaval underscored by the recent riots in Venezuela and outbreaks in
Argentina and Brazil, increasing levels of unemployment, the desertion
of the student population and the renewed spread of epidemics.
Not surprisingly in this year of the 500^(th) anniversary of the
European invasion of the western hemisphere, one of the important
features of this congress was the challenge poised by the peasant
organizations, tied as closely as they are to the organizations of
indigenous peoples, to the “workerist” basis of the COB and the vanguard
role played by the mineworkers union. The campesinos put their challenge
forward in a document, “Struggling for a multi- national and
multi-cultural state.”
The commission on economics reviewed developments over the past 5 years
and recommended a struggle against privatization and condemned the free
market. They also recommended a new indexation of wages based on a
family floor of $400 per month (currently at $100 per month). The
question of “decentralization” of the state administration in Bolivia
was opposed as reinforcing neo-liberalism.
The campesinos brought up the question of depenalizing the cultivation
of coca, which provides a subsistence livelihood for some 122,000
people. Attempts to stop the cultivation of the leaf is seen as
capitulation to the hypocritical policies of the United States and an
encroachment on Bolivia’s national independence.
The COB adopted a program to guide workers’ struggles over the next two
years, “From active resistance to subversive resistance.” Active
resistance on the part of the masses is not enough, and must pass into
subversive resistance that will form concrete instances of popular
rebellion. Subversive resistance consists in destroying the controlled
democratic order. Active resistance has to involve all the people, and
this has been lacking. The strategic platform (a decidedly left
social-democratic, almost bolshevik, program--CNT ed.) is:
inclusive of all the nations that inhabit Bolivian territory;
and re-nationalize the oil industry;
of narcotics-trafficking and the informal economy that benefits popular
sectors;
inter-cultural;
the nationalities and indigenous peoples;
struggling for their liberation.
The election of the COB’s new leadership revealed deep divisions within
the organization. The election of Oscar Salas Moya.a miner, ex-militant
of the communist party, and now a member of the executive of the
Democratic Socialist Alliance (ASD).to the post of executive secretary
led to a walkout by the miners delegation led by Victor Lopez Arias. The
charge has been made that Moya’s election was the result of a deal put
together by delegates affiliated with the ASD, the MBL (Bolivian
president Jaime Paz’s Movimiento Bolivia Libre, a split from the MIR),
CONDEPA (conscience of the country, a populist movement with strong
prospects in the 1993 elections), and delegates supporting the MIR
(Movimiento Revolucionario de Izquierda, in the government) and UCD
(Union Civica Democratica, another populist movement led by the owner of
one of Bolivia’s largest breweries). The miners’ walkout seriously
threatens the COB’s unity at a crucial time, and the delegations of
campesinos and other sectors vowed to convoke an extraordinary congress
to resolve the situation. For its part, the miners assured that their
delegation’s actions would be discussed by the rank and file. (based on
report by Miguel Quintanilla in CNT, October 1992).
Eighty-seven members of the Industrial Workers of the World from
throughout the U.S., Canada, Australia and Brazil gathered at a rural
campground north of Ann Arbor, Michigan over the Labor Day weekend for
the union’s annual General Assembly. The focus of this year’s assembly
was organizing, given the apparent upsurge in such activity over the
past few years.
Reports from the various branches indicated that there were organizing
efforts currently attempting to reach nurses, timber workers, graduate
students, models and dancers, publishing workers, hotel workers, stage
hands, food coops, bike messengers, maintenance workers, bookstore
workers, drivers, musicians, farmworkers, grocery workers and homeless
people. The most pressing campaigns presently involve strikes/lockouts
involving janitorial workers at the End-Up Bar (a gay bar in San
Francisco, Calif.) and gaming house workers at Boulevard Bingo in
Bethlehem, Penn. Both of these struggles have been ongoing for several
months with no immediate end in sight. New General Membership Branches
(geographically based) have been established in Philadelphia, Penn., and
in Winnipeg, Manitoba, while new Job Branches (workplace based) have
been implanted at Wooden Shoe Books (a worker owned/operated business in
Philadelphia) and at University of California at berkeley Recyclers
(recycling contractors). In addition, some progress has been made in
establishing industrial networks among distribution, education and
entertainment workers.
While this year’s assembly appeared to be rather harmonious as compared
to some of the recent past, there were still undercurrents of division
as to the direction in which the IWW should be headed. When the topic of
direct action and organizing came to the fore, there emerged an apparent
right in the assembly between what could be called the “globalists”
(those who see the IWW as an umbrella for every “good” cause) and the
“workerists” (those who feel that the IWW should stick to what it was
set up to do.organize workers on the job). Indeed, there turned out to
be two simultaneous workshops on direct action and organizing with two
distinct focuses and two distinct styles.
The “globalist” workshop, according to Assembly participants I spoke
with, dealt more with community and environmental issues and was
organized in such a way that only a select group of “activists,” sitting
in the center of a circle, were allowed to speak while an outer circle
of observers looked on. The “workerists,” on the other hand, dealt with
on-the-job concerns and all were allowed to participate. If, indeed,
this is the way it went down, the obviously the “crisis of identity”
that has afflicted the IWW for the past decade is far from over.
Besides the reports and discussion on the organizing front, a number of
resolutions of interest were dealt with at the assembly. One on
international policy re-affirmed the union’s commitment to developing
stronger international ties both with the International Workers
Association (IWA/AIT) and other independent revolutionary syndicalist
organizations. The resolution called for the election of a standing
International Commission which would be responsible for developing the
IWW’s international contacts and continuing to explore affiliation with
the IWA. The commission’s mandate would run out six months after the
1996 IWA Congress.
[A referendum to ratify this proposal is being voted upon as we go to
press. The Assembly also approved resolutions calling upon the IWW
office to give “the highest priority” to facilitating the IWW’s
democratic process (many delegates objected to the office’s failure to
issue ballots and monthly internal bulletins, among other criticisms);
reaffirmed that General Membership Branches are local entities (some
members have sought to establish branches spanning hundreds of miles);
and clarified last year’s resolution withdrawing the IWW’s 1986 Report
on Hostile Activities Against the IWW.specifying that its contents had
not been disavowed: “The theft of IWW funds, slander and other
activities it documents are unacceptable. It is, however, our hope to
put these incidents behind us as we work to encourage greater unity
among revolutionary unionists around the world.”]
All in all, the outcome of the 1992 IWW Assembly shows continuing
activity on the organizational front, along with a continuing confusion
as to the identity and direction of the revolutionary union. (based on
reports in the October 1992 Industrial Worker and discussions with
participants).