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Title: What is Anarcho-syndicalism?
Author: Solidarity Federation
Date: March 2013
Language: en
Topics: anarcho-syndicalism, introduction, introductory
Source: Retrieved on 2020-04-02 from https://iwa-ait.org/content/what-anarchosyndicalism

Solidarity Federation

What is Anarcho-syndicalism?

Anarchism is a revolutionary political tradition that declares “freedom

without socialism is privilege and injustice and socialism without

freedom is slavery and brutality.”

Syndicalism is the workers’ movement. Deriving from the French word for

trade unionism (syndicalisme), it seeks to unite workers to fight for

their interests at work.

Anarcho-syndicalism is anarchism applied to the workers’ movement. From

small educational groups to mass revolutionary unions, libertarian

organisation grows and is controlled from the bottom up.

Anarcho-syndicalism unites the political and the economic and opposes

representation in favour of self-organisation.

Anarcho-syndicalists seek to organise with other militant workers who

agree with their revolutionary aims and principles. Initially, this

takes the form of local groups and industrial networks, but as these

grow in size and influence they can begin to take on union functions

such as advising fellow workers and initiating direct action like

work-to-rules, strikes and occupations.

The role of anarcho-syndicalist networks and unions is not to try and

recruit every worker, but to advocate and organise mass meetings of all

workers involved in each struggle so that the workers involved retain

control. Within these mass meetings anarcho-syndicalists argue for the

principles of solidarity, direct action and self-organisation.

In this way anarcho-syndicalism is completely different to trade

unionism, which seeks to represent our economic interests, and the

so-called ‘workers parties’ which seek to represent our political

interests. Instead, anarcho-syndicalism unites the political and the

economic and opposes representation in favour of self-organisation.

By organising this way, we learn to act for ourselves, exercising our

power without being led by union officials or political vanguards. This

calls into question the way society is organised and prefiguring the

world we want to create, without bosses or rulers: libertarian

communism.

The history of political parties and trade union bureaucracy is a

history of sell-outs and betrayal.

anarcho-syndicalist aims and principles

Anarcho-syndicalists aim to promote solidarity in our workplaces and

outside them, encouraging workers to organise independently of

government, bosses and bureaucrats to fight for our own interests as a

class. Our ultimate goal is a stateless, classless society based on the

principle of ‘from each according to ability, to each according to need’

– a system of free councils made up of recallable delegates from

workplaces and communities. This is libertarian communism.

We see such a society based on our needs being created out of working

class struggles to assert our needs in the here and now. Our activity is

therefore aimed at promoting, assisting and developing such class

struggles locally and internationally, which both benefits us now and

brings us closer to the society we want to create. We do this according

to the following three principles:

Solidarity. As individuals we are relatively powerless in the face of

bosses, bureaucrats and the state, but when we act collectively the

tables are turned.

Direct action. We do not make appeals to politicians or

representatives to act on our behalf, but organise to get the things we

want for ourselves.

Self-organisation. We should control their own struggles through mass

meetings, learning how to act without bosses or leaders and making sure

we can’t be sold out or demobilised from above.

what do anarcho-syndicalists do?

Anarcho-syndicalists are engaged in a wide range of workplace and

community struggles, some very immediate and others more long term.

These include:

Workplace organising – on issues from pay to working hours to working

practices and conditions.

Community organising – from public services to housing to the

environment.

Strike and occupation solidarity – staffing picket lines, raising

funds and bringing in supplies.

Worker support – organising demonstrations, pickets and direct action

in support of individual victimised workers.

Networking with other militant workers – for example through the

National Shop Stewards Network and the Education Workers’ Network.

Organising public meetings – on the economy, war, climate change and

other issues that affect the working class.

Producing and distributing propaganda – from regular free-sheets and

magazines to one-off leaflets, spreading the ideas of solidarity, direct

action and self-organisation.