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Title: DAM Rank and Fileists! Author: Subversion Date: 1994 Language: en Topics: critique, organization, work, working class Source: Retrieved on January 22, 2011 from http://libcom.org/library/communication-workers-group-rank-file-critique-subversion
The first thing to state is that the last thing Subversion would want to
encourage is the creation of a rank and file movement. Rank and file
movements are always and without question union movements. They are
inspired by the mistaken notion that The Unions have failed us, instead
of the truth: all unions are our enemy. (Unions are organisations that
negotiate with the bosses over the ways and rates at which we are
exploited, but in no way do they object to the principle of our
exploitation. Unions support capitalism and work, and need capitalism to
survive.)
Take the case of the postal workersâ Communication Workers Group:
The CWG was set up by members of the Direct Action Movement (DAM, now
the Solidarity Federation) and was a rank and file postal workers group.
The DAM promoted anarcho-syndicalism as a means of working class
organisation. Anarcho-syndicalists want to organise unions
democratically and imbue them with anarchist politics. Such unions,
imbued with anarchist methods and ideals, anarcho-syndicalists argue,
will be revolutionary. CWG never got to the stage where the DAM members
pushed for it to become an actual union. CWG, through its bulletin,
Communication Worker (CW), aimed to inform and radicalise postal
workers, to emphasise that active solidarity across trade, industry and
union divides was essential if victories were to be won. In the
tradition of rank and file groups CWG was open to all militant workers,
including low-level union officials; i.e. shop stewards.
For most of the time CWG worked on the basis of an agreement between the
various political tendencies. These ranged from anarchist, or anti-state
communist to Trotskyist, as well as the original anarcho-syndicalism. As
time went by these divisions became more pronounced. Eventually we had
to reeÌmphasise the groups broader rank and file nature by drawing up a
basic aims and principles. Due to the variance of views within the
organisation these common denominators had to be fairly low and it was
generally felt that the aims and principles were virtually meaningless
as soon as we had written them.
This compromise didnât last long. Some of us felt we needed to make
deeper and clearer criticisms of unions and rank and fileism. We all saw
the potential (however distant!) for a group like CWG to eventually
replace the union â in small ways, over certain areas, or totally. To
some this was highly desirable of course, but others had misgivings. We
realised that we could only replace the existing postal workers union
(UCW) with another union, and if CWG expanded and became more successful
this is eventually what the group would become.
The question became: how to work in a rank and file workers group,
clearly and consistently attacking the union, without letting the group
turn itself into a reformist organisation or union. We liked to see
ourselves as a revolutionary group, but what would happen if we were
flooded with militant, but reformist-minded workers? What if these
workers wanted the group to articulate reformist demands? What if we
gained more support in a workplace than the existing union, would we
then participate in a day to day dialogue with the employers, would we
help make deals, would we accept the âlegalityâ of exploitation as long
as it was a âfairerâ exploitation and one we had actively agreed to?
Would we behave in just the same way as the old union once we had become
the permanent workplace organisation?
The first problem we tried to tackle was the old one about being swamped
by different minded individuals.
There was no formal way of preventing people from entering the group, we
just hoped that if we didnât like someoneâs politics then the rest of
the group would agree and that person wouldnât be let in. Obviously this
wasnât very satisfactory. Some thought we shouldnât let SWP members in,
for example, because they were actively pro-statist/authoritarian and
they might try to hijack the group. Others thought we should let them in
as long as they didnât stray out of line too much or try to push their
politics down our throats, thus causing interminable political
arguments. Others thought we should let them in since they were militant
workers. This problem was never satisfactorily resolved, the reason
being that it lies at the crux of the argument over whether a rank and
file group can be revolutionary. That is, whether a group that attracts
an increasing number of non-revolutionaries can remain revolutionary in
all its publications and interventions.
Our temporary solution was to print our basic aims and principles in the
bulletin and hope the âwrongâ sort of people wouldnât want to join
anyway! (In the event this never became a practical problem, partly due
to the fact that the CWG didnât survive that much longer.)
It has been argued that we should set up groups, encourage people to
join, and hopefully their experience and learning in the group will turn
them into revolutionaries. This might be alright if you have a
hierarchical Party of thousands and are recruiting one or two people a
month. But if a drastically smaller group (a few people), with
egalitarian methods, recruited that many people as members then they
would soon find themselves outweighed by the new recruits and unable to
brainwash them fast enough to keep the group on its original lines!
We have enough reformist organisations around already, we donât want to
inadvertently create any more.
To cut a long story short, the anti-union tendency finally realised the
impossibility of keeping, or rather making, this rank and file group
revolutionary. By no means did this mean we had fully developed our
ideas but we did know that we no longer wanted to make the compromises
towards unionism that were necessary in working with
anarcho-syndicalists and leftists.
There is a knee-jerk reflex amongst a lot of revolutionaries when
talking about âthe workplaceâ, they say that what we need are workplace
groups. Beyond this though little practical is usually done or
suggested. Itâs time to face up to the hollowness of this slogan and
forget about trying (or talking about trying!) to set up our exalted
Revolutionary Workplace Groups. What we need is more revolutionaries
everywhere. If we have more revolutionaries everywhere a few, at least,
are going to have jobs. Revolutionaries in their workplaces will respond
to disputes, attempt to escalate workplaces struggles and generally try
to show other workers what a crap situation we are all in. They will
argue against the economy (capitalism) and its union lackey, and during
struggles they will actively participate in specific actions: like
producing leaflets, secondary picketing, sabotage, setting up and
speaking at unofficial assemblies, etc.
If we happen to be a few revolutionaries at one workplace and produce
regular propaganda specific to work, this is fortunate, but obviously we
are also acting as revolutionaries together outside work.
The time has come to finally put to rest the myth of âworkplace groupsâ
and their desirability unless we are talking about temporary groupings
of workers formed during struggles to perpetrate specific acts of
propaganda or violence against the bosses, union and economy in general.
Some might say that this is all a bit too âpuristâ and that we should be
involved in creating or sustaining reformist demands or campaigns in
order to supposedly escalate the class struggle, however, there are
plenty of reformist workers around, ready to demand a wage rise, or
abortion rights, etc, without going further. Some lefties think we have
to formulate reformist demands for workers to take up because otherwise
they wouldnât think of any themselves. This is patronising and wrong.
Workers are constantly making demands. For us to take part in putting
forward demands would be merely to lapse into reformism, as we gave the
impression that we believed a few more crumbs off our mastersâ tables
would appease our real class interests. Our message must be
revolutionary, not reformist. We support the struggle of the working
class to improve its living standards. We arenât interested in reform
campaigns that, by their nature, are only aiming at modifying the
economy, which means modifying our exploitation. However, just because
some people want to turn a struggle into a reform campaign does not mean
that we donât support the struggle.
The anti-Poll Tax fight was an example of this. It was primarily a
struggle of the working class to resist an attack on living standards.
When there is a pay dispute we try to show the way to win it but also
why pay rises will never be enough. When we go back to work, whether we
have won or not, it is not the revolutionaries that should negotiate
with the bosses, others can do this. Some might say this is âpuristâ, to
not negotiate with the bosses ourselves if we agree that, in the
circumstances, such negotiation is inevitable.
Well, we may win the odd battle in the class war but the working class
is always in defeat while there is wage-slavery so revolutionaries
should never lead workers back to work. To do such a thing is to help
the bosses manage our oppression, which is what reformism is all about.
If we have to go back to work we go as proletarians, not as âmanagersâ.
Just as we shouldnât take union posts we shouldnât encourage the
creation of rank and file groups or movements. A revolutionary rank and
file movement is a contradiction in terms, there can only be a
revolutionary movement.