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cercle |
Some
(boring) remarks about unions How to self-protect as a worker in an ‘ordinary’ time ? For myself, I’m not a member of any union (in France, every worker can choose which union to adhere… or not). But when I discuss with fellow workers in my job place, there’s a lot of practical problems in which unions can play a role. A first example : a colleague works under precarious contracts since more than five years. She’s not particularly interested in politics and has a classical bourgeois ideology, but she took contact with the CNT organizer, because she saw that this union (revolutionary syndicalist) done a good job for the precarious workers in the fine art museum, where she’s has worked. Can I reasonably convince her to avoid the union because it’s reformist ? I’m not sure. Facing exploitation, she radicalised a lot - from her departure point. Another example: a comrade from Cercle social face problems with hierarchy in her job. She took contact with the union (CGT, communist party influenced union); then, she benefices of a network of solidarity between workers, that decrease hierarchy oppression. In these cases, I think it’s the better solution, even if it doesn’t change the world, it make some day-to-day ameliorations. In other cases, I strongly fight against
unions, and particularly the same CGT. In my branch of work (archaeology),
this is the most influent union. It has sometimes radical methods, can lead
very strong and long strike, but the borderline between union and direction
is sometimes thin. The regional director is the former union delegate… Thus,
in the 1998 long strike, the CGT - who lead the strike - defended the biggest
company (1300 workers, majority of CGT followers) against the smaller ones
(local groups with an handful of workers), and this results to a new laws
which create a monopoly for this company… and unemployment for all
others (400 peoples in
France…including four people with which I work everyday, that will lost their
job at the end of the year). Also, the union use precarious workers as a mass of manoeuvres for strikes and demonstrations, but favourites
full-time workers in negotiations… In this case, every time I can do it, I
discuss with colleagues about the acts of the unions and criticize it (a good
occupation for the coffee pause on the site). There’s a logic in all this. Unions have a
role to play in capitalism : being the “representative” of worker in the
bargain about work cost (not only salary, but also ‘social salary’ and works
conditions). They act as companies, a normal thing if we think there are a
‘service company’ specialized in the negotiation of work price, that is a
commodity. Even if they were created by workers as their own organisations,
they’ve become such because capitalism transform everything in commodity
(this can be viewed on the “new commons” point of view, as The Commoner
develop it). An important problem to remember is that the entire capitalist
system is based upon existence of unions. In the social-democrat / Leninist (pleonasm)
stream, unions should only play a role in “economic” struggles, about the
negotiation of works price (that is a Sisyphus work, because this work price
is included in the commodity prices, so the salary elevation is ephemeral,
even if the changes in work conditions can be real). And the “politic”
struggles - the only important ones - are the speciality of the Party. What’s
is funny (or tragic) is that workers are only capable of creating unions, but
as soon as a worker is “conscious”, he’s ready to join the party. So the
union can never become conscious as a whole, just an appendicle of the Party.
And Intellectuals - class of consciousness - stay the leaders of both. See
Maekevich and Sorel about Intellectuals and Socialism. In the anarcho-syndicalist and
revolutionnary-syndicalist stream, the union needs no party. But it’s always
difficult to make balance between immediate job problems and revolutionary
objectives, so they tend to become classic unions - even if they are radical
ones, or to become revolutionnarist groups. In the left communist stream,
this is the other side of the problem : the party needs no union. But if the
revolutionnary objective is pure, the implication in basic problems is
problematic - that’s the situation that cause our discussion, because it lead
us to some schizophrenic point of view : the revolutionarist against the
worker in the same person. This is more understandable in the antiwork
perspective : we are revolutionnarists because we don’t like to work, or
can’t work as we want to do because it’s just impossible in the capitalism
(productive forces vs. production relation), but we are still worker… and our
entire life and activity is facing this contradiction, in which ‘revolution’
is the only possible ‘aufhebnung’… In the old council communist stream, the
union and party should be the same thing, but the factory council is the only
decisive fact – which can leads to para-syndicalist pratice, like in Italian
workers councils. In later councilism, organisations – parties and unions -
are criticized as wanabe states bureaucracy, and emphases is put on workers
autonomy : the real movement creates its own organisation, adapted to its
objectives. Workers can use unions when they need them and take over them at
other times. That’s why there’s a frequent gap between professional elections
and radicalism in strike. That’s more or less my position, but there’s always
this boring question of ‘if worker spontaneity and subjectivity is
sufficient, why are you a revolutionarist ?’. Two answers, not excluding
themselves. Choose what you prefer : 1/ I’m a worker, and this is my subjectivity
and spontaneity. I’m a part in the movement, and express with words what
fellow workers express in acts. I cant ‘give consciousness’, but I can express
it and discuss it with other workers. Mattick explains well this
contradiction in “organisation and spontaneity”. 2/ The facts that revolutionnarists like to
meet each others, speak of revolution and theory don’t proof that revolution
need revolutionnarists. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the
proof of revolution is in revolution
itself. The subjectivist knows his position is not the GOOD one, but a piece
in the totality, a part in the revolution process and communisation movement,
a side of a contradiction. I got some ideas about what can’t lead to
revolution, but none about the good way to do it. I should end this review of positions about
unions with the ‘communisation movement’ last elaboration, which find interesting. The review ‘Theorie
communiste’ suggest that unions and workers parties are the real expression
of worker in capital, because work is a side of capital. Theses unions and
parties can’t take over capitalism, because they are part of it. The interest
of this point of view is that it breaks with the ‘treason’ rhetoric. For
trotskists, the unions and worker party leaders always betray poor working
class. Most left communist use more or less the same rhetoric, on a tearless
mode. And workers stay - as in Leninist theory - stupid guys which can’t
understand they real interest. This don’t always fits to what we see everyday
? Sure, there are permanents, and bureaucrats, and cynical chiefs. But
there’s also thousands of unionists that take risks to stay unionists, and militants
of orthodox communist parties that loose there job for their opinions. Why ?
Not because they are the capital valets, but because they are the other side
in the capital contradiction. This is a key of reading Russian revolution,
and more important, to read nowadays work questions. As an unionist Italian worker said : “We were
serious, we strike to work better. Others only strikes to play bowls”. And
his boss - Agnelli, from the FIAT factory - said “We don’t fear organisation.
We fear disorganisation”. This express well the contraction of workers : they
both want to organize works in there own manner - work in capital - and they
don’t want to work - our beloved refusal. In the postfordist world, there’s
no place for the old organisation of work inside of capital, and the parties
and unions lose influence or evolve in the same sense as capital. So we cant’ criticize unions without
criticising work itself. Nico
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