> Now if people will excuse me, I would like to get a bit philosophical about this
> issue. Trade unions have to work with compromises and negotiations if they are
> ever to achieve anything. This may upset ideological purists, but if it does
> -- too bad. In the last century there was a debate in the International
> Workingmen's Association between Lasalle, Marx and Syndicalists about trade
> union action. Specifically, Lasalle came up with a daft theory entitled "the
> iron law of wages" which argued that any pay increase won by the workers would
> disappear automatically as a result of inflation. This is obviously incorrect,
The "iron law of wages" was comprehensively dismantled by none other than James Connolly who had a long, and almost violent debate with Daniel De Leon, a Marxist from the United States, who supported Lasalles view. However, even after knocking down this view Connolly remained, not a syndicalist, but a revolutionary industrial unionist, one who believed in marxian terms that the role of capitalism was to exploit labour, and that the only way to prevent this exploitation was to abolish capitalism. As an industrial unionist he believed (as I do) that the only way to successfully abolish the capitalist system was (and is) for working people to get organized in the workplace, and by industry in order to establish the administrative machinery through revolutionary unions to allow production and distribution of goods and services to continue during and after any successful social revolution.
> but it highlights a radical position that refuses to accept that anything short
> of full-blown global revolution can achieve anything. In fact, you need only
> look at the significant advances in wages and working conditions achieved by
> workers everywhere to appreciate the value of trade union action. In my
> personal opinion, the vast majority of social improvements in the last century
> have been won as a direct result of mass action by the trade unions and their
> allies. In fact, the irony of these victories is that it was often
> revolutionaries who achieved the most substantial reforms.
There is no irony here at all, having a real time understanding of the way capitalism works, ie by robbing workers of the value of some of what they produce and distribute, and being opponents of capitalist theft, we tend to fight that much harder. We also believe that experience of managing any struggle against an employer is a prime necessity for being in a position to manage industry democratically at a later stage. Only through self managed struggle can workers begin to understand their own potential which is held back by the system we live in. The second point is that those who own and control the means of production and distribution do not as a rule give away anything that they might be able to hold on to. When faced with the potential of a revolutionary politicized working class on the verge of wiping them out they do two things - turn to fascism and call in the army or make sweeping reforms and seek to integrate the rebellious masses into their system. Probably the best example of this is the introduction of the "whitley" reforms during the first world war which spread collective bargaining to many workers and was accompanied by an enormous jump in union membership. This was done against a background of syndicalist led revolt in 1910 -1914, (in which my union the Industrial Workers of the World played a part) and the Bolshevik revolution in Russia.
> Anyway, I think we must remember that trade unions themselves and theirThe international structures of the trade union movement are part of the problem not part of the solution. While workers are divided along national lines and encouraged to see their problems in purely national terms, only turning their attentions to international activity as a last resort, we will always be the losers. Workers are divided against one another - "I am a British worker" "I am a French worker" and their identities are firstly national secondly class. Trade unions are partly to blame with "national " unions, and with potentially xenophobic utterances against "American" bosses or "Japanese" bosses as if "British" ones were any better. The bosses on the other hand have no national allegiance and will invest through transnational corporations wherever they get the greatest return on their investment. I would have thought it inevitable that we as union activists of what ever persuasion recognise that transnational capital can only be dealt with by transnational unionism. To my mind this is part of the problem the dockers have faced. Were they part of an international marine transport union, uniting all seafarers and waterfront workers international solidarity could have been sought instantly under the simple slogan "An injury to One is an Injury to All". Instead their own union TGWU, with 900,000 members, less than 1,000 of whom work on the waterfront are expected to use a cumbersome bureaucratic organisation such as the ITF to suddenly realsie that a class war was being fought on the waterfront of Liverpool. I am not at all surprised by the outcome so far.
> international structures are crucial to making any change. I personally do not
> believe that vanguard political parties or spontaneous mass action work or have
> ever done.
> Effectively, as Peter
> explains the disorganised and foolish intervention from representatives of the
> UK dockers (trade union tourists in every sense of the word)
This is the first time I have come across the term "trade union tourist". It sounds very much like an insult. However as I remember it the dockers in 1989 were fighting for their own jobs and the survival of their organisation. That they had to go abroad to explain directly to those invovled what was going on should not surprise anyone. Given that they lost on all counts excpet in Liverpool, perhaps the solidarity was not all it could have been.
> actually damaged
> the practical solidarity action that the Dutch dockers were organising. This is
> the centre of our argument. Unco-ordinated, independent action can all too
> easily undermine real trade union work. Unfortunately, too many people are
> romantically attached to the concept of rank and file purity and they
> automatically assume that all trade union leaders and all trade union
> internationals are run by heartless right-wing bureaucrats intend on selling out
> the workers at every junction. The world just is not like that and all
> generalisations are false. There are bad bureaucrats and heroic rank and file
> workers and the opposite exists as well. But ultimately, we need to focus on
> the fact that trade unions themselves are good things.
UNIONS are good things, trade unions as have been described above are not. I agree in part with the analysis. There are good bureaucrats and bad rank and file activists. BUT the argument comes down to a fairly simple black and white issue - who controls the union, who controls the strike.
They are democratic in
> theory and practice and if you are unhappy with the leadership you can work to
> change it. Naturally trade unions have formed international organisations like
> ours to do a certain job which is not always very easy, but which requires some
> understanding and sympathy and also an appreciation of the fact that solidarity
> and support are not automatic and that national, ethnic and linguistic divisions
> still exist and need to be addressed by people who know what they are doing.
Two questions here
As you can appreciate some of the remarks in this post from Richard Flint annoyed me, partly because they sounds smug and patronising. If they were not meant to sound that way then obviously I take them back. If they were meant the way they sounded...
Kevin Brandstatter
