The post on Unite and the ensuing discussion got me thinking about unions as a form of class organisation, and the possibilities they offer to a revolutionary project, as well as their limitations. I’ve also been thinking that some form of modified anarcho-syndicalism, with a presence beyond work and in the community, could well prove to be project that might alleviate some of these limitations and is worth investigating further. For the meantime, however, here are some (incomplete) notes about existing forms of anarcho-syndicalism, starting with its essential aspects.
The Essential Aspects
Unions for workers, run by workers, with no separation between organisers and members, with no hierarchy whatsoever. Controlled from the bottom, using mandated, recallable and temporary delegates, and with no authority positions outside the shop floor, voted or otherwise. This is an attempt to stop the formation of power over workers in the form of a union bureaucrats which, despite their best intentions, develop interests of their own that come to partially align with those of capital, and become a class of their own (leftist managerial class).
Industrial unionism, not trade unionism. Unions will be organised around the workplace, not the individual trades. A hospital, for example, will be organised as a single union, not in multiple unions such as cleaners, doctors, junior doctors, receptionists, etc., in recognition of a common enemy in the employer and in recognition that no one job is more valuable than any other. Unions within a similar industry will cooperate in federation to stop scabbing and unions in a geographic locale will also cooperate in federation to organise strike support and local workers initiatives (education, food coops, etc.).
Use of direct action to get the goods. This means non-cooperation with any form of State-based worker-employer arbitration board and rather a reliance on, and development of, workers’ own strength. It means avoidance of contracts, etc. except in conditions of very weak workers’ power, as contracts prohibit direct action for agreed lengths of time.
Anti-parliamentary position. A refusal, on all accounts, to engage in State-based politics, whether backing a left party claiming to act on their behalf, or seeking reforms (as reforms invariably are made after they are established on the ground).
Preparation for the general strike/general insurrection. This includes not only preparation for the defence of workers when they take back the means of production in the form of community militias, but more importantly the preparation for continuing production (in industries worth continuing, that is) after the productive tools are expropriated. This means developing relationships with workers in other industries for which cooperation is required, developing skills among workers within an industry to continue production by themselves, etc.
The Possibilities
Schools of the revolution. Anarcho-syndicalist unions teach through practice the various essential tendencies required for an anarchist society, including cooperation, mutual aid, solidarity, egalitarian and non-authoritarian forms of organisation, reliance on themselves and not on others, etc.
Preparation for worker-run industries. This preparation doesn’t mean a continuation of the status quo of industrial society, either. It merely means that in the immediate aftermath of any general insurrection the material necessities can be provided while more thorough material changes can be made (ie. decentralisation of industry, etc.).
The Limitations
Social struggle reduced to class struggle. Anarcho-syndicalism, primarily, is organised around production and our material existence. It may not be well suited to other sites of social struggle, such as racism and indigenous oppression, patriarchy, etc., without concerted effort and an adaptation of tactics.
Tendency towards pure economism. That is, a tendency to focus almost exclusively on day to day and immediate economic issues, seeking just the bread but neglecting the roses. Other social issues well suited for anarcho-syndicalism to attack, such as war, may be sidelined (as the Spanish CNT found). As well, a vision of a general insurrection and its preparation will tend to be deferred to focus on immediate needs.
Tendency to just focus on workers, and exclude others from class struggle, ie. unemployed, single parents, students etc. This arises from the difficulty of unemployed to fight against WINZ as, unlike workers, they don’t have their labour power to deny. New tactics are required for these groups whose struggle is very much class oriented.
Opposition between workers’ immediate interests under capitalism and other social struggles. For example, between miners and ecological destruction. Successful compromises, such as the green ban, require workers to go beyond their immediate and even mid-term interests. However, the end of all coal mining industries, for example, which is necessary to halt climate change is too conflictual under capitalist relations for a working compromise.
anarchafairy 
11 comments
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January 24, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Toby
Anarchafairy, i think your critique of anarcho-syndicalism is well stated but limited to anarcho-traditionalist criticism. Anarcho-syndicalism in my view is limited cos it is for self-managed capitalism (ie. a worker controlled capitalism where worker controlled industries compete with each other on the market), and a barely hidden compulsory workerism where in everybody is reduced to the status of worker, rather than the self-abolition of the proletariat (ie. no division between work and society & work and play, and people not defined by their work, but instead by their needs and desires). If you look at Spain, this is what happened to anarcho-syndicalism there (see Gaston Leval’s book, an anarchist who admits the anark-syn collectives were mostly a neo-capitalism).
Plus also the number one criticism for me is that unions can never be revolutionary — they tend to become bureaucratic mediators of class struggle, even the most radical ones.
January 24, 2007 at 10:39 pm
Asher
“a barely hidden compulsory workerism where in everybody is reduced to the status of worker, rather than the self-abolition of the proletariat (ie. no division between work and society & work and play, and people not defined by their work, but instead by their needs and desires).”
That, combined with Toby’s last line, are my main concerns about a-synd. Hooray for someone else putting it well so I don’t have to.
January 25, 2007 at 12:31 pm
anarchafairy
Hey Toby! Glad you chimed in – I’m interested to hear your thoughts on this. I seem to flip between an ultra-leftist rejection of unions to advocating anarcho-syndicalism.
Anarcho-syndicalism in my view is limited cos it is for self-managed capitalism
How is this the case? My understanding of anarcho-syndicalism was that it was not very prescriptive of future relations. Frank has always described it as a tactic/strategy for the present but that communist relations were entirely possible after the general insurrection. Why can’t the various industries and communities work cooperatively? What in anarcho-syndicalism makes self-managed capitalism likely/inevitable?
barely hidden compulsory workerism where in everybody is reduced to the status of worker, rather than the self-abolition of the proletariat
Yeah, and I alluded to this in the limitations. The modified anarcho-syndicalism I was considering, however, was not just based around work, but also based in schools and universities, and included far more focus on the community locals. Do you think if syndicalism changed from a work-type strategy to a more general organisational form for collective action/resistance that these problems of workerism would disappear?
Plus also the number one criticism for me is that unions can never be revolutionary — they tend to become bureaucratic mediators of class struggle, even the most radical ones.
And definitely in my experience this is the case. Even with the CNT, informal power positions arose, committees were obviously points of power if the FAI could stack them and the national papers had a large influence on the direction of the union.
But what if a truly horizontal network of workplace unions/groups were to develop? What if there was absolutely no hierarchy or separation within the network? How could workers also be their own mediators? Are you suggesting that workers will internalise the demands of capital, or are you saying this form of genuinely horizontal organisation is not sustainable?
January 25, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Toby
My gosh! Some actual debate and not mud slinging on the net! What is going on??? 😉
“I seem to flip between an ultra-leftist rejection of unions to advocating anarcho-syndicalism.”
I do too, but the latter more as a temporary tactic rather than an end in itself.
“My understanding of anarcho-syndicalism was that it was not very prescriptive of future relations. Frank has always described it as a tactic/strategy for the present but that communist relations were entirely possible after the general insurrection.”
Frank is actually an anarchist communist who believes anarcho-syndicalism is the most useful tool or tactic for workers to create a genuinely communist society. My criticism of self-managed capitalism does not apply to people like him. I have some sympathy with this view, and i find the majority of anglophone anarcho-syndicalists these days are like Frank. But i guess i’m more councilist, in that i see workers creating their own organisations in the heat of major periods of class struggle like workers councils as the basis for a new society, rather than unions. I’m not sure prefabricated unions can be revolutionary.
“Why can’t the various industries and communities work cooperatively? What in anarcho-syndicalism makes self-managed capitalism likely/inevitable?”
Well traditionally anarcho-syndicalists have been rather vague on the exact economics of a future society, but if you look more closely, their programme derives from the Bakunin wing of anarchism, who believed the social product should be distributed according to work done (and that workers should own and operate [i]their[/i] own workplaces, rather than them belonging to all, ie no private property, everything apart from toothbrushes and personal stuff to be the commons, as with anarchist communists). Such a Bakuninist view is shared by anarcho-syndicalists today who are into Parecon like Wetzel. I think distributing according to work done will obviously create a new class system with those who work hardest at the top. I prefer plain old communism, that is, distribution according to need, rather than how much work you do.
There is a lot i have missed out here. for critiques of anarcho-syndicalism as self-management, a good intro comes from UK council commies Subversion who were well-known for their plain writing (unlike most libertarian Marxists)
“The ‘revolution’ in the countryside has usually been seen as superior to the ‘revolution’ in the towns and cities. Anarchist historian and eyewitness of the collectives, Gaston Leval, describes the industrial collectives as simply another form of capitalism, managed by the workers themselves:
Leval: “Workers in each undertaking took over the factory, the works, or the workshop, the machines, raw materials, and taking advantage of the continuation of the money system and normal capitalist commercial relations, organised production on their own account, selling for their own benefit the produce of their labour.”
see http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/8195/subvert4.htm
Anarchafairy: “The modified anarcho-syndicalism I was considering, however, was not just based around work, but also based in schools and universities, and included far more focus on the community locals. Do you think if syndicalism changed from a work-type strategy to a more general organisational form for collective action/resistance that these problems of workerism would disappear?”
Well they did a little. It always been a mistake to suggest the anarcho-syndicalists were only concerned with workplaces. The French CGT, who pioneered syndicalism in the 1890s, and the CNT, had the modified strategy you refer to. They had a dual strategy of community assemblies and building union halls (called bourses in French), ateneos (sort of like theatres), workers education type schools and so on for communities and syndicates for workplaces. The CNT included all workers, not just the waged, too. It included hoem workers, the unemployed and so on. (dunno about students, back then univ. students were very elitist and often viewed as parasites). These two types of organisations would then federate together. In practice, the CNT not only organised workplaces but also hospitals, schools, ateneos, and communities. So they were not purist workerists in this sense.
But in another sense they were, cos they still retained their workerist love and glorification of work, particularly hard-slog manual blue collar male dominated work. They even produced Stakhnovite progaganda urging the workers to work harder and faster for the anti-fascist cause. And CNT union militants tried to get non-political workers and workers to the left of them to work harder and faster. They viewed other workers as lazy and so on and got mad with them for not sharing their ideals and sense of sacrifice. Some CNT militants even expressed a like for the efficiency of Taylorist methods of capitalist production (Taylor pioneered the assembly line, a new way to maximise the exploitation of workers in the 1920s and 1930s and keep them under control). See Micheal Seidman’s infamous book [i]Workers against work[/i] for this. (Seidman is a bit of an individualist though).
“Even with the CNT, informal power positions arose, committees were obviously points of power if the FAI could stack them and the national papers had a large influence on the direction of the union.”
yes.
“But what if a truly horizontal network of workplace unions/groups were to develop? What if there was absolutely no hierarchy or separation within the network? How could workers also be their own mediators? Are you suggesting that workers will internalise the demands of capital, or are you saying this form of genuinely horizontal organisation is not sustainable.”
old Robert Michels claimed there was an iron law of oligarchy, that bureaucracy is inevitable even in organisations that aim to be non-bureaucratic (he studied the French CGT to make his point). If we thought this, then there would be no point in being a revolutionary!!! So obviously i think horizontal organisation is possible. But i believe the left communist critique of unions, including radical unions, goes something like unions are set up to negotiate between workers and capital, to negotiate the rate of exploitation of workers in the form of the wage, and because that is their fundamental purpose, they tend to become mediators of class struggle, a mediating and bureaucratic layer inbetween capital and labour, who then take an anti-working class role in suppressing workers self-organisation.
Of course, anarcho-syndicalists will reply this only applies to mainsream unions, rather than revolutionary ones that seek the abolition of the wage system. But the empirical evidence is that a mediating layer does arise within pretty much all radical unions, and that radical unions are forced into situations where they must control their members from taking action outside their control to present a respectable face at the negotiation table (or to keep the anti-fascist popular class-collaborationist front going, in the case of the CNT in 1936-1939).
Um, i’m not sure if i answered all your questions but i gave it a go anyways. [/rant]
January 26, 2007 at 10:57 am
Toby
Just a few comments cause I should be at work and I will winge at Toby when he gets up. Worker capitalism was aproblem in the early days of 36 in Bacelona but they were aware of this a took steps to sort it out…Somewhere in Level’s book. Also in Level he mentions that in many collectivised villages the CNT dissapeared because there was no need for it. This in my view is an indicationof the healthy state of any organisation. Organisation is only a tool to achieve a purpose when it is of no use you dump it. If AS is reduntant then move on and create a new responsive organisation. Its when parties and beuraracy get in the way then the counter rev starts. But noone has talked about locals except in a few passing comments. They are the essential ingreadient. Thats why in the past I have always asked unite members after they have told me how many thousand members they have how many locals do they have. None ofcourse. So they have a passive membership just bits of paper. Great for Treen and co. When we went out and organised Burger King workers in ChCh it was very positive start that came to nothing. Workers put themselves on the line and join up then here nothing and next time someone turns up they will think twice. Whatshould have happened was tha an organising local should have been established straight away. This never happened. When I suggested this at meetings and to individuals there was always a polite silence/he must be nuts attitude. After this a email came from head office saying ‘ Well done volunters now leave it up to the professionals’ to fuck up. And they did. People accepted this.
So whats a local. Firstly AS is a revolutionary social movement not in my view a purely workplace movement. See Salt of the Earth for taking on sexism and racism in the workplace and community. Locals are based on locality. Here in ChCh we organised about 5 workers at the Palms/shirley Burger King. From this the next step should have been toorganise a private meeting of those workers to explain how to establish a Shirley local and how a proper/unite union functions. The next step would have been to set up aShirely local and join other members from local workplaces. The assumption here is that some workers may live in the local area. From here links with genuine community groups need to be established not with community beurcrats, another story. So we have several workplaces in the same local with community group members etc. So this Shirley local was started by a city wide local which was doing the samein other areas. When other locals are established and functioning the city organising local moves to become a delegate assembly and those initial organisers become part of their own locals. Obviously locals establish workers centres and other forms of mutal aid in their neighbourhoods. Street organisations etc. AS is no longer a workplace orientated but takes on the character of a social movement. Ofcourse citywide and regional federations are essential. So when theres a problem at Shirley Burger King thers a problem in Shirley and then ChCh. Contrast this to the organisation of a traditionl union. With AS organising the employers and the state are in the shit. In myview traditional unions are a waste of time but to abandon themis to abandon the workers in them. Dual membership. One last point. The possibilties that AS has now hasn’t happened in this country for a hundred years. The years after 1900 were years of insurgent labour we are about to enter similiar times because similiar conditions exist. Everything points to an exploision at some stage. Whether that exploision takes the form of a series of spontaenous niighbourhood riots or a combination involving workplaces remans to beseen. Together they are unstoppable isolated they will be crushed as in England in the 80’s.Well ofcourse I am being wildly optimistic but only an optimitic fool would be involved in anarchist stuff for 30 years+ Good on you Anarchafairy for having a go at the mongrels.
January 26, 2007 at 11:09 am
Frank
Sorry That last coment was from Frank the computer luddite not Toby. Toby has been banihsed to atent in the back yad with Harry Goulds Marxist Glosarry.
January 26, 2007 at 11:12 pm
Scott
Difficult to see how any of this, interesting as it may be on some sort of theoretical level, has anything to do with present-day New Zealand, or any other country I know about.
Are there any attempts to set up organisations which meet these stringent requirements, in New Zealand or anywhere else?
Has any mass organisation possessing the pure revolutionary credentials folks are talking about there ever existed? Every real revolution I know about, including Spain (see Michael Seidman’s book ‘Workers about work’) has been much messier.
Surely if we back the self-organisation of the working class we have to look at what workers are actually doing when they get together and organise to try to improve their lot. As soon as we do this we see all sorts of contradictions – we see workers in a union wanting better pay rises for themselves but not thinking beyond their worksite, or white collar workers who want to fight their bosses but retain negative attitudes toward blue collar workers, or the reverse, or Maori activists occupying land but opposing Asian immigration and supporting nationalist politicians, etc etc If we back working class self-organisation we have to find a way to support these contradictory struggles without compromising our beliefs. Not easy, but I don’t see any alternative. Drawing a model of an ideal struggle and then abstaining from campaigns that did not fit it doesn’t seem an effective alternative. The sad history of the ultra-left and communist left – I mean those groups that refuse to work in United Fronts or trade unions or support national liberation struggles – seems to confirm this.
I’ve made these points already on the Unite thread so I won’t labour them.
January 26, 2007 at 11:13 pm
Scott
Sorry, I meant ‘Workers Against Work’…
January 27, 2007 at 1:24 am
Militant Student
I think Toby raises some good points with his post on the importance of organising locals. I think in the fast food industry locals would need to cover larger areas than usual to compensate for the high industry turnover.
If you were a union organiser then it shouldn’t be hard to set up an autonomus local of workers, to equip them with the tolls of the class struggle and then send them on their way. ; )
My feeling is that Toby’s revolutionary councils would only arise in the workplace if a workplace, in this case union council failed to become the democratic tool of the workers. If the union council was democratic then it should transform itself into a revolutionary council by the workers volition, hence the nature of anarcho-syndicalism.
January 27, 2007 at 11:34 am
Scott
I guess the IWW branches which have appeared in Starbucks in the US might be an example of what you’re talking about? I’m not knocking them at all, but I understand that they are relatively small. Certainly, they are dwarfed by the mainstream unions. And in New Zealand I’m not aware of any functioning organisation that resembles them.
On the other hand, something like 250,000 workers in this country have chosen to organise themselves into the unions gathered in the CTU. Workers in low-income service sector jobs have chosen to join and try to build unions like the SFWU, NDU and Unite by the thousand. This is the reality – or a big part of the reality – of working class self-organisation in New Zealand.
If we believe in working class self-organisation, we have to find ways of relating to this reality. I don’t think that postulating pure, contradiction-free revolutionary unions and then counterposing them to the messy reality of bureaucratic unions and very non-revolutionary workers is the best way of proceeding. I admire the young anti-capitalist organisers and delegates who have entered the union movement in Auckland in the last few years (Simon Oosterman is a high-profile example, but there are dozens of others) and given it a shot in the arm by building numbers and helping wage successful strikes.
Theirs is a difficult job, because it requires compromises with bureaucratic union machines and (just as importantly) union memberships which often don’t see the need for grassroots democracy, direct action, and internationalism. The results of their work, though, can be seen in the building of a strong union at Sky City, the largest inner city worksite in Auckland, the points victory of the supermarket workers against Progressive last year, and lower-profile events like the winning of a MECA for workers at polytechnics. If you read the Business section of the NZ Herald at the time of the epic struggle against Progressive you’ll appreciate just how worried the ruling class is about the possibility of a resurgent union movement winning multi employer colective agreements up and down the country.
Nothing is certain, of course, but I think the big struggle in the next few years in New Zealand will come when a world economic recession caused by the state of the US balance of trade, the worldwide property market bubble, and US disasters in the Middle East washes up on our shores. A recession will take away the wriggle room Labour has used to meet wage demands by strong groups of workers like the nurses and thereby avoid messy industrial action. Even if Labour retains power in 2008 a recession will force it to attack the unions that still support it. If National wins then then a big fight will be on regardless of whether a recession has arrived, because National is determined to turn back the tide of rising union membership and MECAs by scrapping the relatively feeble but significant changes that Labour made to the Employment Contracts Act (think John Howard’s legislation across the ditch).
Right now I think we’re in a bit of a lull before the storm, as unions try hard to build themselves up and recover from the ’90s and the ‘hollow men’ in the New Zealand ruling class prepare a major offensive that will recall the days of Rogernomics and Ruthanasia. In this situation I think the young anti-capitalists who have entered the union movement in recent years are playing good role by simultaneously trying to build up our forces and promote grassroots organising and more militant tactics and strategies.
Just my five cents. I could be wrong, and the IWW could rise from the ashes in New Zealand! I would certainly be delighted if it did.
January 30, 2007 at 9:35 pm
anarchafairy
Thanks for the comments here. I’m thinking I might try and put together a book/large pamphlet of articles on anarcho-syndicalism,A/S as a social movement rather as simply another form of unionsim, and NZ experiences with unionism close to A/S lines.