RE: unions / was RE: AUT: About this list

[Fydd <ffyddless@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

 --- ".: s0metim3s :." <s0metim3s@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote: The point being that
> these conditions outpace the distinction between
> union and party, the distinction between 'work'
> and 'politics' (or the social field), and make
> both redundant; suggest the need for a form of
> organisation (and communication) that isn't
> founded on those kinds of distinctions.  The IWW
> (which I wouldn't call a union), with its
> itinerant workers as organisers, seems a useful
> starting point for rethinking much of this stuff.

hola Angela, if the IWW is a useful starting point for
an org that fits in with current class composition in
the "first world", then how come it has not taken off
then? even Trot outfits are larger than the IWW.

> On the related discussions in this thread: I'm not
> entirely persuaded that what conditions a decline
> in union resistance is a decline in resistance
> generally.

Yup, an article in collective action notes argued
this, quoting figures that informal resistance in the
workplace had increased, while strike activity had
gone to near zero in the USA a few years back

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/2379/fragile_prosperity.htm
"One example of what goes on is mentioned in an
article in BARRON's, a U.S. business journal, titled,
"The Rise in Replacement Workers Discourages Strikers
But Spurs Other Forms Of Labor Strife" (May 29, 1995).
The article notes "Strikes have become rarer even at
unionized firms. That doesn't mean, however, that
labor-management strife has ended. It just means
subtler weapons have replaced walk-outs."

A caption to a graph plotting the increase in the use
of "work to rule" tactics, which have grown from 18%
of contract disputes to around 55% in 1990, going
along with this article reads, "Among unionized firms
with 1,000 or more employees strikes have declined
probably in response to the increasingly widespread
use of replacement workers when walk-outs occur. In
response, workers have stayed on the job and resorted
to slowdowns to put pressure on foremen to meet their
demands.""

but i still think we are living in a period of a
pretty depressing and humiliating working class
defeat, even if informal resistance is the major style
of workplace resistance today. i guess it's a matter
of seeing these informal struggles become the basis
for more open and collective struggles.

Fydd
ps/ Zappa is far too postmodern for my taste (i mean
nice and floaty and dithering and without an edge -
ho). Sun City Girls are far more sillier, like
eclectic world music gone wrong, as if a few unsane
arizona punk jazz gypsies ingested heaps of
psychedelics and wandered in the desert vomiting
diamonds. (shit there goes my workerist credentials
damn it, that darn free noise ain't proper working
class musik u know)



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