Re: trade unions and the left

[Adam Rose <adam@xxxxxxxx>]

> Question: When the trade union rank-and-file-comes to distrust and dislike
> the union leadership as much as the union leadership distrusts and dislikes
> the union rank-and-file, what happens next?
>                                         Louis Godena


It depends, doesn't it ?

Workers can either become apathetic, stop going to union meetings, go home
and watch the telly. Or they can form their own rank + file organisations,
which have the potential to lead strikes independently of the union
leadership, and ultimately have the potential to link up to form the basis
of a workers state.

By + large, when large numbers of workers move into action for the first
time, there are elements of relying on the trade union leadership and
elements of rank + file control.

So, in the strikes in France at the end of last year, there were
"coordinations" of rank + file delegates from various unions in some
parts of Paris ( eg the 20th arrondisement ). The union leadership
understood that in order to control the movement it first had to
run to the front of it. Nevertheless, eventually, the union leadership
was able to sell a deal to the rail workers, and then get everyone else
back to work.

In such a situation, it would clearly be a mistake to trust the
trade union bureaucracy. On the other hand, it would also be a
mistake to abandon those workers who did want their leaders to
organise action but who weren't confident enough to organise it
themselves.

So socialists need to pressure the leaders to promise action,
and when they have promised it, we need to force them to actually do
it. At the same time, we need to organise the rank + file so that
we are in a position to move independently of the union leaders.
Also, we need to draw links between the reformist politics of the
trade union leaders and their vacillating leadership, and explain
why a political opposition to their reformism is needed.

Adam.

Adam Rose
SWP
Manchester
UK


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