14th November Movement for Left Unity

[belboid]

The IWW have the most bureaucratic procedures of any union I've come across, the way they operate in meetings doesn't seem to have changed one iota since they were founded. Motions have to go through a very particular process. And yet, they get around 50% attending meetings. So it's obviously nothing to do with 'motions'

 

[butchersapron]

The IWW have the most bureaucratic procedures of any union I've come across, the way they operate in meetings doesn't seem to have changed one iota since they were founded. Motions have to go through a very particular process. And yet, they get around 50% attending meetings. So it's obviously nothing to do with 'motions'

I think that you've just proven the point haven't you? That without a highly politically motivated membership (in fact the IWW comparison is crazy as it's effectively a party or ginger group not a union - and so 50% turnout is appalling) no one turns up. No one gets involved. No one does anything - beyond the same self perpetuating group who then use that very alienation to write themselves into the structures. And round we go again.

edit: so again, why the gap between the 27% membership and fuck all participation? Any answers that flatly reject the idea that bureaucratic union culture is alienating and the ways that culture operates are not welcome.

 

[belboid]

I think that you've just proven the point haven't you? That without a highly politically motivated membership (in fact the IWW comparison is crazy as it's effectively a party or ginger group not a union - and so 50% turnout is appalling) no one turns up. No one gets involved. No one does anything - beyond the same self perpetuating group who then use that very alienation to write themselves into the structures. And round we go again.

edit: so again, why the gap between the 27% membership and fuck all participation? Any answers that flatly reject the idea that bureaucratic union culture is alienating and the ways that culture operates are not welcome.

Still no actual alternative from you I notice.

The IWW has a high turnout because meetings can effect what happens, its that simple. Your contention that its all about 'motions' is clear nonsense.

 

[butchersapron]

Still no actual alternative from you I notice.

The IWW has a high turnout because meetings can effect what happens, its that simple. Your contention that its all about 'motions' is clear nonsense.

Yes, because it's not actually a union. It only has politically motivated members - the comparison is a joke - and when it did operate as a union, as a very effective union, it most certainly did not operate on these boring bureaucratic lets composite shite motions rubbish. It was direct shop-floor hands in the air right now basis.

(and the iww turnout in reality can only really effect IWW policy - which is why this group is there in the first place - fuck all else)

An alternative to what? Are you recognising that there's a problem that i need to provide an alternative to then?

 

[belboid]

[quote="butchersapron, post: 12942354, member: 366"An alternative to what? Are you recognising that there's a problem that i need to provide an alternative to then?[/quote]
no, I dont think there's any problems within the union movement, its the best time ever to be a trade unionist, etc etc etc.

And go back and reread your wobbly history if you think it was all 'shopfloor' politics, it wasnt. how do you think there conferences worked? They had bloody motions.

 

[butchersapron]

An alternative to what? Are you recognising that there's a problem that i need to provide an alternative to then?

no, I dont think there's any problems within the union movement, its the best time ever to be a trade unionist, etc etc etc.

And go back and reread your wobbly history if you think it was all 'shopfloor' politics, it wasnt. how do you think there conferences worked? They had bloody motions.

So, there is a problem. Is the stuff i identify - a bureaucratic culture easily monopolised by a motivated few that alienates wider membership - part of it? If not then wtf? If so, then wtf are you shouting at me for?

Please don't reduce my point down to motions alone - i have clearly said that i was using them as an example of that bureaucratic culture - see the guff linked to above. Now, a living breathing movement (the histotical IWW) based on exactly the lack of long-winded crap but direct shop floor decisions such as the above motion produces clear unambiguous motions without any of the crap about things they can't effect and full of things that they can . Like the few proper IWW conventions pre-ww1 (the first few of these actually involved getting rid of the windbags) and the rest were full of the same guff about whether to help form the CPUSA. Oddly enough membership and participation started to drop off at this point of heightened class struggle.

Btw: just going to ignore the points about the daftness of the comparison and what can actually be effected or are you going to argue why it is apt and fitting?

 

[belboid]

Because I dont think it is the bureaucratic culture that puts most people off being involved. It doesn't help, but its not the main problem. Its no use just harking back to the days of (comparatively) direct workplace democracy, simply altering the formal structures of an organisation wont brnig them back.

And those early IWW conferences were full of 'windbags,' who remained in it (except DeLeon).

 

[Red Cat]

meaningless

Thing is I'm not coming at this from recent political experience and I'm not really interested in expressing myself in such terms. I'm coming at it from observing my own children and their friends and the way in which they create their own cultures, and also my work with children with mental health problems, children who struggle to play, so thinking about play (free-activity) and what enables it and inhibits it is something I do a lot of. For me, it's not a huge stretch to then think about what kinds of group culture encourage creativity (play) and inquiry and which cultures inhibit it by being too reliant on direction and procedure.

 

[chilango]

My recent experience of Union meetings (the CGIL in Italy with a high % of attendance, I've yet to attend an NUT meeting here) is of turgid droning that people sit through (albeit chatting, doodling, fiddling with phones etc.) under duress. They (we) know it's important, but detest the dull proceduralism that inhibits any sort of participatory engagement, or organic discussion.

Whilst this may, in part, be shaped by the Union's role in negotiating equally turgid contractural and legal stuff, a formation like Left Unity does not play this role.

I'd argue that workplace organisation shouldn't be bound to thus role either, but that's a harder fish to fry.

A new formation, who's initial momentum and appeal came from bypassing old structures and a focus on using social media to enable/empower participation "from below", has absolutely no need to ape TU procedure.

That it does is at best lazy. At worst cynical power grabbing manoeuvres.

But, yeah, I might be wrong. People might really dig this shit.

 

[el-ahrairah]

i'm enjoying reading Left Unity's unity collapsing via their email list. at least, the lambeth one is. here's a wonderful quote from someone who objects to someone insisting that Left Unity nead a left-wing class analysis.

"
Let me take a different tack. I think we have conflated unhelpfully "middle class" with "bourgeois" and something evil. What is being middle class, if not access to quality housing, and education, and health care? Surely we want to expand the middle class? I can hear wails of outrage already. We want all of those things for all people don't we, whatever their heritage or the nature of their labour? If there is something I don't understand here, please explain to me. Can we at least say that a well-functioning society has a healthy middle class, and that we are not ignoring them or calling for their demise? Is a middle class part of the hierarchy, and we are attempting to create a classless society that is somehow also working class?
"

 

[rekil]

Good news. A new initiative has just been launched here.

 

[treelover]

Where?

 

[el-ahrairah]

Where?

over there

 

[treelover]

a little mouse with clogs on..

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Where?

Ireland.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

I expect it will got as well as the ULA...

 

[el-ahrairah]

"1. I am finding all this class pigeon holing extremely difficult. Should we not be looking to change the factors which drive us apart as a society? Instead of propogating them? This appears to be just the kind of retoric that would please the "powers that be" (divide and conquer) as we are limiting the people we claim to represent, dividing our group opinion, and in that context making our arguments weaker.

Clearly mistakes have been made by Labour. But Socialist parties have typically lost traction with the public by their exclusive policies and I think there is a danger of LU falling into this category. Do we really blame individuals for class differences rather than governement? Shouldn't we allow all people to correct their mistakes (perhaps) and begin doing things in a better way? Do we really want to shun a section of society just based on historical context?

2. Also, there seems to be a large discrepancy between what people of LU think to be "working class" and what I, and to my assumption most people would identify as working class. I have always thought of working class as someone who uses manual labor to earn money; so a gardener would be labelled as working class, but a garden designer would be middle class. From the last branch meeting it was expained to me that the meaning of working class as used here is someone who simply works for a living, rather than living off investments or heritage. I would say that the latter is upper class, rather than middle and am confused as to how we can come to an universal understanding of these conflciting definitions.

I find this anger at the "non-working class" to be unfounded and unprogressive. In the same way as I would say not to blame people working in banks for the recession, but instead those who relaxed regulations and created policies which over looked warning signs. It is not the fault of the middle class that inequality exists.

I would support Davids 99% 1% deinition as I believe this to be more realistic and valuable. "

it looks like the liberals within Left Unity are winning. the Left Unity that they want is a left-liberalism where we're all pretending to be middle class and therefore acting in the interests of the middle classes. funny that.

 

[DotCommunist]

courting the trot trap of 'we must win the p/b'

 

[DotCommunist]

I have always thought of working class as someone who uses manual labor to earn money; so a gardener would be labelled as working class, but a garden designer would be middle class

incisive.

 

[butchersapron]

courting the trot trap of 'we must win the p/b'

There's no trap there (never mind winning) - there is just confusion (and obv it was part of a wider motion/debate). Confusion about these things and how to deal with them is politics - at least part of an internal politics. There's no shame in this.

 

[butchersapron]

courting the trot trap of 'we must win the p/b'

Also, what trot trap? Seriously? Trots say concentrate solely on the w/c the remnants of the p/b to be lead by the resulting leadership.

 

[el-ahrairah]

no class.

that makes no sense now.

 

[DotCommunist]

There's no trap there (never mind winning) - there is just confusion (and obv it was part of a wider motion/debate). Confusion about these things and how to deal with them is politics - at least part of an internal politics. There's no shame in this.

you'd think that a movement for left unity just might have the werewithal to distinguish between a self employed gardener who has his own van and gear and the employee of a landscape garderning corp who get countrywide contracts. I'm not saying these debates/confusions/questions are entirely pointless but come the fuck on. A movement for left unity discussing the nature of class- rome burns.

 

[el-ahrairah]

in context, it seems to be that the wider debate is whether the group identify as left-wing organisation with socialist policies, or as a liberal group with a left-wing name. it looks like the liberals are unsatisfied by some of the proposals going through. from what i've read there hasn't been any attacks on idividuals for being middle-class, there has been a class analysis which identifies class as part of the problems. however, this has caused a lot of upset, as middle class lefties (or those that aspire to middle-classdom) don't think that it's fair. the middle-classes don't want an end to the class system, they want a party that will take from the bankers, make the trains cheaper, and perhaps do something about the house prices somehow.

and so the beginning of the end happens. each side will blame the other for lack of unity, unable to believe that those bastards won't get behind their perfectly reasonable list of demands and act against their own class interests. as per usual.

and who can blame them. i'm not going to sign up to spend my time working towards a parliamentary party that seeks to make capitalism a bit nicer, so why should i expect others to act against their class interests. it was always going to be this way.

 

[DotCommunist]

well how the fuck do you begin to explain unity to people for whom being w/c poor is cause du jour rather than day in day out life?

 

[chilango]

There's no trap there (never mind winning) - there is just confusion (and obv it was part of a wider motion/debate). Confusion about these things and how to deal with them is politics - at least part of an internal politics. There's no shame in this.

Absolutely.

It's a positive thing, for now, that LU members are coming out with stuff like this rather than all having joined with solidified Marxist ideas about class.

It shows that at least some of their members are not old Trots looking for a new home.

However, it also shows pretty clearly where LU are getting their members from. Which isn't so positive.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

I expect it will got as well as the ULA...

Well, the SWP aren't involved.

 

[Delroy Booth]

I sort of appreciate what people are saying about how they're actually having a real discussion about class, and although to our weary jaded eyes it can be easy to knock but I'm sure these definitions of class are widely believed by people so it's kind of healthy they're having a discussion about this.

But at the same time, if they self-consciously aiming at being so liberal why even start a new party of the left, especially if this new party of the left isn't actually all that left wing? If you're after what they're after, piss weak social democracy, they could just join Labour surely? What distinguishes them from Labour? What's their unique selling point?

 

[The39thStep]

whilst the left unifies the left movement.........

 

[chilango]

It reminds me a bit of some of the stuff the old CP did in the immediate aftermath of '91. 0verly inclusive, overly liberal stuff to add heft to an essentially failed project.