Re building the unions: Statement

[belboid]

If you think these exist, particularly in the form of Simpson, Crow, etc., you are severly deluded. If they're at the top of the TU hierarchy they are not grassroots, regardless of their intentions (which as you say aren't particularly left wing).

I think (well, guess) you've misunderstood Groucho's meaning. Grassroots leaders are, well, people like you and me.

They do, and that's the problem, you're doing two contradictory things.

I disagree. But why do you think this is the case?

 

[888]

The interests of top bureaucrats in the union conflict with the interests of the rank and file, unless there are very drastic changes to the way unions are run. THe bureaucrats, regardless of their intentions, are part of a layer of management within capitalism. In the same way, I don't support the election of "socialist" MPs to parliament.

I was quoting matewan, not Groucho, who said that Bob Crow was a more grassroots leader, which doesn't make any sense.

 

[belboid]

The interests of top bureaucrats in the union conflict with the interests of the rank and file,

agreed

unless there are very drastic changes to the way unions are run.

no, that's not the point, the point is bureauscrats role in the process

THe bureaucrats, regardless of their intentions, are part of a layer of management within capitalism.

my point above

In the same way, I don't support the election of "socialist" MPs to parliament.

I prefer to support whatever option is open, without ever saying an option is a solution. I see not contradiction there.

I was quoting matewan, not Groucho, who said that Bob Crow was a more grassroots leader, which doesn't make any sense.

my mistake, sorry. but I do still see some difference - even if his overall role remains the same. A union leader who has come up from being an actual worker is still quite different to one who has been a bureaucrat throughout their career.

 

[october_lost]

With Trade Unions amalgamating into larger blocks and taking on policies similar to that of America and Europe, disposessing the majorityof unskilled, semi-skilled working class, especially people the new 'underclass' and migrant labour, a vacuum for radical syndiclism could be built.

Once its secured a foothold, I can see syndicalism having a huge potential for growth, the problem of course is the immediate period and how we get there. But the left, with there constant lobbying and slates for the traditional unions is still a worrying concept.

 

[Groucho]

The interests of top bureaucrats in the union conflict with the interests of the rank and file, unless there are very drastic changes to the way unions are run. THe bureaucrats, regardless of their intentions, are part of a layer of management within capitalism. In the same way, I don't support the election of "socialist" MPs to parliament.

The Trade Union bureauracy are subject to competing pressures. It is not quite right to say that they are managers within the capitalist system. They are not stooges of the bosses by nature, though some are by inclination. They are not uncompromising representatives of the workers either.

The Trade Union bureaucracy - which means more than just the elected leadership but the whole union machine - are organised to negotiate within capitalism. They are organised on a sectional basis rather than across the class and as union structures they have competing interests. A union leader is under pressure to put the union machine before the interests of the workers they represent. They are influenced by their lifestyle and separation from the workers they represent and they desire an easy life and desire negotiated outcomes. When wrkers are passive the bureaucracy can often be to the left of the membership and often learn to distrust the members. When members move into action they often continue to act on the assumption that workers are to the right of them (and untrustworthy).

But union leaders are also under pressure to deliver improvements to working conditions and to protect workers from attack. Even LP supporting union leaders will publically criticise Blair, will seek to pressure LP to move leftwards (futile and counter-productive though it is) and will support strike action and, more often, the threat of action as a negotiating lever. They can be pushed from below to call action even where they do not desire it.

Union leaders like Mark Serwotka are not immune from these pressures. He was elected straight from the rank and file. He is politically a Socialist who hasno truck with New Labour (he supports RESPECT). He genuinely wants to see workers struggle sucessfully to change their environment and is prepared to lead such struggles if required. Yet his position as a major union leader has led him to see workers as a stage army. He has recently said he will be trying to bring public sector unions together to fight in a united struggle over privatisation. I am in favour of this but it simply will not come from negotiations at the top of the unions (it is much harder than the pensions issue was and there he failed to get a single strike). I have a great deal of time or Mark but where he used to be a rank and filist now he seems to believe it all happens top down (with the support of the workers where necessary).

But a left leadership IS better than a right-wing leadership. Primarily this is because the election of a left leadership increases the confidence of workers to fight, and a left leadership are easier to push from below than a right leadership. PCS were responsible for almost half the strike days 'lost' last year. The concession, such as it was, on pensions would not have been secured without the threat of strikes. There would have been no possibility of united public sector strikes without the work put in principally by Mark Serwotka. That is why campaigning for Serwotka and a left NEC in union elections is not contradictory to building rank and file networks and aiming for an independent organised rank and file. In fact it is a key element of the strategy.

I support Mark serwotka and the left NEC but not uncritically and not in everything they do. If I was in the RMTI would have a simular position as regards Bob Crow.

At the hight of working class rank and file organisation the slogan was with the union leaders when the rightly represent the workers, act independently of them when they don't.

 

[Fong]

It should be politically independent, I agree. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't give supoprt, even affiliate to, a particular party - if the members approve it. If you don't, vote against. but the reason unions are affiliated to Labour is because the members voted for them to be.

No thats divisive, there should be no allegiance and no affliation. Or else you exclude people who don't follow the 'majority' opinion. That makes no sense and shouldn't be what a union is about.

Secondly, I have worked for twenty years in offices and I have NEVER EVER come across a union outside of public service.

Also limiting unions to industries is just another pointless way of excluding people, when really the union would be a hell of a lot stronger if it didn't exclude anyone.

 

[Fong]

To clarify the statement about working for 20 years and never seeing a union outside of the public service.

I have never been approached, never seen any adverts, never met a representative of any union in any of the jobs I have done, and I done a few as I never really found the job that suited me.

While I am aware that some unions do exist, I have never encountered them in any form while working, except while working on the floor of a factory.

 

[matewan6]

Fong - your experience is common to many and lies in the fact that unions are largely excluded from the majority of workplaces by hostile employers. In these circumstances we have to hope that the external work unions do comes to workers attention and workers contact unions. All our numbers are in the phone book and we all have websites. If there is no union where you work its your responsibility as well as "ours".

On the issue of Crow, Woodley, Simpson, Kenny and Serwotka being more "grassroots leaders" - what I intended to point out is that all of them were close to the membership until very recently before being elected - and so are more likely than the previous generation of leaders to be influenced from pressure below. I agree that they are not grassroots leaders in absolutist terms - but in comparative terms when you look at the last clutch of leaders who were appointed/elected straight from the top beaurocrasy of the unions - or who had been in the job so long no-one could remember their pedecessor.

 

[belboid]

To clarify the statement about working for 20 years and never seeing a union outside of the public service.

I have never been approached, never seen any adverts, never met a representative of any union in any of the jobs I have done, and I done a few as I never really found the job that suited me.

While I am aware that some unions do exist, I have never encountered them in any form while working, except while working on the floor of a factory.

thism, sadly, doesn't surprise me. Except for financial institutions (which is simply the best of a bad bunch, not a shining example in its own right) clerical/admin unionisation is pitiably low outside of the public & vol/com sectors. part of the problem there has been the sectionalism of the unions that organise on the shopfloor, who haven't wanted the 'white collar' workers in the same union.

re: Grassroots leaders - I find the idea that as son as someone becomes a union leader (or similar other such delegated powerful position) they instantly and totally become a part of the corporate machine, a completely untenable position, which rests more on belief in some kind of magical idea's than any kind of concrete reality.

 

[Fong]

Have you ever seen an advert for a union, in any form?

I can't recall seeing one, but I could be wrong. I just don't seem to remember ever seeing one.

I know the onus is on the person to find the union, but most white collar workers don't even realise there is a union that would accept them or would be of any value to them.

Unions are, I think, seen by white collar workers as something for the factory floor, not something for them.

If unions want white collar workers to apply, then they have to advertise themselves a little and show that they can do something for those workers.

Would also help if they moved away from political affliations, since most union affliations are heavily to the left and most white collar workers are very middle of the road politically, if not slightly to the right.

I think there is space in this country for a very large and very powerful union that deals with office workers, managers and their concerns, that isn't in the political pocket of a party like most of the unions are viewed to be.

 

[belboid]

Have you ever seen an advert for a union, in any form?

yeah, loads! An awful lot were in the Morning Star admittedly.....

However,I have seen Unison ads, on TV, and various unions' ads in various papers. Unions are very poor tho at 'breaking into' new places generally, most recruitment comes through people who are already members. I don't think the political affiliations really play a significant role in the failure to recruit, but that's a different argument.

 

[belboid]

I think there is space in this country for a very large and very powerful union that deals with office workers, managers and their concerns, that isn't in the political pocket of a party like most of the unions are viewed to be.

why the fuck should some poor bastard have to be in a union with their fucking manager? It's managers who are the biggest bloody problem. They can have their own union.

 

[Fong]

why the fuck should some poor bastard have to be in a union with their fucking manager? It's managers who are the biggest bloody problem. They can have their own union.

More divisive exclusion and you wonder why unions are pretty much powerless in this country.

I have been a manager and a factory worker and a grunt in an office.

Let me tell you, for most managers, its no different from being a grunt and most of them are plucked out of the worker pool, its directors that have control. Managers are just messenger boys who are as much under the cosh as anyone else.

If a union in this country, or pretty much any post industrial nation, wants to regain some power and start doing some good for workers, then they need to drop this whole attitude that they must be extremely left wing, must be affliated with a left wing political ideal and must exclude anyone that is in any position of managerial power.

You need to include as many people as possible and that means not being 'one' way but bringing the political clout you do have to bear where its needed, being informative and useful to the members of your union, giving them a reason to join.

You want unions to have power, you want unions to be useful, then you have to start realising that we live in a different world, and the only way to get that power is to cater to those people that can give you it.

This means center left, center right politics and it means including as many people as possible from as many walks of life as possible.

The manager works in the same office you do most of the time, he is subject to the same european mandates you are, he works usually just as hard as you do, and just because he made the position of manager, doesn't make him evil, it makes him a person trying to get by in life.

Inclusion, not exclusion is the way forward for Unions in this country.

 

[belboid]

If a union in this country, or pretty much any post industrial nation, wants to regain some power and start doing some good for workers, then they need to drop this whole attitude that they must be extremely left wing, must be affliated with a left wing political ideal and must exclude anyone that is in any position of managerial power.

you really obviously haven't come across a union have you? your opinion seems taken straight from the daily mail.

The manager works in the same office you do most of the time, he is subject to the same european mandates you are, he works usually just as hard as you do, and just because he made the position of manager, doesn't make him evil, it makes him a person trying to get by in life.

sometimes he's a she as well......

The directors are obviously the ones who hold the ultimate power, but it's the managers who implement there decisions, and who shit on the workers on a day-to-day basis. Having them in the same union weakens the union, not strengthens it. They are tho, as you say, in a contradictory position, and are in many ways 'ordinary' workers as well. So they should have a union, just a seperate one.

 

[Divisive Cotton]

See the attached statement doing the rounds within trade union leaderships at present as part of the formulation of a new grouping within the TUC to force a change of direction. Comments welcome

Matewan6 - it's an interesting document, but can you please supply the details of who wrote - without this information it counts for jack shit.

 

[Fong]

you really obviously haven't come across a union have you? your opinion seems taken straight from the daily mail..

It is media driven, as I said its not like unions are a part and parcel of everyday office life.

My knowledge is limited, but when you see a party conference and you see a union at the Labour Party conference, what else can you infer, they don't go to the conservative party conference? They don't have 'block votes' at their conference.

So really, as far as any onlooker who is NOT a part of a union, which as we have already pointed out, is the majority of office workers in this country, that is how unions are viewed, little more then a puppet of the Political Left.

That, whether it is ultimately true or not, is what turns most office workers away from Unions, they don't want to be a part of the political left. That is not where their politics are.

I put it to you like this, I am a PERFECT example of the majority of office workers in this country, never been a part of a union, have little to no idea how they work other then what I see in the media, and no I have never read the daily mail, this is from the BBC coverage etc.

You can point out and tell me where i am wrong, but unless you intend to go around and individually correct each and every person in this country, you are wasting your time correcting me.

You need to change the perception.

As to the whole s/he thing, yeah I am not going to waste my time being sexually ambigous, its just too much trouble while trying to discuss something, I use HE, cause i am a HE. Just going to have to live with it.

 

[Fong]

The directors are obviously the ones who hold the ultimate power, but it's the managers who implement there decisions, and who shit on the workers on a day-to-day basis. Having them in the same union weakens the union, not strengthens it.

I agree with you to some degree on this point, however I would say to you, have you ever heard the saying, keep your friends close but your enemies closer?

Yes managers do have to shit on people as a part of their job, and thats an unfortunate fact of life, but having them on your side, in your union, listening to their side of the story and having their clout on your side, can only strengthen you.

This entire combative nature has to end if you want unions to grow in strength again.

 

[poster342002]

why the fuck should some poor bastard have to be in a union with their fucking manager? It's managers who are the biggest bloody problem. They can have their own union.

For once, I entirely agree with you.

 

[poster342002]

Yes managers do have to shit on people as a part of their job, and thats an unfortunate fact of life, but having them on your side, in your union, listening to their side of the story and having their clout on your side, can only strengthen you.

Why have we got to listen to their side of the story? Why can't they listen to ours for once? Why do we have to make all the allowances for them shitting on us instead of them being expected to modify their behaviour towards us?

 

[Fong]

Sorry to post again, but there you go such is life.

Belboid, I would say this to you too, that whole s/he thing is EXACTLY the kind of 'loony' crap that people hate about the left.

Political Correctness to the point where i can't even hold a discussion with you without you bringing up that i was not sexually ambigious enough in my post.

That is what annoys people, its stupid its pointless and its irritating.

Yeah it might technically be right, but it is still annoying to people in everyday life.

This is the attitude we need to lose if we ever want to bring Unions back into the mainstream and actually give them some power so that they can actually help people.

Right now you alienate most of the people you wish to recruit with the pedantic nature of the entire left culture of political correctness.

 

[Fong]

Why have we got to listen to their side of the story? Why can't they listen to ours for once? Why do we have to make all the allowances for them shitting on us instead of them being expected to modify their behaviour towards us?

How they going to listen to your side of the story, when you are excluding them from the union?

The point of you listening is YOU are the ones that want to exclude them.

Do you honestly think that managers WANT to shit on you?

No, they do it cause thats the job they are paid to do, and they have a mortgage and wife and kids to support and they want the money they earn and if that means shitting on you cause they have little option and if they didn't 10,000 people would walk around the corner and do it, then they will do it.

When you include them, you both listen to both sides, you then have the power to do something about it, you have the power as a worker to control just how much the directors can shit on you and managers have the power to control just how much they have to shit on you.

Exclusion is just not the way forward.

 

[belboid]

yeah, you must be right, cos you're PERFECT.

 

[Fong]

yeah, you must be right, cos you're PERFECT.

So instead of debate you are going to take things out of context and try and be funny.

Well thats a way forward isn't it. Thats really going to help the cause isn't it, alienation of anyone that doesn't adhere to your way of thinking.

Really going to bring back the strength of the unions that isn't it.

 

[belboid]

So instead of debate you are going to take things out of context and try and be funny.

no, I'm going to point out that your portrayal of yourself as the ultimate bit of ordinary rational bloke is a load of old toss. You are one person with one view, and that's all. don't try and pretend you are anything else, or you'll look a bit of a knob. Your posts have been full of unjustified assumptions and assertions, and you haven't said anything other than unions need to be.....well, cosy clubs that help businesses to run better, with a solicitor on call if it all goes a bit messy. Fuck that, thats not a union.

 

[Fong]

no, I'm going to point out that your portrayal of yourself as the ultimate bit of ordinary rational bloke is a load of old toss. You are one person with one view, and that's all. don't try and pretend you are anything else, or you'll look a bit of a knob. Your posts have been full of unjustified assumptions and assertions, and you haven't said anything other than unions need to be.....well, cosy clubs that help businesses to run better, with a solicitor on call if it all goes a bit messy. Fuck that, thats not a union.

I find it strange that you would accuse me of making myself out to be perfect, when that perfection comes in the guise of being completely ignorant of unions.

Hardly a boast is it?

I am perfectly ignorant.

Do you disagree that the majority of people in this country working in offices have no idea how unions work?

If you don't disagree then surely i am a perfect example of those people. I don't know anything about unions either.

You seem crabby, perhaps you should take a step back and try and understand what i am trying to get across to you instead of being combative.

 

[belboid]

I wouldn't trust anyone who says that they are a 'perfect example' of anything. ime they tend to actually have some agenda behind them.

If you seriously want to build decent (whatever that might mean to you or I) unions, join one, and try and convince other people to join it. It's that simple.

 

[matewan6]

I got the document from a colleague inside RMT who tells me it is a position paper drafted within RMT for discussion at an informal meeting coming up with a smallish group of leaders of other unions, with a view to exploring a common position and possibly, I guess, constructing a caucus within the TUC. other leaders mentioned were serwotka, leadership figures withon AMICUS from recently merged unions, Woodley and Kenny.

Thats all I know - but I thought it was intersting and worth broadcasting for discussion. Could all amount to jack shit as has been said - but it seems to me its time for us try to develop a common nalysis and way forward on the left.

In answer to Fong,s point - few unions adertise baecause it really doesn't work. Selling trade union memebrship like life insurance never attracts workers to us - and costs a fortune. The UNISON ads cost over £2 million and never came close to covering their cost with new members joining. So it doesn't work and we shouldn't waste our members money on it in my view. I also think you are underestimating the numbers of offcie workers in unions in different secors of the economy - many are discreet about membership for fear of dismissal.

I trust Fong will now be joining a union with the information a number of us have posted on how to go about it and how to find us. if not your position is becoming a little shaky. I see joining a union as more like joining a campaign than buying a service - like Greenpeace, CND, Stop the War, Amnesty international etc... Except that this campaign is a campiagn to get more respect and justice at work for yourself.

To take your position to its logical conclusion would be to say, for example, that you are deeply concerned about the war in Iraq, for example, but unless STWC come to your door and beg you to go on a march you won't do anything about it. There are many who take that view and always want to put responsibility on doing something to make the world better on to someone else. Me I'm into people taking personal responsibility. Welcome aboard Fong!

 

[Soul On Ice]

The Trade Union bureauracy are subject to competing pressures. It is not quite right to say that they are managers within the capitalist system. They are not stooges of the bosses by nature, though some are by inclination. They are not uncompromising representatives of the workers either.

The Trade Union bureaucracy - which means more than just the elected leadership but the whole union machine - are organised to negotiate within capitalism. They are organised on a sectional basis rather than across the class and as union structures they have competing interests. A union leader is under pressure to put the union machine before the interests of the workers they represent. They are influenced by their lifestyle and separation from the workers they represent and they desire an easy life and desire negotiated outcomes. When wrkers are passive the bureaucracy can often be to the left of the membership and often learn to distrust the members. When members move into action they often continue to act on the assumption that workers are to the right of them (and untrustworthy).

But union leaders are also under pressure to deliver improvements to working conditions and to protect workers from attack. Even LP supporting union leaders will publically criticise Blair, will seek to pressure LP to move leftwards (futile and counter-productive though it is) and will support strike action and, more often, the threat of action as a negotiating lever. They can be pushed from below to call action even where they do not desire it.

As a member of the bureacracy I feel qualified to comment - at least a little.

First off I see a lot truch in what Groucho has written above. I've seen some pretty offensive, ill thought out, student politcs type posts about FTOs before and it is heartening, if very rare, to see someone with a more thoughtful and considered post regarding the bureaucracy.

The reality of the bureaucracy is not dissimilar to what is writtne above. As an FTO I have been both agitator and pacifier depending on the situation.

As to the future of the movement from my point of view the major thing we need to do is find a way of policising and engaging with the members. This talk of the "rank and file" wanting to unseat the bureaucracy is arrant nonsense in many (tho not all) unions. My experience is that members are passive and want things done for them rather than wanting to do things themselves in workplace struggles. Sadly they see their membership as an insurance policy rather than membership of a organisation that they need to take part in.

I know there will be some FTOs out there who would hate the idea of more members particpating in their union but I'm not one of them (and neither are many of the brother and sister FTOs that I work with or know). I don't see my role as being a "super rep" doing disciplinaries, leading on negotiations, leading on campaigns, doing deals etc. What I want to do is support, encourage, develop new people to take on these roles so they and their work mates can do all of it for themselves. But sadly it aint that easy cos of the day to day firefighting that needs to be done.

Personally I'm not into trot bashing but I find it increasingly frustrating when my attempts to organise members and get new people involved are often undermined by trots who get upset when the new activists don't immediately follow a trot orthodoxy. Rather than welcome and support these new activists and try to engage with them to get their beliefs across, the trots just make it hard for the new folk and many of them just stop being active.

But to be fair I would say my experience is that not all trots do this and some trots will work with and encourage the new folk. But sadly my experience is that invariably this is rare.

Any "dyed-in-the-wool-foaming-at-the-mouth" trots out there should feel free to abuse me as "a scumbag bureaucrat" (quote from rednblack I think) as you see fit. I just thought you might be interested to here what it's like from another viewpoint.

 

[General Ludd]

(slightly) playing the devil's advocate

If we don’t want to be the generation that outlives the trade union movement we need to put our energies into the sheer hard graft of talking to workers, hearing their issues, creating plans together to tackle them and supporting them to organise collective action in the workplace.

We have outlived the unions. The reason they're currently shrinking and generally ineffective is that, as an organisational form, they have proved unable to help address our needs.

 

[matewan6]

In Tolpuddle they invented a union because thats what they needed to make sure the food was put on the table for their kids. Most workers today still worry about the ensuring the same thing. The thing thats stops unions forming is ot the lack of desire to form them among workers but the strength and sophistication of the opposition to them by those who enjoy the benefits of unlimited exploitation of workers - and their lackeys on a promise of gaining a share of those fruits if they fight against their class interests.

Unions are immensely popular but as we have seen from this debate, the forces ranged against them by those who beleive they have a stake in the dog eat dog society are enormous. "Beggar my neighbour" is ashameful position to take.