Today's Topics:
1. France, Alternative Libertaire AL #273 - 1907: The Midi
makes tremble Clemenceau (fr, it, pt) [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. Southern Africa, zabalaza.net: SAFTU: The tragedy and
(hopefully not) the farce (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
In June 1907, a wind of revolt blew over the Languedoc, due to a wine crisis that resulted
in monsters in many cities. ---- On Sunday June 9, 1907, a human tide invaded Montpellier
to demand the fight against fraudulent wine. This multicolored crowd of small and great
landowners, workmen and workmen, shopkeepers and merchants, peasants and peasants, elected
officials, worried the government of Georges Clemenceau. For their part, the revolutionary
syndicalists of the CGT hesitate to engage in a movement that seems far removed from the
class struggle. ---- If the question of wine was capable of generating a virtually
insurrectional situation is that the wine has become the main activity of the region at
the end of the XIX th century. In the four wine-producing departments (Aude, Gard,
Hérault, Pyrénées-Orientales), this activity supports the majority of the population:
cooperage, agricultural tools, fertilizers and trade. Very important: the owner-operators
constitute only 36 % of the active agricultural population in 1892, the very precarious
agricultural workers are 56 %. However, they do not represent themselves as a rural
proletariat: more than half are also owners of a small piece of land.
Protest of 9 June 1907
The red vineyard
A crisis of overproduction occurred in 1900 and caused a fall in prices, a sharp decline
in production until 1903. When prices rose again, workers and agricultural workers no
longer accepted their poverty wages, which had been reduced by half Since 1899. A
Federation of Agricultural Workers and Similar Parties of the Midi (FTAM), affiliated to
the CGT, was created in 1903. It is headed by Paul Ader, a farm worker of the Aude, who
will be one of the Signatories of the charter of Amiens.
On 24 November in Nézignan-l'Évêque in the Hérault, a workers 'and agricultural workers'
strike began for better wages and a reduction in working time. The example is followed
quickly in many communes throughout the department, then in the Aude and the
Pyrenees-Orientales. The strikers benefit from the support of labor exchanges, the
socialist councils of this " red noon ," and even the benevolence of the Combes
government. Owners, isolated, yield: working time is reduced (7 hours in the Aude, 6 hours
in the Hérault), wages increase dramatically (19 to 68 %). The FATM, with its 15,000
members a year after its creation, launched a general strike in December 1904 to unify the
laws of the four departments. The strike is very hard,
And Marcellin Albert rises
As early as 1904, the fall in prices resumed, and they reached particularly low levels in
1907 in the South compared to other regions where the wine was more sugared. Sugar or "
chaptalisation ", authorized by a law of 1903, serves to increase the degree of alcohol
by adding sugary substances to the grape must when it is not rich enough. Competition of
sweet wines is deemed unfair and characterized as " fraud ".
In the village of Argelliers, north of Narbonne, the small owner and cafe-maker, Marcellin
Albert, organized a 87-member wine advocacy committee on March 11, 1907, on the occasion
of the arrival in Narbonne of a parliamentary committee to investigate The wine crisis.
Within a few weeks, similar committees were created, first in Aude and Hérault.
On March 24, the first meeting of the Argelliers committee filled a 300-seat room in
Sallèles and kicked off a series of rallies every Sunday with a demonstration: 500 people
on March 31 in Bize, Attendance increases to 10,000 or 15,000 on April 21 in Capestang.
From that day on, the newspaper of the Argelliers committee, Le Tocsin, will be released
every Sunday (until September 15), to unite the various committees and explain the
strategy of Marcellin Albert:
" The object pursued by us is to cry out our misery before the whole country, and to
shout it loud enough and strong enough to move the public opinion of France by making
known to it our distress and our firm determination to put it there a term.
We wish, by a strong, dignified and conscious organization, to call upon the State to take
immediate measures capable of averting the crisis of which the country is dying.
The Local Committees should temporarily discard any discussion of these measures and the
means of obtaining their adoption. In such controversies paying too many different
opinions could, without any benefit to our organizing campaign, cause wrinkles, the
misunderstandings qu' it is essential to avoid [1]. "
Fraud is the enemy !
Marcellin Albert is a charismatic personality with a certain sense of organization and
communication. Its target remains always the fraud, described at length of columns in Le
Tocsin as sole cause of the crisis.
On May 5, when the Sunday demonstration takes place in Narbonne, 80,000 to 100,000 people
gather and listen to the socialist mayor of the city, Ernest Ferroul, who joined the
movement, attacking " the state ". The event ends with an " oath of the federates "
used to gather the 61 wine defense committees that exist at the time.
Meeting vine grower where the speakers Ernest Ferroul, mayor of Narbonne and Marcelin Albert
Tensions have risen in recent weeks: clashes have taken place during demonstrations and
with agents of the tax authorities trying to transport in the big cities the goods seized
in the winegrowers unable to pay their debts and their taxes. A committee meeting held on
April 28 in Lézignan adopted a motion deciding to " resort to legitimate means if the
situation does not improve with the legal means ".
Unanimity seems to emerge around this movement to the point that there are side by side
socialists, royalists, Occitan separatists and revolutionary syndicalists. But the
enthusiasm at the CGT remains measured: joining a movement of small and large landowners,
when we emerge from a year of very strong social conflict, [2]is not a matter of course.
On April 20, at a meeting in Cuxac, Paul Ader declared, before a thousand people, that the
workers' organizations had always been the opponents of the fraud and that he did not
disapprove of the movement. But he will go no farther than a benevolent passivity.
Beyond the astonishing and unexpected success of the initiative of a whimsical winegrower,
this movement marries very well with the strategy of the owners, put in place after their
defeat in 1904-1905: highlight the issue of fraud for To reduce the class demands of
agricultural laborers. As early as 1905, a Regional Wine Committee was set up to campaign
against fraud in a sufficiently radical manner to attract union members to the CGT (tax
strike, resignation of elected officials). This strategy was denounced and condemned by
the FTAM at its congress of August 1905, but without success. It has only 2,000 members in
1907.
It is precisely these two means, " legitimate " but not legal, that will be advocated at
the Béziers demonstration on May 12th, in front of 120,000 to 150,000 people, from the
mouth of Marcellin Albert and Ernest Ferroul, 10 June the ultimatum before their
implementation. The slogans of the banners are radicalized (" Victory or death ! ", "
Death to fraudsters ", " Bread or death ", ... until the famous slogan of the Canuts "
Living by working or dying in Fighter ").
This change of tone is a reflection of the CGT. On May 19, 1907, Victor Griffuelhes,
secretary general of the CGT, wrote to the front page of La Voix du peuple: " This is a
crisis whose consequences can be enormous and it[the labor movement]Use it by
incorporating it to give it an increasingly marked character of protest and revolt. "
On May 22, the government resolved to table a draft law on wine fraud. But the
demonstrations continue to gather more and more people: 170 000 to 200 000 in Perpignan on
19 May, 220 000 to 250 000 in Carcassonne on 26 May, 250 000 to 300 000 in Nîmes on 2 June
and 600 000 to 800 000 people in Montpellier on 9 June.
Not being able to content himself with a law that does not tax sugar enough, Ferroul
announces the " municipal strike " the day after the demonstration in Montpellier ; 442
municipalities resign within the week, the tax strike is proclaimed. There will be no mass
demonstrations on Sunday, but clashes with gendarmes multiply. Clemenceau then decided to
occupy the Midi: 22 regiments of infantry and 12 cavalry (33,000 men) arrived on the spot
from 17 June. The troop stopped Ferroul on 19 June and transferred it immediately to
Montpellier. Members of Argelliers' committee are also arrested, but Marcellin Albert
hides ... in the bell tower of the village church. The spontaneous manifestations
multiply, attacking the perceptions, prefectures and sub prefectures.
On June 19, the first victim of the repression was a trade unionist: Louis Ramon, a mason
worker, a labor activist from Narbonne, was shot dead. On that day, the news of the arrest
of Ernest Ferroul triggers a spontaneous demonstration in Narbonne. The protesters go to
the sub-prefecture to demand the release of their resigning mayor ... and break the door
of the building before lighting a fire. The cuirassiers charge and fire to disperse the
demonstration. The next day, the clashes resumed in Narbonne and four people were killed
(a fifth will succumb to his wounds on June 21). In Montpellier, the prefecture was
attacked and pillaged, forcing the prefect to take refuge on the roof.
Glory to the 17 th
This is the shooting on June 20 that pushes the 17 th Infantry Regiment to mutiny.
Composed of young conscripts and reservists from the region of Béziers, he had been moved
to Agde on 18 June after reinforcements arrived. On the evening of the shooting, 500
soldiers plundered the armory and went on foot, at night, to Béziers to protect the
population. Upon their arrival in Béziers on the morning of Friday, June 21, they put up a
stick in the air and occupy the city.
The soldiers of the 17 th Crosses in the air !
This mutiny is not really a surprise: an attempt had already taken place on the evening of
June 9 in a narbonne barracks where the soldiers had acclaimed protesters and
demonstrators returning from Montpellier ... and sung The International. If this
contestation in the ranks of the army has a tint more " red " than the movement of the
wine-growers, it is that it follows the anti-militarist campaigns of the CGT towards the
soldiers in particular.
For Clemenceau, there is no question that this mutiny is an example that will spread as
the loyalty of the army is essential to quell growing unrest [3]. He orders it to be
terminated during the day. Negotiations are taking place and 17 th will eventually take
the train the next day to go Agde, under a massive escort, in exchange for the promise of
no penalties [4].
The initiators of the movement are sparing their efforts to avoid being overwhelmed.
Marcellin Albert, persecuted by the police, managed to go to Paris on 22 June to knock on
the door of the Ministry of the Interior. He met Clemenceau, promised to calm the movement
if the law against fraud was improved and even received a safe-conduct and 100 francs for
his return to the Aude. Appearing then as a sold, it is discredited in the eyes of
winemakers in struggle.
Tocsin never ceases to recall the corporatist objectives of this struggle: " Enough
blows, enough violence, enough fratricidal fighting.[...]For our children, for our women,
for our families and our country, we must think about selling our wine "and the
Argelliers committee must defend itself against revolutionary goals by" repudiating all
acts or intentions Politicians who could vainly seek to exert themselves around him, and
loudly asserts his French loyalty and republican loyalty. " [5]
On 23 June, the law was finally passed and promulgated on 29 June. At the CGT, one regrets
not having participated more in this movement. In La Voix du peuple on June 30, Émile
Pouget analyzes the movement: " If our sympathy went to this movement, it is because we
have recognized in it the tactics and the means of action of the trade union movement. It
was our methods, to which the vine-growers appealed .[...]Reactors, Republicans and
revolutionaries of various schools have walked and walk hand in hand.[...]Well, the
winegrowers of the South go to this perhaps unconsciously, but they go there ! They go to
the disappearance of social antagonism ... And, most importantly, what is regrettable is
that in our trade unions, The momentum was not more unanimous. To see well, we began to
vibrate and to indignation only at the time of the massacres of Narbonne and the military
revolts. " Pouget forgetting that this union between classes was also the result of the
campaign of " class consciousness interference " [6], orchestrated by the owners in 1905.
And the jamming continues: the wine defense committees are transformed into General
Confederation of Winegrowers on September 22nd. Immediately, Vincent Daïdé, secretary of
the labor exchange of Narbonne and socialist, calls the trade unionists to join this CGV.
A month later, the FTAM calls on its members to go the opposite way to the purely
corporatist evolution of the CGV, which is dedicated exclusively to the fight against fraud.
Renaud (AL Alsace)
[1] Tocsin No. 1, 21 April 1907.
[2] See: " 1906: The catastrophe of Courrières burns the mining basin " in AL No. 258 of
February 2016.
[3] See: " 1905: Limoges is covered with barricades " in AL No. 249 of April 2015 and "
1906: The catastrophe of Courrières burns the mining basin " in AL No. 258 of February
2016.
[4] Without a penal sanction, the regiment will nonetheless be moved to Gafsa in Tunisia,
the place of cantonment of the disciplinary battalions, without being subject to this regime.
[5] Tocsin No. 10, June 23, 1907.
[6] Xavier Verdejo, " The Agricultural Workers and the Great Revolt of the Midi Viticole
of 1907 ", Cahiers de l'IHS-CGT, 2007.
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?1907-Le-Midi-fait-trembler-Clemenceau
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Message: 2
The labour movement has been unable to de-link itself from its archenemy: capital. As its
structures bureaucratise, as its leaders become career unionists, as it opens investment
companies and pays staff increasingly inequitable salaries, it increasingly mirrors the
very thing it is fighting. If the South African Federation of Trade Unions is to meet its
promise, it must be fundamentally different from the organisation it was born out of. ----
SAFTU: The tragedy and (hopefully not) the farce -- Mandy Moussouris (ILRIG) ---- The
labour movement has been unable to de-link itself from its archenemy: capital. As its
structures bureaucratise, as its leaders become career unionists, as it opens investment
companies and pays staff increasingly inequitable salaries, it increasingly mirrors the
very thing it is fighting. If the South African Federation of Trade Unions is to meet its
promise, it must be fundamentally different from the organisation it was born out of.
"History repeats itself first as tragedy, second as farce" - Karl Marx
The tragedy of the disintegration of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU)
happened slowly. As tragedies go, COSATU's has been far less dramatic than most; it has
rather been a sad slow and painful unravelling of a once vibrant and powerful organisation
over 20 odd years. The unravelling of an organisation that forgot that the whole is made
up of the sum of its parts; that continuously made the mistake of allowing personalities
to undermine democracy, ambition to undermine equity and bureaucracy to undermine equality
and democratic participation.
COSATU's decay has had a significant impact on the South African working class. The impact
has reverberated across the country in a myriad of ways and has been the result, both
directly and indirectly, of COSATU's failure to effectively and democratically represent
the working class. This has been the case partly because of its alliance with the ANC and
partly because of its (and the trade union movement in general's) inherently defective
organisational structure and patriarchal culture.
From the same ashes comes the rising of a new phoenix - a new hope for the South African
working class - the South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU). But the labour
movement, broadly, has never been good at learning from its mistakes and this time around
appears to be no exception. We can no longer make the mistake of thinking that changing
the world is as simple as changing the colours of a flag. If we are to learn anything from
history, it's that the flag IS the problem. If we truly want to change our society we have
to change everything about it right down to the very structure upon which it is based.
Flag poles need to be pulled down. Globally, the labour movement has not been able to
de-link its organisational structure from that of its arch-enemy - capital. As a result,
after time, as its structures bureaucratise, as its leaders become career
unionists/stewards, as it opens investment companies and pays staff increasingly
inequitable salaries, it increasingly mirrors the very thing it is fighting.
SAFTU is claiming to be different. It has picked up the banner of socialism and is asking
us to follow it into a different, better, more equitable and just future. If we need
anything right now, we need it is a new hope. But if SAFTU is to meet its promise it has
to be fundamentally different to the organisation it was born out of. Is it our new hope
or is it the inevitable farce that follows tragedy? In looking at the founding principles
SAFTU has put forward, there are a number of indicators that suggest it is going to repeat
the mistakes of the old federation. Whilst the rhetoric harkens back to the great days of
the Trade Union Movement the flagpole remains pretty much the same.
"We are building a fundamentally different type of workers' organization - independent of
political parties and employers but not apolitical - democratic, worker-controlled,
militant, socialist-orientated, internationalist, pan-Africanist from a Marxist
perspective and inspired by the principles of Marxism-Leninism." - SAFTU
All genuine workers organisations started off independent of political parties but not
apolitical. Any union worth their salt has started out being democratic and worker
controlled. None of this is new, not in South Africa and not in the rest of the world.
More importantly, no such union has managed to effectively challenge, let alone change
capitalist society since the early part of the 20th Century and as we sit in the second
decade of the 21st Century we find that most gains made by such unions have been
successfully pushed back if not lost completely. Whilst SAFTU acknowledges a number of
very important reasons why unions have failed, they have not asked the hardest question.
Instead of asking what should a union do, the question SAFTU should be asking is: what
have we been doing wrong? What is wrong with the nature of unions themselves?
"The new federation can show how different it is from other formations by showing that its
principles are not just slogans, but guide our programmes in all that we do." - SAFTU
Absolutely! This statement in particular sums up a great deal of what has been wrong with
unions in the past and lies at the core of the argument this article is making. COSATU and
many other unions globally have failed dismally at implementing working class principles,
on many levels, in many ways. Let's start with gender equity, shall we? In an important
piece on the emergence of the new federation, Dr Asanda Benya asks: "How different will
its gender politics be from Cosatu's? Will it resemble and reproduce Cosatu's gender
stance, or reject it and take female workers seriously and appreciate the ways in which
workplace struggles are gendered? After all, many of the same people who once led the
unapologetically macho COSATU are now leading SAFTU."
This question lies at the very heart of the sentiment of practising what you preach.
However, from representation at the launching congress to the same limited rhetoric and
even less imaginative policy approach to the inclusion of women in the new federation,
there is no indication that the new federation will prioritise women's issues or their
rights. As things stand at present there is no reason at all to believe that the
federation is any less "macho" than its predecessor. Rather, there is every reason to
believe that the tradition of crying foul and claiming that you have been set up by an
enemy cabal when either the president of the country or general secretary is accused of
rape and sexual harassment will continue.
What exactly is the new federation going to do to ensure that women do not continue to be
used as political tools in a battle of men over power? Will this be yet another federation
controlled by working men that blames the victim in order to maintain control of its
patriarchal power? If SAFTU is going to truly represent the working class, it has to
recognise that work is gendered, that old style unionism is not; that if the union is
going to ensure women and their issues are taken seriously this must be a primary focus of
all policy. So far there is little evidence of this.
"Financial self-sufficiency and accountability and opposition, in word and deed, to
business unionism, corruption, fraud and maladministration within its own ranks and in a
capitalist society which is inherently corrupt" - SAFTU
During the 1990s there were huge debates in COSATU and its affiliates around the
appropriateness of union investment companies. To the right there were strong arguments
for using workers money to support unions and union principles. From the left there was
strong resistance to what was seen as endorsing, if not becoming part of, the capitalist
system.
Very few unions have effectively used money from these ‘investments' to the benefit of the
working class. SAFTU's statement regarding the inherent corruption of capitalism sounds
great but it is important to note that the call for channeling retirement funds into
productive investment is not the same as the new federation using its own or its
affiliate's investment funds to lead productive investment. It is a demand for capital to
do so.
What is unclear is what SAFTU's position on union investment companies is. Is the
federation and its affiliates planning on actually taking the money from its investment
companies and using it to set up a housing cooperative or building societies like the
unions of old? Or will these investment companies' money continue to be used to buy more
and bigger buildings and offices for the unions themselves?
In the launching congress a clause on union official's salaries was included in SAFTU's
constitution saying that the leadership will not earn more than the average skilled
worker. There has already been internal debate about what exactly the wage for an average
skilled worker is. This lack of clarity is being used to argue that official salaries
should not be set by the constitution and the broader congress, rather it should be an
internal policy issue to be decided on by the leadership, including the very leadership
that will earn these salaries.
Putting the argument against paying officials at all aside for a moment, the warning signs
of impending bureaucratisation and elitism are already going off. Not only within SAFTU
but within its affiliates, this question must be asked and must be addressed - if your
principles are anti-capitalist and socialist, surely your structures should reflect these
principles. All union workers should be paid the same.
By the same token, there is already a call to work towards negotiating for paid shop
stewards. This development within the trade union movement has had one of the biggest
negative impacts on the unity and solidarity of workers. It has been used by management as
a highly effective tool to co-opt union shop stewards and to divide the shop floor. It has
played a significant role in one of the main problems SAFTU has identified as one that
needs to be corrected: the distance created between the union/officials and workers. A
union is not a business and can never be driven by motives of personal or organisational
gain; gain must always be for the union members and not an elite few. Unions of the past,
unions that have been of and for its members, have done so due to the principled
dedication of their ordinary membership and elected representatives without pay.
Overall, in relation to the issues of union finances and financial policies, despite all
the noise to the contrary, for SAFTU it's business as usual.
"We shall convene a bargaining conference to fight the attempts by the Free Market
Foundation and employers to liquidate collective and centralized bargaining, and shall
mobilize mass action to stop this attempt." - SAFTU
A key function/business of unions is bargaining better wages and working conditions for
its members. The greatest unions have been the ones where mass mobilisation of members
around bread and butter issues have succeeded in making significant shifts in this regard.
The real shifts, however, tend to be made when the general membership is actively involved
through mobilisation, protest and strike.
Whilst centralised collective bargaining makes the bargaining process easier for unions
and sets industry minimums, the notion of centralisation is ultimately counter-intuitive
to a participatory, worker-led organisation. It is my contention that centralised
collective bargaining centralises not only the negotiation process but the participatory,
learning process of bargaining and workplace organisation; it also removes the power of
workers to raise their voices collectively within a physically defined workplace, build
workplace solidarity and share learnings from the process. Many union organisers and shop
stewards of the past cut their teeth in shop floor bargaining processes. Centralisation of
bargaining centralises power and decision-making and, whilst unintentional, it removes
agency from workers on the shop floor.
The new federation needs to re-look its overall strategy in terms of how it takes capital
on. It needs to assess where and when the greatest gains are made for the working class.
From experience over the last 20 years, this is not at the negotiating table, not in the
bargaining councils and not in NEDLAC. Workers and the working class have had to re-learn
the lesson apartheid taught us: that real gains are made in the streets, in collective
action not compromised negotiation.
"We shall discuss with all unions about how best to deliver quality service - working
toward the development of a service charter."
As with the practice of working within the financial systems of the capitalist class, the
appropriation of business terms and capitalist language needs to be strongly guarded
against. Language and words play a significant role in the culture of societies and
organisations. Using words that reinforce a system and culture that you are fighting, that
reinforce an unequal society with unequal roles, reinforce the current system and do not
lay a solid foundation for a new society.
Yes "service" in COSATU unions over the past two decades has gone from bad to worse, but
it could be argued that unions are not meant to service members. The idea of "service
delivery" is in its very nature a neo-liberal word and attempting to fix what cannot be a
capitalist endeavour by viewing a workers movement as an exchange of money for service is
counter-intuitive. A real democratic worker controlled union is the WORKERS, nothing more
nothing less.
Ideologically unions cannot be a business providing a service; they must be an
organisation or movement of people that builds and develops a counter-power,
counter-culture and a membership or cadre that struggle against the system by collectively
negotiating better wages, by enabling and giving agency to its members to challenge and
change their own realities. It must be about meeting members' needs through organisation,
education and learning, from participation, practice and direct democracy.
"Within the federation affiliates must have autonomy but not independence, but differences
of opinion must be tolerated".
Rightly, SAFTU identifies democracy as a key problem that needs to be addressed but it
does so within the same hierarchical structure as the system it is fighting and the
federation it left. Once again doing things differently and implementing the principles it
espouses throw up a number of contradictions that SAFTU has not addressed. SAFTU has not
identified how the power relations in a neo-colonial, patriarchal, capitalist system are
replicated by their own structures. There have been way too many union congresses where
"representatives" have dropped their mandates after conversation with "leadership" and
voted against democratic decisions taken at the base.
A federation will not liberate the class, nor will its affiliates; only the working class
can liberate itself and it will never be able to do that as long as there is an implicit
belief in a Great Leader/s; as long as the union is seen as a legal service and as long as
power and money are centralised. A truly participatory, democratic trade union would be
one where the locals/branches of each affiliate control the membership dues collected,
where they would use their dues to do work on the ground and put some aside for provincial
and national work; where the workers have direct ownership of the means of trade union
production (negotiation, representation, mobilisation) and where the extremely loosely
used term, democracy, translates into individual worker agency and empowerment to ensure
that the base, the majority, the working class, is where true power lies, and that it uses
its power to change the world for the benefit of the many.
https://zabalaza.net/2017/06/22/saftu-the-tragedy-and-hopefully-not-the-farce/#more-5346
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