Anarchic update news all over the world - 4.06.2019

Today's Topics:

   
1.  France, Alternative Libertaire AL #295 - Editorial: Manure
      must pay (fr, it, pt)[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  af rhein-ruhr: Friday, June 28: Black counter -- B.T. 50 -
      ¡Viva el muerto! - On the 50th anniversary of the death of
      B.Traven (de) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  Spaine, cgt galicia, LABORAL LOCAL FEDERATION A CORUÑA:
      FOLGA IN EXTEL OR DAY 31 (ca) [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  Britain, Forthcoming London ACG Meetings (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
5.  US, black rose fed: WILL BERNIE'S PROPOSALS BUILD WORKER
      POWER? INTERVIEW WITH A SWEDISH LABOR ACTIVIST 
     (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1





Since early May is held the trial of France Telecom and seven former leaders for "moral 
harassment and complicity." ---- In 2009, the SUD-PTT union filed a complaint following 
the multiple suicides of employees who turned out to be the tip of the iceberg of 
institutionalized moral harassment. ---- In fact, in 2006, the new CEO, Lombard, had 
demanded the departure of 22,000 employees of the company before a meeting of chiefs and 
said that they would be done "by the window or by the door". Translation into reality: 
humiliations, brutal mutations, harassment and broken lives. Those who crack are described 
as " overripeor rotten fruits" by the chefs. ---- This trial says a lot about the logic of 
the pressurization of work and management obsessed by the reduction of the wage bill ... 
at the price of blood. This deadly logic structures the private or public capitalist 
economy, whether in the industry, at SNCF or elsewhere.

But the manure must pay in one way or another. Because the constant impunity they enjoy 
(the trial takes place ten years after the complaint!) Only normalizes and feeds the 
violence they execute. This trial will at least make it bare and unveil the mechanisms and 
thus to recall, beyond, the necessary destruction of capitalism.

Libertarian Alternative, May 23, 2019

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Edito-Les-fumiers-doivent-payer

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Message: 2





If it had gone after the marauding Soldierska in 1919, he would have been dead for 100 
years . B.Traven died in general but only 50 years ago, on March 26, 1969 in Mexico City. 
---- The world-famous as well as mysterious author of the death ship and of book and film 
The treasure of the Sierra Madre as well as many further story s was in fact a entronnener 
prominent Munich Räterevolutionär named Ret Marut - People's representative for the press 
system and doer of the Rotzfrechen anarchistic magazine Der Ziegelbrenner (1917-1921). 
---- In his life as a pre-revolutionary, Ret Marut was an actor like his companions 
Elfriede Zielke and Irene Mermet. The latter he got to know at the Düsseldorfer 
Schauspielhaus after having played the East to Gdansk . If one believes the Bochum Traven 
researcher Jan-Christoph Hauschild , Marut was previously the metalworker Otto Feige, the 
u. a. close Schalke lived and as union secretary already staged plays with the laity. But 
was fig really marroting? It might be true, but there are also disagreements. In any case, 
Marut wrote mediocre short stories even before Munichand even two long-unknown novels . He 
had quite some literary success, but was initially third-rate. He first became a star 
author as B.Traven from 1925 in the book guild Gutenberg with the cotton pickers and the 
death boat.

The Mexican Revolution from 1910 to 1920 placed B.T. a unique literary monument with his 
Caoba cycle . This pre-Bolshevist social revolution was essentially that of the so-called 
Indians and socialist - emancipative in their own way. Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa 
were their most famous heroes and their battle cry was: " ¡Tierra y Libertad! "- Land and 
freedom! Today, Zapatistas , Magonistas and many others are not just fighting in Mexico 
for the other possible world that already appears in Traven's books.

Ralf G. surveyor (Chairman of the International B. -Traven Society ) is the lively work of 
B.Traven to its death in the example before -Traven-year of 2019. After that FiestA 
spontaneous .

June 27, 2019   Reading by Ralf G. Landmesser   Dortmund, Long August   19:00 clock
June 28, 2019   Lecture by Ralf G. Landmesser   Witten, despite everything      19:00 clock
B.Travens exciting books are today (unfortunately ...) as current as almost 100 years ago: 
they are voice for the exploited, enslaved, victims of racism and oppression, undocumented 
homeless, freethinkers , anticlericals and those of the indigenous people . Therefore 
hardly anyone wants to remember his work officially? Munich B.T. . in any case, as good as 
repressed. He was the most famous of the revolutionary literati of 1918-19.

B.Traven's ashes were scattered at will over Chiapas , but his libertarian spirit and 
rebellion continue to live on in his novels and stories.

Golo: B.Traven - Portrait of a famous unknown , graphic novel
Torsten Seifert: Who is B.Traven? Novel ( Blogbuster 2017 )
Simone Barrientos and Karsten Krampitz ( ed. ): The Fire Chair - Work and Effect of the 
Author B.Traven
Fri28 June, 2019, 19:00 Witten, despite everything , Wideystraße 44

http://afrheinruhr.blogsport.de/2019/05/30/fr-28-juni-schwarzer-tresen

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Message: 3






The compañerxs of different Extel centers are called to a 24 hour strike this Friday, May 
31st.A Coruña , Málaga, Hospitalet and Zaragoza we stopped 24 hours. ---- In the CGT we 
know that the best weapon to combat the attacks and despises of this company is solidarity 
and mutual support, so this Friday we will be muchxs lxs that we tell the management of 
our work centers that we are HARTXS of this situation. ---- This month, Extel Coruña has 
reached 20 years, in which it has been perfecting its strategy of labor exploitation.
The precariousness that we support daily, is reproduced in the rest of platforms and only 
a joint response from all of them, will show the company that we have the capacity to face 
it. ---- IF YOU ARE EXPLOITED, EXPLODE!! ---- Trade Union Section of CGT in Extel - A 
Coruña ---- http://www.cgtgalicia.org/2019/05/a-coruna-folga-en-extel-o-dia-31/

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Message: 4





Saturday 1st June 1-3pm: London ACG Meeting ---- At May day Rooms, 88 Fleet Street, London 
EC4 ---- Myth of Community: The Challenges of Organising Locally ---- ‘Save the 
community', ‘Support from the community', ‘The community thinks', ‘Community Land Trust' 
are just a few of the references to ‘community' that we us when are involved in a range of 
struggles such as housing, saving a library or getting access to land. However, to what 
extent does this ‘community' exist? In this meeting, drawing on many practical examples of 
organising, we will discuss problems such as the impact of capitalism and divisions within 
localities. We will then hope to discuss how we can create genuine community based on 
working class struggles. An Anarchist Festival event: eventbright link

Saturday 15th June 1-3pm: London ACG Meeting
At May day Rooms, 88 Fleet Street, London EC4
Vision of a society without government
Is organised human life possible without a state? How would it be better than the 
situation we have now? Why have so many people and movements fought for a world without 
government? This session will explore the history of radical anti-statist movements and 
look at the potential these movements and ideas have in our society today.An 
Antiuniversity event: eventbright link

Tuesday 2nd July 7pm: London ACG - Film/Meeting
At May day Rooms, 88 Fleet Street, London EC4
Rebellion in Patagonia- Film show followed by discussion
Workers in Patagonia, influenced by anarchist ideas, demand improvements in pay and 
conditions. After employers at firstagree to workers' demands, which are supported by 
workers in other sectors and areas, the regional governor, under pressure from local 
employers, ordersthe paramilitary police to intervene to crush the movement. In response a 
general strike is declared, paralyzing the ports and wool production for export. The 
government backs the landowners, and soldiers arebrought in to crush the strike.This 
dramatised account of the events directed in 1974 by Hector Olivera was banned by the 
Videla dictatorship in Argentina. Meeting convened by London Anarchist Communist group. Free.

https://londonacg.blogspot.com/2019/05/forthcoming-london-acg-public-meetings.html

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Message: 5





Bernie Sanders at a recent campaign rally. ---- Presidential candidate and open socialist 
Bernie Sanders announced this week that his campaign is preparing a proposal to encourage 
employee ownership in large companies. While details are yet to be released, what has been 
reported so far is the plan would have employers "contribute a portion of their stocks to 
a fund controlled by employees" that would pay dividends to workers. A second aspect of 
the proposal would potentially allow workers to become "a powerful voting shareholder" 
leading to the election of worker representatives on corporate boards. As well, version of 
this idea has been taken up by Jeremy Corbyn, the leftist leader of the UK Labour Party.
Naturally many are comparing this to the ambitious Meidner plan introduced by the Social 
Democrats in 1970s Sweden which used payroll taxes to gradually create employee ownership 
in major corporations and which has received positive coverage in Jacobin magazine. To 
shed more light on this we conducted a brief interview with Marcin Anglart, a labor 
activist with the radical Swedish union, SAC - Syndikalisterna.

BRRN: First, could you give us a summary of the Meidner plan, what it did and what came of 
it politically?

Marcin Anglart (MA): The Meidner plan was a continuation of a policy line from the Swedish 
social democratic establishment in the 1970s with the key word being "co-determination." 
The idea, coming from an economist called Rudolf Meidner from the Swedish Trade Union 
Confederation (LO), was to establish "wage earner funds", controlled by LO. These funds 
would manage stock in large companies (over 50 employees) through a forced-emission system 
that would gradually turn these companies to "worker-owned." It was argued that this would 
swing the power over production in favor of labor, and at the same time redistribute 
capital profits to workers. It was one of the most ambitious social democratic projects in 
Sweden, and probably world-wide.

The ideal version of the plan was never really implemented though, as the right-wing 
establishment cracked down on the idea with all its power and did everything to stop it 
through propaganda as well as political pressure in parliament. What was implemented was a 
watered down version that could never establish what it set out to do in its original 
theoretical form. The plan slowly fizzled out and was eventually scrapped in the early 1990s.

BRRN: Media headlines proclaim that Sanders' proposal would would "dramatically shift 
corporate power to U.S. workers" but we understand that the SAC union opposed the very 
similar Meidner plan when it was introduced. Can you explain to us why and how the 
proposal effected power relations between workers and larger employers - was there a shift 
towards workers having more power?

MA: The Swedish syndicalist union federation, the SAC, did indeed oppose the plan at the 
time it was conceived, even in its ideal version. Or, to be more precise, the SAC argued 
that the plan could not be a substitute for workers self-organizing in workplaces and 
learning self-management by doing it themselves, by organizing at the base. The plan, 
although ambitious for social democrats, mediated the ownership relationship through the 
state and the centralized, reformist and bureaucratic LO.

Just like a set of very powerful co-ops don't necessarily break out of the logic of 
capital, so would the Meidner plan not lead to real workers' control as SAC saw it, but 
simply a union bureaucracy managing capital on behalf of workers. It was a redistribution 
of wealth through a restructuring of capital flows, and not a profound break with the 
logic of capital itself. To be clear, there's nothing wrong with redistribution in the 
here and now, but the Meidner plan or similar contemporary measures should not be 
overstated in terms of what they actually do for facilitating workers' direct control over 
production.

BRRN: Another aspect of employee ownership in the proposal would allow for workers to have 
a say in companies by using the ownership of corporate stocks to potentially elect 
representatives to a corporation's board of directors. Germany current has a policy called 
"co-determination" which allows one-third of board members to be elected by workers in 
companies larger than 500 workers and equal numbers of worker and owner representatives on 
the board of companies with greater than 1,000 workers. From your experience how are these 
arrangements seen by German unionists and do they promote greater power or class struggle 
for workers?

MA: As I have not been active in Germany myself, and only briefly spoken to German union 
organizers about this, I can't really go into any details. But from my limited experience, 
radical union organizers, like for instance those within the FAU[Freie Arbeiterinnen- und 
Arbeiter-Union, a anarcho-syndicalist union in Germany], see these works councils as a 
double-edged sword. A tool that can be used to facilitate organizing and the building of 
real workers' power on the shop floor, but potentially also a way to recuperate and 
institutionalize struggles, much like elections and parliamentarism do with social 
movements. Of course, from a U.S. perspective such works councils can almost seem utopian, 
since many workers there in practice don't even have basic rights or any say at all, and 
risk getting fired at first sign of voicing their opinion. But exciting as that contrast 
might make the councils, we have to keep a cool head and don't mistake this for the real 
thing - the hard and long work of building power at the base, be it in our places of work, 
in social movements, or in our neighborhoods.

Editorial note: It is worthwhile to point out the the syndicalist and anarcho-syndicalist 
movement in Europe has traditionally been divided around the various schemes of "works 
councils" introduced in many countries during the post-WWII period. Generally all large 
companies are required to have state-sponsored elections to workplace councils that have a 
consultative role in company policies and often receive state funding. While mainstream 
unions traditionally participate by running candidates for the workplace councils, more 
militant unionists see the arrangement as bypassing the traditional functions of the unions.

Unions such as the SAC in Sweden and FAU in Germany are critical but participate 
reluctantly inside the works councils to some degree. In Spain for instance, following the 
fall of Franco dictatorship and legalization of the CNT, the union underwent a dramatic 
split in the early 1980s over this very question. Those opposed to participation in the 
workplace councils, which also involved government funding to unions, retained the CNT 
name and the resulting split of unions which participate in the workplace councils became 
the CGT, which is now the 4th largest union in Spain.

http://blackrosefed.org/bernie-proposals-worker-power-interview-swedish-labor-activist/

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