Anarchic update news all over the world - Part 1 - 9.06.2019

Today's Topics:

   
1.  solidaridad obrera: VI MEETING OF METERS OF AMERICA By
      Crescencio Carretero (ca) [machine translation] 
     (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  US, m1aa: On the Demonstration Against the Klan in Dayton By
      BD of the M1 Michigan Collective (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  Britain, anarchist communist group ACG: Police get
      heavy-handed with Teesport strikers (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
  
4.  ait russia: Shares of anarcho-syndicalists in Andalusia and
      the Levant [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
5.  France, Alternative Libertaire AL #295 - National Education:
      There is still time to block Blanquer (fr, it, pt)[machine
      translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
6.  The CGA-Al Unification Congress is in this weekend! (fr)
      [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
7.  US, black rose fed: WHEN AND WHY DID UNIONS START SIGNING
      CONTRACTS? (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1





Dissemination and Mobilizations International Metro of Barcelona Metro of Madrid ---- From 
May 29 to June 2, 2019 have been held in Mexico City the Sixth Meeting of Meters of 
America to which Solidaridad Obrera de España has been invited. Not having been possible 
due to technical problems of the last hour the assistance of colleagues of the Metro de 
Barcelona, in these Encounters, have participated the companions Braulio del Pozo and 
Mario Martín de Vidales of the Madrid Metro ---- RESOLUTIONS ---- The Coordinator of 
Meters of America counted with the presence of the delegations of Argentina, Brazil, 
Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Panama, Venezuela and invited delegations from Spain and New 
York, who analyzed the main problems faced by the metro workers, among the ones that stand 
out: the growing subcontracting of services; the use of materials and substances harmful 
to the environment and to the health of the workers in the metro activity; automation and 
technological advances as a generalized policy to replace jobs; labor discrimination and 
gender inequality; public transport as a right of the population; the generalized policy 
of flexibility of labor relations and employer interference in union actions.

In the same event, the delegation of the Venezuelan subway union Sintrameca was expressed, 
denouncing the aggression that the people of Venezuela have been subjected to by the US 
imperialist government, led by Donald Trump, who has blocked the economic resources 
deposited in Venezuela. the USA, and in different banks of the world, bringing this 
serious consequences in the rights that the peoples have, such as health and the normal 
development of the economy.

The death of social leaders was also reported as reprisals by the Colombian government, 
and the constant abuses of freedom of association.

 From the analysis of the described topics, the Coordinator of Metros of America resolves:

Reject privatization and outsourcing in our Metros, to understand that transport is not a 
commodity, therefore it should not be the object of profit on the part of corporations.

We understand transport as a right of the people and, for it to fulfill that purpose, it 
must be public, state and of good quality.

That all processes, substances, materials, conditions and working methods that affect the 
physical or psychological health of workers in the metropolitan areas should be 
eradicated, such as: asbestos, radon, polychlorinated biphenyls, bisphenol (bpa, bps).

Express our concern about the increase in third-party aggressions in the Metro, which 
constitute workplace violence against workers; committing ourselves to perform actions 
tending to give answers to these situations.

To speak out against labor reforms that tend to make labor relations more flexible and to 
precarize the living conditions of workers.

The automation and the introduction of technological advances in Metro companies should 
not be the vehicle for the replacement of jobs and loss of employment, but an instrument 
to make transport service more efficient for society and to improve working conditions of 
the workers.

We vindicate the enormous movement carried forward by women and feminism in our countries. 
We demand equal opportunities, without gender discrimination in our workplaces, committing 
ourselves to generate policies in this sense from our organizations, understanding that a 
profound inequality still prevails.

That it is necessary to denounce all types of racial discrimination, sexual orientation, 
religious or political, developing specific programs to combat them.

Reject the interference of the metropolitan companies and the state in the internal life 
of the unions, as well as the promotion of parallel organizations that act to distort or 
challenge the struggle of the metro workers.

We denounce that, in our countries, there are violations of freedom of association and 
human rights, since persecutions, dismissals and, in the case of Colombia, murders are 
promoted to intimidate the organization of workers.

Express our solidarity with the struggle of the workers of Venezuela and Cuba. Our support 
for their demands for the end of the genocidal economic blockade in these sister 
countries, rejecting any foreign interference or military intervention against these peoples.

To promote, among the unions present, agreements for the exchange of experiences, 
functioning and forms of organization and struggle of each entity.

Create a website to ensure the dissemination of the struggles, the news about the problems 
of each country, the information of interest of each meter and the solidarity movements 
between the metro stations.

Propose the year 2020 as the date of the VII Meeting of Meters and the city of Caracas as 
the venue.

This was agreed and subscribed by the delegates attending this VI Meeting of the Metro de 
América Coordinator, METROAMERICA.

Mexico City, June 1, 2019.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2056867731109680&id=180169848779487

Crescencio Carretero

http://www.solidaridadobrera.org/confederal/2019/06/05/vi-encuentro-de-metros-de-america-resoluciones/

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Message: 2





The klan demonstrated in Dayton on May 25th; there were nine of them. The anti-klan 
demonstration numbered 600 or more. And the police, hundreds of them, were out in force 
and armed to the teeth. The police guns, all the police guns, were aimed at the anti-klan 
demonstrators. ---- By agreement with the city of Dayton, the klan supporters were allowed 
to carry pistols but no long guns. Ohio is an open carry state, so many of the anti-klan 
protesters were armed with pistols and long guns. The police placed themselves between the 
handful of fascists and the hundreds of anti-fascists and anti-racists. The police faced 
the anti-fascists, in a perimeter with their backs to the klan and facing the anti-klan. 
At both ends of the anti-klan demonstration, police blocked the streets and faced the 
anti-klan forces. On the roofs of the tall buildings in the downtown area, police snipers 
aimed their guns at the anti-klan demonstrators.

The anti-klan forces included Black Lives Matter Miami Valley, the Black Panthers of 
Dayton, others in the Better Dayton Coalition, the Huey P. Newton Gun Club of Cincinnati, 
John Brown Gun Club and many individuals. Other groups participating included Democratic 
Socialists, other socialists, Solidarity and Defense Michigan, General Defense Committee 
Local 12 of Washtenaw County, Michigan, Burning River Anarchist Collective of Cleveland, 
some Anti Racist Action groups, some church groups, and others. But most of the 
demonstrators appeared to be members of the local community, Black and white, many young, 
but plenty of families and older folks, as well, and not appearing to be affiliated with 
any particular group.

Anti-klan demonstrators, in significant numbers, were armed. This included groups and 
individuals, Black and white. In an interview, one young Black man, who had a long gun, 
noted that as he and his group marched a few blocks to the demonstration, the police they 
passed had their hands on their guns and fingers on the triggers. There was tension in 
Dayton on May 25th.

The old chant, "the cops and the klan go hand in hand" is still true and was chanted, but 
it seems somehow outdated. This is beyond that. This is not just the cops protecting the 
fascists; this is the cops, several hundred of them, targeting the anti-fascist and 
anti-racist forces. With so many people armed, confrontations can turn to gunfire very 
quickly. This is part of the tension. Part of the stand off. Anti-racists, anti-fascists, 
revolutionaries and community members need to organize and participate in community self 
defense.

It is not any one group which can provide community self defense. It must be the 
community, the working class, which provides its own self defense. As revolutionaries and 
anarchists, we urge community self defense, help to organize it and participate in it. An 
important part of this work is to unite our forces, to unite our communities, to be able 
to work together in coalitions and united fronts, to have community organizations, 
anti-fascist organizations, unions, revolutionaries and others work together on matters of 
defense, on defending our communities.

May 25th in Dayton was a victory and a step forward for anti-klan, anti-fascist and 
anti-racist forces. Black Lives Matter Miami Valley helped to organize the Better Dayton 
Coalition which included several groups from Dayton communities. These groups decided to 
organize a demonstration to confront and oppose the klan on May 25th and to reach out to 
other groups and communities to join them. This was the key to the successful action on 
May 25th.

It was a broad coalition, a broad united front, which confronted the klan in Dayton. And 
it was police from Dayton, the county, the state, other cities and beyond who confronted 
us. The klan were far in the background. We have work to do in educating ourselves, in 
building coalitions, in preparing ourselves and in organizing. We need to understand that 
we are up against the fascists and the police and the state.

It's important that we learn to work together. Black Lives Matter Miami Valley and the 
Better Dayton Coalition set the tone for the May 25th action. In Michigan, we organized 
with Solidarity and Defense and General Defense Committee Local 12 of Washtenaw County, 
Michigan. We had a contingent which included a few people from Lansing, Ann Arbor, 
Ypsilanti, Detroit and with contact with folks from Toledo and Cleveland. Our contingent 
joined in the action in Dayton on May 25th.

We need regional coordination among anti-fascist and anti-racist forces in the midwest. We 
believe this action was a small but important step in building cooperation among our 
forces in Dayton, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Columbus, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Lansing, 
Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor and beyond. The need now is to coordinate, to reach out, to organize 
our forces. The need now is to break out of isolation and small group dynamics and elitism.

Post navigation
Dayton, Ohio Against the Klan

http://m1aa.org/?p=1661

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Message: 3





Workers go on strike due to unsafe working conditions. The State responds with a heavy 
police presence finally sending in the riot cops. ---- Striking MGT Power workers have 
been picketing the entrance to Teesport, on the A66, since Thursday 30th May. It is not 
the first time workers have walked out over safety issues, blocking the same road and 
stopping traffic on the A66. ---- Hundreds of protestors said in November that "nobody 
wanted to walk off site" but they claim their safety has been put at risk, and that action 
was only taken after repeated and lengthy discussions with management failed. ---- Workers 
walked out on Thursday, complaining of poor safety conditions on site sparked by an 
incident involving a boiler. According to the company, MGT Teesside, the incident involved 
a boiler where a suspended load unexpectedly moved during installation. No-one was injured 
and the area was quarantined and as a further precaution all workers within the boiler 
were relocated to their mess cabins.

Tensions rose on the picket line as striking MGT Power workers and police reacted during a 
second day of protest. On Friday initially the cops put on a huge display, allowed 
protesters to remain in the road but by mid-morning, police attempted to move protesters 
off the road to allow queuing HGVs to pass to their destinations.

The move flared tempers and unleashed shouts from a packed crowd at least 20 bodies deep. 
As police started to move the crowd, the situation became further inflamed as workers 
pushed back. The protests eventually broke up with the workers promising to come back on 
Monday.

On Monday a huge police presence including riot cops was called in as A66 protests 
continued. The action was briefly called off at around 9.30am but resumed at 11am after 
unsuccessful talks between workers and management.

The resumption of the protest was met with a show of strength by police as a large number 
of officers descended on the site, including a significant number in riot gear. The police 
helicopter was also used as part of the operation to move protesters. The road was 
reopened again shortly after 12pm. Workers eventually left the site just before 1pm but 
pledged to resume the protest at 6am on Tuesday.

A spokesman for MGT said: "It is very sad that we now have yet another unofficial 
industrial action on the project without any of the procedures of the Blue Book contract 
having been followed". The Blue Book is an official agreement with the unions. It is 
unclear what this agreement actually states but workers are obviously not happy with it 
and are having to undertake "unofficial" industrial action.

The use of Riot Police by the state to support the bosses shows that both the state and 
the bosses do not care about workers safety and rights. But as North East Anarchist Group 
rightly say:

The State's purpose, and thus the police's, is to control us. To ensure that capitalism 
continues to function unhindered and protect the interests of the ruling class, allowing 
them to retain its dominant position over us... The cops aren't your friend and neither is 
your boss. We only have each other.

https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2019/06/03/police-get-heavy-handed-with-teesport-strikers/

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Message: 4






The unions in the anarcho-syndicalist association CNT-AIT (E), a section of the 
International Association of Workers in Spain, report on new labor and social conflicts 
involving their activists. ---- CNT-AIT of Granada successfully completed a boycott 
campaign against Lemon Rock: the company had to negotiate and pay wage arrears to the 
employee 
(http://elmilicianocnt-aitchiclana.blogspot.com/2019/05/cnt-ait-granada-finalizado-conflicto.html) 
---- On June 1, CNT-AIT Motril held a rally picket in front of the La Herradura diving 
center in Puerto Marina del Este, one day to demand a salary debt to a union member who 
worked as a diving instructor. The picketers distributed leaflets and informed people 
about the details of the conflict, taking advantage of the presence of several boats with 
customers. The action was watched by three cars of the "Civil Guard". Although the owner 
of the center, Louis Pelejero, attempted to lash out at a comrade, the picket proceeded 
normally and ended when it was planned, with a statement that the actions would continue 
until the employee's demands were met 
(http://elmilicianocnt-aitchiclana.blogspot.com/2019/06/cnt-ait-motril-abierto-conflicto-con.html)

The trade unions of CNT-AIT Alicante and Marina Alta have already held 3 pickets against 
Gasorba, which dismissed the trade union delegate, who demanded compliance with the terms 
of the collective agreement. The remaining members of the CNT-AIT section at the firm and 
other employees who are not related to "theirs" for the authorities are subject to 
systematic nagging and humiliations. The anarcho-syndicalists organized one picket in 
Alicante (at the consultant's bureau, which is engaged in prosecuting the trade union 
section) and two in Denia (at the Gasorby bureau at the train stop and at the British 
Petroleum filling station, which also belongs to the same mafia company). Promotions will 
continue until a comrade is restored in his workplace 
(http://elmilicianocnt-aitchiclana.blogspot.com/2019/05/cnt-ait-marina-alta-piquetes.html)

In Albacete, the CNT-AIT is leading a campaign against bookmakers under the motto "Get the 
bookmakers from our neighborhoods." The decision to participate in the protests, which 
were held throughout the country, was taken at the assembly of the trade union on May 19, 
since the working class suffers first and foremost from money hunters and speculators. A 
rally and 3 pickets were held in the city on May 30 and 31 
(http://elmilicianocnt-aitchiclana.blogspot.com/2019/05/cnt-ait-albacete-campana-en-contra-de.html)

https://aitrus.info/node/5280

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Message: 5






In the face of the so-called "  trust  " school bill - a concentration of authoritarian 
and backward measures - education workers went on strike, blocked schools with their 
parents, and stepped up initiatives. But will this mobilization be sufficient ? ---- 
Whatever the version that will be presented to Parliament after the committee discussions 
between senators and members of Parliament, one thing is certain: the Blanquer bill is a 
legislative tote that, despite the honeyed statements of the Minister of Finance, National 
Education, accumulates disastrous measures for teachers, students and their parents. ---- 
A disastrous text for the school ---- The staff who mobilized in March were not mistaken 
and expressed their massive rejection of this bill which provides, among other things:

to dissuade any criticism of the institution by the teachers by prescribing a duty of 
exemplarity, quite hollow but nevertheless intimidating ;
to further increase the precariousness of accompanying persons with disabilities (AESH) by 
increasing their workload without any salary increase ;
to increase the weight of the hierarchy, either by grouping schools under the leadership 
of a college and its head of school, or by giving the directors a superior status ;
to make the compulsory education from 3 years, way of obliging the municipalities to 
finance the private nursery schools.

During its passage in front of the Senate, the bill was further increased by reactionary 
and Islamophobic provisions: suspension of the payment of family allowances to the parents 
of drop-out children, prohibition of any religious sign for volunteer parents accompanying 
school trips (This is obviously the veil that is targeted) ...

Towards a start of the movement ?
Even if the mobilization has a little marked after the spring break, the game is far from 
lost: this text, which remains massively rejected, will have to go back to the Senate and 
the Assembly to be definitively adopted. Unfortunately, the inter-union front that had 
been set up was struggling to come up with a coherent unitary strategy, torn between 
organizations that push for clear calls for strike action and others who rely on joint 
actions with parents and do not believe or more at walkouts.

So what to do ? The national event of parents and teachers on May 18 did not live up to 
expectations, but a significant body of education staff remains committed to securing the 
removal of the text and the nauseating amendments voted in the Senate may trigger a start. 
Here and there, we are already discussing a week of strikes. For if parents can support 
the movement, it is up to education workers to be tough on a government that understands 
only the balance of power.

Benjamin Bakin (AL Paris Nord-Est)

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Education-nationale-Il-est-encore-temps-de-bloquer-Blanquer

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Message: 6






Al Brussels is a member of the federation of the collectives for a libertarian 
alternative. We believe that being organized as anarchists is a necessity. For us, a solid 
and consistent organization is an indispensable struggle tool to coordinate (politically, 
strategically, ideologically) and to strengthen social struggles. ---- If we are 
federated-E-s in al it is because we recognize ourselves in the libertarian communist 
society project and in the manifesto for a libertarian alternative. We have our specified 
related to the Belgian social and political context but being a member of a transnational 
organization is a force that allows us to develop the libertarian communist current for 
more than 6 years.
Well-on, the goal is to create a libertarian Communist Federation in Belgium, with a 
common political platform and practices shared by different local groups. The birth of the 
Collectif Alternative Libertaire Liège for a few months is an encouraging sign in this 
sense. We think that this is the priority for our current in the next few years.

The capitalist offensive and the development of transnational resistances poses more than 
ever the need for a revolutionary, Libertarian, feminist, anti-racist and antifascist 
project. The Fusion Congress between al and cga is only one step in this process to which 
we will take part this weekend.

#RejoignezNousNeNousRegardezPas #MemeChallenge

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Message: 7






On the picket lines of the Los Angeles teacher strike. ---- his piece from the Organizing 
Work blog explores an important but often little discussed question of the historical 
origins of labor contracts in the U.S. The current dominant model of formal collective 
bargaining agreements which include provisions against striking and job actions, also 
known as "workplace contractualism," has not always been the dominant model. The author 
reviews the history and notes that employers pushed for contracts as a method of 
containing and suppressing strikes. ---- By Robin J. Cartwright ---- In 1911 Bill Haywood 
complained that: ---- the A. F. of L. couldn't have a general strike if they wanted to. 
... They have 271,000 different agreements that expire 27,000 different minutes of the 
year. They will either have to break all of those sacred contracts or there is no such 
thing as a general strike in that so-called ‘labor organization.'

Today labor relations professionals take it for granted that unions seek to sign contracts 
with employers, but in Haywood's day this was a relatively new and controversial practice, 
one that started when he was a teenager. Contracts were originally invented by labor 
unions that believed they needed to give national leaders authority to restrain strikes 
and militancy, which could bankrupt the union or subject it to state violence. As labor 
unrest increased, employers looked for new methods to control their workforce and 
undermine strikes, eventually choosing to work with and co-opt moderate labor leaders and 
use their authority over union members to discipline the workforce. Over several decades, 
employers and union leaders experimented with a series of contracts, gradually developing 
a workplace contractualism that served both groups.

Labor Relations Before Contracts
Prior to the rise of contracts, unions practiced a variety of other methods to interact 
with management. During the Lowell textile strikes of 1834 and 1836, among the first 
factory strikes in the United States, the workers made no attempt to get management to 
sign a collective bargaining agreement. The strikes were waged in response to a wage cut 
in 1834 and an increase in the price of room and board in company boardinghouses in 1836. 
In 1834, the workers, nearly all of whom were young women, organized mass meetings and 
signed petitions against the cuts, pledging to refuse to work if they were not rescinded, 
and imposing penalties on any worker who broke her pledge. Although the 1834 strike was 
defeated, the 1836 strike was better organized and succeeded in reversing the price 
increase - without signing a contract and with little in the way of labor-management 
meetings and negotiation.

Nineteenth-century craft unions, with a mostly male membership, often attempted to 
unilaterally impose their preferred wages and working conditions on employers without 
signing a written agreement, or even negotiating. Typically, union members would meet and 
vote on what they called "legislation" (i.e. union work rules). This legislation set 
wages, working hours, break times, days off, terms of apprenticeship, and specifics of how 
work was to be done (such as the size of work crews, how many machines could be run at 
once, and how many products would be produced per hour). Union members were obliged to 
refuse any order which conflicted with this legislation, and refuse to work at any company 
that did not abide by it. These craft unions organized skilled occupations that required 
extensive training - making it difficult for management to replace any worker. If a 
sufficient portion of the limited pool of skilled workers refused to work for any employer 
that did not abide by union legislation, they could compel employers to abide by the 
union's terms. For this strategy to work, the union had to ensure that the number of 
workers who were trained in their craft remained limited, and many craft unions attempted 
to do this by restricting the number of new apprentices taken on, and by keeping women, 
people of color, immigrants, and/or the Irish out of their trade.

Another common practice among nineteenth-century workers was to issue a "bill of prices" 
or "wage scale" - a written list of occupations in the workplace and the pay rate the 
union demanded for each one - and go on strike. In some cases, workers were able to compel 
management, via this direct action, to sign these bills of prices. In other cases, 
management met with a committee of strike leaders and negotiated a compromise bill. 
Perhaps the most common result, when management did not defeat the strike outright, was to 
raise pay rates - but not raise them as high as the union wanted - without signing 
anything. For example, during the New England shoe worker strike of 1860, a few employers 
agreed to a bill of prices with the union, but most raised pay by a moderate amount 
without formally signing an agreement. The strike gradually petered out as management gave 
workers much of what they wanted; in some cases, the union unilaterally called off the 
strike after management made sufficient concessions.

If you equate any written agreement between labor unions and management with a union 
contract (an overly broad conception of contracts), then these bills of prices would be 
the first union contracts. However, they differed from modern union contracts in that they 
did not have expiration dates and normally only set the pay rate. None of the other normal 
components of modern union contracts - management rights clauses, grievance/arbitration 
procedures, no strike pledges, language on hours and working conditions, dues checkoff, 
etc. - were present.

In the latter part of the Civil War and after, American workers began organizing trade 
unions on an unprecedented scale. Prior to the Civil War, labor unions had primarily been 
local or regional bodies with little in the way of a national or international structure 
to coordinate local activity. Unionists now established labor organizations that spanned 
coast to coast, with national conventions, elected national leaders, and a nationwide 
strike fund for each trade. They formed the National Labor Union as an umbrella federation 
(and, after a split, the Colored National Labor Union).

Samuel Gompers, who would later become President of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) 
and an advocate of contracts, first joined a union as a young man during this time period. 
In his memoirs he wrote:

There was a vast difference between those early unions and the unions of today. Then there 
was no law or order. A union was a more or less definite group of people employed in the 
same trade who might help each other out in special difficulties with the employer. There 
was no sustained effort to secure fair wages through collective bargaining. The employer 
fixed wages until he shoved them down to a point where human endurance revolted. Often the 
revolt started by an individual whose personal grievance was sore, who rose and declared: 
"I am going on strike. All who remain at work are scabs." Usually the workers went out 
with him.

Thus, even after the Civil War and the rise of a truly national labor movement, contracts 
between employers and labor unions were still unheard of.

The Knights of Labor and the Attempt to Abolish Strikes
Most national trade unions collapsed in the 1870s in part due to a severe depression. High 
unemployment made it easy for employers to replace union members, and insured a large 
supply of scabs in the event of a strike. Trade union after trade union went bankrupt 
funding failed strikes.

When the labor movement revived at the end of the 1870s, the new unions, both the Order of 
the Knights of Labor (KoL) and the new trade unions that would later found the AFL, were 
determined to avoid what they thought were the mistakes of previous trade unions. They 
required all locals seek permission from the national leadership before launching any 
strike. Any strike not authorized by national leaders would not receive any support from 
the national organization.

For example, the KoL's regulations stated,

Strikes ... are, as a rule, productive of more injury than benefit to working people, 
consequently all attempts to foment strikes will be discouraged. ... No strike undertaken 
without the sanction and orders of G.A. officers ... shall be supported from the Strike Fund.

The KoL's Grand Master Workman (president) Terence Powderly explained,

Strikes are a failure. Ask any old veteran in the labor movement and he say will the same. 
... An association well organized need never strike. It is only half organized unions that 
do so.

In response to the idea that the Order "protect and foster strikes" he satirically 
proposed that the union also "purchase a rifle and bayonet; also one hundred and fifty 
rounds of ammunition for each member" and acquire "the latest improved style of Gatling 
gun." He elaborated that men in office had "enacted laws which make it impossible for you 
to strike without the troops[being]called out" and that consequently encouraging strikes 
would bring severe repression upon the Order. Powderly further argued:

There are times when, under certain indignities and tyrannies, a refusal to strike amounts 
to downright cowardice; but these circumstances seldom arise. The average strike is 
brought about by the inflammatory speeches of some firebrand. ... A strike seldom fails of 
one result, that is, to create confusion and distrust, and finally break the Union up. 
Whether the strike was successful, or not, it generally breaks up the branch engaged in 
it. One reason is, men expect that, as soon as they strike, they ought to walk up to the 
treasurer and draw five dollars a week, even though they have not paid in five cents.

Like the trade unions, the Knights felt that national union leadership needed to have a 
degree of authority over the membership to ensure members did not engage in strikes that 
would deplete their funds and/or provoke severe state repression. However, the Knights had 
a more ambitious approach to strikes than the trade unions - they wanted to abolish them. 
In the long run, the Knights intended to abolish strikes by abolishing capitalism, thereby 
making them unnecessary. In the medium term, they wanted the state to pass laws providing 
for the compulsory arbitration of all labor disputes. That objective was never achieved in 
the United States, although laws for voluntary arbitration were passed, and the Knights of 
Labor in New Zealand did get parliament to pass compulsory arbitration legislation during 
the 1890s (which the New Zealand IWW would later campaign against).

In the short-term, the Knights arranged for private arbitration with employers, instead of 
resorting to strikes, whenever possible, reserving direct action as a last resort. This 
private arbitration took several forms. KoL leaders were empowered to arbitrate disputes 
between their members and employers; they could order their members to accept a settlement 
they did not agree with. If the employer agreed, disputes could be submitted to a neutral 
third-party for arbitration.

In areas where the Knights of Labor were strongest they sometimes signed a written list of 
"rules and regulations" with an employers' association, laying out a process to use 
arbitration to resolve all conflicts. Usually one or two pages long, the rules forbade all 
strikes and lockouts and established a joint board of arbitration to resolve all disputes. 
These boards were composed of an equal number of representatives from the union and the 
employers' association, and had the authority to settle any dispute between workers and 
their employer in the factories covered by the agreement. In the event of a tie vote, each 
side was to select a disinterested person, those two would select a third person, and then 
the three of them would decide the matter at hand. Typically, they also provided for 
grievance committees and established a closed shop (or, as a compromise, permitted members 
to refuse to work with non-union co-workers).

These rules and regulations signed by the Knights of Labor have a great deal in common 
with twentieth-century union contracts, but there are some important differences. Perhaps 
most importantly, they had no expiration date - they were intended to last forever, to 
permanently end strikes and lockouts. They were much briefer and left most things 
specified in modern union contracts (including pay rates and working conditions) up to 
arbitration. There was no seniority and no dues checkoff. The Knights also had difficultly 
compelling their own members to abide by these terms. In 1886, in response to the failure 
of the Knights to suppress a wildcat shoe worker strike in Philadelphia, local shoe 
manufacturers locked out all of their employees for several weeks and then decided to 
arbitrate with a company union, on an open shop basis, rather than with the Knights - 
destroying the shoe workers' union in the city.

Initially, the Knights of Labor were larger than the trade unions and they grew rapidly 
until 1886, becoming larger than any previous labor union in North America. From 
1886-1890, employers founded a series of employer associations that led a 
counter-offensive against the Knights which managed to destroy the union with a series of 
lockouts, aided by state violence and the backlash against organized labor after the 
Haymarket affair. The newly founded, and more conservative, American Federation of Labor 
then took the Knights' place as the largest labor union in the country. The reluctance of 
the Order's national leadership to authorize strikes did not save the union from being 
targeted and destroyed by employers.

The Early Twentieth Century: Progressive Employers Embrace Contracts
Unlike the Knights, the AFL did not harbor grandiose plans of abolishing strikes or ending 
capitalism. They viewed strikes as labor's most powerful weapon, but one that should be 
used sparingly. The AFL compared going on strike to going to war - it was a powerful act, 
but one that was risky and dangerous, and which should only be undertaken when attacked or 
in extreme circumstances. They were willing to sign a peace treaty, but unlike the Knights 
were not willing to give up the right to strike permanently. So their agreements with 
employers only lasted for a fixed amount of time, after which they were free to strike 
again. Initially these agreements were called "trade agreements" but by the twentieth 
century the terms "contract" or "time contract" were used as synonyms. It was these AFL 
trade agreements that the early IWW denounced when it rejected contracts.

When the AFL began to grow steadily in the late 1890s and early 1900s, it found a section 
of the employing class (mainly the wealthier section) was now open to compromising with 
unions - something they were largely unwilling to do with previous labor organizations. 
This shift occurred for several reasons. Some larger employers believed they could use 
unions to undercut their smaller competitors . The general trend over the preceding forty 
years had been for labor unrest to increase, and the growing cost of suppressing it led 
some employers to start searching for a more cost-effective means of retaining control 
over their workforce. In addition, some employers were concerned that the suppression of 
organized labor encouraged the growth of socialist, anarchist, and other radical 
movements. They worried that the growth of radicalism, combined with the tendency for 
labor unrest to increase over time, could, in the long-run, result in revolution if left 
unchecked.

In 1900 these progressive employers, with the participation of AFL leaders, founded the 
National Civic Federation to advocate for reforms meant to stabilize capitalism. The NCF 
lobbied for progressive legislation, mediated between employers and unions in labor 
disputes, and encouraged employers to sign contracts with trade unions. The year it was 
founded it passed a resolution declaring "trade agreements between employers and workmen 
where established for a definite term of years have so fully demonstrated their value in 
maintaining industrial peace that they should be generally adopted." They told their 
fellow employers that "the practical operations of the trade agreement systems disprove 
the criticism that they mean a surrender to unjust or uneconomic demands of labor." An 
article in their newspaper, seeking to persuade their fellow capitalists to sign 
contracts, argued:

One of the permanent advantages of the trade agreement system is the influence which 
organized employers have in improving the organization of the workers. As long as 
employers are hostile, or as long as an association of employers exists solely to fight 
the lion, the latter is forced to put forward its fighting men. But when employers 
organize for conference and agreement, and are able to remove the long standing suspicions 
of the workmen, a change comes in union leadership. The officers become negotiators and 
bargainers-business men, like their employers.

The reformist wing of the employing class consciously set out to corrupt and co-opt union 
leaders by signing contracts with labor unions.

The NCF contended that unions would generally abide by the terms of their contracts and 
that union leaders could be relied upon to suppress strikes by their own members. Their 
newspaper argued that:

An agreement between an organization of employers and an organization of workmen is backed 
by the machinery and the power to enforce observance. In the thirteen years of the Iron 
Molders' and Stove Founders' agreements there has not been a contract violation nor a 
strike or lockout, except occasionally in a single shop, soon settled by the national 
officers of the two organizations. ... These officers, as in all labor unions, have power 
to fine and expel members and to revoke the charters of local bodies that interfere with 
the enforcement of trade contracts.

The longshoremen's organization in their contracts with the dock managers on the Great 
Lakes have occasionally been called upon to discipline their members for violations, and 
in the case of the Buffalo strike in 1900 the International President, after revoking the 
charter of the local union and supplying the places of a majority of the strikers with 
union men from other locals, filled the remaining places with non-union men. Mr. Samuel 
Mather, of the Dock Managers' Association, ... says regarding their agreements with the 
Longshoremen's Union, "I am very happy to be able to testify that since that continuous 
arrangement was inaugurated, about three years ago, our business has been conducted with 
great advantage compared with what prevailed before. ... If any occasion of dispute 
arises, it has not caused the work to terminate"

By signing contracts with labor unions, employers could convert them from organizations 
that incited strikes into organizations that broke strikes. In the eyes of the NCF, this 
was a more effective and cost-effective means of controlling their workforce than their 
previous reliance on violence and repression.

The NCF also praised a contract signed by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), which 
established a cartel in bituminous coal mining. As settlement of a nation-wide strike in 
1897, the union and coal operators signed a national contract, and a series of district 
contracts, that not only covered wages, hours, etc., but also specified the minimum price 
coal could be sold at and the amount each operator was to sell. Prior to this contract 
competing firms often undercut each other by increasing the amount of coal they sold, 
flooding the market and causing the price to plummet. This contract allowed them to sell 
less coal at a higher price, increasing their profits. The UMWA acted as the cartel's 
enforcer by striking any firm that would not sign the contract and abide by its price 
fixing. The UMWA also insured that a portion of the operators' increased profits went to 
its members in the form of higher wages. This early contract is one of the more flagrant 
cases of larger employers using union contracts to undermine their smaller rivals and 
deter competition. Higher wages undercut smaller firms because their lower profit margins 
made it more difficult to afford them. Higher wages also buttressed the cartel's position 
by acting as a barrier to entry, discouraging the founding of new companies in the 
industry and protecting operators from increased competition.

A more important contract from this time period was the Protocols of Peace, negotiated 
between the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (a predecessor to UNITE-HERE) and 
the Cloak, Suit, and Skirt Protective Association (an employers' association), as 
settlement of the cloak makers' "great revolt" (strike) of 1910 in New York City. The 
Protocols established a modern system of grievance machinery to settle disputes and 
enforce the contract. Its grievance procedures were foreshadowed by the Knights of Labor's 
arbitration system, but the Protocols was more elaborate, with added layers of 
bureaucracy, and focused more on enforcement of the contract's terms. Earlier trade 
agreements, too, had provisions for labor-management meetings to resolve disputes but did 
not have a true grievance system with numerous steps and arbitration involving outsiders. 
The Protocols not only allowed union members to file against their employers, but 
permitted employers to file grievances against the union, usually for wildcat strikes. In 
order to suppress wildcat strikes and uphold its part of the bargain, the ILGWU put locals 
into receivership when they defied the no-strike pledge, and recruited unionized scabs to 
undermine wildcat strikes.

The ILGWU succeeded in signing similar Protocol-like contracts with employer associations 
in other parts of their industry and in other cities, and it influenced the content of 
other unions' contracts. Larger employers signed not only to deter strikes and regain 
control over their workforce, but in hopes of undercutting their smaller competitors (who 
had smaller profit margins and would have greater difficulty paying union wages). In some 
cases they secretly agreed to sign a Protocols-like contract with the ILGWU before a 
strike even began, provided the union was able to compel smaller companies to join the 
employers' association and sign the same agreement.

After the First World War and the Red Scare, employers largely abandoned their interest in 
signing contracts with the ILGWU or other unions and attempted to go union-free. Some 
returned to the use of violence and repression to suppress labor unrest (others had never 
abandoned violence and repression). Some experimented with what historians call "welfare 
capitalism" - giving workers relatively generous benefits to reduce turnover and prevent 
unionization. Some established "employee representation programs" (company unions).

1940s-1970s: Heyday of the Union Contract
After the great depression began, labor unrest and left-wing radicalism revived, prompting 
employers and the state to institute many of the reforms they had first experimented with 
in the early twentieth century. In response to the strike wave of 1934, Congress passed 
the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of 1935, in an effort to protect commerce and 
prevent future strikes by encouraging employers to sign contracts with labor unions. The 
author of the act, Senator Robert F. Wagner, had been a member of the New York State 
legislature when the Protocols of Peace was signed, which he supported. The architect of 
the Protocols of Peace, Louis Brandeis, was appointed to the Supreme Court several years 
after mediating between the ILGWU and CSSPA during the cloak makers' great revolt, leaving 
his position on the board of arbitration (the final step in the Protocols' grievance 
process). He was still on the Supreme Court in 1937, where he voted in favor of the 
constitutionality of the NLRA.

Force of law alone was never sufficient to compel most employers to abide by the NLRA or 
sign contracts with business unions. A version of the rights in the NLRA were originally 
included in the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, but they were ignored by 
employers and the law was later struck down as unconstitutional. When the NLRA was passed 
in 1935 it established a government agency to enforce those rights, but because there were 
no punitive damages for violating it most employers simply did not obey the law. It was 
the wave of sit-down strikes at the start of 1937 that convinced many employers of the 
need to sign contracts, or at least keep their anti-union activity legal. Most famously, 
the notoriously anti-union U.S. Steel (which controlled the majority of steel production 
in the U.S.) chose to sign a contract with the CIO's Steel Workers Organizing Committee to 
prevent a sit-down strike at its plants and regain control over its workforce. Most 
unionists expected that unionizing U.S. Steel would require an enormous battle, but they 
signed a contract without a fight.

A minority of employers continued to violently oppose unionization even after the sit-down 
strikes. Perhaps the best known was Republic Steel, which committed the Memorial Day 
Massacre along with the Chicago police. These employers were finally brought into line 
during the Second World War. In exchange for a no-strike pledge, the federal government 
denied any contract for war supplies to any company that violated the NLRA, giving the law 
some teeth and bringing an end to corporate America's long tradition of murdering union 
organizers.

Although the NLRA did a great deal to institutionalize workplace contractualism, dues 
checkoff did not become a near-universal part of union contracts until the Second World 
War. During the war, union dissidents would sometimes withhold dues as a way of pressuring 
union leaders, which could encourage them to violate the no-strike pledge. Union leaders 
and the state insisted that employers directly deduct dues from employees' pay to remove 
this source of rank-and-file leverage. There were unions as early as the late nineteenth 
century that had dues checkoff, but it was not until the war that nearly all union 
contracts had it.

For the next thirty years, it was a social norm for employers to abide by the NLRA. 
Although most employers remained non-union, they largely kept their union-busting 
activities legal until the 1970s. To control their workforce, employers treated their 
employees relatively well (this was the low point of income inequality) and, when that 
failed, signed contracts with unions, relying on union leaders to keep workers in line. 
Flagrantly violating the NLRA was stigmatized.

Beginning in the late 1970s, employers began looking for alternative means of disciplining 
their workforce, which they eventually found in the form of higher unemployment and 
permanent replacement scabs. In the 1980s, they used these tools to destroy the labor 
movement and de-unionize much of the workforce, inaugurating the current era of low union 
density and low strike rates. They have spent much of the past thirty years gradually 
dismantling the remains of contract-based unionism.

Workplace Contractualism and the IWW
Workplace contractualism developed in fits and starts, with different components added in 
at different times. What we think of as a standard union contract was really only 
commonplace for roughly forty years (1940-1980). The previous period of experimentation 
with different forms of contracts (1880-1940) lasted longer. The later period 
(1980-present), of tiny, weak unions and very few strikes, has now lasted almost as long 
as the heyday of the union contract. The exact point when the labor movement started 
signing contracts depends on how you define contracts. There is no hard and fast point at 
which the movement passed from non-contracts to contracts, and even agreements that 
clearly count as contracts took on different forms at different times. One way to approach 
the issue is to look at how the early IWW viewed contracts, and then find the point in 
history in which an agreement matching that conception was first signed.

Historians generally write that the early IWW refused to sign contracts, and the IWW of 
that time repeatedly issued pamphlets and public proclamations denouncing contracts. A 
1913 pamphlet written by IWW General Executive Board member Joseph Ettor and published by 
the IWW stated:

Industrial Unionists disdain to lower the history and ideals of the working class by 
entering into contracts or agreements with employers ... Contracts and agreements tend to 
foist a false feeling of security on the worker.

In the pamphlet The IWW - its History, Structure, and Methods, Vincent St. John (the 
second General Secretary-Treasurer) wrote, "No part of the organization is allowed to 
enter into time contracts with the employers." In her old age, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn 
recalled that the IWW

did not believe in making any contracts. They believed that as long as you were organized, 
you could hold the office to what it said it was going to do. But a contract, a piece of 
paper held you and so they didn't make any contracts.

Bill Haywood told Congress

We say that no union has a right to enter into an agreement with the employers because 
they are members of the working class; and finally we say that the working class has no 
right to enter into an agreement because it is the inherent mission of the working class 
to overthrow capitalism and establish itself in its place.

However, despite this rhetoric, the early IWW actually did make agreements with employers. 
On Philadelphia's waterfront, the IWW made several verbal agreements with employers to 
terminate large strikes in exchange for a number of concessions, including a closed shop 
and partial control over hiring and firing. In the 1912 Lawrence textile strike it drew up 
a "list of grievances" similar to the "bill of prices" used by unionists in the 
mid-nineteenth century, negotiated with management, and agreed to call off the strike 
after management granted most of their demands. If we look at the early IWW's 
constitution, we find it didn't explicitly ban contracts by name. What it said was:

Any agreement entered into between the members of any Union, or organization, and their 
employers, as a final settlement of any difficulty or trouble which may occur between 
them, shall not be considered valid or binding until the same shall have the approval of 
the General Executive Board of the Industrial Workers of the World.

No Union of the General Organization, Industrial Department, or Industrial Union of the I. 
W. W. shall enter into any contract with an individual or corporation of employers binding 
the members to any of the following conditions:

(a) Any agreement wherein any specified length of time is mentioned for the continuance of 
the said agreement.

(b) Any agreement wherein the membership is bound to give notice before making demands 
affecting hours, wages or shop conditions.

(c) Any agreement wherein it is specified that the members shall work only for employers 
who belong to an association of the employers.

(d) Any agreement that proposes to regulate the selling price of the product they are 
employed in making.

(e) No Industrial Union or any part of the Industrial Workers of the World shall enter 
into any agreement with any Labor Organization.

This section was removed in the late 1930s, except for the requirement for GEB approval, 
which was not removed until the 1940s. Histories of the IWW generally label this removal 
as the IWW signing contracts for the first time. It appears that by "contract" Bill 
Haywood and others who claimed that the IWW did not sign contracts meant an agreement that 
violated any of these five conditions, not any agreement in the broadest sense of that term.

The Knights of Labor's arbitration agreements would have been contracts in this sense 
because they violated part (b) by permanently forbidding strikes, although they did not 
violate part (a). The AFL's trade agreements violated both (a) and (b), and in some cases 
other clauses. The UMWA's contracts establishing a coal cartel additionally violated part 
(d); those contracts may be why early Wobblies included part (d). If merely getting things 
in writing counts as a union contract, the earlier "bill of prices" used by some unions 
before the Civil War would count as the first contracts. However, they were not contracts 
in the sense that the IWW opposed because they did not violate any of these stipulations, 
and because the early IWW itself issued similar documents. Therefore the first contracts, 
in the sense of contracts that the early IWW opposed, were invented by the Knights of 
Labor in order to abolish strikes.

Over the course of the twentieth-century, employers and/or the state in most countries 
eventually adopted measures designed to co-opt and control labor unions, abandoning older, 
more violent strategies designed to suppress unions. They used co-opted unions to maintain 
control over their workforce, and sought to marginalize radical unions that refused to 
cooperate in this process. In some countries this took the form of works councils or state 
subsidies for labor unions, but in the United States it took the form of workplace 
contractualism, because that was the form moderate labor unions invented and preferred. 
The process of co-opting unions was not entirely one-sided; employers had to make 
significant concessions to moderate union leaders to get them to cooperate and those 
concessions affected the structure of labor relations. Since the rise of neoliberalism 
forty years ago, employers have abandoned this strategy in most of the world, adopting 
alternative methods to discipline their workforce. The paucity of labor unrest has made 
working with moderate labor unions no longer an attractive option for most of the 
employing class. The origins of union contracts in restraining strikes, and the extensive 
history of employers using contracts to control workers, should make those of us who would 
like to revive labor unrest cautious about reviving contracts - or oppose it altogether.

This article was originally published by Organizing Work.

If you enjoyed this piece we recommend "The State of Labor: Beyond Unions, But Not Without 
Them" or this video of a fast food worker discussing organizing at Burgerville.

http://blackrosefed.org/when-why-unions-sign-contracts/


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