WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE FRANCE News Journal Update - (en) France, Anarchosyndicalisme #182: Dear Companion - PUBLISHED JULY 1ST (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Allow me to call you companion since although you are an activist in a

reformist trade union organization, you display your anarchist values.
Despite our differences, we therefore share the same hatred of the
current economic and political system and the same desire to build a
freer, more united, more egalitarian and democratic world. Our
differences, we often discuss them, but for once, we agree, it's cooked,
it's lost, we'll have to work 2 more years. ---- You remember, from the
beginning, we argued about it. You believed in it very strongly. For the
first time in so long, the unity at last of all the central trade
unions, Ah this unity, you had wanted it so much, truly gigantic
demonstrations, releasing tremendous energy, a pleasure for these
multitudes who found themselves together, animated by the feeling of
fighting for a just and noble cause.

And, then this Tuesday, this kind of swan song demonstration, this
gloom, all these people, annoyed, harping on a feeling of defeat and
waste. But, allow me to ask you a question: this fantastic energy
present in the first moments of the struggle, what did the trade union
leaders who guided this movement do with it? We, from the start, we
said, only a massive general strike will make it possible to roll back
Macron. There is nothing to negotiate, this reform, we do not want it
and we must scare all the big owners so that they understand the height
of our anger. As soon as the reform was announced, a workers' response
equal to the provocation was needed, it was necessary to refuse, and to
call for a total blockage of the economy.

Another path has been chosen. Clearly, the primary concern of the union
leaderships was that the social movement not grow too large, that it
remain within limits acceptable to the system. The fear of being
overwhelmed, the fear of a movement like in 1936 or 68 getting out of
control drove them and to avoid the popular explosion, they played with
time, letting several weeks pass between the government announcement and
the first demonstration then spacing out the demonstrations sufficiently
so that the anger subsides. By thus managing the popular movement
against the pension reform, by timing it so that it remains under
control, by not calling for a total strike, the leaderships of the
representative trade union centers have once again shown their true
nature, institutions at the service of the established order in charge
of managing the social movement, of ensuring that the movements of
popular anger remain within limits acceptable to capital.

Refusing to play this role would amount to breaking the tacit contract
that binds them to the state, consequently depriving themselves of
multiple advantages and the windfall of state and employer subsidies. We
all know that, it's official and you have to be very naive to deny these
facts. But, then, what does an anarchist do in these unions? You will
answer me that you are where the workers are, that you participate in
their defense and that your struggles contribute to the improvement of
their material condition. So it's true that you make sure that the
bosses respect the laws governing salaried work, and that when this is
not the case, you drag them before the industrial tribunals, and
sometimes you even resort to direct action to enforce their claims. So,
you enforce the law, it is your main task and you try to make it evolve
in favor of the employees, but all your actions are part of the
framework defined by the state, none of them challenges the system.

Worse, they reinforce it, because you know it well, this system is so
fundamentally unjust, so unequal, so deadly that it constantly generates
movements of anger, revolt, even more and diabolical, the State at the
service of the bosses instrumentalized the trade unions, these tools
that the workers had given themselves for their emancipation to ensure
that the workers' revolts remained under control. The state and the
bosses spend a lot of money on this; your organizations receive multiple
grants and your union leaders can access prestigious positions. Thus, on
par with employers, your organizations manage multitudes of social
organizations, Social Security, pension funds, various organizations, etc.

You consider that these are worker conquests, in fact it is only the
price paid by the system to have social peace, to be able to continue to
exploit the employees. You have become an essential element of the
system, profiteers of the system and therefore it is impossible for you
to question it. An example to finish, you are proud of the prud'hommes
where union representatives sit, and you say that they defend the workers.

In fact, the prud'hommes only apply the law and the law is made by the
state, and if by extraordinary a prud'homal judgment is too favorable to
the employees, on appeal a court composed of professional judges will
have quickly done to set the record straight. These courts therefore do
not defend the workers, they judge them and the fact that you win legal
victories does not change this fact: the sums recovered in this way are
nothing compared to what the system steals from the employees. These
sums that you present as victories allow you to hide your real role from
the eyes of the workers, and are the price paid by the bosses so that
the employees accept their condition.

Finally, open your eyes, this circus has been going on for decades and
nothing, strictly nothing has changed: all the major social advances
have been made as a result of social movements outside the unions. There
are times in history when workers' anger is expressed without restraint,
but alas, as soon as the anger subsides, the system patiently, slowly
takes back what the power of the popular movement forced it to let go.
May millions of sincere workers allow themselves to be deceived, so be
it, but you, an anarchist who dreams of freedom, equality, solidarity,
why are you taking part in this scam, why are you agreeing to ultimately
serve only as surety in this masquerade?

An anarchist serving as a moral guarantee to the exploiters, what a
downfall! You are an anarchist, you agree with me, only a social
revolution, only a radical transformation of this society will put an
end to this circus, but for a real social revolution to take place,
people must be convinced that it is possible and that it is necessary,
we must remove their illusions, denounce their false friends and
completely break with them. So together, let's tackle this immense task.

http://cntaittoulouse.lautre.net/spip.php?article1343
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