WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE News Journal Update - (en) France, OCL CA #333 - Unions vs autonomy? (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 

This text comes from a debate which took place at the libertarian

meetings organized by the OCL this summer, on the theme "Autonomy, trade
unionism: where are we?» after the retirement movement. This is neither
a transcription nor a personal point of view. It's a bit of both since
it's a formatting of the interventions during this debate. ---- To
summarize, the unions and parties are in decline and are confirming
themselves as cogs in the State to continue exploitation. In their
place, it is the collective and autonomy that must emerge. It is not
won, but there is no reason to despair.

The new unions, an illusion

If we were able to note a very real increase in union membership during
and after the pension movement (the figure of 100,000 was put forward),
it should still be noted that a few percent more is very little compared
to the very low number of union members in France, including a
significantly increasing proportion of retirees. As 60% of union members
acknowledge that they do not participate in the life of their union, and
these new memberships are often made online without being directly the
result of grassroots interaction with union members, they are more
reminiscent of a civic act than a militant commitment. Furthermore, with
union life being reduced more and more to a trickle in the departmental
unions, we wonder who could welcome, and where, these new members to
participate in any dynamic. We see that even when the movement was in
full swing, participation in GAs was low; and that the local inter-union
organizations, led mainly by political activists, were weak and were
content to pass on the instructions of the central inter-union
organization. These AGs have never been a place of life, dynamic and
autonomous, where the joy of a base of employees collectively in the
struggle was expressed and where new links were forged. Only the
demonstrations partly played this role. In other words, it is not these
new memberships nor the structures put in place during this movement
that will change the face of trade unionism in France.

Union unity, another lure
The much-vaunted union unity was fake. It was largely staged by the
government and the media... and by the power plants themselves,
obviously. This still provoked a certain fascination, which could have
played a role in leading us to believe that we were finally entering a
sequence which forgot the old divisions. We thus concealed the fact
that, shortly before, the unions had signed the worst agreements (Social
Security, mutual insurance, etc.) including SUD, and that they were
totally divided on what a good pension system would be. The illusion
quickly faded, you just had to look at the extent to which the shops
wanted to structure their own procession, leaving as little room as
possible for untimely mix-ups... The prospect of union elections?? was
omnipresent. All that remained was to take bets: the day after the day
of action, will unity hold? Yep, once again! and it was off again for a
new date.
A very large majority of the demonstrators knew, especially since the
use of 49.3, that the government's objective would ultimately be taken
into account and that they would lose on the objective of 64 years.
However, as many of them were not directly concerned by the question of
pensions - which many people didn't care about, in fact - the movement
continued, the days of action still filled the streets. . against all
expectations since we suspected the outcome of the battle! It's because
the desire was elsewhere. The deep desire was simply to fight, a
political reaction against a style of government, fed up with being
mistreated and despised. In addition, in the background we saw a
recognition of the ravages of capitalism which was gaining ground,
without the beginnings of an alternative emerging. The unity was there,
and not at the management level in the inter-union.
The question of pensions had been on the table for months, and a number
of militant union members (let's say the middle apparatus, those who
keep the structure alive and give it a semblance of existence) were
complaining because there had not been real discussions on the question
of knowing how far we could go, and that they had been consumed by the
preparation of the union elections considered vital for the survival of
the structure. They were therefore in the front row to know that it
would be almost impossible to formally win. And yet they worked for the
continuation of the struggle. This is because they too felt that what
was at stake was well beyond one year more or less for retirement.

The fault of the unions
Can we blame the union leadership for not having played the card of a
general strike, as certain anarcho-syndicalists or the Permanent
Revolution organization say? Yes, we can, but that is of no use, since
it is in their nature and that brings us back to a theory that we have
always refuted, which attributes the failures of social movements to the
betrayal of bad leadership that should be replace with good ones or, at
least, better ones. Considering that the unions are an integrated cog in
the State and an intermediary between Capital and labor, it is a bit
hypocritical to whine about the inter-union which could have done this
or that.
Trade unionism acts as a spare wheel for a parliamentary democratic
system in crisis. In a context where parties no longer represent much
and where the far right is rearing its ugly head... there remains the
unions to ensure a certain image of social cohesion, political
regulation in place of deficient parties. Both the right and the left
agree on this.
We often see that when a movement arises it is a surprise for everyone,
including the union apparatus. For example, before the pensions
movement, the unions had nothing to do with the triggering of the
controllers' strike at the SNCF which was the consequence of a long and
tenacious dynamic at the base on the question of wages. Against the
draft law on pensions, the facade union in the inter-union took place at
the top, without the base of the workers, and sometimes even against it.
When the far left makes incantations of a general strike, it does so
most of the time with a view to strengthening union days of action, in
the fantasy of an inter-union movement which would rely on the anchor
points - such as refineries, energy or garbage collection -, and not in
calls to build autonomy that could lead to a collective dynamic towards
a general strike.

The collective, fuel of autonomy
Because it is the collective, a necessary ingredient for autonomy, which
is lacking the most. When, for example, we try to build a basic union
section, this always involves an attempt to rebuild the collective
between workers to bring this basic tool into existence. And moreover,
we see that it is the attempts to rebuild the collective that worry the
employers and motivate the repression, more than the danger represented
by the presence of union members as such. It most often attacks people,
unionized or not, who discuss, who speak, who propose, who make connections.
As work is increasingly dematerialized, the share of isolated
proletarians is increasingly significant, and not only among executives
or technicians. It is this proletariat which was least present in the
last movement on the retirement age: the strongest presence was that of
the public sector and the big companies. On the other hand, it is not
surprising that some of these new members come from sectors which suffer
from this isolation, and for whom the succession of demonstrations has
been an opportunity to reconnect with the collective by meeting
colleagues whom they do not almost never crossed paths during work.
If, in the most favorable places, this allows, even temporarily, to give
rise to a dynamic of exchanges and initiatives in a box in the form of a
basic union section, so much the better.
However, it is clear that autonomy cannot be decreed, it is only a
social situation of class struggle at a given moment in a given
environment. But we can still help its implementation, by disseminating
a few texts, positions, and above all by intervening in the movements to
prevent all the mechanisms for reproducing the domination that we know
from being put in place, like attempts at recovery by the parties. In
the current period, we unfortunately see that the possibility of a
strike appears more easily in the eyes of the majority of workers when
it is a question of wages or working conditions than when it is a
question of more broadly political or social issues, while conversely it
is these issues that bring people into the streets. Let's not forget
that what can make the strike desirable is that it is time freed from
employment which allows self-organization and the creation of a
collective identity not limited to the workplace. , and in this sense it
is potentially favorable to the autonomy of the struggle. What can no
longer be done at the level of a company must then be considered on the
scale of a territory with other workers in a logic that transcends
sectoral or union boundaries. With a dynamic and autonomous local
"interpro", we are not that far from a workers' council or a soviet!

What will become of the unions?
Theoretically, several possibilities exist.
A revival of unionism under the pressure of union members who cannot
resolve to be nothing more than transmission belts for political
objectives? There will of course be attempts of this kind, but the
history of union oppositions - at the CFDT and FO first, then at the CGT
- which all exhausted themselves by wanting to be caliph in place of the
caliph and we heavily failed, does not encourage us to be optimistic in
that regard.
A pure and simple disappearance? Unlikely: the return to favor of the
unions was especially highlighted by the media and the State, who
praised their great sense of responsibility. If only to assume this
role, there is no question that they will disappear little by little.
The employers have taken measures to ensure that they continue to exist.
They can then gradually become a sort of lobby for particular categories
of stable workers... which presents for employers the disadvantage of
leaving other precarious and volatile categories without supervision,
with the danger of uncontrolled social explosions. The unions would then
be replaced or simply gradually compete with new forms of protest, such
as the yellow vests or territorial struggles.
This is an ongoing process whose progress will need to be monitored. But
in this case the challenge for the future is to know how the militant
base of the unions will position itself in this new configuration.

Towards a new configuration?
When we try to draw some lessons from the months of struggle against
pension reform, we remain within the fairly traditional framework of
what we call the workers' movement, which until a few decades ago was
the provider of the vast majority of social movements. But this is no
longer the case now. This assessment must be made in a context of the
emergence of movements which, if they are not really new, have recently
taken on a significant dimension (yellow vests, so-called
environmentalist struggles, suburbs/immigration, with the feminist
struggles which crosses all. These are forms of social protest which
carry within them emancipatory perspectives and which participate fully
in the class struggle in the same way as the movement on pensions. A
whole which cannot be analyzed separately.

Taking stock of the 14 days of action against pension reform in no way
means being content to think that we have lost and that those in power
have won. Firstly because the issue was not where political correctness
claimed it to be. 65 or 64 years old was not the question, but a pretext
for a confrontation. For power as for us. For him, it was about winning
a prestigious victory in order to crush any attempt at revival of a
social movement. For us, it was about resisting, fighting, being in the
streets, in order to strengthen ourselves as a class. The important
thing in this new sequence which is beginning is to be able to discern
where the balance of power stands between the classes. And it is not
said that these months of struggle have not participated, in the same
way as the new movements mentioned above, in a rebalancing in a class
struggle that has been too favorable to the bourgeoisie for around
thirty years.

Le scribe

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article3961
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