(en) France, UCL AL #367 - Trade Unionism - Viewpoint: Bullshit Jobs/Strategic Sectors, Two Traps to Break the Strike (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation] Behind this tactic, in vogue within certain Trotskyist or reformist organizations, lies a conception of the strike that is primarily a means of obtaining something external to itself. The strike would thus not be the space where our class directly builds its own power. Instead of strengthening the collective autonomy of the strikers, there would be a need for a minority leadership that alone would be supposed to interpret and guide the movement. Alas, capitalism forms a totality; each sector participates in economic life, and no activity is external to the system.
By popularizing "bullshit jobs"[1], David Graeber put words to the widespread feeling that many jobs are absurd or meaningless. But this subjective unease does not mean that these jobs are useless from the perspective of capital. Managing, monitoring, stimulating consumption, creating competition among workers... Even socially absurd tasks serve a purpose in the great machine of profit maximization.
The notions of "bullshit jobs" or "strategic sectors" produce practical effects in our struggles: a feeling of powerlessness, "If I go on strike, it's pointless." Many then delegate their strike to others, contenting themselves with contributing to strike funds. When these funds become a substitute for work stoppages, they transform the struggle into a spectacle where a few sectors fight while others pay from the outside. Until the state sends in its contingent of bullshit jobbers armed with flashballs and requisitions the last isolated strikers.
The strength of a strike lies not in its position within the supply chain, but in its ability to connect with others. Reducing the strategy to mere disruption or economic blockade is to adopt the employer's perspective. It's to think of the strike using the tools of the very power it opposes, as if its value were measured in financial losses rather than collective strength. A strike is only worth what it builds by creating connections and a collective consciousness.
Therefore, every work stoppage becomes strategic. When these stoppages connect, the entire system grinds to a halt. The strike then becomes a moment when we constitute ourselves as political subjects. When we regain control over what we produce. When we collectively decide on the social use of our skills. Another organization of production can therefore emerge, free from market logic and built by and for those who work... across all sectors.
Tom (UCL Montpellier)
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[1]David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs, Les Liens qui libèrent, September 2019, 448 pages, EUR8.90.
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Point-de-vue-Bullshit-job-secteurs-strategiques-deux-pieges-pour-casser-la
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