What we do in the workplaces and unions

Submitted by Anon on 5 March, 2006 - 12:10

The hope of changing the labour movement lies with its rank-and-file members. We concentrate our efforts not just on calling for resolutions to be passed and rule changes to be made, but fundamentally on helping and encouraging workers to organise, to stand up for themselves collectively, to develop a collective class
identity, and to fight for control in the workplace. We work to rebuild the unions from the ground up.

As the American Marxist Hal Draper put it:

"Other socialist groups have oriented themselves to the intellectuals and intelligentsia, and still others to the working class. They oriented themselves in these directions because they believed that these were green fields for recruitment. Now, that is one way of looking at social sections. It is not the movement of a class itself which will re-make society - it is your 'army.' And for the purpose of recruiting your army, you orient yourself to different sectors of society.

"That whole approach is completely alien to Marxism. For Marx and for Marx alone the significance of working class socialism was not simply that you orient to this class because you can get the most out of them, but that it is this class which, when it gets into motion, shakes the foundations of apitalist society".

And the place where workers come together as workers, and can most easily understand their collective identity and strength as workers, is the workplace.

Workplace activity is central for us in Workers' Liberty. We publish workplace bulletins such as Tubeworker and Postalworker which are written by and for workers in a particular industry or workplace. These bulletins enable workers to see that their individual problems at work are not individual but part of a collective fight against exploitation. They argue for solidarity and against sexism, racism and homophobia on the job.

We encourage ordinary union members to be organise themselves and take control in their unions. We are not content just to have more women in top union jobs and a more gender-balanced bureaucracy. We want union officials to be elected for short fixed terms and paid an average worker's wage. We want them to be genuinely representative of and accountable to their members.

We campaign systematically in each industry to level up pay and conditions to the best, and to organise the casual, ancillary and contracted-out workforce alongside the "core" workers. The unions need to recruit new members - not just by signing them up to offer them individual services, but by giving workers the facilities and the support they need in order to organise themselves and win improvements in their pay and conditions.

We take part in broad left groups and caucuses inside the unions, though generally we are critical of their limp approach, excessively focused on winning internal elections. We agitate for rank and file movements in every union, organised around fighting policies and promoting union democracy.

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