Trade Unions – Are They Fit For Purpose?

Saturday, January 29th, 2011

Registration 10. 30 for 11. 00 – 16.30

Out of the Blue Centre,
Dalmeny Street,
Leith
Edinburgh

In both the UK and Ireland today, the overwhelming majority of trade union leaders have signed up to social partnerships. These effectively reduce unions to a free personnel management service for the employers. However, the traditional Broad Left response of electing alternative leaders has shown itself unable to counter social partnerships. Indeed many current union leaders, who now accept social partnership, were themselves earlier Broad Left members. The third Global Commune event, jointly sponsored by the Republican Communist Network and the commune, asks the question – Trade unions – Are they fit for purpose? A number of different approaches to organising workers will be discussed in workshops over the day.

Cost

£5 for full-time employed
£2 for others

First session 11.00 – 12. 30

Panel followed by workshop sessions and follow up plenary

1. Working within trade unions – the rank and file perspective – Allan Armstrong

Allan is a member of the Republican Communist Network and the commune group. He was the convenor of Lothian Rank & File Teachers and involved in the three month long independent industrial action of Scottish teachers in the mid-70’s. He later became the Chair of the first regional Anti-Poll Tax Union, which was formed in Lothian.

2. Working with the IWW – Alberto Durango

Alberto is a member of the Latin American Workers Association, UNITE and the IWW. He is worker from Colombia who has been centrally involved in the campaigns of migrant workers cleaner in London. This culminated in an attempt to victimise him by the Swiss bank, UBS, which prompted a solidarity campaign. UNITE union officials tried to sabotage this, so Alberto has looked to the IWW (which comes from an industrial unionist tradition) to organise cleaners.

3. Building the Independent Workers Union – Tommy McKearney

Tommy is an organiser for the Independent Workers Union in Ireland. He is also the editor of Fourthwrite, a journal designed to promote debate amongst communists, socialists and republicans. Ireland was the first place in these islands where a government/employer/trade union social partnership was formed. The IWU was created to organise workers opposing social partnership.

4. Supporting workers from outside – an autonomist perspective – Mike Vallance

Mike comes from an autonomist tradition, writes for Counterinformation and is involved in the Autonomous Centre for Edinburgh (ACE). Mike was a dedicated activist in the anti-poll tax struggle. ACE has recently been providing support to the street cleaners employed by Edinburgh City Council. They have been involved in a longstanding dispute, hamstrung by local UNITE officials.

How do communists organise in trade unions? – Stuart King

Stuart is a member of Permanent Revolution. He will be drawing on the experience of the Minority Movement in the early Communist Party to show possible lessons for today.

Second Session 1.30 – 15.00

Community unionism – Should trade union membership be confined to employed workers? Patricia Campbell and Paul Stewart

Patricia is a member of the IWU and has been centrally involved in health workers struggles in Belfast. She has also been to Palestine to examine the health implications of the Israeli occupation. Paul is co-author of We Sell Our Time No More – Workers Struggles Against Lean Production in the British Car Industry. He has produced a short film, which will be shown. This shows examples of union organisation in the community, particularly in Japan.

Workshops

15.00 – 15.15 – break

Third Session 15.15 – 16.30

Repeat workshops followed by plenary

There will be a chance to continue the discussion informally afterwards.

Further information can be had by contacting Allan Armstrong at:-

allan.armstrong.1949@hotmail.co.uk

It is now 20 years since the collapse of the Berlin Wall. For most people this signalled the end of communism. However, there has always been another view, which understands that the USSR and its satellites and emulators were never communist, socialist or workers’ states. They represented the negation of communism. The socialist transition is not based upon ‘The State’ taking over the functions of private capital, nor ‘The Party’ taking over the functions of a self-organised working class.

Today we face the worst economic crisis for nearly eighty years, accompanied by growing environmental deterioration, and increased powerlessness and loss of hope. Yet the majority of socialists today are not prepared to make the case for a viable alternative social order to get us beyond the ever-deepening capitalist crisis. Often we get little more than vague populist sloganeering – ‘Make Poverty History’ or ‘Make Greed History’. To most workers these sound as hollow as the world of ‘virtual reality’ pushed by the corporate media to divert our attention from the very mundane, or sometimes, desperate reality, we face in our everyday lives. Furthermore, calls for people’s largely passive support through five minutes spent at the polling station can seem a poor alternative, even compared to the promise of ‘five minutes of fame’ in the corporate media spotlight.

Pushing for more state intervention (never asking whose state they seeking to further strengthen), or opting for purely local initiatives (which may be desirable, but limited in their impact) can never break the overall control of corporate capital and the even bleaker future its continued rule will bring to our world. We need to highlight the impasse their corporate imperialism has brought us to, and the grave threats involved in all attempts to bolster their capitalist order. We need to think internationally.

Rosa Luxemburg once said that if we fail to overturn capitalism, we would face ‘Socialism or Barbarism’. Ever worsening exploitation and oppression, two devastating world wars, countless brutal imperial interventions and recurrent economic crises, mean we should update this to say ‘Genuine Communism, or Barbarism – if you are lucky’.

Genuine communism means complete human emancipation and liberation, where society is organised on the basis of ‘From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs’, and ‘Where the free development of each is the condition of the free development of all.’ The socialist transition involves workers creating this new society using new forms of association in a global commune. We need to build upon workers’, peasants’ and indigenous people’s current resistance and outline a communist vision which develops their independent class struggles and offers humanity a real alternative.

This is why, the RCN, with the support of The Commune, has organised The Global Commune day school so that socialists today can lift their sights higher, and begin to seriously discuss how we can break free of the legacy of ‘official’ and ‘dissident’ Communism, and begin to create the type of society that we wish to live in, if humanity is to have a real future. Come and join us. Register your intention to take part on:-

globalcommune@republicancommunist.org

The Global Commune

Day School organised by the Republican Communist Network and supported by The Commune

Saturday, January 16th, 2010
11.00 – 17.00

Out of the Blue Centre
Dalmeny Street (off Leith Walk)
Edinburgh

1. Opening session – 11:00 am – 13:00 – Platform speakers from the RCN and The Commune followed by an open session.
2. Lunch – 13:.00 – 14:00
3. Workshops – 14:00 – 14:45
   1. The Legacy of Official and Dissident Communism – or What Communism Isn’t
   2. How Do Communists organise and operate?
   3. What Would Real Communism Look Like?
4. Break – 15 minutes
5. Workshops repeated – 15:00 – 15:45
6. Report Back and Plenary Session – 15:45 – 16:45
7. Summing up by platform speakers – 16:45 – 17:00.

Republican Communist Network
The Commune