Industrial Workers of the World

Issues of and articles from the Tea Break workers' bulletin, formerly named Dispatch, predominantly about workplace disputes.

http://libcom.org/tags/tea-break

A concise background to the current finanical crisis and recession.

However it may seem, the current crisis didn’t come out of nowhere. Following WWII, the government and employers were keen to appease a population weary from years of war and rationing. The NHS was founded in 1948, and the opportunity for a reconstruction boom created the possibility of ‘productivity deals.’

These were agreements between employers and the unions for workers to implement productivity improvements in return for a share of the profits in the form of higher wages. This settlement lasted up until the late 1960s, when two factors converged to derail it. Firstly, there was a growing wave of industrial unrest with strikes and other forms of action rippling out around the world. Many of these took the form of wildcat action outside of union control. Workers were fed up with years of producing more and more while their lives were still reduced to work, as all that extra productivity hadn’t led to shorter hours.

The second factor was the end of the post-war boom, which saw economic growth slow dramatically – making productivity deals unaffordable if profit levels were to be maintained. It also saw rising inflation eat away at the wage improvements over the last decade, adding fuel to the fire of workers militancy. The struggles of this period were highly successful, with workers winning large concessions. However, this set the stage for a concerted counter-attack.

At the end of the 70s, Margaret Thatcher came to power in the UK on a mission to break the working class. Reagan soon followed in the US. Both of them isolated and took on workers sector by sector, doing deals with some unions while attacking others in a divide and rule strategy. The decisive defeats were the miners’ strike of 1984/5 in the UK, and Reagan’s attack on the air traffic controllers in the US in 1981. These are defeats from which we’ve yet to recover.

With workers broken, Thatcher and Reagan set about a series of reforms which set the scene for today’s crisis. Firstly, old centres of workers militancy (mining, manufacturing) were systematically dismantled and outsourced to low-wage economies overseas. Whereas in the UK in 1971 over 70% of people were employed in primary industries (like mining) or manufacturing, today over 70% of workers are in the service sector. Secondly, the banking sector was massively deregulated, allowing the creation of all sorts of complicated ‘derivatives’ markets, which ultimately resulted in the credit crunch as it proved impossible to know what all these pieces of paper were really worth.

An effect of breaking workers militancy was of course to keep wages down, and we’ve all got used to sub-inflation pay rises every year (i.e. pay cuts). While this boosts profits, the problem with this is that it keeps consumer spending - and thus economic growth - down, since you can’t buy lots of things when you’re skint. Unless of course you get a credit card. So this problem was ‘solved’ by extending massive consumer credit, based mostly on rising house prices, to provide the spending power to purchase all those commodities coming out of the new manufacturing centres in the far east and elsewhere.

Parallel to this, without primary industries or manufacturing the economy came to rely more and more on the banking and financial sector, with the ‘square mile’ of the City of London alone accounting for around 5% of the UK’s economy. This sector was also now heavily reliant on rising house prices, with complicated ‘mortgage derivatives’ being one of the major assets held by the big banks. Of course when the housing bubble burst, everything started to unravel.

Household name banks teetered on the brink of collapse, as did the entire financial system. Credit dried up, and with it the economy swung into recession. There is much talk comparing it to the collapse of 1929, except nobody knows how bad it’s going to get, and this time it’s global. Already there have been riots by workers laid off from thousands of factories in China, and food riots across the globe as food prices rise much faster than incomes. This then is the context for the coming ‘claw back’ attacks on our living standards that are set to try and make us pay for a crisis that was not of our making.

Written for the Tea Break bulletin in December 2008.

from strategy discussion

Mass meetings should be seen as an alternative structure to official union structures that are dominated by full-time bureaucrats. Decisions are made collectively in these assemblies. The work of these assemblies in different workplaces should be co-ordinated by delegate councils. In the most militants workforces regular mass meetings will be held and this is obviously the ideal we are aiming at. This may not be possible in other workplaces where it will only be possible to organise such meetings when a dispute arises. We need a three-pronged approach to the business of actually setting up an independent organisation at work.

1. In a workplace with a recognised TUC union this would involve organising workplace assemblies to make collective decisions on workplace issues. However, workers will still be likely to hold union cards here to avoid splits in the workplace between union members and non-union members.

2. In a non-unionised workplace, independent unions, based on the principle of collective decision-making, should be set up wherever possible.

3. In a non-unionised workplace, that is difficult to organise due to a high turnover of staff or a large number of temps, we should just call workers assemblies when a dispute arises.

Rank and File Control

Decisions should be made collectively. This means they are made by mass meetings, not by officials in union offices. These mass meetings include all those in the workplace, regardless of union membership. It will not, however, include scabs or managers. Anyone we elect to negotiate with management should have a mandate from the workforce that gives them clear guidance on what is and is not acceptable. Mass meetings of workers need to be able to recall all delegates.

Direct Action

Direct action at work means strikes, go-slows, working-to-rule, occupations and boycotts. We are opposed to the alternative which is 'partnership' with bosses. Workers can only win serious concessions from management when industrial action is used or when bosses fear it might be.

Solidarity

Solidarity with other workers is the key to victory. Workers should support each others' disputes despite the anti-trade union laws. We need to approach other workers directly for their support. 'Don't Cross Picket Lines!'

Control of Funds

Strike funds need to be controlled by the workers themselves. Officials will refuse to fund unlawful solidarity action. Union bureaucrats use official backing and strike pay to turn action on and off like a tap. Unions use a large proportion of their political funds on sponsoring parliamentary candidates. Backing the Labour Party is not in the interests of workers. We should also not fall into the trap of backing so-called 'socialist' candidates.

The Parliamentary system is about working class people giving up power and control, not exercising it. Social Change The interests of the working class lie in the destruction of capitalist society.

The whole of the wealth of society is produced by the workers. However, a portion of this is converted into profits for the shareholders and business people who own the means of production.

When workers make wage demands, they are simply trying to win a bigger share of what is rightfully their own. This means that trade union organisation around traditional bread and butter issues is not enough on its own, although it is vital. As well as a structure of mass meetings and delegates there also needs to be a specifically anarcho-syndicalist presence in any workplace organisation. This will necessarily involve only a minority of workers in the present time.

The role of anarcho-syndicalist militants is not to control the workplace organisation but to put forward an anarcho-syndicalist perspective in the meetings of the workplace organisation and attempt to gain broad support for our aims and principles, through propaganda work.