How are revolutionary wage struggles and unions made?
In December last year I published an article on this topic with the Institute for Anarchist Studies. It received some interesting responses and I am still in conversation with comrades about these. In the next while I plan to write here about some of these responses and discussions. For now, here is a list of some of the issues discussed:
Institutionalisation. The article celebrates worker organising outside of the official institutions of labour relations and outside the mainstream unions who are adapted to functioning inside those institutions. Does this mean that when worker-initiated, unregistered unions decide to register they will be subjected to the same forces that led to the cooption and neutralisation (as revolutionary forces) of the mainstream unions? Or can they be registered and revolutionary?
Feminism. Does the inclusion of women’s struggles inside revolutionary wage struggles require feminist politics? What does that mean for union building?
Self-described revolutionaries. The article uses this term and the question is what does it mean and is it a term that implies normative judgment on whether people are good, bad or fake revolutionaries.
Dual unionism. How should revolutionary unionists relate to mainstream reformist and conservative unions?
Reforms, reformism and revolutionism. How does the article understand these terms and the relations between them? Do the demands of the workers discussed in the article fall within the framework of capitalism?
Posts around these and other issues relating to the theme of revolutionary wage struggles will appear from next week.