The season of strikes in Italy: A summing up
The wave of workers mobilisation in response to the latest Government attacks has been wrecked on the barricade of capitalist reaction. Once again the state trade union apparatus, has served as capitalism’s first line of defence, the first bulwark against the tide of workers struggle. So far it remains intact, but the labouring class has certainly shown that it isn’t down on its knees, nor cowed by capitalism’s excessive use of force. Instinctively and spontaneously the workers took to the streets, in defiance of the unions which had ruled out mobilisation, and the cities of Italy were invaded with the biggest demonstrations we’ve seen for ages.
The unions would be compelled to recognise the de facto existence of the strikes and declare them ’official’ after the fact, but only in order to sow divisions and break them up. This time, however, the union mandarins from the Confederation would not find their ’flock’ so submissive and trusting. Not only the hangman’s treaty of July 31st1 caused them to be heckled and booed, but their record of years upon years of selling out; the false promises; the abandonment and suffocation of even the workers’ most elementary requirements; the shady deals and contracts struck with Government, in a word, collaboration with the bosses. The gauntlet has been thrown down in the piazzas at the union’s feet.
The union bosses response to these ’trouble-makers’, the only one they know, has been to shout them down, and call on the forces of repression for assistance. From the safety of their speaker’s platforms they would ask for police protection to allow them to continue to spew forth their lies and demagogism onto the angry crowds below. Not even the most unprepared could have equivocated at that moment: those stony faces facing the demonstrators, surrounded by a bodyguard of police equipped with riot-shields and batons to maintain Law and Order. At demonstrations all over Italy, from Naples to Florence, from Ancona to Milan the union bigwigs would be showered with missiles, vegetables, fruit, coins, red paint and bolts and be drowned out in a rain of insults – “traitors”, “sell-outs”, “serviles”. In Sicily the police would even be seen confiscating tomatoes from demonstrators busily engaged in vigorous target-practice sessions. Union offices would be occupied. These are not “leaders who make mistakes”, but representatives of the capitalist regime engaged in a show of strength. It is very revealing that Big union boss Trentin, under a hail of bolts, would accidentally let slip; “it’s hard, but that’s what we’re paid for”.
The rank-and-file activists, those who like to present themselves as the “healthy body” of the CGL have been just as bad though. We saw them in Rome on October 2nd, batons in hand, side by side with the police regimenting and controlling the demonstrations, preventing heckling and protests, and laying the way open to police charges when required.
Impressive strikes notwithstanding, the Confederationists haven’t lifted a finger against the Government measures. Indeed, once warned that the pressure from below was easing off, the usual prevaricating would start which would lead eventually to everything being called off. They haven’t even bothered to try and save face somehow, apart, that is, from the usual CGL attempt at using the alibi of unity with the other two big Trade Union confederations (the CISL and UIL) which, as always, is used to justify the dirty tricks pushed through at the workers’ expense. It is at this point that an operation to head off the protests in the piazzas begins in earnest whose express aim is to prevent the protests developing in the direction of reorganisation in a classist sense, outside and against the Trade Union confederation, and recuperate them instead to the state trade unions.
As a matter of fact, in the course of these struggles the organisations which we have come to designate as “base committees” have been quite influential. In existence for some time now in various sectors of public employment and recently in industry as well, they are, with varying degrees of determination and coherence, mobilising against official state condoned unionism and issuing calls to class struggle and organisation.
In these organisations we have also seen evidence of an opposition to the so-called “union left”. The latter’s representatives are groups and tendencies organised both inside and outside the official union confederation which claim to represent the disaffection and dissent that is affecting the rank-and-file, and aim to channel this potential rebellion into a fruitless and inconclusive opposition: into a “protest” against the line taken by the leaders, whilst offering the illusory prospect of a new-type of State union. On the organisational and programmatic level, this tendency manifests itself in the attempt to discourage and prevent any revolt which aims at an open break with the union confederation and also to discourage any struggle and strikes which haven’t received its official sanction. Often the pretext for adopting such positions is that such actions allegedly wouldn’t muster a sufficient following, or that they would result in isolation, a “coming unstuck” from the majority of workers. It is a tendency which also finds representatives amongst currents within the confederations comprising functionaries and leaders who, hitherto, have been busily involved in cobbling together the dirty compromises of the nationalist patriotic unions. Bertinotti and his Essere Sindacato [“Union Being”] – note the exquisitely existential flavour – is a good example, as are the group of CGL “colonels” who have recently begun to adopt the same language. Equally this tendency may also be found in organisations which have already left the confederation but which, under its influence, still end up carrying out a work of recuperation by stifling initiatives aiming at an open break.
There is no doubt that this “left-wing unionism” will meet with a considerable degree of success given the immaturity of the movement which, whilst it has come to understand that the union leaders have betrayed them, isn’t yet strong enough to jettison the CGIL and start the work of reorganisation into a classist union from scratch.
Left-wing unionism and moves to bring about a “renewal” of the CGIL are entirely barren, directed as they are towards hindering the movement which has found expression over these last couple of months. Only now that the spontaneous mobilisation has reached the point of exhaustion do we see this “renewing” tendency emerging out of the woodwork with increased confidence. Today it is the selfsame confederation bosses who are pushing in this direction. We see them agonising over the crisis in the CGIL and suddenly opposing the very line which they initiated. Even the media has taken up the cause, and suddenly there is much tub-thumping about how the union has become ’bureaucratic’ and doesn’t respect the workers’ opinions. There must be reforms, renewals, changes, modifications!
All seem to be agreed on one thing: that there must be more “internal democracy”. All decisions should be made by assemblies and referendums of the workers (the so-called ’binding consultations’), and leaders should derive their mandates from these as well. To guarantee this there is even a call to get the State to pass a law which would allow the rank-and-file to appeal to tribunals to invalidate decisions taken by the union leaders which hadn’t met with their approval2. This doesn’t give us a picture of a class union. Above all, a class union can be considered as such insofar as it expresses a political stance and a line of action, consistent with the workers interests, which is recognised, endorsed and legitimated by mass mobilisation of the workers. This isn’t the same thing as formal consultations and referendums, where workers who are real fighters carry the same weight as blacklegs and all the tinpot leaderettes, and where the most combative and farsighted workers’ sections are put on a par with those most prone to adopting purely sectoral and particularist positions. In this sense we agree with Trentin who, worried about ’balkanisation (…) where each abdicates a general role and deals with reality in a piecemeal fashion’, declares that ’to speak of binding consultation is pure demagoguery’. Naturally we are aiming at opposed ends, but it is still true that no organisation, the government union maybe but certainly not the class union, can exist on such a basis.
From demagoguery these gentlemen thence proceed to open repudiation of the principles of classist unionism by calling the State, representing the class enemy, to pronounce on the rules of the workers’ union. Their wish may well be granted, with additional rules that ’democratically’ establish when a strike is allowed to take place, as in Germany for instance where there must be a 70% consensus expressed in a referendum. What a brilliant achievement that is! It almost appears that left-wing unionism wishes to march in the direction of a fully fledged State union even faster than the leaders we’ve got at the moment!
All of a sudden the Factory Councils, more or less in thrall to the confederations, realise that they are the first to suffer pressure from the rank-and-file. Operating as a kind of shock-absorber between the discontent and anger of the workers, the bosses, and the line imposed on them by the confederations, they have resolved to embrace the positions of the union left. The reality is that in their meetings we see a struggle going on between totally pissed off workers and a leadership that aims at all costs at preventing a split and at leading the movement back into the confederation sheepfold. The leaders have prevailed and, given the immaturity of the movement, we couldn’t really expect otherwise. Thus it is that the councils movement is portrayed as the ’healthy heart’ that yet beats in the corpse of the union in order to take on the function of point of reference for the recuperated workers protests.
The confederationists wish to avoid recommending strike action, and leave it to the councils to do so. Trentin gives his support: “We must congratulate them [the councils – ed.], they are making an important contribution to the entire trade union movement”. Will there be a break with Union boss Del Turco, the CISL and UIL who are hostile to the strike? There is a contrived atmosphere of tension but nothing happens: everyone is happy that it should be so. The mobilisation is in the hands of the CGIL via the councils and not in the hands of the “extraconfederal rebels”. That is the important thing. The workers fall in behind the confederal banners and stop heckling the union.
The ensuing assembly of the Councils doesn’t fix a date for the strike but decides to “consult the rank-and-file”, a fine excuse to postpone everything indefinitely.
At the CGIL meeting in Montecatini, Cagna, one of the leaders of the council movement, gives a very clear description of the latter’s function; “this movement, the Councils of delegates which took action when all seemed lost, are keeping the workers behind the Union. But it is we who are now at the hub”. Yes, surrendering your accounts in the eye of the storm. This particular tempest may have blown over, but it won’t be the last, and next time we suspect we may see you, Cagna, Bertinotti and Co., up there on the platforms with the Trentins – ducking the bolts and being heckled at.
For the time being, the CGIL will be marching to order, but even if Trentin and Montecatini are running with the hare and hunting with the hounds in order to keep the sideshow going, they nevertheless concede to none of the councils demands who return home empty-handed. But no-one is greatly traumatised down at CGIL Ltd: the opposition, in the shape of Bertinotti has simply been playing his part and isn’t dismissed from the board of directors, meanwhile there is the ’third pole’ blandished by the councils which provides a ’left’ cover for Trentin, who for his part avoids breaking with Del Turco, the CISL and the UIL. In a game of brinkmanship and compromises, the union parliament draws to a close, and once again the bond of anti-worker solidarity which links all the different union currents is reasserted.
What is certain is that path to class reorganisation will not come about through such meetings. Abandoning the government unions, renouncing the false opposition, opportunism and mystifications of the union left, that is the way forward.
Let us then draw our conclusions. The spontaneous nature of the recent attempts to reject the old union apparatus meant that it was doomed to failure. To maintain a struggle of such wide significance and generality there is a need for an organisation which unifies and marshals the forces available, the co-ordinations and vanguard workers. Determination is needed in the struggle, but also knowing when to put a break on the movement at the right moment. This is important in preventing wasted energy, and also means that the continuity of the movement can be a maintained even in periods of reflux, when preparations can be made for ensuing struggles. In a word, this organisation must allow the workers to move as a class in defence of its own interests.
It isn’t possible for this organisation to be the CGIL as it is indissolubly linked to the fortunes of Capital and its regime. A new organisation must arise: the class union.
The protests in the piazzas against the union bosses have only been a first step in this direction. The majority of workers didn’t move beyond it. What is nevertheless certain is that there has been a reinforcing of the positions of those groups of workers who have been operating outside and against the unions for some time, who have declared, more or less clearly, for the reorganisation of the class union. Particularly now, with the movement falling back, is it necessary that such groups and committees should become a point of reference and clearly distinguish themselves from the government union and its policies, and the first task is to establish an unbroachable barrier between themselves and the union left. Neither giving in to the illusions still harboured by workers, nor demanding immediate successes or mobilisation at all costs, that is the way forward to the real class union.
Indirizzo per la rinascita del sindacato di classe
1. L’approfondirsi della crisi economica del capitalismo spinge il padronato a scaricarne i dolorosi effetti sui lavoratori. Finito in tutti i paesi il ciclo di enormi profitti per le classi agiate, che consentivano alcuni minimi ed effimeri miglioramenti salariali e normativi, per altro ottenuti con dure lotte costate decine di morti negli scontri fra scioperanti e polizia, oggi bruscamente il capitale ed il suo Stato premono per precipitare di nuovo i lavoratori nella miseria e nella insicurezza più totale. Questo attacco è portato dagli Stati ai lavoratori contemporaneamente in tutti i paesi, d’Europa e fuori, dell’Est come dell’Ovest, dei paesi poveri come di quelli cosiddetti “ricchi”.
2. Per impedire la spontanea reazione difensiva dei lavoratori sono schierate tutte le forze del regime borghese, dal Governo alle polizie alla televisione alla stampa, che sono e saranno sempre pronti a qualsiasi violenza intimidazione e menzogna per difendere i privilegi dei capitalisti, fosse pure riducendo la classe operaia alla disperazione e alla fame.
3. Strumenti indispensabili per contrastare la mobilitazione degli sfruttati sono divenuti i Sindacati riconosciuti ufficialmente dallo Stato, confederali e autonomi, le cui azioni pratiche sono venute a coincidere con quelle di una polizia speciale contro i lavoratori.
La CGIL, che rinasceva nel dopoguerra ereditando dai Sindacati fascisti la ideologia corporativa dell’interesse nazionale al quale i lavoratori tutti si dovrebbero sottomettere, negli ultimi decenni è diventata sempre più chiusa alle richieste di difesa e di lotta degli operai, che sempre più spesso dovevano rinunciarvi e subire le angherie padronali, i licenziamenti ecc., o organizzarsi e scioperare al di fuori di essa. Questo progressivo rendersi inutilizzabile della CGIL per la lotta di classe (mentre CISL e UIL lo sono dalla nascita), è divenuta oggi confermata, totale e irreversibile: la unanime contestazione nelle piazze di milioni di operai di tutte le categorie non ha per nulla commosso la CGIL che si dimostra inespugnabile per qualsiasi pur blando compromesso con posizioni di lotta di classe. I dirigenti pur di non passar di mano il microfono fanno schierare i carabinieri. Davanti agli occhi di tutti CGIL-CISL-UIL e regime borghese sono ormai una cosa sola.
4. Si impone quindi oggi agli sfruttati la ricostruzione del proprio forte, fedele e combattivo SINDACATO DI CLASSE, espressione permanente dell’odio degli oppressi verso la loro condizione e delle loro lotte di resistenza alla sconfinata bramosia dei capitalisti. Una organizzazione che emani dalla classe lavoratrice e solo ad essa risponda, che non si assuma responsabilità alcuna nei confronti delle classi borghesi, della loro economia e della loro nazione essendo il suo scopo dichiarato difendere i lavoratori contro di esse.
Di fronte all’attacco capitalista che è coordinato ed unitario i lavoratori si presentano divisi, per fabbriche, categorie, località: solo in un Sindacato di classe esteso e spontaneamente disciplinato nelle azioni possono presentarsi uniti allo scontro.
Per raggiungere la massima mobilitazione il Sindacato di classe ha sempre reclutato non sulla base di una particolare ideologia ma chiunque si trovi nella condizione oggettiva di lavoratore, indipendentemente dalle sue simpatie politiche. Alla classe occorrono le funzioni sia del Sindacato sia del suo Partito politico, che sono però diverse sebbene complementari e richiedono organizzazioni distinte. Ipotizzare la costituzione di un Sindacato formato di soli rivoluzionari o di soli comunisti, o di un’organizzazione ibrida, a metà strada fra Sindacato e Partito, sarebbe condannarlo fino dalla nascita all’impotenza ed abbandonare a se stessa, cioè al sindacalismo di regime, la maggioranza del proletariato. Per converso pretendere la “indipendenza dei partiti”, nel senso di impedire l’adesione e la parola ai lavoratori militanti di partito, significherebbe consegnare il sindacato al “partito diffuso” della ideologia borghese dominante che si infiltra per cento vie anche fra gli operai.
5. La cosiddetta “sinistra sindacale”, manovrata dall’interno delle gerarchie confederali, con enunciazioni equivoche e apparentemente combattive, cerca di convincere i lavoratori a confidare ancora nei sindacati del regime. Lo scopo reale è seminare confusione per ritardare la vera riorganizzazione e mobilitazione generale. La sinistra sindacale, con la sua richiesta tipica di “democrazia nel sindacato” inganna i lavoratori: non è che il sindacato si è venduto ai padroni perché non risponde abbastanza alla base, al contrario, non può più ubbidire ai lavoratori perché è passato, e per sempre, dalla parte dei padroni. Indurre quindi gli operai ad impegnarsi per ottenere ascolto da questi dirigenti è solo una manovra dilatoria.
6. SCOPO del Sindacato di classe è la difesa delle condizioni di vita e di lavoro della classe operaia. Si intende questa nel suo significato più ampio di insieme di prestatori d’opera, non proprietari degli strumenti del loro lavoro, qualunque sia la forma di retribuzione: comprende quindi manuali e intellettuali, produttivi e improduttivi, dipendenti da un padrone individuo, da una cooperativa di padroni, dallo Stato. Sono esclusi i membri delle altre classi, cioè capitalisti anche piccoli e minimi (artigiani e contadini) e strati attraversanti più classi (inquilini, studenti, ecc.). Sono invece organizzati i pensionati e i disoccupati, non separatamente ma nella rispettiva categoria di provenienza.
Rivendicazioni dei lavoratori che il Sindacato di classe fa sue tradizionalmente tendono alla difesa dei salari, con speciale considerazione per i livelli più bassi, la riduzione dell’orario di lavoro, la difesa dei pensionati e dei disoccupati per i quali si chiede un salario sufficiente alla sopravvivenza delle loro famiglie.
7. I MEZZI che il Sindacato di classe si prepara ad usare per imporre le sue rivendicazioni alla classe padronale e al suo Stato si riducono all’azione diretta dei lavoratori in iniziative di sciopero senza limiti di estensione, adeguata all’asprezza della resistenza borghese. È da respingere per principio l’affidare la condizione operaia al risultato di referendum cui partecipano tutte le classi così come al voto del parlamento borghese e alle sentenze dei tribunali. Il migliore dispiegarsi della forza della classe si ha nella mobilitazione generale e ad oltranza di tutte le categorie, nel rigetto delle regolamentazioni oggi imposte dalla borghesia e accettate dai sindacati di regime, dalle limitazioni nel tempo e nello spazio, all’obbligo dei preavvisi, dei sevizi minimi e della sospensione degli scioperi durante le trattative.
Al Sindacato di classe è indispensabile una organizzazione territoriale esterna ai luoghi di lavoro (nella tradizione delle Camere del Lavoro) dove le rappresentanze di fabbrica e i singoli lavoratori dispersi in piccole e piccolissime unità produttive si possano regolarmente incontrare, rafforzarsi e coordinare le iniziative.
Il Consiglio di fabbrica conserva necessariamente una visione limitata all’ambito aziendale che può essere molto parziale se non in contrasto con le necessità del movimento in generale: è per questo un errore porlo sullo stesso piano del Sindacato di classe o preconizzare una rete di Consigli organizzata indipendentemente, in parallelo o in alternativa, al Sindacato. È attraverso l’organizzazione in Sindacato che i lavoratori superano la limitatezza della fabbrica e poi anche del settore e della categoria, per arrivare a mobilitarsi come classe in difesa di interessi comuni.
8. Non esistono ricette organizzative che garantiscano del corretto indirizzo di classe. In questo senso la richiesta di applicazione dei principi della democrazia sindacale (assemblee deliberanti, consultazioni e referendum) non risolve il problema della ricostruzione dell’organizzazione sindacale classista. In situazioni di riflusso il responso della base può essere molto controverso e fuorviante, se non addirittura contrario agli interessi della classe; d’altronde non possono essere messi sullo stesso piano lavoratori in lotta e crumiri, strati operai combattivi e aristocrazie operaie o impiegatizie che possono mirare a dividersi dal movimento per difendere interessi particolari. È inoltre da prevedere che, quando lo Stato borghese si troverà di fronte ad una risoluta tendenza alla riorganizzazione di classe, ricorrerà alle sue tipiche sperimentate provocazioni e alla repressione violenta, delle quali si sono già viste nelle piazze e sui giornali limitati ma significativi esempi. Tale processo di riorganizzazione potrà non svolgersi dunque in un clima pacifico o di legalità ma in un ambiente di aperta repressione statale e di duro scontro sociale che potrà anche richiedere forme adeguate per la sua protezione.
9. PRINCIPI del Sindacato di classe:
a) tendere alla solidarietà fra lavoratori di tutte le categorie per opporsi alle divisioni imposte a loro svantaggio dalla società borghese;
b) il Sindacato di classe non si fa carico della difesa dell’economia nazionale né delle finanze dello Stato borghese e nemmeno propone soluzioni alternative alla loro crisi nel rispetto di una “giustizia contributiva” che in questa società è inipotizzabile. Se lo Stato è costretto ad attaccare la piccola borghesia ne lasci ad esso la responsabilità: il Sindacato di classe si attesta sulla difesa intransigente della classe operaia;
c) lotta per la uguaglianza salariale e normativa, a parità di lavoro, per razze, sessi, nazionalità, religioni, lingue diverse;
d) ha come obbiettivo la solidarietà internazionale dei lavoratori, intesa non come enunciazione sentimentale o astratta ma come prospettiva di comuni fini, lotte e organizzazione;
e) considera che la capacità di fatto a scioperare e ad organizzarsi proviene non da diritti assicurati di Leggi o Costituzioni ma dai reali rapporti di forze fra le classi: è possibile tanto che venga vietato uno sciopero legale, quanto che si affermi un sindacato clandestino (come in Polonia). Accettare le leggi sull’autoregolamentazione degli scioperi per ottenere il riconoscimento formale da parte dello Stato è un grave errore perché il padronato e lo Stato non riconosceranno mai, nei fatti, se non costretti dalla forza, un sindacato che veramente li combatta; la rappresentatività reale si può acquisire soltanto con l’adesione e la mobilitazione dei lavoratori su di una linea intransigente di classe;
f) la organizzazione sindacale deve essere separata e opposta alle strutture padronali e aziendali e deve essere finanziata dai soli lavoratori. La riscossione a mezzo delega al padrone è da respingere decisamente in quanto implica la consegna dell’elenco degli iscritti al nemico di classe e fa transitare i mezzi finanziari del Sindacato dalle sue mani;
g) nella sua vera tradizione la milizia sindacale è svolta da semplici lavoratori, dopo l’orario di lavoro a loro spese e sacrificio. L’uso eccessivo di funzionari stipendiati, dei distacchi, delle assemblee in orario retributivo, ma fatte sotto gli occhi del padrone e delle sue spie solo apparentemente facilita l’organizzazione ed è utilizzato spesso come forma di corruzione, di intimidazione e ricatto;
h) respingendo pregiudizi ed erronee spiegazioni sulle cause della degenerazione dei sindacati del regime, il Sindacato di classe deve addivenire ad un organismo unico nazionale, strutturato e centralizzato, al quale i proletari volontariamente aderiscano nella ricerca di una azione coordinata per comuni obiettivi. Per il suo funzionamento gli sono indispensabili organi esecutivi permanenti che soli possono assicurare rapidità e unicità di decisioni nella azione.
Il necessario controllo della fedeltà dei dirigenti all’interesse di classe e la selezione della migliore linea di politica sindacale è una capacità che la classe deve sviluppare ma che non la porta alla conclusione suicida di privarsi dei suoi indispensabili strumenti organizzativi;
i) il Sindacato di classe ha presente che vero e duraturo sollievo dalle sofferenze degli sfruttati si avrà solo con l’emancipazione piena dal lavoro salariato, obiettivo generale che esso persegue.
Towards the Rebirth of the Working Class Trade Union
1. The deepening of capitalism’s economic crisis is driving the bosses to offload the painful consequences onto the workers. Now that the cycle of enormous profits for the well-off classes, which allowed some minor and ephemeral wage rises and certain regulatory improvements – although not without bitter struggles which cost dozens of lives in battles between the strikers and police – has drawn to a close, capital and its State suddenly want to plunge the workers into the most abject poverty and insecurity. This attack by the various States on the workers is happening at the same time throughout the world, inside and outside Europe, in the East and the West, in the poor countries and in the so-called “rich” ones.
2. The forces of the bourgeois regime – government and police, television and press – have all lined up to hinder the workers’ spontaneous reaction. They will resort to any violence, intimidation and distortion to defend the privileges of the capitalists, even if it means reducing the working class to desperation and hunger.
3. Indispensable instruments for opposing the mobilisation of the exploited masses are the trade unions officially recognised by the State, whether confederated or non-confederated. Their actions are such that, in practice, they may now be considered as a special police force deployed against the workers.
The Italian General Confederation of Labour, which was formed after the 2nd World War, inherited from the fascist unions the corporative ideology which holds that workers should submit themselves to the national interest. Over the last few decades, the CGIL has become increasingly deaf to the workers demands that the union should defend its members and fight back. More and more often the workers are compelled either to relinquish any demands and put up with the bosses’ harassment, sackings etc, or to organise themselves, and strike, outside the union. This progressive uselessness of the CGIL (whilst the CISL and UIL have been useless from the start) is confirmed today as total and irreversible: the unanimous protest in the piazzas by millions of workers of all categories hasn’t caused the CGIL to budge one inch; indeed it has shown itself to be resistant to even the mildest of compromises with positions based on class struggle. The union leaders even call on the police to stop the microphone being taken off them! It is clear to all: the CGIL-CISL-UIL and the bourgeois regime are one and the same thing.
4. What is needed today, therefore, is for the exploited to reconstruct their own strong, loyal and combative CLASS UNION as a permanent expression of the hatred of the oppressed toward their condition, and as a vehicle for their resistance struggles against the boundless greed of the capitalists. It must be an organisation which emanates from the working class and which responds to it alone; which assumes no responsibility for the battles between the bourgeois classes, for their economy and for their nation, and whose declared aim is defending the workers against its class enemy.
Confronted with a capitalist attack which is coordinated and united, the workers are divided, into factories, trades and regions: only within a Class Union which is broad and spontaneously disciplined in its actions will it be possible for them to enter the struggle united.
In order to achieve the greatest mobilisation the Class Union has always recruited not on the basis of such and such an ideology, but anyone who finds themselves in the objective position of being a worker, whatever their political sympathies might be. The class needs both trade unions and its political party, which even if different are nevertheless complementary and require separate organisations. To hypothesise the formation of a trade union which is composed solely of communists, or a hybrid organisation halfway between a union and a party, would be to condemn it to impotence from the outset, and mean abandoning the majority of the proletariat to itself, in other words, to the regime’s trade-unionism. On the other hand, to demand “independence from the parties”, in the sense of the preventing party militants from joining and putting their message across, would mean consigning the union to the “diffused party” of dominant bourgeois ideology which infiltrates itself in a thousand and one ways amongst the workers as well.
5. The so-called “trade-union left”, manipulated from within the union hierarchies, try to convince the workers with ambiguous and superficially combative statements that they should still place their trust in the regime’s unions. Their real aim is to sow confusion so as to delay the genuine reorganisation and general mobilisation. The trade-union left, which typically demands “democracy in the unions”, is deceiving the workers. It isn’t the case that the union has sold out to the bosses because it isn’t responsive enough to the membership; on the contrary, it can’t obey the workers because it has gone over, once and for all, to the bosses. To persuade the workers, therefore, that they should concentrate on getting a hearing from these leaders is only a delaying tactic.
6. THE AIM of the class union is to protect the standard of living and working conditions of the working class. The latter term is to be understood in its widest sense to include all employees, not proprietors of their instruments of labour, whatever their form of retribution may be: it therefore includes those engaged in manual and intellectual work, productive and unproductive work, employees of an individual boss, of a cooperative of bosses, or of the State. Excluded from it are members of the other classes, that is, all capitalists, including extremely minor ones (artisans and peasants) and those strata which straddle class boundaries (tenants, students etc). On the other hand, pensioners and the unemployed are organised in the union, not separately, but within the professional category they were originally part of.
THE WORKERS’ DEMANDS which the class union traditionally takes up are the protection of wages with special consideration for those on the lowest incomes; the reduction of working hours; and the defence of pensioners and the unemployed along with the demand for a living wage for them and their families.
7. THE MEANS that the class union is prepared to use to impose its demands on the employers and their State can be summed up as direct action by the workers involving untrammelled strike initiatives, adjustable according to the harshness of the bourgeois resistance. To be rejected on principle would be the entrusting of workers’ conditions to the results of referendums which include all classes as participants, such as votes in the bourgeois parliaments and court and tribunal rulings. The best way the class can deploy its forces is through the general all-out mobilisation of all crafts and professional categories, and by rejecting the regulations and control today imposed by the bourgeoisie and accepted by the regime’s trade unions: from limitations imposed in terms of time and space, to the obligation to give notice; from the obligation to provide minimum services, to the suspension of strikes during negotiations.
For the class union a territorial organisation which is outside the workplace (in the tradition of the chambers of labour) is absolutely indispensable. It is here that representatives from the factories, and individual workers dispersed over small and very small units of production, can meet regularly, draw strength from each other and coordinate their initiatives.
The Factory Council necessarily cling to a vision which is limited by the in-plant environment and which can be very one-sided, if not actually in conflict with the requirements of the general movement: this is why it is a mistake to raise them to the same level as the class union and predict a network of councils organised separately, in parallel, or as an alternative, to the union. It is by being organised in the union that workers overcome the narrowness of the factory, of the sector and of the category, such as to arrive at the stage of mobilising themselves, as a class, in defence of common interests.
8. There are no organisational recipes which can guarantee a correct class line. That is why we say that invoking the principals of trade-union democracy (deliberative assemblies, consultations and referendums) will not resolve the problem of the reconstruction of the classist trade-union organisation. In periods of reaction the base can respond in ways which are very controversial and out of synch, if not downright opposed to the class’s interests. Nevertheless, you cannot place on the same level workers who are involved in a struggle and blacklegs, layers of the working class which are prepared to fight and workers’ aristocracies or white-collar workers who may try to divide the movement in order to defend their particular interests. Furthermore, it is to be expected that the bourgeois State, when it is faced with a resolute movement aimed at class reorganisation, will resort to its typical tried and tested use of provocation and violent repression. Such a process of reorganisation will not, therefore, develop within a peaceful or legalistic climate, but in a setting of open State repression and of bitter social struggle; which may entail it taking on forms which are appropriate to ensure its own protection.
9. PRINCIPLES of the class union:
- To aim for solidarity amongst workers of every category in order to oppose the disadvantageous divisions imposed on workers by bourgeois society;
- It isn’t the job of the class union to defend the national economy or finances of the bourgeois State, nor to propose alternative solutions to their crisis such as a “fair taxation system”, which in this society is unimaginable. If the State is constrained to attack the petty bourgeoisie, let IT take the blame: the position on which class union lines up is the intransigent defence of the working class;
- Struggle for normative and wage equality for the same job, regardless of age, race, sex, nationality, religion or language;
- Its objective is international workers’ solidarity, understood not in a sentimental or abstract sense, but as a prospect based on common goals, struggles and organisation;
- It considers that the de facto capacity to strike and organise derives not from rights enshrined in laws or constitutions, but depends on which way the balance of power between the classes is tipped: a legal strike being forbidden is just as likely to happen as an illegal trade union establishing itself. To accept strike-limiting laws in order to obtain recognition by the State is a serious mistake since the bosses and the State will never recognise a truly combative union unless constrained to do so by force; the union will only be able acquire true representation when it is backed by the workers and is able to mobilise them around an intransigent class line;
- The trade-union organisation must be separate from, and opposed to, the various forms of organisation and internal structures set in place by the employers within the workplace and must be funded by workers alone. The delegating of the collection of dues to the bosses is to be decisively rejected since it involves the handing over of a list of members to the class enemy and transferring the means of financing the union into their hands;
- In its best tradition, militating in the union is carried out by ordinary workers, after work and at their own expense. The excessive use of paid officials, of official absence from work for union reasons, of meetings in working hours, conducted under the eye of the boss and his spies, only make things easier for the organisation in a superficial way, and are often used as a form of corruption, of intimidation and blackmail;
- The class union, having rejected prejudices and erroneous explanations of the causes of the degeneration of the regime unions, must aim to eventually become a centralised unitary organism, organised on a national scale, which proletarians join voluntarily with a view to taking part in coordinated actions in pursuit of common objectives. In order to function properly, permanent executive organs are an indispensable requirement since only these can ensure the requisite speed and unity of decision-making when it comes to taking practical action. The necessary monitoring of the leaders to ensure they are firm in their commitment to the class interest, and selecting the best political line for the trade union, is a capacity which the class will need to develop. They are problems which cannot be sidestepped by adopting the suicidal conclusion that the class can do without its indispensable organisational instruments;
- The class union holds on to the fact that the exploited will experience real and lasting relief from suffering only by fully emancipating itself from the condition of wage labour, and this is the general objective which it pursues.
— The Trade Union Fraction of the International Communist Party