Report from the Second Congress of the USB Pt. 2

No Job Security if you’re in the Working Class…
(continued from previous issue)

We will now go more deeply into the trade union policy that emerged from the congress.

In its communiqués the USB states that it wants to build a great class union.

But from what appears in the confederal congress document – which also informs the congress documents of the different categories – the leadership aspires instead to build an organization which oversteps the confines of the working class – the sphere within which the trade union traditionally operates, and which, in our view, needs to be preserved to ensure its healthy development – to the point that it loses its class character and adopts “popular”, inter-classist features. What is indicated in the introduction to the document as the organization’s general objective is: “To build a general confederation of all of the working and non-working sectors of society that are today caught in the vicelike grip of neo-liberalism”.

The words are never chosen at random and they express political positions that are reflected in well-defined practical policies. We would have written this instead: “To build a general confederation of all wage workers, in and out of work, who are exploited and oppressed by capitalism”. The USB leadership’s way of expressing things is different from ours because it entails a different policy both as regards organization and practical action.

With the formula “social sectors of society” it means to include not only waged workers but also some self-employed workers, broadly speaking “on a low income”, such as the small farmers, small shopkeepers, street peddlers and taxi drivers that the USB is already organizing in some cities.

Then are included not only sacked workers, casual workers, working students, or those whose job contract has expired, but generically “those who aren’t working”, a category which lends itself to infinite stratification: students who are not workers, members of the petty bourgeoisie fallen on hard times, lumpen proletarians…

This policy is expressed in the document by repeatedly using the terms “social class” and “social bloc” as though they were interchangeable: “A militant trade union that reassembles an entire social bloc”, is the title of the document’s final section; “The construction of a social bloc involves the production of a new class consciousness, that has adapted to the features of contemporary society” is stated at another point.

This extension of the trade union’s organizational range beyond the confines of the toiling class is justified, according to the USB leadership, on the grounds of the changes within contemporary capitalism and its impact on the class.

The congress document correctly criticises and rejects “the hackneyed notion of the disappearance of the working class”, noting that on the international level the number of wage workers is enormous and still rising; that “in the industrialized countries, faced with a reduction in the number of workers employed in manufacturing and mining (…) we are witnessing a process of “workerization” of largescale commercial distribution and care services and “intellectual work too” is undergoing a process of “proletarianization both from a wages and organizational standpoint”.

However the analysis of the USB leaders becomes openly duplicitous when it tries to convince us that the increase in job insecurity experienced by an ever greater portion of the working class is blurring the boundaries of the class to the extent of transforming it into a generic “social precariate of temporary employees”, which forms a “social bloc”, of which the working class is just a part, albeit the most important part.

The document in fact is keen to emphasize the most recent “novelties” in the field of flexible working: “the new forms of work like ‘smart working’ […] have a devastating effect (…) The impact on the condition of the worker is isolation in his working and social life (…) New forms of super-exploitation are on the increase, above all of the young […] a world without permanent jobs or rights […] All this produces a social condition in which fulfilling your needs becomes impossible in the face of crushing material circumstances, which cannot be changed unless collective social demands are made and there is an ‘organized subjectivity’.”

Meanwhile we say that the ‘precariate’ to whom the USB leadership refers, along with sacked workers and pensioners, are simply other divisions of the working class, just waiting to be reintegrated into the union as such.

We note in addition that the analysis of the USB leaders exaggerates somewhat by painting an unduly negative picture (“The new forms of work have a devastating effect”). An extreme vision which is useful in justifying their erroneous position and which reveals a lack of confidence in the working class, in its capacity to arouse itself from its current position of weakness and overcome these divisions, even if they continue to be exposed to the same old ideological rubbish from the bourgeoisie, who as ever peddle their threadbare dreams of a working class that has magically disappeared, leaving behind a society of robotic individuals eternally submitted to the whims of capital.

Yes, capitalism does fragment the working class, impose isolation and individualism and does try to atomize class identity, all of which makes the organization of workers more difficult. But this constant state of insecurity and precariousness, of being alone against the overwhelming power of capital and the bosses, that is, precisely the working class condition, and always has been. The only exception has been a few decades of post-war economic boom in a very few countries. And the function of the trade union is and has always been precisely to alleviate this condition by means of a collective effort.

It was during a period of far greater job insecurity than now that the early trade union organizations came into being. The working class has been able to organize under much worse conditions than the present, and it will do so again in the future.

As to the most recent forms of ‘flexible working’, it has certainly not guaranteed employers who have used it any immunity from workers’ struggles; the most recent example being what happened last year among the delivery workers of Foodora and Deliveroo in Italy, Spain, Belgium and England.

Finally, if it is true that out-sourcing and contractual fragmentation within the big firms present a difficult obstacle for the collective organization of workers to overcome, nevertheless, the sharing of a common workplace remains a powerful, irrepressible material factor which, if effective trade union work is carried out, is bound to sooner or later shatter the bosses’ dream of a permanently weak and divided workforce.

What the labor movement needs is not alliances with other social strata and classes, but to engage in the tough, serious work of rebuilding unity on the basis of trade union struggle. The proletariat is a slumbering giant which is only temporarily weakened, when it recovers its strength it will once again strike fear into the ruling classes.

Oppose Class Divisions by Organizing on a Territorial Basis

How does the USB leadership propose to combat the divisions that weaken the working class?

“If work no longer constitutes the most natural and immediate terrain on which to get organized because one is unemployed or retired, or because one only works for a few hours or on one’s own, or because the activity is too irregular, it will be the locality and the shared condition of precariousness which will form the links on which to build new coalitions and new collective relationships”. 

It might appear that the road to territorial organization of the union is finally being indicated here.

Among the essential pillars of our party’s trade union policy is the one which refers back to the experience of the original Chambers of Labour (Camere del Lavoro), which were territorial organizational centres of the labour struggle. Workers gathering within a territorial framework would meet with workers from other companies and from other sectors and trades; there they would recognize each other not just as employees of such an such a firm, but also and above all as members of the same class. This helped overcome the narrow horizons of the firm and the trade and favoured class unity.

The USB would be making an very important and positive change if it placed the union’s territorial framework at the centre of its activity because up to now that hasn’t been the case. Most union activity has been expended at the company level; it begins there and ends there. The union’s offices are hardly ever visited by its members, militants or even its representatives. Meetings of its representatives are often held in the workplace and not in the territorial office. Only rarely do the provincial co-ordinations meet.

Obviously we don’t want to deny the difficulties involved in getting workers to participate in union life, but nor do we want to deny the responsibility of the union as a whole for their failure to carry out systematic work among its militants and representatives with a view to increasing their awareness of the need to emerge from the strictures of a purely company based trade union activity.

Real Centralization or Organizational Rigidity?

The need to place at the union’s territorial framework at the centre of the union’s organization is, as we have stated, a central plank of our party’s union policy. This point we recently underlined at the first congress of the SI Cobas in May 2015, pointing out that it would be a good idea to modify the union’s statute which declares: “The underlying structure of the SI COBAS is the Comitato di Base (Cobas)”, reformulating it as: “The union arises in the places of work, where the Cobas’s are based, but the inter-company territorial bodies, the provincial coordinations, are what constitute its underlying structure.” This seems to us the best way to convey how the trade union organization can raise itself from the level of the Cobas to that of the class union.

This objective the USB leadership reckons it has already achieved. And that might appear true if we restricted ourselves to observations on the USB’s organizational structure, which is formally defined and centralized; elements which are certainly necessary and useful for a class union.

But this formal centralization, in order to have any real substance, must be capable of maintaining itself in two ways, not just from top to bottom but by ensuring real participation on the part of militants and union representatives in union life. Where instead the bulk of union activity continues to devolve mainly on the union’s representatives and officials, without the development of an intermediate strata of militants between them and the rank-and-file members, and without sufficient participation on the part of the latter, then organizational formalities count for very little in terms of enhancing union growth.

And they can become downright dangerous when used to impose the leadership’s line without any proper discussion within the union, a typical example of which was when a small group within the union leadership decided, within the space of a week, to subscribe to the TUR. (TheTesto Unico sulla Rappresentanza Sindacale – Unified Text on Trade Union Representation – which came into effect in January 2014, is effectively an agreement between the regime workers’ Unions on the one hand and the bosses’ Confederation – the so-called “Confindustria” – on the other. It defines the “rules on trade-union representation”, establishing, among other things, that the right to be included in the trade union representation at the company level, and to participate in the national CCNL negotiations, is conditional on agreeing to limitations on the freedom to strike.)

The reconstitution of a network of union territorial organizations, a new network of Chambers of Labour, would today be especially useful given the contractual fragmentation described in the confederal congress document.

Union reps and militants in medium-sized and large companies could get together with their counterparts in smaller firms, to which an ever increasing part of their company’s work is contracted out, and thus help to rebuild labour unity in the workplace. Also workers in the many small firms spread throughout the territory would find they had an organizational focus. Organizing and bringing together unemployed and retired workers together in these centres would help them maintain links with those who are still working. By going down this road the re-emergence of a working class identity would also be encouraged.

Who it is that the USB wants to organize on a territorial basis however is those workers whose working situation is most insecure alongside groups and strata in society who do not belong to the working class, who with it supposedly constitute the “social precariate” and consequently the so-called “social bloc”. Such it is that instead of encouraging class unity and the rediscovery of its identity the opposite proves to be the case:

Those workers who, due to contractual conditions or their activity or because unemployed or retired, have the most difficulty integrating into the class and identifying with it are further alienated by being associated with self-employed workers of various types and with an array of interclassist movements (students, service users, etc);

The divide between part-time/agency/temp workers and workers in full-time or relatively more secure work is further accentuated;

Since temps are more likely to be young, it also drives a wedge between them and older workers, resulting in precious energy which could have been spent on union work being diverted into movements of the so-called “Social bloc”, of petty bourgeois and lumpen-proletarian origin.

The Union and the ‘Social Movements’

A class union is right to denounce the injustices of this reactionary and inhuman society and to express solidarity, in practical ways as well, with whoever rebels against it, but it is not designed to deal with all of capitalism’s ills. The union is the organization which workers use to defend themselves economically, and it would be denying its function if it altered its constitution to encompass and provide leadership to a whole range of other types of organizations and movements. It would be detrimental to the unity of the wage-earning class and the building of its organization and it is doomed to failure.

At the very least the union should first dedicate its strength and energy – of which there is never enough – to the objective which gave rise to it, that is, to increase in size and only then, once it has set down firm roots, should the problem of cautiously entering into relations with movements on the margins of the working class be broached.

To try to cram into the union variegated social types, belonging to different social strata and classes, only appears useful to those who naïvely subscribe to the idea that greater numbers necessarily corresponds with a stronger organization. But such a mixture of often conflicting conditions and interests is impossible to synthesize and can only end up by damaging the organization of the labour struggle.

The class of wage-earners, however divided it is by the bosses and its various machinations, is united by a profound common interest: opposition to the selling of its labour power for less. The defence of wage levels and working conditions, under its various aspects of struggle against the extension of the working day and for its reduction, struggle against the intensification of the pace of work, against redundancy and dismissal, and in defence of the social wage, pensions and benefits, it is this which unites all workers and overcomes all barriers.

This is the union’s job, and if it thinks it can take on other ones as well then it won’t function properly. The task of bringing about the general transformation of society, of finding a remedy for its many contradictions and injustices, that is a function that only the party can perform, by taking political power, which for communists can only be achieved by revolutionary means.

The community of interests that unites the working class is not found among the various so-called ‘social’ or petty bourgeois movements. The workers’ movement is capable of equipping itself with organizations which endure for years or decades, organized at the national and even international level, of launching strikes which cover an entire national territory, and which encompass an entire sector or even the class as a whole. It is a movement which originates in and hits at capitalism’s vital core, the production of surplus value (profits, rents, interest). Even when a part of the wage-earning class which is not directly involved in the production of surplus value goes on strike, public sector workers for instance, the capitalist regime in its various manifestations is always arrayed against it, due to its innate, and justifiable, fear of any strengthening of the trade union organization and the class movement.

Meanwhile, movements exterior to the working class, of the so-called ‘social’ variety, come into conflict with workers’ organizations both because their aims are not the same and because of the extempore methods they use ‘to protest’.

What is more the working class – even if today in its current weakened condition the opposite might appear to be the case – has a specific character of its own, one that is distinct from the rest of the society; it is a character within which we communists can discern, among the many defects generated by being subjugated to capital, the seeds of genuine rebellion against the present society, and also the society of the future: the negation and overcoming of both Capital and wage labour, of the bourgeois condition as much as the proletarian one. For us the working class isn’t a ‘reference point’ – a horrible expression used in the congress document which smacks of a ‘marriage of convenience’ and is typical of opportunism – but is simply “our class”. Jealously protective of it we want it to be independently organized and separated from the negative influences of the petty bourgeoisie and irrelevant social classes.

This is also made clear on the theoretical plane. One of Marxism’s fundamental arguments is that the dominant ideology is ruling class ideology. Within the working class, too, the bourgeois ideology prevails, although not as completely as outside it. Fighting this ideology inside the working class is already quite difficult enough without trying to achieve the organizational union of the workers with other groups, ranks, strata and classes; frankly, it just does the ruling class a favour, by making the penetration of their ideology amongst the working class that much easier.

Either you make a commitment to uniting working class actions and organization – and creating a working class identity in the process – or you undermine that task by diverting precious energy into building ‘a social bloc’, a ruse devised by political and trade union opportunism to create an entity which will be forever incapable of deciding which direction it wants to go in.

The ‘Social Issues Federation’

This line adopted by the USB leadership is not new. We have already alluded to its earlier incarnation as the ‘metropolitan union’, which was how it was described to the national assembly of the RdB-CUB in May 2009; the one which sanctioned the end of the “Patto di Base” – the rank-and-file pact – and the split between the RdB and CUB.

The arguments used by the USB national co-ordinator (still in post now) at the time are analogous to the ones being used now: “The world of work – he announced – has been radically transformed. There exists a whole swathe of people who don’t have a physical place of work (…) or only for a few months at a time”. And he suggested breaking with “the hegemony of pure trade unionism” so as to embrace “practices which are different but absolutely fit-for -purpose that are proving their worth in the cities and the social sector”. For this reason the Assembly should have produced “a proposal for a political/organizational synthesis with a corresponding larger general assembly of rank-and-file trade unionism, open to social movements and social activists who believe it to be useful and who want to link up with it”.

The second USB congress has taken this inter-classist line a step further. If in May 2009 the proposal was to make overtures to the social movements, that is for the union to have some kind of relationship with them, what is being suggested now is that they should be organized in the union itself by creating an appropriate “organizational setting” for them: the Federazione del Sociale, (‘Social Issues Federation’).

The USB leadership attributes such a degree of importance to this new structure that it refers to it in the congress document as the organization’s “third limb”, along with the USB Lavoro Privato and the USB Pubblico Impiego (Its private and public sector branches).

Particularly clear about the duties that the union’s new structure should take on was a representative of the National Executive who spoke at the first congress of the USB pensioners’ organization on May 10th: “A new entity which we are going to set up will be utilized by and be the home for all that is […] self-employment”.

The final document approved by the national congress, within the Federazione del Sociale, to ASIA USB (Tenants and Residents Association) and the USB Pensionati it has added a new entity: the SLANG, the “Sindacato lavoratori autonomi di nuove generazione” – Union of the New Generation of Self-employed Workers.

Since companies use self-employed labour as a way of avoiding taking new workers onto the payroll, thereby cutting labour costs, it is right that the union should get involved in the battle to raise the conditions of these workers to the level of full-time workers. Thus is it is necessary to organize temporary workers and those on short-term contracts within the same organizations as those to which the rest of the workers in the company belong. But with SLANG a framework will be created in which self-employed labour is organized separately. Thus there is the risk that the Federazione del Sociale will aggravate the isolated position in which self-employed workers find themselves, by abandoning them to the influence of non-working class groups and strata. The brief of the Federazione del Sociale is to take charge of organizing and supporting a diverse group of inter-classist movements, ranging from users of social services, to environmentalists, to those involved in inner city regeneration schemes. The young temporary workers, the unemployed workers, and the pensioners who are supposed to be part of it will end up wasting their energy in activities that are nothing to do with trade union struggle and which are imbued with inter-classism. Temporary and retired workers, instead of imbuing a sense of solidarity and power of their working class, and being welcomed into its organizational embrace, will instead be pushed towards the desperate impotent world of the déclassé.

Class tradition dictates that unemployed and retired workers, rather than being organized in separate organizations, should be organized in the unions of the category to which they originally belonged, thus maintaining their connection with active workers and with union activity. Our party fought for this kind of organizational approach within the CGIL when, up to the late 1970s, it was still calling upon militants to fight within this union, denouncing for example the separate organization of retired workers in the Pensioner’s union (the SPI).

The creation of the USB pensionati is going down the same road as the SPI, with the additional aggravating circumstance that not only are retired workers now to be separated from active workers on an organizational level, but also as regards their activity, with the emphasis being put on supporting the work in the “social movements” instead of in the trade unions.

The Trade Union Movement and the Political Parties

The USB’s intervention in the “social movements” didn’t begin with the formation of the Federazione del Sociale but, as the congress document itself explains, was the outcome of previous experimental forays, beginning with the “sindacato metropolitano” as it was called, followed by the “confederalita sociale”.

And yet this activity, in contrast with its declared objectives, has never been particularly strong, has been present only in a few localities, and is poorly organized.

TThe problem is that even this sphere of activity, in which the leadership wants the union to get increasingly involved, requires energy which is in short supply, which makes the choice of not concentrating what little, previous energy there is on proper class-based trade union work all the more wrong.

Therefore, setting aside our critique of the leadership’s overambitious projects to commit the union to engaging with the social movements and with self-employed labour, and the fact we do not share those objectives, it must be taken into account that even their partial realization will be far from easy and cannot be taken for granted.

Although this should reassure us, that is only partly the case, for reasons we will go on to explain. It is necessary in fact to understand these movements better and how the trade unions, not only the USB, relate to them.

Whereas in the class camp, groups of workers from within the wage-earning class sign up to their union irrespective of the ideological or political loyalties, propelled by the need to defend their own living and working conditions, in the “social movement” camp, on the other hand, the intervention of the union is often mediated through a relationship with bodies that already operate within the sector and which, despite presenting themselves as “social”, are instead political, i.e., collectives, social centres, etc. We come against the myriad groups of the so-called “movement”, adjectiveless insofar as it is not a workers’ movement. It is a characteristic phenomenon of imperialism, the final phase of capitalism, and expresses the inconclusive agitating of the intermediate social strata, of the middle classes, cultivated by each national capitalism, in proportion to its power, useful insofar as they attenuate the opposition between the working class and the bourgeoisie, to whom is left some economic space by the ephemeral wellbeing and heightened morale brought about by the temporary weakness of the working class. The phenomenon re-appeared in Italy and other countries with a mature capitalism from around 1968.

By intervening in this camp therefore, each union encounters, as distinct from what happens in inter-union relations, “political entities”, and it goes without saying that each union leader contrives to establish relations with those groups with whom he or she has a political affinity. relations with those groups with whom he or she has a political affinity. In the end, behind all the theoretical justifications and ambitious projects regarding the “social bloc”, which are unrealistic and of minimal importance, the practical effect that counts – and this is an open secret – is the mundane creation of a new repertoire of manoeuvres which can be deployed in demonstrations, and a base of support within the union, useful to the leadership in pursuing its petty political schemes.

Because, naturally enough, the “third limb” of the union will have a certain weight in terms of its delegates, within the confederal, territorial and national bodies. And since these are chosen on the basis of a process of political selection, already they give, and will continue to give, the leadership a greater guarantee it can successfully impose its policies on the union.

This stirring in of the union leaders with the “social movements” leads to the union becoming characterised politically in a certain way, not as a result of a maturation of the working class in that direction, but quite the opposite, because it is going to exacerbate the opposition between the various rank-and-file organizations and therefore hold back the class struggle, the growth of which is the condition for a general organizational strengthening of the class in the unions and, eventually, on the political level as well.

The various rank-and-file unions thus tend to resemble party unions, perpetually battling and competing among themselves. Not that they become parties and cease to be unions. But by using the excuse that they are acting as part of “the social movement” the leaders acquire a greater degree of control over the organization, in order to use it for their own ends, than they would if they were restricted to just working on behalf of the wage-earning class.

Trade Union and “Political Role”

The congress document explains how the attack against the working class is becoming increasingly harsh – which is pretty obvious to everyone – and that in order to respond to it the union must take on a “political” role as well: “Today the union of the trade unionist type [il sindaco di stampo tradeunionista], linked solely to industrial disputes and interventions at the company level, is largely obsolete, and there is a willingness on the part of the leading cadres of the organization, but not only them, to take on a political role (…) Even collaborationist unions, who are accomplices of the state, have responded to the politicization of the struggle with politicization (…) To meet the challenge of the struggle’s politicization, and consequently of our role, means to have a broad leading cadre that is well-equipped and of a high calibre”.

Apart from the fact we should take it for granted that a self-proclaimed class union wouldn’t tail along behind “accomplice, collaborationist” unionism, we will try to shed a little light on this, as opportunism thrives on confusion.

Meanwhile it has to be said that, between the union “linked solely to industrial disputes and interventions at the company level”, which the USB leaders wrongly define as “trade-unionist”, and the union that takes on “a political role”, there are a host of others somewhere in-between.

The policy of the class union is to try and achieve the unification of workers’ struggles, insofar as that is the condition for maximising the workers’ strength. Therefore it highlights the importance of overcoming the various divisions in the wage earning class: between the different parts of a company, between the different companies, between categories, between full and part timers, between those in the state and private sectors, between large and small firms, between ‘native citizens’ and immigrants, and then of sex, political opinion, religion and nationality. As regards union organizations, it indicates that the path to unity is via joint struggles, that is, joint strike actions.

The best way to enact this policy is to respect the true function of the union, whereas the immature, impatient utilization of the union to carry out a “political function” can only delay or reverse any progress made in this direction, eventually dividing the workers and the union movement on the basis of political opinions.

It is on the practical level of the struggle, not on the basis of opinions, ideology or social theory that most workers will subscribe to the communist line on trade unions, because it is seen as demonstrably the most coherent and efficient in terms of effectively defending and strengthening of the wage earning class. While the other trade union policies, emanating from other schools of thought and political parties will, as the class struggle becomes harder due to the inexorable advance of the economic crisis of capitalism, end up subordinating this trade union objective – in words proclaimed not just by communists – to their counter-revolutionary and opportunist political objectives.

The communist policy is the only one which will not manipulate and exploit the union in this way, not because the communists are genuine and the others are not, but because their line uniquely expresses a general political objective which coincides with the best and maximum development of the trade union movement.

We should make clear that we are neither indignant nor scandalized by the fact that the union leaders aim to achieve political objectives. In a general sense we can accept that they believe they are doing so for the good of the workers. An apolitical union is an impossibility. Politics affects every aspect of social life and is evidently, and necessarily, linked to the trade union sphere. Precisely because the union organizes workers on the basis of their social condition and not their political or religious faith, there naturally develops within it different approaches to trade union policy, which in a more or less coherent way lead back to the various political parties. Mistrusting those who hide their opinions and intentions is a good thing; conversely, their expression with maximum clarity is to be valued and freedom of expression within the union should be the rule. To fight for trade union apoliticism can only result, on the one hand, on the repression of the expression and manifestation of different political opinions, and on the other, the maintenance of an illusion – apoliticism – behind which lurks an indifferent and cynical ‘who cares’ attitude, which is in fact just one more cover for ruling class ideology.

What we object to, therefore, is not that the leadership of the USB pursues political objectives – as it inevitably does – but rather the evident contrast between these objectives and the practical necessities of the active forward movement of the workers’ struggle and of their trade union organizations.

The USB leadership’s campaign to get the union to take on a political role, at a time when the formation of the class union is still a distant prospect, when the practical activity of the USB still has difficulty moving beyond the confines of the workplace, will put a brake on and distort the union’s development, like a new-born baby in restrictive swaddling clothes. This is happening for example, as described above, with the creation of the union’s so-called “third limb”, la Federazione del Sociale, with the aim of widening the base the leadership can count on within the union to support its political aims.

The real “Political” Objectives of the USB Leadership

These political objectives are expresse in the so-called Eurostop Social Platform, summed up in the slogan “No Euro, No EU, No NATO”, with the USB one of its key proponents.

Our political objective is overthrowing capitalism, the USB leadership’s objective is fighting new-liberalism, in other words, fighting for an alleged better form of capitalism, since they harbour the illusion there is a possibility of reforming this system, rather than it just being subjugated and destroyed.

The fight against neo-liberalism translates in practice into struggle for a “left” government, via elections. To that end, of much more use to it than developing the unity of the working class, is the formation of a political movement, which is precisely what Eurostop is, at whose service the USB has been placed, drawing in the broadest possible spectrum of the electorate, and therefore also class ranks, strata and social classes not of the salaried class.

While revolutionary communism advocates overthrowing capitalism, and points out the only way to get there as the path of revolution – on the national level, by destroying the bourgeois state apparatus and replacing it in the short term with a working class state, and on the international level, by rejecting all fronts composed of alliances between capitalist states – reformism always seeks an alleged ameliorative political objective to defend, and seeks out an international front composed of better, or less bad, bourgeois states to ally itself with. This political objective today is to leave the Eurozone or the European Union and, on the international alliances front, to leave NATO in order to support the other imperialist front, Russia and, in Syria for example, the Assad Regime.

About these political objectives most of the rank-and-file members know little,and even less about how much of their money is spent on them, seeing that their membership subscriptions go to fund conventions, demonstrations and even trips for USB national delegations to the theatres of war – like Donbass (Ukraine) and to Syria – hosted and protected by the political and military structures of one or other of the belligerent parties.

Faced with these local wars, which will tend to become increasingly generalized and are bound to lead to a global imperialist conflict unless the proletarian revolution prevents it, the USB is already taking an interventionist stance, i.e., one which lends itself to drawing up the workers on one of the war fronts.

This stance is nothing new, and is not that surprising given it emanates from the same political group that has been in charge of this union since it was formed back in the early 1980s as the RdB. Indeed, during the wars in Iraq and Serbia the leadership took the side of Saddam Hussein and Milosevic.

They are the political positions of social-democratic opportunism, in Stalinist guise, replacing the working class with “the people”, with the “social bloc”; Internationalism with nationalism; and communism with state capitalism.

Conclusion

That this policy of the USB leadership has been more or less approved at the union’s second congress doesn’t mean it will actually come to anything. The leadership of a union, whatever it may want, has to take account not only of the class enemy but of the living nature of the union organ, and of the reason why it arose and came into existence. A union isn’t willed into existence by its organizers and leaders but because it encounters the necessity of organizing and defending workers. The policy of a union’s leadership can either damage or favour the development of the organization and of the power of the working class, but it cannot do with it whatever it wants.

Notwithstanding the foolish ambition of the USB leadership to intervene in the social movements and create a related organizational structure, trade union work will continue to be, as it is today, a fundamental part of the organization’s activity, and whose forward movement will tend to attract other fighting spirits who have already embarked on the same path.

Since for hundreds of years the union has had certain characteristics and boundaries and still has them today, organizing only the working class, because this corresponds to determined material characteristics of capitalism, the innovatory opportunistic fantasies of the USB leadership are not going to change that any time soon.

If and in the measure that new groups of workers join the USB, injecting new energy into it, the trade union side of the work will have a flywheel effect and condition the organization more and more, forcing the leadership to come to terms with this practical necessity.

It will also be reflected in a plurality of trade union policies and positions, which will be much harder to repress if the membership continues to grow.

The USB leaders are themselves certainly aware of this and if at congress level they have formulated, as we have seen, very restrictive rules, something that for now has been accepted due to the union’s overall immaturity, there is, at the company and category level often greater room for manoeuvre.

Indeed the leadership’s positions haven’t been the only ones to be aired at this congress. The Lavoro Privato, the private sector workers section of the union, which is the most important, tabled motions and agenda items which raised issues we have highlighted in this article: the need to focus energy on union work, the wrongness of the policy which aims to have the union take on a “political role”, unity of action with rank-and-file unionism.

In a motion approved at various regional congresses of the Lavoro Privato and then presented to the category’s national congress, where it was rejected, we read: “Labour is at the centre of union activity; it is the priority. The rest is dodging the issue, a flight from reality (…) Faced with the politicization of discontent, the response is not to politicize ourselves in our turn. Quite the contrary: we must resume and reinforce our core, typically trade union work (…) Which doesn’t mean just participating in the election of Rsu and Rsa ¹. Quite the reverse (…) The unity of all those who work in the same place, whatever their contract, must be the USB’s priority (…) USB supports the initiatives of working men and women that have arisen in the work place, independently from what union they may belong to”.

In this direction our work as communists continues.