Syndicalism?

Revolutionary SyndicalismYesterday and Today

• Defining syndicalism

• Syndicalism as historical phenomenon

• Syndicalism as contemporary organising model

Defining characteristics of Syndicalism

Centrality of class conflictThe emancipation of the working class is the task of the working class aloneDirect action as the key toolDistrust/opposition to statismAutonomy of action by workersThe union as the vehicle of revolutionary transformation

The syndicalist vision

Worker and community (generalised) self-management of the workplace and society

Directly democratic structures of administration

Abolition of wage labour

Transformation of social relations

Syndicalism and Socialism

Democratic

Libertarian

Revolutionary

The ‘golden age’ of syndicalism

Syndicalism vs Feminism?

Oppositional masculinism (Shor, 1997)

Invisible women of the syndicalist movement

Reality of women syndicalists.

Syndicalist women organising• Federación Obrera Local

• Federación Obrera Femenina – FOF

• Organising Cooks working in households; laundry; dairy; flower and other street vendors

• 5 Hour Day for cooks; public child care centres; freedom of expression and recognition of the domestic and retail sectors as public service

• FOL organised both established industrial workers and self-employed and ‘precarious’

The fundamental difference between Syndicalism and the old trade union methods is this: while the old trade unions, without exception, move within the wage system and capitalism, recognizing the latter as inevitable, Syndicalism repudiates and condemns present industrial arrangements as unjust and criminal, and holds out no hope to the worker for lasting results from this system. Emma Goldman Syndicalism: The Modern Menace to Capitalism (1913)

Syndicalism and Feminism

Let’s treat women’s unions not as something trivial, but as a part of the general movement. It would be ridiculous to think that a movement with such goals as the syndicalist movement’s could ever reach those without the practical help of the women.

Milly Witkop –RockerDer Frauen-Bund (Syndicalistische Frauenbund)(1925)

Syndicalist Feminism

The struggle for the consistency of means and ends

Critique of hierarchies

Valuing of organisation, spontaneity and autonomy

Syndicalism and Feminism

International Workers AssociationBerlin 1923

Delegates from 10 countries representing about 2 million organized workers 

The Spanish Revolution 1936-1938

The ‘end’ of syndicalism• World War 1 – collapse of international

socialism

• State Repression

• Russian revolution/End of the revolutionary wave

• Fascism

• Post-45 Class ‘Peace’

Re-emergence of syndicalism

International Workers Association (AIT)

Red and Black Co-ordination

European Network of Alternative Unionism

International trade union network of solidarity and struggle

21st Century Syndicalism

• Organising the unorganised, the abandoned and betrayed (IWW slogan)

• Precarious workers, informal workers, workfare workers and the unemployed

• Union as associational body rather than representative (Solidarity Unionism)

• Horizontal organisation• Intersectional• Direct Action