Trade+Unions,+Dominic+Tweedie,+Umsebenzi+June+2006

For Umsebenzi, June/July 2006
=Trade Unions=


 * By Dominic Tweedie**

Unions are mass organisations of the working class whose primary role is to achieve the common demands of their members. They are institutions of capitalist society, made for the purpose of bargaining the price of the labour-power that the workers must sell to survive. They are not revolutionary institutions. They are “reformist” by nature. They are aimed at achieving a better life for workers within capitalism.

However, workers may become class-conscious through collective action in trade unions. In due course they may come to the point where they recognise the necessity of a revolutionary party of the working class to carry them out of the bondage of wage-slavery and into socialism.

But this is not automatic. In fact, trade unions are invariably the site of bureaucratism, corruption, self-seeking and petty squabbling. At the same time they are the well-springs of solidarity, class-consciousness, and emancipation. Trade unions are sites of struggle.

Organising workers is full of pitfalls. To create a common sense of purpose that is strong enough to lead to collective action, and to withstand all the retaliation of the employers against that action, requires great leadership and good knowledge of how to actually organise these kinds of structures.

To win recognition from the employer and then to get the employer to the negotiating table and to present an agreed set of demands is the first part of the process. If the boss does not then agree, action may be necessary.

Generally, workers’ action takes the form of “withdrawal of labour”. In principle this means that if the boss won’t pay what is asked, the workers won’t work. It is an “unwilling buyer, unwilling seller” situation. In practice it is typically what is known as a strike.

But withdrawal of labour can start with a go-slow, work-to-rule, or meeting in working hours, and does not have to escalate to a full-scale indefinite walk-out. In all cases the aim is to get back to work with a better deal, and not to destroy the business or to take it over from the boss.

Communists are dedicated to the working class and have to be where the workers are, and to stand side by side with them in their struggles. Hence communists are found in all trade unions, playing a leading or a supporting role.

388 words