What is Class Struggle Unionism?
At the most basic level class struggle unionism recognizes that the capitalist class, the employers and bosses, have absolutely no common interest with the working class. For us, unionism is about a struggle between classes. Agreements with employers are temporary truces rather than an alignment of interests.
Examples of class unionism in the US include the UE Union (United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America) which is one of the few unions to still to center class unionist positions in its organization after the red scare, despite its unfortunate involvement in electoralist campaign. We can also point to the various unions involved in the 1945-46 general strike, and the IWW before its revival in the 1970s, as examples.
Class unionism is about building a militant mass worker movement capable of defending its interests and winning by using effective tactics, namely re-centering our organizations around the power of the strike. To do this, the workers movement must break with nearly a century of regime unionist practices which have sacrificed international class militancy in the name of nationalist class collaboration. The labor movement must be willing to disregard restrictive laws of the capitalist state which seek to limit workers’ strike power. We need organizations which do not rely on armies of officials, disconnected from the daily struggles of workers, paid by dues extracted from paychecks by the companies themselves. It is the leadership of regime union bureaucracies that are most threatened by state injunctions and fines for pursuing tactics outlawed by the repressive Taft-Hartley Act, such as sympathy strikes and secondary boycotts. Instead, we must organize around the activities of dedicated rank-and-file labor militants and leadership rooted in class struggle unionism. Last year’s state injunction against the looming railroad workers strike is a perfect example of the way that the capitalist state always criminalizes class struggle when it presents a serious threat to its national interest. Even most of the so-called ‘progressives’ and ‘social democrats’ in congess voted to force the rail contract on workers who had voted by overwhelming majority to reject the agreement and strike. It also illustrated the way that regime union bureaucracies ultimately become complicit in enforcing the capitalist state’s law. This reality turned the main rail worker unions like (BLET and SMART-TD) into simple regime unions, or HR firms of the companies and capitalist state itself.
Our goal isn’t to build new sectarian political unions or to politicize existing unions to be exclusive to this or that ideology. The class struggle is already itself a political struggle between two contending classes. The owning class completely controls the existing state, its coercive apparatuses (the army and police), the universities, and all major media and social media outlets which shape public opinion. Every forward step by the working class in defense of its interests brings about a clash with the capitalist state, exposing its true class nature. Every strike is a mini revolution. Class struggle unionism understands electoralist tactics aimed at promoting the initiatives of capitalist political parties as counter-productive. Only through a powerful and combative class union movement, capable of organizing mass strike action, will we secure any true concessions from the bourgeois state.
What is Regime Unionism?
Regime unions come in several varieties. Traditional business unions such as the building trades, UFCW and the UAW are characterized by a type of regime business unionism which ties itself to a national interest, instead of international class solidarity. It accepts the capitalist profit system and has an orientation to “partnership” with the employers. It is typically dominated by a layer of paid officials detached from workers’ daily struggles, accepts “no strike” clauses in contracts. It perpetuates a narrow sectoralist practice focused on economic fights with individual employers, and lacks any direct way for workers in different industries to get together to develop a common class-wide program. In recent decades, a relatively new type of regime unionism has emerged which we might characterize as NGO unionism. While sharing all the aforementioned characteristics, it tends to be less interested in shop-floor issues and breaks from business unionism only in its aim to transform unions into electoralist machines for progressive policy reform. Likewise, it erases class differentials while promoting class collaboration around “community” initiatives. It sees unions as policy advocacy groups and is closely associated with the non-profit sector and academia. It is predominant in unions such as SEIU, foundation-funded workers’ centers and most labor councils.
Regime unionism emerged most dramatically during World War I and II as opportunist leadership in many unions worked with the capitalist state to enforce labor peace and purge class unionists from the movement. Through repressive legislation like the Taft-Hartley Act, passed in response to the general strike of 1945-46, regime unionism became enshrined in the state’s legal apparatus by criminalizing most forms of strike actions while forcing union leaders to sign anti-Communist affidavits, in exchange for official government recognition under the NLRB and enforcement of collective bargaining rights.
Transforming the Workers’ Movement Through a Militant Minority
In 2008, Chicago teachers, dissatisfied with the business union leadership of the Chicago Teachers Union, formed the Caucus for Rank and File Educators. Over the next two years the group organized to directly address various workplace issues. Eventually this small group assumed leadership of the union, leading to the historic 2012 Chicago teachers strike. Other teachers across the country began forming their own militant rank-and-file groups which have pushed business unionists out of leadership, leading to a militant rank-and-file combative unionism that in 2018 disregarded laws across the South which criminalize public sector worker strikes, as educators across West Virginia and elsewhere took illegal strike action and won. Just this year, 65,000 LA teachers went on a solidarity strike with other educators, despite threats of state injunctions, after a rank-and-file caucus found itself replacing business union leadership. While the Caucus for Rank and File Educators isn’t what we would necessarily characterize as class unionist, it demonstrates how a small minority group of a handful of workers in one city, dedicated to combative unionism can, through years of dedicated work transform the character of the workers’ movement across the country.
Where Do We Start?
To build a winning workers’ movement we must recognize a fundamental truth about the class society we live in: workers and bosses have opposing interests. We must build organizations not around electoral policy initiatives but around the power of the strike and rejection of bourgeois law which seeks to curtail it. Finally, we must prioritize international solidarity and cross-sector action.
To build this movement we can start by…
- Talking the Talk; Walking the Walk
- We model what class unionism means through consistent militant work, dedicated to our co-workers’ best interests within our workplace struggles. We frame class unionism around practical tactical questions confronting trade union work at hand, rather than arguing with our fellow workers about abstract political or moral questions. In workplaces where unions exist, we promote class unionist tactics.
- Practicing Class Struggle Unionism.
- Advocating for open bargaining, lining up contract expiration dates with other sections of workers, and opposing no-strike clauses.
- Promoting class-based demands that focus on improving wages for all workers while eliminating pay differentials based on category.
- Opposing efforts to divert union dues into electoral or policy advocacy campaigns, instead focusing on putting resources behind organizing initiatives and strike funds.
- Advocating for a thinning of union bureaucracy, by reducing the number of paid union officials.
- Advocating for actions, demonstrations and strike dates that put workers in the same physical time and space. Understanding which issues would get large numbers of workers in motion.
- Advocating for effective strike action and solidarity; resisting threats and fears of legal injunctions. Popularizing class struggle ideas that justify breaking with labor law. Breaking with the philosophy of making do within the existing system. Discussing what sort of institutions we need in order to withstand state injunctions.
- Educating, Agitating, & Organizing!
- We educate by spreading information about suppressed history of the workers’ movement and the international class struggle to other workers. We agitate by talking about poor working conditions we face, and we organize by building relationships and courage among our fellow workers so we can take collective action, without relying on regime-union bureaucracies to fix problems for us. This might take the form of developing rank-and-file escalation campaign strategies to address workplace issues, or it could mean developing a unionization campaign along class union lines where no union exists.
- Forming Class Struggle Committees
- Grocery workers and education workers are already getting self-organized across workplaces around class unionist principles and developing common initiatives. We might call these groupings class struggle committees. These are groupings of workers who wish to take action through class unionist tactics, either in a single workplace or on a regional basis around a particular industry. They are committed to coordinating efforts to advance their respective workplace struggles. Class struggle committees are self-organized by workers as practical needs develop. Leadership emerges organically through activity and solidarity between workers.
- Solidarity Means Action! An Injury to One is an Injury to All.
- Every workers’ struggle against the boss is a struggle of the whole working class. We demonstrate class unionism by standing in solidarity with workers everywhere who are combating capitalist exploitation through collective action. CSAN exists in no small part to mobilize participants to take action in solidarity with each other’s emergent struggles. Solidarity is reciprocity: the more we show up for others, the more we can expect them to show up for us. Collectively, our capacity as a class to oppose capital grows with each step, FORWARD!
Conclusion
Through talking the talk, walking the walk, utilizing class struggle practices, educating, agitating, and organizing, forming class struggle committees and committing to solidarity action we can contribute to the rebirth of a class union movement armed with the necessary tactics to beat capital. Our militant minority can grow into a powerful class unionist tendency capable of moving the workers’ movement beyond the practices of class unionism.
