With the bosses?
Never.
With the union reps?
Sometimes.
With the rank and file?
Always.
Here we gather a variety of reports from across the union landscape through 2022-2023.
As the aims and Princples of the Anarchist Federation put it: "Unions by their very nature cannot become vehicles for the revolutionary transformation of society. They have to be accepted by capitalism in order to function and so cannot play a part in its overthrow. Trades unions divide the working class (between employed and unemployed, trade and craft, skilled and unskilled, etc). Even syndicalist unions are constrained by the fundamental nature of unionism. The union has to be able to control its membership in order to make deals with management. Their aim, through negotiation, is to achieve a fairer form of exploitation of the workforce. The interests of leaders and representatives will always be different from ours. The boss class is our enemy, and while we must fight for better conditions from it, we have to realise that reforms we may achieve today may be taken away tomorrow. Our ultimate aim must be the complete abolition of wage slavery. Working within the unions can never achieve this. However, we do not argue for people to leave unions until they are made irrelevant by the revolutionary event. The union is a common point of departure for many workers. Rank and file initiatives may strengthen us in the battle for anarchist communism. What’s important is that we organise ourselves collectively, arguing for workers to control struggles themselves."
In pursuit of that, it is important to share the voice of union members and organisers, to listen and learn from their experiances and work towards strenthening our communities at the base level. Solidarity Always. ■
The situation with most of these changes constantly as the negotiations go back and forth so some ome of the information may already be “out of date”.
Would you like to contribute an article? Contact us on social media or email organise (@) afed.org.uk
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