I think there has been some misunderstanding of Bill's position
on unions on pen-l. He has never, as far as I can remember, opposed
unions per se, but rather been highly critical of the behaviour of
current unions [particularly in Australia and France] with respect
to the big issues of today -- in particular, the ecology, the bomb,
and equality -- and in endorsing (in the Case of the ACTU) an
increasingly neo-liberal program (disguised in the ALU-ACTU's
recent Accords). I have no quarrel with this critique except, as
I indicated in previous posts, I think Bill goes to fa, even
in his 'private' posts to pen-l.
Although I have some knowledge about the Oz labour situation, I am
by no means an expert so I will restrict my comments to the North
American situation. Part of the 'post-war accord' between labour,
capital and the state, workers were granted the right to organize and
bargain collectively for a proportionate share of economic growth
_in exchange for explicitly giving up any challenge to the
capitalist mode of production and its industrial manifestation,
management rights_. In Canada, institutions and ideology
inherited from Britain and British socialism, however, allowed
for more insistence on state provision of social services and the
maintenance of a 'labour type' third party which was particularly
successful in introducing social legislation via the provincial
governments. The weakness of the states and the much more
business-unionism ideology in the US ("more, more, more!" - Gompers)
precluded the government from similar action, or at least to the
same extent.
Can we expect then that unions would not retreat into protecting
narrow self-advantage when the post-war boom came to a halt and that
they would not be forced into defending positions won at the cost of
so much effort in the previous three decades? Particularly since
by and large the intellectual socialist leaders had written the
unions off and looked down their noses at them.
Unions have never (except by the syndicalists) been seen as the
agency of social transformation. Marx et al saw them for what they
were, potential 'schools for socialism', something that I can
attest to as a result of our recent strike. It was amazing how
much 'education' the strike had on the 'guild' (as Terrence would
brand us) re the ruthlessness of the neo-liberal agenda. Similarly,
recent strikes by emergency room doctors, and the current attack on
our school teachers. This is the sense that I think the French
strike and unions should be seen, despite the fact that the railway
drives abandoned the social cause once they achieved the objective
over which they struck.
But unions have another major role, at least here. They give a
sense of community to the people we work with and protect
individuals within that community from victimization by management.
I think it is vital that this function not be forgotten. The union
if it works well prevents the alienation of the individual from
companion workers and, at least to some extent, prevents workers from
being used to put one against the other. In Canada, at least, it
was the unions that pioneered maternity leave, day care, and a host
of other so-called "women's issues" in the workplace. The
biggest problem, which Bill has focussed on, is the failure of
the unions to face up to the environmental issue. But that is
changing, particularly as the unions come to realize that 'green'
technology is more labour-intensive (if not so high-paying) than
environmentally destructive technology, particularly as employers
and governments increase the frenzy of their labour-shucking. But,
perhaps we should take much of the blame for that since we,
supposedly, are the intellectuals with the bigger view or
understanding of the economy and the ecology. Perhaps we should
look to the beam in our own eye.
Collectively,
Paul Phillips,
University of Manitoba
