#workplace struggles

[dailyanarchistposts]

WAGES COUNCILS, which used to set minimum wages in badly paid industries like catering, in Northern Ireland & Britain are no more. As reported in the last edition of Workers Solidarity they were abolished by the Tories on February 7th. Latest figures from the Low Pay Network show that, just before their abolition, over 37% of the workplaces visited by wages inspectors were illegally underpaying staff. However there were only 12 prosecutions (so much for Tory huffing and puffing about “the law must be obeyed”). In another survey one in five vacancies offered in job centres were below the minimum wages set by the wage councils

[xx-deathwalker-xx]

Its so annoying as a neurodivergent person when I ask my coworker about specific instructions regarding a task that was started by them that I have to finish and they look at me like I’m crazy and I’m sat there wondering if im coming across as rude and then they hit me with, “why are you asking for clarification? Just do the task.”

Like- HELLO? EXCUSE ME??? I am making sure I am doing this task correctly and not doing it too early or late and double checking if this step of the task needs to be done at all right now because I did not initiate the task!!!!

[labormovementx]

Overworked? Poor Management? Under compensated? You are not alone and we want to hear from you! Here's an opportunity to anonymously share your workplace struggles: https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/share/a2HHQQOuHYHG86hgAs0hygHNjYHfNRrLKuYeQf3ycYc/

[dailyanarchistposts]

Work and the Workplace

The workplace remains the location where many of us are likely to spend much of our adult lives. We are dependent on the wage we earn for food, housing and all our basic and complex needs.

The workplace is anywhere where we do work. For many people this means turning up to work shifts for a business, i.e the capitalist workplace

However, for many people the home is their workplace, and for others it is one of their main workplaces. This domestic work, such as cooking, cleaning, and care work such as tending to infirm relatives and child rearing, is mostly done by women and goes unpaid and unrecognised as ‘real work’ in capitalist patriarchal society. However, it is fundamental to sustaining ourselves and reproducing human society and it deserves to be paid. Workplace struggle should include the demand for a wage for domestic work at present and ultimately achieve a free and fair division of all socially necessary labour.

We recognise that the strike is not limited to the capitalist workplace but also involves the ‘social strike’ for example in the sphere of reproductive labour (such as domestic work) and continued functioning of the city.

Many of us experience work as a place where we have very limited control over what we do and when we do it, never mind what is produced. As individual workers we often have little or no choice other than obeying the legal and, for the more marginalised of us, even illegal instructions of our boss.

[dailyanarchistposts]

Old divisions

Differences between trade union leadership and rank-and-file membership are by no means a new development in Zambia.

Such conflicts were common in the 1960s and 1970s when the Kaunda government sought the to enlist the unions in a project of rapid economic development. This was done by banning strikes in much of the economy, making conciliation procedures compulsory in the remainder and by extending direct control over the unions.

The ZCTU itself was formed on the orders of government which wanted a federation which could be closely monitored. Systematic attempts were also made to co-opt union head offices into the national political elite.

All of these efforts failed to halt worker resistance. Although the national union leaders committed themselves to policies such as wage restraint and increasing the pace of work, mineworkers in particular continued to resist work discipline. There was an Increase in the number of strikes, in some cases in direct opposition to the ZCTU itself. While union leaders reaped rewards from their ‘co-operative’ attitude, workers were not rump to tighten their belts any further.

In the late 19705 the ZCTU moved Into opposition against Kaunda and conflicts between union leadership and membership were reduced. They seem set, however, to take off once again.

[dailyanarchistposts]

Workplace Struggle — Unions

Yet workers are not powerless. Without our work nothing is produced. Some of us have some power because our skills are rare but most of us are replaceable and therefore our only power is that obtained through collective struggle.

Over time the organisation of collective struggle resulted in the formation of organisations that continued to exist between such struggles in the hope of building power and solidarity over time. These organisations are unions and have and continue to exist in many forms.

A workplace with a union is one where it is generally possible to openly agitate with our fellow workers, including the ability to hold assemblies of all the unionised workers. This possibility is the greatest ongoing potential of union organisation and the reason why we remain members of unions that are otherwise problematic.

The unions we want are those where all the power is found at the base, i.e. all power lies at meetings of all unionised workers. All levels of the union above this should be mandated and recalled by the base. Any paid staff of such a union should be organisers, specialists or administrators answerable to the membership without any other decision making power.

We recognise there is a contradiction between the above perfect union form and the unions that now exist. This is not simply resolved by the declaration of a union of this type. Our goal is to create mass unions of this type. There is not a single correct path to that goal, rather it depends on the specific circumstance of each workplace and sector but broadly the paths pursued can include — the fight for reform within a union, breaking most of the membership of a union in a particular workplace away, the formation of a new union in a workplace through recruiting many members.

[dailyanarchistposts]

Abolishing Capitalism

None of these options are long-term solutions. We live in a civilization based on the separation of society into haves and have-nots. This cannot be allowed to continue.

The entirety of potential political and social structures don’t balance on the axis of capitalism (and democracy, somehow always lumped with capitalism) and state communism. Capitalists would love for you to believe that, of course, because state communism is so clearly a terrible idea; they would love for people to think capitalism is the only alternative to Stalinist atrocity.

Capitalism is an atrocity, however, as a quick survey will let us know. Capitalism (the idea of not working for your money, but instead siphoning the wealth produced by others) has led us to the very brink of planetary ecocide with its mindless search for profit (a feature included even in the dictionary definition!).

Many people have theorized ways of eradicating the rampant criminality of capitalism. Socialism isn’t actually a dirty word, and can mean a whole host of things, many of which are as far from Stalinism as a system could possibly be.

But the simplest one is this: we, as small communities (often overlapping ones), can make decisions for ourselves by the means we best see fit. We can feed and care for ourselves and each other. We can work in ways that make us happy, we can work for projects that actually concern us. If we don’t let the ruling class rule us, we won’t be ruled. If you ask me, I’d call this system anarchism. Other people might call it different things like autonomism or horizontalism or just decentralization, direct democracy, or common sense.

But in order to do this, we have to take back the means of production. The rich have the things they have because they are dirty stinking thieves, whether they know it or not.

just a friendly word from some anarchists

[dailyanarchistposts]

WSM Members and Unions

All WSM members are expected to join a union if one organises in their workplace and to look for opportunities to agitate for such organisation when one does not yet exist.

All WSM members are required to respect picket lines and other forms of union action.

In organised workplaces WSM members are expected to attend union meetings and encouraged to take on unpaid, mandated and recallable roles, particularly at the base level of union representative and shop steward. They are encouraged to take available trainings.

WSM members can only run for paid office in a union as part of a broader rank & file campaign to take control of the union and that campaign includes a plan to make such a role accountable and recallable if it is not already so.

As we recognise a need for some unions to hire more paid organisers, we leave open the possibility of becoming a paid organiser as an exception, but since the compatibility of that position with our politics depends on the specifics of the union, whether or not someone can do this is a matter for discussion and ratification by the wider membership (at branch).