Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 09:59:48 +1000 (EST)
From: billbartlett-AT-vision.net.au (Bill Bartlett)
Subject: Re: AUT: Re: WR on the Australian dockers


At 9:49 AM 26/5/98, Antagonism wrote:

>Here are some comments on the article from World Revolution.

[...]


>Anyway, here are my main criticisms of the article.
>

[...] Therefore, because the ICC recognise that the unions are part of capital,
>and do useful work for the bourgeoisie, they take it for granted that
>Patricks recognise the MUA as their ally against the workers.
>
[...]

>We could nonetheless regard conflicts
>between enterprises and the state on the one hand, and union structures on
>the other, as being faction fights within capital.

This still seems an unwarranted generalisation. Sometimes they are and
sometimes they are not. This view seems to assume that because many union
structures are not class-conscious, they are part of a conspiracy against
the working class. But it is as well to remember that the working class not
not overly class-conscious either, so although there are lots of
conspiracies against the working class, not everyone is party to that
conspiracy.

Quite a few unions are just dupes! Some of these dupes are regarded as
outdated anachronisms by SOME capitalist factions, while other factions
prefer to tread cautiously or "let sleeping dogs lie".

>3) The article states that "at Wapping back in 1985-86 (...) twice a week for
>months the unions staged pitched battles with the police." This is not
>true. >Most of those fighting the police weren't even printers, but were
>teenagers >from the local tower blocks, or were 'activists'. The unions
>tried to >organise peaceful pickets. They informed the police on
>proletarians who >used violence against scabs and cops The unions also
>used violence directly >against those who fought the cops.
>The dispute was called off after a year by the union (SOGAT) after
>violence >reached such a level that significant numbers of police were
>getting >hospitalised weekly.

So what is the point of all this? What is the article getting at?
>
>4) The way that the article is worded, it could be read to mean that
>workers >should not picket or blockade enterprises, but only try to spread
>the dispute

Is THAT all the article was trying to say? Spread the dispute HOW? What is
the logic of this argument anyhow, sorry to ask you but I found the article
quite hard to follow. You seem to at least have some insight into what the
author was trying to say.

>to other enterprises. I think instead that proletarians should do both.
>>Pickets can provide a focus for solidarity action, and a way for
>>non-workers to get involved.

Pickets are more than that, they constitute direct economic action against
an employer and are one of the few actions that workers who are locked out
can take. If locked out workers cannot get solidarity from other workers
they are lost, but it is often unrealistic to expect a general strike every
time there is the slightest injury to any group of workers. Of course when
the picket line is honoured by other workers then that is, effectively, a
widening of the dispute. If other workers refuse to cross a picket line
then they are taking industrial action, the law recognises (and usually
proscribes) this reality.

>But the most successful strikes are those that cut across the artificial
>>boundaries of the enterprise, industry, union affiliation etc.

Yes, but neither you nor the article address the crucial issue of HOW to
cut across those artificial lines. A picket is one obvious way. What other
strategies or factors must be in place to facillitate effective solidarity
actions. It is all very well to demand that solidarity be present, but
surely there is more to it than that?

The article needs correcting but the task intimidates me due to its sheer
size, so I'll pass. Except to say that it appears to be somewhat innacurate
in factual details and designed more as packaging for pre-conceived
notions, rather than an honest analysis.

Bill Bartlett
Bracknell Tas.




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