From: "commie00" <commie00-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: AUT: Cobas/SUD
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 12:26:44 -0500


hey sean and steve (and everyone else)

> of the wobblies i meet in the u.s most are class
> struggle anarchists, leninists that think afl is not
> radical enough, or people with more social democratic
> politics that just think the labor movement has sold
> out to business unionism (or think industrial unionism
> is a better model than trade unionism), it's rare to
> meet someone influenced by autonomist, libertarian
> marxist, or situationists ideas in the wobblies...

one of the reasons for this, i would guess, is that most of the folks i have
met who are / or are very influenced by autonomist marxists/ ism (which i'm
going to use in a very broad way to incorporate all the libertarian forms of
marxism, for ease) take very serious the basic autonomist notion of
"autonomous from unions" as well as the rest, and make a serious critique of
unionism (in any form).

i tend to agree, and it seems to me that the only way forward for the iww
would actually be to drop the i.u. rhetoric and unionist garb, and
concentrate of being a network of workplace and community radicals who take
the grouping as their starting point for mutual aid, communication and
action.

when i joined the iww way back when, this is what i took "industrial
unionism" to essentially mean, esp. since the iww seems to want such things
as worker-owned co-ops, social centers and the like to join. however, my
short experience in the iww quickly changed my mind, and i found myself not
wanting to put energy into a society of folks debating the merits of the
past or organizing what turned out to be very standard union drives (clothed
in radical rhetoric, but nothing more).

in my experience, most folks (esp. those who have been in unions) seem to
regard unions with a bit of suspicion, and see them, at best, as
"unfortunately necessary". i think this says a lot about the fate of
unionism in the past and present.



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