what is anarcho-syndicalism?

With protest around the country today concerning wage freezes in the health and support sector, it’s evident that radical workplace organising is still needed, and more than ever. Faced with moderate trade unions in bed with the current political system, anarcho-syndicalism offers a practical and militant approach to real change in our own lives. Beyond Resistance looks forward to the development of industrial networks and works towards this goal (see our strategy here).

Anarchism is a revolutionary political current that declares “freedom without socialism is  privilege and injustice and socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality.” Syndicalism is the workers’ movement. Deriving from the French word for Trade Unionism  (Syndicalisme), it seeks to unite workers on an economic basis to fight for their interests.

Anarcho-syndicalism is anarchism applied to the workers’ movement. From  small educational groups to mass revolutionary unions, libertarian organisation grows and  is controlled from the bottom up.

“Anarcho-syndicalism unites the political and the  economic and opposes representation in favour of self-organisation” Anarcho-syndicalists seek to organise with other militant workers who agree with their  revolutionary aims and principles. Initially, this takes the form of local groups and  industrial networks, but as these grow in size and influence they can begin to take on  union functions such as advising fellow workers and initiating direct action like  work-to-rules, strikes and occupations.

The role of anarcho-syndicalist networks and unions is not to try and recruit every  worker, but to advocate and organise mass meetings of all workers involved in each  struggle so that the workers involved retain control. Within these mass meetings  anarcho-syndicalists argue for the principles of solidarity, direct action and  self-organisation.

In this way anarcho-syndicalism is completely different to Trade Unionism, which seeks to  represent workers on an economic basis, and the so-called ‘Workers Parties’ which seek to  represent workers on a political basis. Instead, anarcho-syndicalism unites the political  and the economic and opposes representation in favour of self-organisation.

By organising this way, workers learn to act for themselves, exercising their power  without being led by union officials or political vanguards, calling into question the way  society is organised and prefiguring the world we want to create, without bosses or  rulers: libertarian communism.

“The history of political parties and trade union bureaucracy is a history of sell-outs and betrayal”

Anarcho-syndicalist aims and principles

Anarcho-syndicalists aim to promote solidarity in our workplaces and outside them,  encouraging workers to organise independently of government, bosses and bureaucrats to fight for our own interests as a class. Our ultimate goal is a stateless, classless  society based on the principle of ‘from each according to ability, to each according to  need’ – a system of free councils made up of recallable delegates from workplaces and
communities. This is libertarian communism.

We see such a society based on our needs being created out of working class struggles to  assert our needs in the here and now. Our activity is therefore aimed at promoting, assisting and developing such class struggles locally and internationally, which both  benefits us now and brings us closer to the society we want to create. We do this according to the following three principles:

• Solidarity. As individuals we are relatively powerless in the face of bosses, bureaucrats and the state, but when we act collectively the tables are turned.
• Direct action. We do not make appeals to political or economic representatives to  act on our behalf, but organise to get the things we want for ourselves.
• Self-organisation. Workers should control their own struggles through mass  meetings, both learning how to act without bosses or leaders and ensuring they can’t be sold out or demobilised from above.

What do anarcho-syndicalists do?

Anarcho-syndicalists are engaged in a wide range of workplace and community struggles, some very immediate and others more long term. These include:

• Workplace organising – on issues from pay to working hours to working practices and conditions.
• Community organising – from public services to housing to the environment.
• Strike and occupation solidarity – staffing picket lines, raising funds and bringing in supplies.
• Worker support – organising demonstrations, pickets and direct action in support of individual victimised workers.
• Networking with other militant workers through networks.
• Organising public meetings – on the economy, war, climate change and other issues that affect the working class.
• Producing and distributing propaganda – from regular free-sheets and magazines to one-off leaflets, spreading the ideas of solidarity, direct action and self-organisation.

From the Solidarity Federation.

Chicago 10: november film night

At the 1968 Democratic National Convention, anti-Vietnam War protestors who were denied permits for demonstrations repeatedly clashed with the Chicago Police Department. Tensions mounted, and an already fraught week culminated in riots broadcast live to a television audience of more than 50 million, further polarizing the nation.

Seeking a scapegoat for the riots, the U.S. government held eight of the most vocal activists accountable for the violence and brought them to trial a year later. Brett Morgen’s CHICAGO 10 presents contemporary history with a forced perspective, mixing animation with archival footage and a dramatic soundtrack. This innovative film showcases original animation voiced by actors, including Jeffrey Wright, Hank Azaria, Mark Ruffalo, Nick Nolte and Liev Schrieber, and explores the explosive build-up to — and the eventual unraveling of — the Chicago Conspiracy Trial.

The trial’s defendants represented a broad cross section of the anti-war movement in the late Sixties, from counterculture icons and Yippie leaders Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin to renowned pacifist David Dellinger. Seven of the defendants were represented by Leonard Weinglass and famed liberal attorney William Kunstler, who went head-to-head with prosecution attorney Thomas Foran. The eighth defendant and co-chair of the Black Panther Party, Bobby Seale, insisted on defending himself; Judge Julius Hoffman responded by binding, gagging and handcuffing him to his chair. From the start, the trial was a media circus, with the defendants on a collision course with governmental authority.

A parable of hope, courage and ultimate victory, CHICAGO 10’s unique and unconventional style uses motion-capture animation to portray actual events from the trial, recreating courtroom dramas based on transcripts and interviews. CHICAGO 10 moves from the streets of Chicago to the courtroom at an accelerated pace, giving the audience a ringside seat for one of the most controversial trials of the period.

Watch the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9uJL7lWdFg

Or for more info on the film, check out this great website: http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/chicago10/

Food, drinks and childcare will be provided, so come on down and join your local anarchists as part of our monthly film nights at the WEA! Zines, books and more will also be available on the night.

Thursday 26th November, 6.30pm.
WEA (59 Gloucester Street), Otautahi/Christchurch.

Koha entry.

http://beyondresistance.wordpress.com/

Still fanning the flames…

Anarchism, as a body of thought, has been misinterpreted, misused and mystified by both those who agree or disagree with it, yet according to the authors of the recently published book Black Flame, despite the wide berth of anarchist ideas some important definitions and distinctions can be made. Using a fresh and thoughtful framework, Black Flame analyses the revolutionary class politics of anarchism and syndicalism, producing a coherent and cohesive overview of tactics, strategies and praxis to both illustrate an anarchist history of struggle and revolution, and to push the current movement forward.

In the following interview, the authors of Black Flame share their own thoughts on the book, its genesis, and its usefulness in our current context. Read and enjoy!

AK PRESS: There has been quite a buzz around Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism. This is, am I right, volume one of what you call Counter-Power. Can you tell us a bit about what how people have responded to the book?

LUCIEN VAN DER WALT: The response has been overwhelmingly positive. We’re very happy with it. Of course, not everyone agrees with us on everything: that’s only to be expected, and anyway, we make it clear in the opening chapter that we want debate and welcome critique. Some folks, of course, don’t like the book at all—but no book can please everyone! Anyway, we want to stir things up a bit.

AK: Who is the book aimed at?

MICHAEL SCHMIDT: We have three main audiences in mind: activists on the left, university students and faculty, and the general reader interested in ideas, history and politics. The book is pretty much free of jargon, and tries to be as accessible as possible.

AK: What makes the book different to the existing general studies, such as Woodcock’s Anarchism?

Michael: Let’s start by making it quite clear that we greatly respect the earlier syntheses of writers like Woodcock, Joll, Marshall, Kedward—not to mention writers from within the movement, like Max Nettlau and Daniel Guérin. These inspired us, and helped lay the basis for our own project.

That said, one of the distinctive contributions of Black Flame is its global scope. We have set out to develop a genuinely global history of anarchism and syndicalism. In most studies, the focus has really been on parts of Western Europe, and to a lesser extent North America. In our project, we have placed movements in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Australasia, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe and Latin America centre-stage.

This is a single global story we are telling, though: we are not setting up any arbitrary divisions, positing any sort of binary “Northern” versus “Southern” anarchism. There is one movement, although it varies according to local conditions and initiatives.

AK: Why does a global perspective matter?

Lucien: It has a number of concrete implications. For one thing, “Spanish exceptionalism”—the notion that Spain, alone, developed a significant anarchist mass, popular, movement, especially in the early 20th century —simply cannot be defended anymore. It only works if you compare Spain to a narrow range of West European countries, and even then it falters when you look at the strength of contemporaneous movements in France and Portugal.

And once you look globally, you find mass movements of comparable, sometimes even greater, influence in countries ranging from Argentina, to China, to Cuba, to Mexico, to Peru, to the Ukraine and so on. What gets a bit lost in studies that focus on Western Europe is that most of anarchist and syndicalist history took place elsewhere. In other words, you can’t understand anarchism unless you understand that much of its history was in the east and the south, not only in the north and the west.

Read more here.

Solid Energy Mines Fall Silent As 1000 Workers Strike

From epmu.org.nz: Workers at Solid Energy’s Spring Creek mine joined workers at the SOE’s other three big mines in strike action and picketing on Thursday, bringing the total number of workers locked out or on strike to nearly one thousand.

The nationwide solidarity action comes after Solid Energy contractor HWE Mining, which operates the Rotowaro mine, indefinitely suspended workers last Tuesday for taking low-level industrial action.

EPMU assistant national secretary Ged O’Connell says the action is aimed at supporting the suspended miners at Rotowaro and addressing concerns about Solid Energy’s contracting model.

“This action was sparked by the heavy-handed suspension of our members in Rotowaro by one of Solid Energy’s contractors but there are other concerns at mines across the country, in particular the company’s use of contractors to undermine terms and conditions in the industry.

“Solid Energy has tried to wash its hands of any responsibility for the conditions at its opencast mines by making back room arrangements with its contractors.

“Rather than cutting deals with its contractors and then leaving them to tell our members there’s no money available, Solid Energy needs to front up to the table and negotiate in good faith.

“All we want to do is sit down with Solid Energy and its contractors and negotiate a fair industry agreement without any game-playing.”

The four mines involved in the dispute are Huntly’s Rotowaro and Huntly East mines, Stockton mine near Westport, and the Spring Creek mine near Greymouth.

All mines are covered by the same multi-employer collective agreement and are fully unionised, which means all of Solid Energy’s production has effectively stopped as of today. Pickets are taking place at all four mines.

ACC – Whats the deal?!

Across the board, the government is making cuts to ACC that will affect you. Public opposition is widespread, with various action groups forming regularly. This is a call out to all those affected by this issue, to come together, discuss, plan, and brainstorm ideas to stop these cuts once and for all.

A brief summary of changes so far…

 

• End of free physiotherapy treatments
• Sexual abuse survivors will have to be diagnosed with a mental illness to qualify for free councilling
• Motorcycle registration up to $750 for bikes bigger than 600cc
• Moped and scooter registration up $30
• Car registration up $30
• “Average worker” taxes up $345 per year
• No councilling or support for families affected by suicide
• Possible privatisation
• What next?

 

PUBLIC MEETING TO BE HELD AT CANTERBURY WEA

59 GLOUCESTER ST (opposite COCA Gallery)

SAT 21st NOVEMBER 2009

12:30 – 3:00pm.

There will be plenty of space available, so feel free to invite anyone you know who is affected by this. Tea and coffee provided. Free childcare available.

More info:

www.beyondresistance.wordpress.com/contact

All welcome!

towards a constructive anarchism

In Aotearoa, as around the world, we face many obstacles to the growth of a mass, anarchist communist movement. The forces of capitalism and the state aside, we are up against a society used to the delegation of power to someone else. Politicians, union and community bureacrats, and lobbying are the main channels of current dissent in Aotearoa. Likewise, our highly individualised society — with its loss of community and the increase of isolation, consumption, and apathy — has overshadowed the ideas of direct action, collective decision making, solidarity, and self-organisation. In the workplace we face individual contracts, casualised labour, and a lack of class conciousness; where unions do exist, they are hopelessly reformist and entirely entrenched in the current capitalist structure.

The position of Beyond Resistance is that in order to challenge these current conditions, it is necessary to struggle. But if we are a fighting organisation, then strategy and tactics must be applied. We need to know well our long term objectives and how to overcome these obstacles — the end being to weaken our class enemy, strengthening organs of self-management and dual power, and take concrete tactical steps which bring us closer to a position of breaking with the current system.

Propaganda is necessary to build a visible and vibrant working class movement. But it cannot be the exclusive focus of our efforts — propaganda cannot determine the needs of an organisation; it is the needs of the organisation that have to determine the propaganda.

With this in mind, we must be able to offer constructive and practical action based on our ideas, our methods and our goals. We must work towards a constructive anarchism. Therefore, Beyond Resistance seeks to implement the strategy put forward here.

beyond resistance hui: a summary

Members of Beyond Resistance recently gathered in a not-so-secret location in Taylors Mistake, Otautahi/Christchurch, for our very first internal hui. The Catholic Worker bach, while a bit ‘rustic’ suited our needs very well — the amazing view which greeted our reprise from discussion made up for any other faults, not to mention ‘the confessional’ (the toilet…).

Over the course of the weekend we managed to discuss, develop and finalise a lot of ideas we’ve been throwing about in the short time we’ve existed as a collective. After a few drinks and a movie on the Friday night, we got down to some serious pow wow on Saturday, kicking off with an in depth round about ourselves, our pasts, and our ideas. Session two was dedicated to our Aims & Principles, which helped consolidate our collective perspective and gauge where we are in terms of individual understandings (you can check them out here: http://beyondresistance.wordpress.com/aims-principles/). That evening we held an open session for anyone to attend, which was filled with films, beer and all-around banter.

Sunday was dedicated to group strategy, something we feel has been lacking in a lot of past groups we’ve all been involved in. It’s easy to know what you are against and react accordingly, but it’s harder to vocalise (and put into practice) what you are for — so we talked extensively on what we felt constitutes a constructive anarchism. Tino Rangatiratanga, feminist praxis, dual power, industrial networks and community assemblies were the main focus, from which we have developed a strategy paper for the collective. This paper, ‘Towards a Constructive Anarchism’ can be seen on our strategy page.

We also finalised How We Work, including things like conflict resolution, responsibilities, and membership. We now have a membership form where you can indicate whether you’d like to be a support member, or a core member. We have the two types of membership because we recognise that time and energy can’t always be spared, and hope to include those interested accordingly. If you’d like to find out more about this, please visit: http://beyondresistance.wordpress.com/how-we-work/.

It was a great weekend, filled with lots of laughs and lofty aims. We in Beyond Resistance look forward to sharing the outcomes gained over the course of the weekend, and most importantly, the struggle ahead.

In solidarity,

Beyond Resistance

acc protest video