> Leo Casey wrote:
> > 4. we will abolish the NLRB and all government
> > institutions which have the capacity to protect the
> > rights of workers to organize collectively because
> > they are really a crutch the labor movement does not
> > need;
>
> See the following URL for starters:
> http://www.radio4all.org/anarchy/union.html
Lane Kirkland (or George Meany, I forget which one) once proposed doing away with the NLRA, so in some respects, your position is in line with the archetypes of "business unions." I note this only as an observation in irony regarding the unlikely allies you can pick up along the way.
The problem with the line of thinking expounded in the link above is that it is simply completely disconnected from the reality of conditions here and now, for a variety of reasons.
Perhaps most importantly, as opposed to the Halcyon Days of the IWW, we have a recognized legal process governing workers who wish to organize. It's easy to say that we should ignore this, that direct action is the be-all and end-all, and that all we have to do is liberate the workers from the chains of their hierarchical statist thinking, but this is simply too much to overcome to organize masses of workers in America in the year 2000. Sure, there are non-NLRB strategies for forcing recognition, but most people - workers, bosses, the community at large - will not understand or argree to go outside the law. Absent a larger structural crisis in society at large, people are unlikely to seek the sorts of extra-legal strategies available to us.
I certainly don't disagree with mounting fights during the life of a contract and using whatever methods we can to win, but working as an organizer for even a short time will teach you one thing very quickly - most people don't want to fight all the time, even when the boss wants to kill their union. So you focus on the one thing that grabs the attention of most of the union members -contract fights and the attempt to win a better life. Any union organizer will tell you that workers generally turn out for two meetings: when the workers are deciding to strike, or when there's a dues increase in the offing. What our job is during these meetings is to use the fight for more money is to lead the workers into a fight, hopefully a strike, so that they can understand through their own experience what they're up against: the forces of the bosses, the state, etc.
Through this collective action, people do begin to understand the source of their power. But right now, their is nothing to direct that understanding towards. That is, there is no large-scale movement towards significantly upsetting the status quo. So, you try to have as many fights as you can, in preparation, so that when there is some kind of crisis, the workers will already have the experience of self-governance and mutual struggle as a model.
Regarding "labor leaders," your criticisms are grounded in some truth, but that's not the end of the story. There are some unions, on of which I work for, that are based on a model of industrial power, not craft unionism. In order for us to have any sort of credibility with potential allies in the labor movement, or in order for us to be an example for non-union workers looking to organize, we must be able to deliver in the bread-and-butter issues that are important to people - wages, health insurance, pensions, etc.
If we are not able to fight for and win contracts that set standards in our industry (health care, for me), we will have absolutely no credibility or influence outside of the admiration of ideologues for purity of our approach. That and a dollar will buy you a cup of coffee. As it stands with my union, we've increased in membership here in Pennsylvania from 7,000 people in 1996 to over 14,000 today. We've bargained contracts that give nurses and other health care workers control over staffing, restrict mandatory overtime, and protect workers from losing their union and, in some cases, level of benefits in the event of merger, take overs, etc.
As a result of this, our union has gone from being an outcast of the Sweeny-led SEIU International to being a model for the Stern-led International. From getting virutally no support from the International during organizing campaigns, we now get just about anything we need when we're mounting an organizing campaign. The president of our local has been elected to the Executive Board and is also one in a leadership position of the of the newly-created Nursing Home division of the International.
In short, we've gone from being the black sheep "commie local" to being the model held up for the rest of the International, along with a few other like-minded locals, to emulate. This would NOT have happened if we could not deliver the basics for our membership.
One last note, about leadership. There will always be leaders. In any social grouping, there are those who have more influence over their co-workers than others. Simply abdicating this leadership to the undirected will of the people can easily end up in disaster - after all, German workers put Jews in the ovens in part because this leadership had been liquidated by the Nazis immediately after they seized power. I'm sure this goes against your anarchist principles, but there must be some kind of organized leadership to avoid this. I like to quote Debs, who once said something along the lines of, "I'm not Moses, come to lead you to the promised land, because whatever people can be led to, they can be led out of." The point, to me, is to build a large enough layer of organization and leadership to avoid this.
Jeff