> Companies try to fire workers who are perceived as troublemakers, and
> those who are trying to organize unions, be they "official" or
> "unofficial," are troublemakers in their view. I recall a woman named
> Miriam Fried, a member of IWW, getting fired by Borders, when she tried
> to organize a union. I don't see the distinction that you make here.
Dense. You just don't get my point. Yeah, I've met Miriam Fried. The Borders organizing drive was when prompted me to join the IWW. The failure of the IWW to understand the importance of that drive to their union is what caused me to leave it a few years later.
What I'm getting at is that aside from big labor serving as the labor pimps for capital--in much the same way liberal social service agencies keep a lid on dissent by serving as poveryt pimps--it is stupid to organize against an employer in a way that is legible to the employer. Most unionization efforts (including ones done by so-called "radical" unions like the IWW) aim to create an officially-sanctioned union. This makes it really easy for the capitalists to simply fire the organizers. Why can't workers organize a union off the books, so to speak, where every worker is the "organizer?" Why do unions continue to pursue organizing strategies that always play into the hands of the capitalists.
Well, one answer is that the unions want an agreement with the capitalists, so they can have power. Which is why I call these unions labor pimps. If the labor union isn't engaged in an all-out war against capitalism, then isn't is just serving as a kind of social service agency for workers?
It certainly looks that way to me when I look at all of these big labor buildings around DC.
> Union democracy activists and revolutionary syndicalists work to gain
> rank-and-file power, against the union officials who are committed to
> the politics of cross-class collaboration. Really corrupt union
> officials used to hire thugs to kill them for that.
Yeah, that's what they say, even though they prefer to be blind to the methods that would give them that power. They talk a big dogmatic game, but have poor results to show for it.
> If you had clearly argued for consensus as just one way among others, no
> one would have disagreed with you here. The problem is fetishization of
> consensus, as Gar noted, not consensus itself.
Yes, but consensus is a far superior method to the others, if you are interested in practicing direct democracy and implementing an egalitarian process. Most of the arguments against consensus come from those who fetishize hierarchy, efficiency, or conflict-free meetings.
> Around here, it was all the rage among youth activists around 1999-2000.
And what happens in central Ohio can of course be generalized to the rest of the USA. So how about the other activists in your town who use consensus? Or do you ever get off campus?
Chuck0