[lbo-talk] Visteon

Eric Beck ersatzdog at gmail.com
Sat Apr 11 20:01:32 PDT 2009


[Haven't seen much on the list about the Visteon occupation, but thought I'd put up this postmortem. Not much of a surprise that the union's existential survival would trump the workers' desires, and certainly no surprise that the SWP would seize the opportunity to profit from others' work. But still interesting, to me at least.]

[...]

The union and the left have already begun to claim this struggle as a victory on the grounds that it forced the company to the negotiating table and that it has inspired other workers. These are partial truths, though any real assessment would have to be made after any deal is sealed. But the fact that the workers have been maneuouvred by the union into a vulnerable position where they could easily be screwed is something not to be glossed over, as the left will want to. This false optimism is only a means of repressing reflection on limits and strengths of what has happened, and a recipe for a repeat of the same errors in the future.

[...]

The union’s authority to ultimately decide the fate of the workers was not challenged. Early on in the occupation, when it was mentioned that the union might pressure an end to the occupation against workers’ wishes, a couple of workers replied “ah, but we are the union”, as if the workers’ collective voice could control the union structure. But once negotiations were organised by officials - on the other side of the world - and the whole process becomes remote and secret from the workers in the hands of specialists, they become dependent not on what they know, but on what they’re told. And we know from long experience that the union hierarchy has its own vested interests to protect that often don’t coincide with that of the workers.

As the occupiers came out, the SWP - never ones to miss an opportunist photo-opportunity - swamped the crowd with their placards and chanted ‘the workers united will never be defeated’. Under the circumstances, this had a hollow and ironic ring. It began to feel, as nearly every strike has in the past 20+ years - like one more predictable stitch up by union bureaucrats - more interested in helping Nu Labour manage capitalism in crisis than feeling the need to win even modest gains for workers.

<http://thecommune.wordpress.com/2009/04/11/enfield-fordvisteon-occupation-ends-with-no-conclusion/>



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