One Big Union

Unions were the first means of defence developed by the working class in its struggle against capitalist exploitation. They were the result of concerted efforts by workers to organise and fight collectively for better working conditions, wage increases and a shorter working day. The establishment and growth of unions was no gift from the capitalist class, but the result of workers’ struggles against their exploiters.

Working conditions were intolerable before unions were organised. The working day in factories had no limit other than the physical exhaustion of the workers, and would often exceed 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Children were frequently employed, deprived of any education, they did the same job as adults, but for barely one-half or one-quarter of the pay. Women fared no better, overworked and underpaid in the sweatshops of the time. Employers could pay workers when they pleased and cut wages whenever they wanted to.

For many years workers fought back in a sporadic, random manner, in an unorganised way. With the development of unions, the working class took a major step forward. The isolated conflicts between individual workers and capitalists now took on the character of conflicts between two classes. Now, not only were the capitalists organised with their industrial associations and the governments at their service, but the workers also had their own collective organisations – the trade unions. Strikes broke out and many were successful. Thus, the establishment of unions, a major step forward in uniting workers into a class, was the result of struggle against the capitalists, particularly political action against their state and its anti-worker laws. Instead of leaving workers isolated to face their bosses alone, labour unions do everything possible to strengthen and broaden the struggles. The main problem was that trade unionism accepts the capitalist system and tries only to get a bigger piece of the pie for themselves.

As an organisation of the working class, the unions cannot limit itself to the economic struggle for better working conditions and wages. As long as the capitalist system exists, the bosses will always try to take back what they have been forced to concede. They will continually try to step up the exploitation of the working class in order to boost their profits. Until the workers get rid of the capitalist system itself, the cause of all the injustices and suffering they face,  the source of their misery they will constantly have to take up their struggles over and over again.

A role of the socialist party is to educate and teach the members of trade unions their limitations and to show that every conflict between workers and management is part of the general struggle in society between the capitalist and its state on the one hand, and the working class on the other. We try to dispel the f illusions about the role of governments, the police or the law.We denounce all the bosses’ or the bureaucrats’ attempts to institutionalise class collaboration through joint employer/employee committees. Our guiding principle is that the interests of the bosses and the workers are irreconcilable. We reject any support, official or otherwise, on the part of the unions for any capitalist party even those that try to give themselves a friend-of-the-worker image

Karl Marx summed it up in Wages, Price and Profit:
“Trade unions work well as centres of resistance against the encroachments of capital. They fail partially from an injudicious use of their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class, that is to say, the ultimate abolition of the wages system.”

 Workers must transform the labour movement into a class-conscious political movement. Unions with this perspective defend the workers best. They are strong because they understand the nature and the objectives of the capitalist class, and they use every struggle to strengthen the labour movement as a whole.

We hold that unions should practice democracy and is fully controlled by its members. The union should ensure those members actively participate in union life, structures, general meetings or tasks. Decisions are made after thorough debates in which all opinions are expressed. They are not made by a  bureaucracy who tell us to leave everything to them. Union officials apply the decisions of their members and place themselves at their members’ service. They have no special privileges and if they fail to carry out the union’s decisions or fail to apply its wishes, means should exist for their recall  and remove them from their functions, if necessary. To reach important decisions members must have all the information they is required in order to take a position. Workers must participate in formulating their demands, and should have democratic control over all decisions to strike or to return to work, and on all other issues that affect them.Unions are essential for the working class and without them, workers would still be subject to the every whim and fancy of the employers and their foremen. What is as important as the growth of numbers is the development of the trade unions in the direction of class solidarity as opposed to sectional exclusiveness and antagonism.

However, the support of the Socialist Party for the trade unions is not necessarily all one-way. In  order to move the struggle for socialism forward, they must support a party that is fighting to do away with capitalism, a socialist party. As Marx wrote in a resolution of the International Workingmen’s Association on unions:
“Aside from their immediate work of reacting to the pestering manoeuvres of capital, they must become the organizing centres of the working class fighting towards that great goal, its total emancipation. They must help any political and social movement in favour of this aim.”

The unions’ indispensable support for a socialist party will not come about automatically. It must be won through education and persuasion, and by the union members own experience. The support is not imposed but is won democratically.  Our primary function is to organise a political party, independent, class-conscious, proletarian and socialist. The function of industrial organisation lies with the trade unions. These two functions are not absolutely distinct and separate, they are to some extent interdependent. Yet they are not identical. The trade unions can help us, we can help them. It is as much unreasonable to suggest that in politics the Socialist Party should be the subordinate partner as it would be to suggest that the Socialist Party should claim to dictate the policy of the trade union in conducting the strike, or should expect the union to abandon the immediate objects and demands of the strike simply in order to make socialist propaganda.