Point 8: Union and Labour Strategy
Point 8: Union and Labour Strategy
8.1 Union Action in the workplace
The Union action that the CNT develops in the workplace, emanates from its essence, principles and tactics, and is realised through the Single Union of Industry and its respective sections.
The union action in the workplaces or centres of work must involve, in the first place, the power and enrichment of the union section, bearing in mind that there needs to exist a permanent relation between this goal and the union.
The union action will need to develop itself along the following lines:
1.The vehiculization?? of mutual aid and human solidarity that makes possible the effective defence of affiliated workers in the face of the agressions and injustices of the bosses.
2.The permanent advisory at all workers on the inherent rights to the condition of work and to the dignity that as such we must characterise.
3.Before a generalised conflict, be it union or social, be it particular or general, the Union Sections in close bond with its Union, mobilises all its common resources towards the complete solution of the posed conflict showing to the rest of the paid workers the advantage of our union.
4.The formation of the workers in the spirit of association and in the anarcho-syndicalist idea that informs our organisation.
5.The (paulatino apprendizaje) of the workers in technical aspects of the productive process in which they are immersed (involved?), the object of which they can take charge of the production in a given moment. All this and the action of defence makes its necessary the following economic activities of the workplace.
Methods of Action
For the achievement of the immediate aims previously expressed, and when that it seen necessary, the CNT will have to adopt our traditional tactic of direct action, that in the industrial camp has a name – Boycott of Production. Said boycott, that, according to the degree of application, will require the joint aid of the different confederal bodies, it will be able to be applied in the different stages of productive processes. Each one of these stages will have the following forms:
a.In the acquisition of primary materials, through the paralysation of the acquisition of these materials, be it through the joint help of the workers of other branches of production, or either by the effective action of the Union in conflict.
b.In the elaboration of the products, by means of traditional methods of boycott in this stage of production: stop work, strike and sabotage. Now then, given the distortions that these terms have made the reformist centres for its improper use, we consider necessary to make the following precisions (observations?, clarifications?)
In the first place, the strike, intended as total paralysation of the productive process, it must not submit to any fixed period nor develop in any legal setting, given that it must end when it has achieved the raised demands, or in its defeat, it has reached the limits of its strength. On the other hand, to develop the strikes in a legal setting, it can reduce its effectiveness and facilitate the integration and neutralisation of the same by the System.
In the second place, strikes of solidarity are the most effective forms against Capital and the State, the same time they foster mutual aid between workers.
Lastly, the CNT will promote whatever other forms of protest for just causes of the working class as it can: shut-ins, occupations, demonstrations, etc, which complements the methods of pressure already cited.
The utilization of whichever of these methods of pressure or struggle will have to be in accordance with the decision making bodies of the CNT, in order that it can be assumed, de and helped by the Confederation.
The Union Elections
The union elections were an invention of the employers and the UCD government of the time at the end of the 1970s, to regulate the reawakened labor movement. After the death of Franco and the collapse of his vertical [government-dominated] unions, the country was shaken by a series of strikes and mass protests in which the protagonists were primarily, the people themselves, and in order to cope with this situation unionism was institutionalized.
The largest unions, the UGT and CCOO and the rest, with the exception of the CNT, accepted a system of bargaining by means of a new invention: the enterprise committee. The enterprise committee is chosen by means of a secret ballot between candidates representing the unions. As soon as the enterprise committee is chosen, the employer discusses agreements only with it. The union elections are held, more or less, every three to four years. After the elections, the government announces the results. Only those unions which exceed 10% of the votes are given representation to sit and discuss and negotiate with the government.
The elections are always won by UGT-CCOO, who number approximately 200,000 members. Other unions like Basque Workers Solidarity (ELA-STV), the USO, the Galician inter-union, or unions of sanitary professions, etc. obtain smaller results (between 7,000 and 3,000).
The government evaluates these vote figures in order in order to give economic subsidies and to professionalize the unionists who work in its facilities. Also the employer by means of collective bargaining, subsidizes the enterprise committees and occasionally sits some of its members on its board of directors. It is necessary to make clear that the CNT does not accept subsidies, neither from the State nor the employer, since these are the organizations which must be combatted, and the CNT does not want to lose its independence to confront them.
The acceptance of a system of privileges, subsidies, and union institutionalization, has after more than a decade led to the practical disappearance of the idea of the union as a social transformer, because:
d)The union elections remove the power of decision from the people. In the workplace only the committee makes decisions during its mandate.
e)The union elections always give victory to the most reactionary candidates, who always win in an individual and secret vote.
f)The persons elected to the committee have a fixed term and are not subject to any discipline. They represent you although you don't want them, they negotiate in your name without your permission, they don't call assemblies if they don't want them, they limit what you can discuss or agree on with the employer, etc.
g)In consequence, all negotiations are in the hands of the committee.
The CNT rejects the principle of authority, and therefore, representatives with unchecked power. If the CNT were to enter into the system of union elections, executive delegates, paid functionaries and government subsidies, it would reproduce exactly that which it is trying to abolish.
Relation of the CNT with the Assemblies. Representation in the workplace
The CNT will promote the factory and branch assemblies in base to take decisions that directly and exclusively affect that workplace or branch for a major strength in action against the boss, and for its demands.
The presence of the CNT in the Assemblies will be as such Union or Union Section, and like this will give its alternatives. Never will the Organisation be diiluted in these assemblies, under no demand or agreement, as that the unions that decided in CNT are its affiliates.
The CNT will accept the agreements of the Assemblies in full and when they do not affect its principles, tactics and aims: in this case, it will respect the agreements, however in case of discrepancy of demands it will not assume them nor will it defend them, nevertheless it will intend to demonstrate the equivovation that it supposes to bring to in the practice, in order to go educating to the workers in its principles as Revolutionary Organisation.
The affiliates of the CNT, in principle, will only be represented by its proper delegates of the CNT, except in free assembly of all workers in a place of work, this they decide in its council to defend some agreements that, not being contrary to the tactics and aims of the CNT, they request the direct election of some delegates, that way same direct, of the Assembly, that mandated by the same to fulfil the specific mandate or at request of the proper Assembly.
