Voting in the Anarcho-Syndicalist Union

In the CNT voting is avoided and agreements are reached by consensus. Unfortunately when there are large numbers of people involved in the discussion it is more difficult to reach agreement and there comes a time when it is necessary to take a vote.

In local union assemblies this problem is resolved with ease. Normally votes are not taken because people within the union know each other directly and from their daily contact they are accustomed to having more or less the same ideas, and if it becomes necessary to vote by the number of those agreeing, each one gets a vote.

The problem arises when decisions have to be made in local or regional plenaries or congresses. It is already been explained that the basic structure of the CNT is the industrial union branch, or where these do not exist, the union of various occupations [SOV - Sindicato de Oficios Varios]. Well then, there is no completely fair method for making decisions through voting.

- If each union gets one vote, a union of 1,000 members would have the same voice in decisions as a union of 50. Two unions of 25 (2 votes) could impose their opinion onto a union of 1,000 (1 vote).

- If votes are by the number of members, a union of 2,000 members would have 2,000 votes, and 100 unions of 20 members would have the same voice in decisions as just one union. The geographical distribution of 100 unions is wider than that of just one, but an agreement obligates all unions equally even though a small union would have the same responsibility to enforce it as a big union, in spite of the greater difficulty for the small one.

- We find besides the problem of minorities. For example, union A decides to go on strike by 400 votes against 350, and would have to support its decision to strike, since that was the outcome of its assembly. Union B of the same local federation says no to the strike by 100 votes to 25. Union C of the local federation says yes by a unanimous 15 votes. There are thus two unions in favor of the strike and one against, so a strike would be called if based on one vote per union. But adding the negative votes together, 450 voted against the strike, leaving 440 in favor. In order to avoid these possible inequalities in the anarcho-union, when a vote is needed a proportional system is called upon, which bases the decision on the number of people voting one way or the other according to the following table:

From 1 to 50 adherents 1 vote
From 51 to 100 2 votes
From 101 to 300 3 votes
From 301 to 600 4 votes
From 601 to 1000 5 votes
From 1001 to 1500 6 votes
From 1501 to 2500 7 votes
From 2501 and beyond 8 votes

This system benefits minorities, but its results may be disputable. For example, ten unions with 25 adherents would total 250 members having 10 votes. This would be more votes than a union of 2,500, which with 10 times more members, would only have the right to 7 votes. As you can see it is a mess.

The reason the CNT does not look for another system is because in the present day it is not necessary. The agreements consented to after discussions can seem absurd to those who started with something else in mind in the anarcho-syndicalist union, but they are extremely important for the union or region which defends their position. What one thinks about the outcome of all forms depends on your frame of reference.

Whenever there is voting, one has to recognize that what is being discussed is a problem of power, and in the anarcho-syndicalist union therefore one must try to vote as little as possible, and reach agreement by consensus. All our votes are open, and with raised hands. They are never secret.

The arms of the enemy

In times passed, it not makes such, in the daily confrontation of the anarcho-syndicalist union against the state, this was employed repression, in the form of sackings, detention, torture or simply assassination. Nowadays, Captial has varied the forms and it has been more subtely transformed. Violence continues existing of course, of million different forms, and in order to exercise it the State disposes of an apparent (charisma?) of terror based in its police forces, its judical and legislative apparatus, the army and prisons. However capital only employs it when things start to escape from its hands. It finds more comfort and (unknown) to employ part of its resources in propaganda, crushing the brains of the people with the idea that this is a wonderful world, that we are very lucky to be born here and not in Rwanda or in Bosnia and that the thought in revolution or in social change is an act of madness.

Democratic capitalism institutionalises the movements that opposes it. In this way it subsidises unions, parties and associations which are converted into branches of the same. It sets them the terrain and the causes by which they must move. It argues about what it must command, but it does not question that a command exists.

Democratic capitalism is now an attractive system. It attracts individuals as honey attracts flies. The indigenous populations of the amazons that have survived? genocide, when through struggles and sacrifices follow that the government recognised their rights over its lands, or that gives them percentrages over mineral exploitation of gold for example, they construct houses, plantations, satellite dishes and make soap operas in portuguese. The ideal to which the people aspire that maintains destructive capitalism by pestilence, hunger and wars, (in order for us to record to ourselves the ? we live), is democratic capitalist. The system under which we suffer here.

If somebody sets up it’s face (stands up) to democracy, the state, the workplace and does not dance to the tune that they play, before employing repression, it is possible that they use:

Slander. They attack you with something that you have that preoccupies you to show that it is not true. They can accuse you of (unknown) , alcoholism, drug addiction, (unknown), violence..

Rumour - The rumor has the advantage of which it allows itself to fall, and to run only . You don’t have to face the consequences. Internal documents of certain unions advise and describe how the nazis, in the 30s, discovered that a rumour could cross Germany in three days.

The anarcho-syndicalist union never employs slander nor rumour. These methods remain for the shits that collaborate with Capital. The struggle of the CNT is always frank and open.

Descrediting. To accuse you of “not being representative”, “to give no alternatives”, “to be destroying the employer”, are phrases that will be employed in order to put the people against anarcho-syndicalism. Our mission is to give them the return to (to return) this attack, to direct it against those that send it and to demonstrate what type of respresentation it has that it speaks, what alternatives they give us, and that who really always destroys the workplace is the boss, by self-interest or incompetence.

That which the anarchosyndicalist union demands is, shorter workday, maintaining employment, defence of the interests of the workers, that the costs of restructuring always fall back in the enterprise… Our alternative is social transformation, the revolution.

You don’t fall, in general, in the trap of looking for capitalist alternatives to capitalism. That is, the plans of (unknown) based in sackings or opening of new markets, allows that it makes them the boss. This rabble adapts itself to that around it. If it is a passive environment, it will give out?? the conversion and the (invoices/bills/manufactures) of the world of work. However if the people are hostile, it will look for other types of solutions.

The Buy Up. At times, if none of the previous give results, it will try to remove the inconvenient person from the environment, offering them the best jobs, salaries, privileges. It will depend each which to know which is his or her interests and what he or she must do.

Repression. By way of trials, sackings, sanctions, fines, persecutions, etc. All this helped by an impressive display of technical, human and economic means; teams of advisors, psychologists, means of communication and control of the masses, armed forces, security guards, (leader charts?), institutionalised unions, political parties… that will encharge/secure/guarantee of which the things they think by established causes, and that the people remain in passivity and ignorance, the allied principles of State/Capital.

Our arsenal

Direct Action. This has already been spoken of and is the base of all practical activities of the CNT Before a specific problems, it thinks how to use this always in the first place.

Boycott. It means the intent of desroy the commercial activities of a workplace, not consuming its products, and preventing other persons making them, whilst the workplace or body does not modify its actitude that caused the boycott. For example, one boycotts a brand of beer. Not only is it a question of what the people do not drink, but to pressure the bars so that they don’t sell this beer, the distributors so that they do not commercialise it, etc.

Sabotage. This word designates a wider group of activities that go from the carrying out bad work, to the disablement of machines and products, and the hindrance of work, in the arrival of primary materials, in the manufacture of the product and its distribution.

Information/Propaganda. The talks, conferences, conversations, assemblies, publications, cultural activities, etc.

The strike. The strike means to paralyse production. For the CNT the strike must always be indefinite, and to stop, either when it obtains that which it asks for, or when it has reached the limits of its strength. In the carrying out of the strike they must intervene only the world of work and capital, without necessity of (unknown), minimum services nor interventions of the State. This type of strike is described by capital as “savage”, and for this it regulates the strike within some “domesticated?” causes, in order that it loses its effectiveness. A strike that does not create problems and that does not provoke more losses to capital of which causes the world of work is absurd. That which nowadays call itself pompously “right of free assistance to the worker”, is not more than a lie. To make a strike signifies to break the truce and to declare open hostilities. What sustains it and runs the risks, is the active person, not the (blacklegs – esquirol?). What breaks the strike damages not only to their companeros, provided that now it acts of cowardly manner, then it will benefit the majority that they obtain, but to risk nor to lose anything. It is for that which they are not the picketers which they create tensions and conflicts, but the blacklegs.

Mutual Aid. That permits us to help our forces in case of conflict.

The Union. The principle arm of the CNT is that itself. Its anti-authoritarian structure, its process of decision making, its autonomy from the State, political parties and religious groups, and its goal of transformation.

The people. Who have of to be the protagonists, without leaders, vanguards or programs of its rightful destiny. Without people, without people it will not make social transformation possible.

Violence

... Entretanto la policía se había dado cuenta de nuestra presencia, acudiendo en gran número mandada por el inspector Visedo, que llevaba un levitón gris y un sombrero de copa de los más relucientes...EI inspector avanzó decidido contra nosotros seguido de sus agentes; pero Castell, que por andar algo cojo utilizaba un rudo bastón, lo descargó sobre la chistera del policía, abollándosela y dejándolo sin sentido... La policía se mostraba incansable repartiendo sablazos a troche y moche, mientras los revoltosos respondíamos con certeras pedradas. Desde los balcones los vecinos arrojaban sobre los adictos de Visedo toda suerte de extraños proyectiles, entre los cuales cubos y escupideras, y voces femeninas se oían azuzando a los hombres contra los enemigos del pueblo... (Recuerdos de Pedro Vallina del pasado siglo)

The anarcho-syndicalist union is accused on the part of the state of violence. If you round up a dog, peg it with a stick and the dog dies, it can be difficult to call the dog violent. We live in a violent world, however we are not precisely its creators. The organised violence on the part of the State/Capital is manifested in many different ways. Violence is contamination, the deaths in the workplace or going?to work, the professional illnesses that are produced by lack of security, daily exploitation in the workplace, the sustainment of some armed forces whose single mission is assassination and extermination, the famines that devastate the people, the external debt. Violence is the systematic planning of the repression on the part of the government and the robbery of society.

The anarchosyndicalist union has an open battle with the State, and in every case it can be accused of conducting this struggle to its ultimate consequences, and resisting with all its means that it finds within its reach. However the CNT is not violent, neither supporters of violence nor of this nonsense. The anarcho-syndicalist union emphatically rejects violence. We do not have a big state that plans deaths, tortures, hijackings, repressive activities, wars, sackings, prisons, or trials. To smash a machine, to conduct a strike, to not buy Nestle products, to help other anarchosyndicalist union, to have assemblies… is not violence. However in this frank, sincere and open struggle for our part against power and authority, some henchmen have a lamentable bite. Is it our fault?