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The local groups of the Solidarity Federation federate on a regional basis. There are current two regional federations: Northern and Southern. The regional federations meet at least twice a year to discuss and organise around regional actions and events, as well as organise matters that feed into the National organisation.

The Southern Region is made up of the following locals:

South London
North and East London
Northampton
Brighton
South Herts
South West

THE IWA TODAY
A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKERS ASSOCIATION AND ITS SECTIONS
C. LONGMORE

Published in 1985 by South London DAM-IWA, 121 Railton Road, London SE24. Typeset by South London DAM-IWA Printed by Aldgate Press

Anarcho-syndicalism is the theory and practice of reorganising traditional unions, the workplace and society at large. The aim of this is to achieve a self managed society, which is based not on the exploitation of one by the other (whether by boss over worker, man over woman, old over young etc. . .) It will be rather, a society based on the active involvement of all the members in the decision making process and the implementation of these decisions. Importantly, it also means acceptance of responsibility for the consequences of these decisions.

This is unlike all present societies where the decision making and responsibility is handed over to the minority in positions of authority.

We advocate a society based on the voluntary, active participatory democracy of each for the welfare of all.

We advocate unions based on limited tenure of office, recalability of all delegates, delegates to be given a limited co-ordination to cover areas of certain activity.

That is, we do not want the election of union bosses who have full executive decision making powers over union affairs. We advocate that all decisions be made by the membership that affect the membership, in fact all decisions.

In this form of organisation we see the germ of a liberated society where the people are not dominated by any form of hierarchy: whether it be of a political party, of a religious nature, by a bureaucracy, or one of the `technical experts'.

We want a society where the community is in control of the decision making. We base this firmly on the belief that this must be achieved throughout active participation within an international framework.

As anarcho-syndicalists we stand opposed to all who would rule on our behalf or in the name of the dictator­ship of the proletariat. There is no room within our movement for the authoritarian ideas of Marxism or the collaborationist ideas of the social democrats.
For each according to their ability: to each according to their needs.

INTRODUCTION

When you read this pamphlet you will come across three recurring labels or to be more correct statements of ideas, they are Syndicalism, Revolutionary Syndicalism and Anarcho-syndicalism. From the very start I must state that they are not one and the same thing, even though many people including comrades from our own movement will and do use these terms to express the same idea.

Syndicalism can be used by almost everybody who believes in the principles of rank and file organised and controlled trade unions. Where the syndicalist stands apart from the British model or for that matter the type of trade unionism that is now practised throughout the world today, is simply that the syndicalist is a true believer in democracy, not for them are the `general Councils', `central committees', `secret board room meetings of the elite groups that control the majority of world trade unions. Likewise the syndicalist will have no truck with the `professional' trade unionist who earn their living from the sweat of their members and who in the British system usually end up sitting in the House of Lords as their payment for years of service to the State and capitalism. In simple terms the syndicalist union is a parallel organ­ised structure, not a vertical structure, the power will always remain in the hands of the members, they are the ones who shall decide when to strike, when to negotiate. Naturally such a union is bound to be much more militant than the collaborationist unions. But other than defending the rights of their members, the syndicalist union, or the syndicalist, had no long term view of the reconstruction of society. It was for this reason that many syndicalists could be, and were members of political parties, especially of the socialist kind. And in fact from time to time certain fascist sects have misused the syndicalist label to further their own perverse ideas.

Revolutionary Syndicalism was the logical step for any thinking syndicalist to take. It was based on the belief that much of the problems of society and the working classes were caused by the political parties and the governments they formed. The revolutionary syndicalist rejects all political parties and all involvment in politics, for them there was only one war, the Class War and only one field to fight on, the econom­ic field. To the revolutionary syndicalist the union was all important and the working classes must be organised inside these economic combative organisations. Their struggle was directed against Capital and the State. The long term aims of revoluionary syndicalism is the creation of a free society based on the ideas of libertarian communism (which of course has nothing to do with Marxist communism). The creation of the IWA, the International Workers Association in 1922, was in fact the founding of a revolutionary syndicalist international and its ten point program which is still adhered to today by the IWA is titled the `Principles of Revoltuionary Syndicalism'. In the present IWA only two organisations
stick firmly to the ideas of revolutionary syndicalism, these are the USI of Italy and the CNT of France. The rest of the International are committed to the ideas of Anarcho-syndicalism and in fact IWA bulletins issued as early as the mid 1930's did carry the label 'anarcho -syndicalist' on them. This has a lot to do with the influence of the Spanish CNT on the International, but also with the valid criticism that the union is but an economic by-product of the capitalist system, born from the needs of our time, and that to preserve it as a system of organisation after the revolution as suggested by the revolutionary syndicalists would imply preserving the system that gave rise to it.

The Anarcho-syndicalists accept the union as a weapon in the class war and like the revolutionary syndicalists they try to ensure that the union should be as close as possible to the revolutionary ideals of libertarian communism, that is why both revolutionary syndicalists and anarcho-syndicalists share the same international organisation today. Nevertheless, the revolutionary syndicalist believes that the anarcho­syndicalist is too involved in the political struggle and their close ties with the Anarchist movement will always mean they lack total indepen­dence of action. On the other hand the anarcho-syndicalists believe that the revolutionary syndicalists must `come out of the factories' and more into the community at large if they are to succeed with their revolution. For the anarcho-syndicalists the old catch phrase is still valid that `syndicalism is the means, anarchism is the end', for our movement the work of creating a new society has already begun both within the work-place and the community. For anarcho-syndicalism the revolutionary front is everywhere and that is why the DIRECT ACTION MOVEMENT in Britain have committed themselves to the anarcho-syndicalist cause.

INTERNATIONAL WORKERS ASSOCIATION

In Moscow in the summer of 1920 the newly formed Third International called for the creation of a Red Trade Union International. In December of that year the Syndicalists met in Berlin to decide upon their response to the creation of such an organisation. The Syndicalists drew up several points, the acceptance of these being the condition on which the Syndic­alists would join the Red Trade Union International; "The total independence of the movement from all political parties and the belief that the socialist reconstruction of society could only be carried out by the economic organisations of the producing classes themselves. "

The Syndicalists then went to Moscow. The conference for the founding of the Red Trade Union International was a farce. From the very start all business was controlled and conducted by a body called the Central Alliance of Russian Trade Unions, a Bolshevik front. The Syndicalists were a minority, their seven points were ignored. But the work of the Berlin meeting in December 1920 was not wasted.

The Syndicalists met again in October 1921 in Dusseldorf and they made preparations for an international convention of all Syndicalist organisations. This took place in December 1922 in Berlin, and is still to this day the greatest gathering of syndicalists, revolutionary syndical­ists and anarcho-syndicalists that has ever taken place. Delegates from the Federation Obrera Regional Argentina, representing 200,000 members; Industrial Workers of the World in Chile, 20,000 members; Union for Syndcialist Propaganda in Denmark, 600; Freie Arbeiter Union in Germany 120,000; Nationaal Arbeids Sekretariat in the Netherlands, 22,500; Union Sindicale Italiana, 500,000; Norsk Syndikalistik Federasjon in Norway, 20,000; Confederacao Geral do Trabalho in Portugal, 150,000; Sveriges Arbetares Centralorganisation in Sweden, 32,000; Comite de Defence Syndicaliste Revolutionaire in France, 100,000; Federation du Batiment from Paris, 32,000; also present were delegates from the Mexican Con­federacion General de Trabajadores, Federation des Jeunesses de la Seine, Russian anarcho-syndicalists. The laigest anarcho-syndicalist organistion, the Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo in Spain was unable to send any delegates due to the fierce class war that was being conducted in that country under the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. They were later to re-affirm their adherence to the IWA at the Saragossa congress in 1923.

The Berlin congress of 1922 adopted the name `International Workingmen's Association' (later to be altered to International Workers Association), they also adopted a `Principles, Aims and Statutes', laying out the principles of Revolutionary Syndicalism. These `Principles and Aims' were amended only slightly over the years, and today still form the basis by which the IWA conducts its struggle for the emancipation of the international working classes.

During the 1920's the IWA expanded and many more organisations either joined or entered into regular dialogue with the IWA secretariat. Organisations of Anarcho-syndicalists and syndicalists trade union and propaganda groups were formed in Uruguay, Bulgaria, Poland, Japan, Australia, South Africa, Paraguay, North Africa and in fact any region where industry was developing.

The success of the Bolshevik counter-revolution did great harm to the independent workers movement outside Russia, many workers were impressed by the new masters in Moscow and almost every European country saw the birth of a `communist' party in the post First World War years. Never the less the IWA and the syndicalist movement at large were well able to expose the duplicity of the Bolsheviks and hold on to their membership, in some cases even increasing it. What was to be the real danger for syndicalism was not the growth. of authoritarian communism but that of Fascism.
The USI in Italy were in 1920 one of the largest syndicalist organ­isations in the world, yet with the coming to power of Mussolini and his fascists they were to become the first of many syndicalist organ­isations to be driven underground and eventually out of existence by the spread of working class nationalism. The FAUD in Germany, the NSV in the Netherlands, (the NAS was by this time a Communist Party front), CGT in Portugal, CDSR in France and many more in Eastern Europe and Latin America were not able to survive the terrible fascist onslaught of the 1930's and 40's.

By the time of the outbreak of the Spanish revolution and civil war in 1936, many of the organisations which could have given help to the CNT were themselves fighting for survival. The IWA held its last pre-war congress in Paris in 1938, even then such organisations as the CGT in Portugal could still claim 50,000 members even though their land was under a fascist dictatorship since 1927. The syndicalist union in Poland the ZZZ, a forerunner of the great Solidarnosc, with a membership of 130,000 had applied to join the IWA.

With the outbreak of the Second World War and the occupat­ion of much of Europe by the Fascists, trade unionism, even that pathetic form advocated by the social democrats, was outlawed. All genuine workers organisations were banned and many of the militants were dragged away to concentration camps. It has been estimated that over one thousand trials for `high treason' were carried out against militants of the FAUD throughout Germany, in Leipzig alone 156 militants, that is to say all the local organisation were
put on trial. The editor of the FAUD organ Der Syndikalist, Gerhard Wartenberg was killed in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Karl Windhoff, delegate to the IWA Madrid Congress of 1931 was driven out of his mind and also died in a Nazi death camp. There were also mass trials of FAUD members held in Wuppertal and Rhenanie, many of these never survived the death camps.

In Poland the syndicalist militants of the ZZZ took up arms against the Nazis, as did the Polish Syndicalist Association, in 1944 they even managed to publish an underground paper Syndykalista along with the militants of the ZZZ. Many lost their lives fighting in the Warsaw uprising, where they participated not as isolated individuals but as an organised and collective formation.

In Spain after the defeat by Franco and his Nazi and Christian Democratic supporters, the CNT was driven underground but unlike the Communists and their friends who had countries to flee to, the CNT militants had nowhere to go. Many choose to die by their own hand rather than surrender to fascism. Others went to France where they formed an important part of the French resistance to the Nazi invaders, while a small group of CNT militants found themselves in the very strange position of defending Leningrad against German tanks in the Winter of 1941. Many of the CNT comrades became part of the underground movement in Spain in the 1940's and assisted British airmen, Jews, and anti-fascists to escape through Spain back to Britain. These brave comrades were repaid for ther services by the British who handed over their names to Franco when the tide of war had turned in their favour in 1944.

By the end of the Second World War, the European syndicalist movement and the IWA was almost destroyed. The CNT was now working as an exile organisation, but some Spanish anarcho­syndicalists were to carry on the struggle against Franco right up to the day he died in 1975. Many of these were to pay with their lives before the fascist firing squads or by slow strangulation, ie, garotting.

In May 1951 the IWA held their first post war congress in Toulouse. This time the IWA was a much smaller organisation to the great movement prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. None the less there were delegates from many parts of the
world present, ALC (Cuba), FFS (Germany), USI (Italy), NSV (Holland), CNTF (France), SAC (Sweden), FORA (Argentina), SWF (Britain), NSF (Norway), FSD (Denmark), BHS (Austria), CNTB (Bulgaria in exile), and the CNT (Interior), CNT (Exterior), FIJL all from Spain, message of support arrived from the FORU (Uruguay). The Portuguese CGT delegation arrived later. But all was not well for the re-emergence of the ideas of anarcho-syndicalism. The Allies who now controlled much of Europe had since the end of the War imposed their form of trade union organisation on the work­forces of the countries they now occupied. In the east, the Russians laid down the law, there was no room for syndicalist unions, or strikes, or workers rights. The `trade unions' in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria etc. were now no different than the hated Nazi labour fronts, there to direct and control the workers on behalf of the state. The situation in Western Europe was not much better, the British Labour government had collaborated with their American bosses in making sure that whatever form of trade unionism arose in the new Germany, that they were making, it would be trade unionism that marched hand in hand with the new bosses and caused no trouble. The situation in Italy was similar, the Americans paid out much money to make sure that there would be no united work force to stand in their way, they could not ban the communist union after all Russia had been their ally, but they could and did make sure there would be no independent workers organisat­ions. The Catholic Church also began to give a helping hand, and in the post war years many Christian Democratic unions began to emerge and very soon began to swell the ranks of the Christian World Federation of Labour, a Trade Union International based in Brussels.

Throughout the 1950's the IWA struggled on, but much disagree­ment on how we should deal with the new economic order caused division within the movement. There is little doubt that the hand of the CIA and the Catholic Church was behind some of these moves. In the late 1950's the Swedish organisation the SAC withdrew from the IWA. They were the last functioning trade union within the IWA; for many their loss was considered too great to bear. The future of the International was in doubt, but to those committed to the ideas of anarcho-syndicalism the parting of the SAC was very welcome.

For some considerable time the SAC had moved away from the ideas of revolutionary syndicalism and were following a more moderate form of trade unionism. Their organisation had developed a bureaucratic elite, comfortable in their jobs, who were determined not to rock the boat, the Swedish economy was well and Sweden was fast becoming one of the richest societies in the world. The SAC leadership wanted to be a part of this new economic order. They condemned the IWA as being out of touch with reality, too small to have any effect in the present world of labour, so they withdrew.

During the 1960's the IWA was at its lowest ebb, all sections within the organisation were devoted to propaganda work, some trade union activists worked in Spain within the existing union structures and helped to keep alive the ideas of anarcho-syndicalism. The Dutch NSV had collapsed, but out of that was created the OVB, a new syndicalist union with 13,000 members, regretfully they choose to remain independent of the IWA. The IWA held many congresses, in Montpellier, 1971, Paris 1976 and again in Paris in 1979 but it was not until the start of the 1980's that the organisation began to flower again.
When writing about such things it is not often possible to give an exact date when an idea once again begins to bite into the minds of the people. In the case of the IWA it was the day the Spanish butcher Franco died. After the death of this assassin for the Catholic Church and world capitalism, the CNT in Spain bloomed. One could say almost overnight, from a mere few hundred militants to one hundred and fifty thousand followers by 1977. This was not by chance, this was the result of years of hard work undertaken by the CNT and FIJL (Anarchist Youth) militants. The growth surprised the comrades of the CNT and IWA, it alarmed not only the Spanish state, Church, and bosses but also the social-democratic UGT who for years were hailed by their British and European friends as the only `resistance' to Franco.

But the powers that the CNT and IWA were up against have at their disposal almost limitless resources, almost from the moment that the Spanish bosses and their overseas friends realised that the CNT was becoming a real threat again, they planted within the movement persons whose task it was to destroy the union by whatever means possible. While at the same time forces were at work trying to destroy the union from without.
After the great 5th Congress of the CNT in Madrid in 1979, moves were made to diffuse the anarcho-syndicalist content of the union. Suggestions were made that the union could only survive with the help of international bodies such as the Christian Democratic Trade Union International and that the union must work within the state laws. Many who swelled its ranks were not anarcho-syndicalists, this was not the problem, the IWA has always been open to all workers who stand independent of the political parties. But the desire of the Trotskyists, Maoists, Catholics etc. to control such a large organisation of workers, led many of these groups into the ranks of the CNT. When they realised that the power of anarcho­syndicalism was as strong as ever within the movement, and that they would never gain control over the union, they set about splitting the CNT. By the time of the 6th Congress in 1983, the 'secession­ists' had formed an `alternative' CNT.

But regardless of the struggle within the CNT in Spain and very much influenced by the rebirth of the CNT, the various sections of the IWA had begun to grow themselves. The French section, also known by the initials CNT, were once again an active trade union. Likewise the USI in Italy made a comeback on the industrial scene. The Japanese section of the AIT, soon the change their name to the Workers Solidarity Movement, also began to organise workers.

In 1984 in Madrid the IWA held its 17th Congress, and for the first time in almost three decades there were delegates from three unions present. The propaganda groups had also grown, CNT-AIT of Spain, CNT of France, USI of Italy, made up the trade union sections, DAM Britain, ASF Sweden, ASO Denmark, NSF Norway, FAU West Germany, CNT Bulgaria in exile, LWG United States, WSM Japan, FORA Argentina and FORVE Venezuela were the propaganda sections. For the IWA this was the first real step forward in a long time, and for many of the Spanish comrades of the CNT it made them realise that they were not alone in the struggle to achieve the ideas of anarcho-syndicalism.

Today the problems that had beset the CNT in the late 1970's are behind them. True the organisation is now much smaller movement than in 1977, but its membership is far more economically aware of the struggle ahead and more committed to the coming fight. The great British Coal Miners Strike 1984/5 has shown to the comrades within the IWA of the supreme importance of international class solidarity and the need to maintain an international network of working class militants. New sections of the International are being established all the time, groups in Australia, Portugal, Uruguay, Brazil and Poland are in regular contact with the IWA. Militants of the great Polish union Solidarnosc and the COB of Bolivia have held discussions with the IWA secretariat to co-ordinate actions of mutual assistance. Information on trans-national companies and class enemies are collected for mutual use by the sections of the International.

The work of translating propaganda into foreign languages, the printing
and distribution of information to countries without anarcho-syndicalist groups, the collection of funds to assist striking workers, arranging speaking tours for overseas comrades and striking trade unionists, these are just some of the many tasks undertaken by the IWA and its sections, so that we may live in a world without fear and terror.

THE INTERNATIONAL TODAY

The present IWA is made up by twelve national or regional sections, in Western Europe, Latin America, North America and Asia. The largest and without doubt the most important of these is the CNT of Spain. Outside official membership of the IWA, there are several regional groups in Australia, Portugal, Uruguay etc. which are in regular contact with the Secretariat of the International, (which is at present based in Madrid) and with neighbouring IWA sections. Here I shall try to give a brief outline of each section of the International as they are organised today.

CONFEDERACION NACIONAL DEL TRABAJO

The National Confederation of Labour in Spain (CNT) was founded in 1910. From the very beginning the CNT has had its main strength in the region of Catalonia and in particular in Barcelona, which is Spain's largest industrial city. The history of the movement is one of great hardship and struggle, their role in the Spanish Revolution and Civil War of 1936-1939 is well documented and there is no need to go into it here. At its height the CNT had a membership in excess of two million and was the largest trade union organisation in Spain. During the years of great terror under the dictatorship of the fascist Francisco Franco the CNT was totally suppressed and many of its most active militants were executed. Nonetheless anarcho-syndicalist guerrillas returned to Spain and carried on the struggle against fascism. This type of action which was not always carried out with the approval the National Committee of the CNT (in Exile), did help keep the idea of anarchism alive in Spain.

In 1976 after the death of Franco the CNT re-emerged from the twilight and began to rebuild the union movement. At first it was only the die hard militants, who had never ceased to be members of the CNT, who worked tirelessly to reconstruct the union, later in 1978/79 under a wave of social change in Spain the ranks of the CNT swelled to almost 150,000. Unfortunately the vast majority of these were not prepared to work for the ideals of the union, they just wished to be able to show a CNT membership card to prove how `revolutionary' they were. They were no real danger to the CNT or the state. At this same period the CNT was also to see an influx of Catholic, Maoist and Trotskyist pressure groups, each one intent of taking over the union for their own political cause. These people caused much damage to the CNT and in 1979 after the 5th Congress of the union a section broke away under the pretext that they wished to involve themselves in factory council elections. These elections and councils were organised by the state and the majority of the CNT keeping within the traditions of anarcho-syndicalism opposed them. The state was quick to seize upon the split to claim that they could not return the CNT property that had been seized during the Franco years as they did not know to which CNT to return it to. Meanwhile the other unions, UGT in particular received large amounts of money from the state to assist them in their union work. There was little doubt that the Spanish socialist government recognised who the real revolutionary trade unionists were. Today the CNTT which now uses the initials CNT-AIT (Associacion Internacional de los Trabajadores) to distinguish it from the collaborationist union, has a membership of about 30,000.

They are organised in the construction, public and private transport, both heavy and light industry, hotels, teaching etc. In fact the union has members in most industries and the organisation has regional committees in every province of Spain with the exception of the Canary Islands.

At the 17th Congress of the IWA, the CNT-AIT were recognised as the one and only genuine anarcho-syndicalist trade union in Spain.

CONFEDERATION NATIONALE DU TRAVAIL

France was the birth place of syndicalism, it has a long history of revolutionary syndicalist unions. In 1922 three such organisations went to Berlin to attend the 1st Congress of the IWA. The first French syndicalist union the CGT fell into the hands of reaction­ary communists in the years after the end of World War One, but the syndicalists were able to hold onto almost 200,000 members right through the 1920's.

During the years leading up to the Second World War the French syndicalist movement organised no less than three congresses of the IWA and provided much assistance to the CNT in Spain during the Civil War. When France was overrun by the Nazis in 1940, all syndicalist unions were forced underground, and many militants were dragged off to the concentration camps and forced labour factories in Germany.

After the war France was in much the same position as the rest of Europe. There was very little left of the syndicalist movement. In these post war years the French CNT was really no more than a revolutionary syndicalist propaganda group, but slowly it managed to organise itself once again into a trade union. Even though many who swelled its ranks were themselves former militants of the Spanish CNT, the French union always remained firm to the principles of revolutionary syndicalism and opposed those sections within the IWA, mainly the FORA, which pushed the ideas of anarchism at IWA congresses.
The CNT main areas of organisation are in South Western France and the Paris region. The union has worked closely with some small regional independent unions like the Syndicat Autogestionnaire des PTT du Rhone (SAT) and at the 17th Congress of the IWA they revealed plans to merge the two unions.

Certain sections within the CNT are opposed to the presence of any propaganda groups within the IWA, but this traditionalist revolutionary syndicalist view point is only held by a short sighted minority. The majority of the CNT membership who are ordinary non-committed workers have until quite recently held back from involvement in the work of the IWA. During the British Coal Miners Strike (1984/5) several locals of the CNT came together with local anarchist groups and Free Thinker groups to collect money for their British comrades. The CNT publish a monthly paper called Le Combat Syndicaliste from Toulouse.

UNION SINDICALE ITALIANA

The USI was founded in 1912 in Milan, by the end of World War One it had a membership of 500,000. Like the CNT of Spain its early years were times of great social upheaval, leading up to the seizure of state power by the Fascists in 1922. Mainly because the USI were not established long enough, the social and political awareness of their membership was not that well developed and with the coming to power of the Fascists the USI were in no position to fight back. The USI held their last Congress on Italian soil in 1928. During the Second World War, Italy was unique among European countries, it had a large anarchist resistance movement especially in the North, but regardless of this, the USI were in no position to play an active role in the reorganisation of the trade unions at the end of the second world war.

It was not until the 1970's that the USI could once again begin to think of organising themselves as a union. They had throughout the 1950's and 60's worked as a small propaganda group and were at all times a part of the IWA. In 1979 they held a national conference in Parma and elected a provisional committee. By 1983 they were able to hold their first national Congress as a trade union and relaunch their paper Lotta di Classe, which is published from Rome. The USI today have locals in Rome, Trieste, Ancona, Milan and several other cities in addition to having groups in every province of Italy.
The USI have a long tradition of revolutionary syndicalism and have openly expressed their desire to see the IWA as an International of only revolutionary syndicalists free of the strong anarchist influence and independent of all political groupings.

RODOSHA RENTAL UNDO - WORKERS SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT

This organisation was founded as the International Workers Association of Japan, in 1983 it changed its name to the WSM. Japan has always had a strong anarchist tradition and some Japanese comrades fought with the CNT militias during the Civil War. But in the 1920's and 30's the movement was suppressed and many comrades killed, as part of the new militarist state plan to make all Japanese think alike.

By the end of the Second World War the United States imposed their new imperialism on the Japanese people, and the situation was not to change until the 1960's. The WSM is a new movement which came into being in the late 1970's and first started in the Tokyo area. The National Committee is based in Tokyo which is one of the five regions organised by the movement, the other four are, Saitama, Nagano, Shikoku, and Kansae. The WSM stated at the 17th Congress of the IWA that they were an anarcho-syndicalist organisation, committed to the formation of revolutionary unions and that they were in contact with other revolution­ary union organisations in East Asia.

DIRECT ACTION MOVEMENT

The DAM was formed in Manchester in 1979 and replaced the Syndicalist Workers Federation as the British section of the IWA. The SWF had by that time been reduced to one branch in Manchester. It was that branch which provided the impetus for the creation of the DAM.

The syndicalist movement in Britain was quite different than most other European countries. First, there was never a true syndicalist trade union in the country, and no one organisation to which syndicalists could rally to. Second, a large number of the British syndicalists saw nothing odd about working hand in hand with the established political parties of the left. Many of the great syndicalist agitators of their day, like Ben Tillet, Tom Mann and Guy Bowman are today heroes of the state socialists, their organisations are looked upon with respect by people who think that the syndicalists were just a section of the Labour Party. One reason for this is that the Marxists who in other countries were strong and the main opposition to syndicalist ideas, had no real base in the British labour movement. The main enemy for syndicalism was the traditional Methodist mafia, who today still control the labour movement and the trade unions. The British working class are by nature very conservative, the revolutionary ideas of syndicalism did not appeal
to their imagination, they chose to stay with the Methodists, who have betrayed them at every turn since.

No British section was present at the founding congress of the IWA and only small propaganda groups advocated the ideas of anarcho­syndicalism in the pre-second world war years. After the war the SWF was founded and in 1950 were admitted to the IWA. The SWF attempt­ed to create an open organisation, admitting all who wished to work by syndicalist methods. For a time this seemed to work and the Federation grew in numbers but because it was neither anarcho-syndicalist or revolutionary syndicalist it soon lost its general direction and went into decline.

The younger militants who formed the DAM, were well aware of these shortcomings and from the start they declared the DAM should be an anarcho-syndicalist organisation. Today the DAM is organised in three regions, north east, north west and south east England within these regions the movement is based on local groups.
The main work of the DAM is in the field of education and prop­aganda, with a fair amount of solidarity work around strikes.and industrial disputes. The movement produces its own paper Direct Action and several groups also produce local newssheets. At the 17th Congress of the IWA the DAM was well represented with as many as twenty five delegates and observers.

FREI ARBEITER UNION

The FAU was founded in Cologne in 1976, and sees itself more in the mould of the CNT than the old FAUD. The syndicalist movement in Germany has a long history and the Frei Vereinigang deutscher Gewerk­schaften which was the original name of the FAUD was founded in 1897.

In the early years just after the first world war the FAUD grew to almost 200,000 members, the level of political and revolutionary aware­ness of the German working classes has never been higher, but time and history were not on their side and by the time of the coming to power by the Nazies in 1933, the FAUD had less than a quarter of its original membership. During the Nazi period all opposition was crushed. The concentration camps were flooded with FAUD, AAUD and AAUD-E (council communists) militants. By the end of the war none of these organisations survived.
The 1950's and 1960's were a quiet period, but there was a large influx of labour into Germany, especially from southern Europe. Among these workers came many members of the Spanish CNT, who were to settle in the larger German cities. It was from contact with these comrades that the young German anarcho-syndicalist militants developed their ideas and started to rebuild the movement once again in Germany.

The FAU is organised into two sections, north Germany and south Germany, like the DAM in Britain their main field of work is propaganda and education. Because of the immensely bureaucratic nature of German trade unions, (a copy of the British system) it is next to impossible for the FAU to make much headway within the system, likewise the German state law prohibits members of such organisations as the FAU from holding any job in the public sector, ie. railways, teaching, etc. This has made it very difficult for anarcho-syndicalists to organise in the workplace. Nevertheless the FAU have been active in the 35 hour week struggle and similar industrial disputes. They have also been active on the international solidarity front, organising holidays in Germany for the children of striking British coal miners. They publish a regular paper Direkte Aktion from Cologne.

NORSK SYNDIKALISTISK FORBUND

The NSF was founded in 1916 as a union of general workers but mostly containing miners and construction workers. The union had many Swedish members, this was due to the fact that after the great Swedish strike of 1909 many Swedes moved to Norway searching for work after they had been blacklisted. In 1919 the Norwegian state mass deported many of these workers, this badly affected the NSF membership, yet the NSF was present at the founding of the IWA in 1922.

Through the 1920's and 30's the NSF remained an active syndicalist union and kept in regular contact with those sections especially the FAUD and the ZZZ which were then being crushed. With the occupation of Norway in 1940 by the Nazis the NSF was suppressed. After the war the NSF carried on but more as a propaganda section than a union.

The NSF today work within the existing trade union movement, as do all the northern European sections, but in the case of the Norwegian labour movement many of the union locals are quite independent of the central organisation, the LO. This has enabled the NSF to distribute much propaganda and educational material within the national union structure, and under the direction of the NSF a very successful solidarity campaign was undertaken for militants in the dictatorships of Latin America. Likewise the NSF have been deeply involved with the work of the Polish free union Solidarnosc, whose largest support group is in Norway. The NSF publish a regular magazine, Arbeider Solidaritet, which is distributed free to all trade union locals.

ANARKO SYNDIKALISTISK ORGANISATION

In 1922 the Union for Syndicalist Propaganda representing 600 comrades was present in Berlin for the 1st Congress of the IWA. The Danish syndicalist movement was always rather small but throughout the years there was always some kind of syndicalist propaganda group active in Denmark. In the 1950's the FSD represented the IWA in Denmark.

In the late 1970's a whole new generation of young militants set up the ASO at first in Copenhagen and later setting up other groups around the island of Zealand. The organisation is mainly engaged in the field of propaganda, but they have undertaken some union work, and are involved in organising solidarity meetings for striking workers.

ANARKO SYNDIKALISTISK FEDERATION

Sweden has had since 1910 a syndicalist union, the Sveriges Arbetares Centralorganisation (SAC), which was up until the late 1950's a part of the IWA. Today the SAC is still an active trade union with a membership of about 15,000, but its commitment to the ideas of revolutionary syndicalism (it was never anarcho-syndicalist though it does describe itself as that in its Spanish language publications), is now very weak.

The ASF was formed by members of the SAC who wished to see the
ideas of anarcho-syndicalism propagated and discussed among Swedish workers. The ASF is not a mole organisation inside the SAC, to them the SAC is now no different than any other union and in fact some ASF militants
are members of the Swedish LO. The ASF was formed as a support group of the IWA in the early 19 80's but in 1984 it was admitted as the Swedish section. They are organised in Stockholm, Goteborg, Lulea and in the industrial areas of the north of Sweden.

FEDERACION OBRERA REGIONAL ARGENTINA

The FORA is the oldest section of the IWA, founded in 1891, it was from the very start committed to the ideas of libertarian communism. These ideas have often brought it into conflict with the revolutionary syndicalist sections of the IWA, not because the revolutionary syndicalists disagree with the idea of libertarian communism but because they see what they call the political hand of anarchism behind the FORA's thinking. The FORA have never denied this and have remained steadfast to the principles of anarchism. This despite the terrible repression that the movement suffered in Argentina.

The history of the FORA is one of great struggle, it is also one of great inspiration for all class war anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists. Their membership at the time of the 1st Congress of the IWA was well over 200,000, they produced two daily papers, one morning, one evening. They were the greatest force in Argentinian labour for almost forty years. As a major union they were broken by the power of the political military in that country, who have been behind all the dictatorships and bloody repressions. It was because of this that the FORA were the continuing advocates of workers militias, much to the annoyance of the revolutionary syndicalists of the IWA.
The FORA today is no longer an active trade union, but a propaganda and education section. They still maintain contacts with those few unions that are not either Peronist or Marxist. Though the few comrades of the FORA have all seen better times there is new blood coming into the move­ment and new centres being created outside the traditional base in Buenos Aires.

FEDERACION OBRERA REGIONAL DE VENEZUELA

This is a small organisation centred in Caracas, it was founded by CNT exiles after the Civil War in Spain and has been more or less run by these comrades ever since. The trade union situation in Venezuela is such that the two main political parties control all the unions between them. Passing laws forbidding unions to have any international links and suppressing all attempts to form independent unions. The UOV in the 1920's was founded by anarcho-syndicalists, but all militant unionism was crushed by the State, leaving the way open for- the formation of party unions.

The FORVE has since its founding taken an active part in all the work of the IWA. They have also played an active role in the international anti­fascist organisation, the SIA (Solidaridad Internacional Antifascista).

NATIONAL CONFEDERATION OF LABOUR: BULGARIA (in exile)

The Bulgarian anarcho-syndicalist organisation in exile is better known by its French initials CNTB. This organisation was once very active in its home­land before being driven underground by the Marxists, assisted by the Soviet Army in the late 1940's. The Bulgarian anarcho-syndicalist and anarchist movements were well established in that country by the turn of the century. In fact the history of Bulgaria's liberation from the Ottoman Empire is tied very closely to the history of the anarchist movement there.
Today there are still comrades of the movement inside the prisons and labour camps of the Marxist dictatorship, many since the early 1950's.

The CNTB work is now in the field of propaganda and they have groups in France, Britain, United States, Canada and Australia. The CNTB also maintain contacts inside Bulgaria itself, though this is very dangerous, the Bulgarian Security Police will stop at nothing in their drive to silence the enemies of the state. The death in a London street of one anti-state activist, and the attempted murder of another in Paris is testimony enough to the seriousness of the struggle.

WORKERS SOLIDARITY ALLIANCE

The section of the IWA in the United States was reorganised in late 1984. Formerly it was the Libertarian Workers Group based in the New York area but after holding a national conference they decided to expand their organisation and attempt to organise other like minded syndicalists into the movement.

The history of syndicalism in North America, is really the history of the Industrial Workers of the World. A general union founded in 1905 in Chicago The American comrades never used the label `syndicalism' but preferred the words `industrial unionist', nonetheless it was the same idea. And the struggle in North America was just as fierce as anywhere else, the great syndicalist folk hero Joe Hill was a militant of the IWW, and an early victim of the Mormon Church.

The IWW set about in the years before and after world war one to organ­ise an international, one of these great successes being in Chile. Other sections were set up in South Africa, Australia, Britain and to a lesser extent Sweden. They always stood apart from the IWA, even when their largest organisation the Chilean IWW joined. In the early years this was not a problem but with the decline of the IWA and the IWW, it was absurd to have two 'internation­als'. Anarcho-syndicalist comrades in the United States applied to join the IWA and soon a small section was formed in New York in the late 1970's, this was the LWG.

Much useful work has been carried out by this section in the field of propaganda and solidarity work, but the great size of the United States have made it very difficult for them to organise. The IWA still has very friendly relations with the IWW and looks forward to the day when there will exist one regional section comprising of the comrades of the IWW and WSA.

REBEL WORKER GROUP

The RWG in Australia is just one of the many anarcho-syndicalist propag­anda groups that have developed over the past ten years around the world. Though based in only one city as yet, Sydney, and still awaiting member­ship of the IWA they have been actively engaged in solid international solidarity work, as well as publishing one of the finest English language anarcho-syndicalist papers, Rebel Worker.

CHRONOLOGY

1864 Founding of the International Workingmen's Association (First International) in London.
1866 First congress of the IMWA, Geneva (September).
1876 Death of Bakunin (1st July).
1886 Haymarket Martyrs executed (11th November).
1891 FOA founded in Argentina, changed name to FORA in 1901.
1893 NAS founded in the Netherlands.
1895 CGT founded at Limoges, France.
1896 First congress of Peruvian workers organised by local anarchists.
1897 Anarcho-syndicalists help found the FRO in Puerto Rico.
1897 Freie Vereinigang deutscher Gewerkschaften founded in Germany, later changed its name to FAUD in 1920.
1905 FORU founded in Uruguay (March).
1905 IWW founded in Chicago (June).
1906 Anarcho-syndicalists found the Labour Federation of Paraguay.
1906 Federacao Operaria Regional Brasileira founded.
1906 At Amiens the CGT publish the `Charter of Amiens' reaffirming their syndicalist principles.
1906 Formation of the South Russian Group of Anarcho-syndicalists.
1907 Voice of Labour first English language anarcho-syndicalist newspaper launched in London.
1910 Industrial Syndicalist Education League founded in Britain.
1910 SAC founded in Sweden.
1910 CNT founded in Spain (October).
1911 CGT founded in Portugal.
1911 Golos Truda first Russian anarcho-syndicalist paper launched in New York, moved to Petrograd in 1917.
1912 USI founded in Italy.
1913 International Syndicalist Congress held in London.
1916 NSF founded in Norway.
1917 Start of the Russian Revolution and Civil War.
1918 First All Russian Congress of Anarcho-syndicalists (August), second Congress held in November/December.
1919 Founding of the FACB in Bulgaria.
1919 IWW founded in Chile.
1919 Regional Workers Federation launched by anarcho-syndicalists in Peru (July).
1921 Kronstadt uprising against the Bolsheviks (1-18 March).
1922 First Congress of the revolutionary syndicalist International Workers Association, Berlin (December).
1923 First Congress of the NSV in the Netherlands.
1923 Mass murder and suppression of anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists in Bulgaria.
1923 Anarcho-syndicalists found the Regional Indian Workers Federation in Peru.
1923 Anarcho-syndicalists help launch the Union Obrera Venezolana.
1925 II Congress of the IWA, Amsterdam.
1928 Anarcho-syndicalists form the ACA in Poland, later changing its name to the ZZZ in 1931.
1928 III Congress IWA, Liege, Belgium (May)
1931 CGT organised by anarchists in Chile. 1931 IV Congress of the IWA, Madrid.
1934 Mass uprising of the miners in Asturias.
1935 V Congress of the IWA, Paris.
1936 Start of the Spanish Revolution and Civil War (July).
1937 Communist counter revolution in Barcelona, mass killing of CNT's and other militants (May).
1937 Extraordinaire Congress of the IWA, Paris.
1938 VI Congress of the IWA, Paris.
1938 Mass trials of FAUD militants in Germany.
1939 Start of the mass murder of anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist revolutionaries by the Spanish state.
1940 All syndicalist organisations and unions outlawed in Nazi occupied Europe.
1945 Liquidation of syndicalist militants in Eastern Europe by the Soviet Army begins.
1948 Mass arrest and destruction of the Bulgarian anarchist and anarcho­syndicalist movement.
1950 SWF founded in Britain.
1951 VII Congress of the IWA, Toulouse (May).
1952 COB founded in Bolivia.
1953 VIII Congress of the IWA, Puteaux, France
1953 Workers uprising in East Germany (June).
1956 IX Congress of the IWA, Marseilles.
1956 Hungarian Workers Revolution (October-November).
1958 X Congress of the IWA, Toulouse (August).
1961 XI Congress of the IWA, Bordeaux (September).
1963 XII Congress of the IWA, Paris.
1967 XIII Congress of the IWA, Bordeaux.
1971 Uprising of workers in Gdansk, Poland.
1971 XIV Congress of the IWA, Montpellier, France.
1976 Reappearance in Spain of the CNT as a trade union.
1976 XV Congress of the IWA, Paris.
1976 FAU re-launched in West Germany.
1979 XVI Congress of the IWA, Paris.
1979 DAM founded in Britain.
1980 `Gdansk Accords' drawn up. Foundation of Solidarnosc.
1983 First congress of the reactivated USI in Italy.
1984 XVII Congress of the IWA, Madrid.

FURTHER INFORMATION ADDRESSES
International Workers Association: Secretariat c/Magdalena 29, Madrid, Spain.
International Workers Association: Northern Sub-secretariat Boks 1977, Vika, Oslo, Norway.

Argentina: FORA
c/Salvadores 1200, Buenos Aires.

Britain: DAM-IWA
c/o 223 Greenwood Rd. Manchester M22 7HB

Denmark: ASO
Nansensgade 43, Copenhagen 1366

France: CNT
Bourse du Travail, 3 Rue Merly, 31000 Toulouse

West Germany: FAU
Postlagerkarte Nr.092822 A, 5000 Koln 1.

Italy: USI
c/o Alba, Via Nizza 38, Roma 00197

Japan: WSM
c/o Koala Ho.IF, 2-17-31, Ookubo Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo

Norway: NSF
Boks 1735, Vika, Oslo.

Spain: CNT-AIT
Plaza Tirso de Molina 5, Madrid 28012

Sweden: ASF
Box 139, 28600 Orkelljunga

United States: WSA
339 Lafayette St., Room 202, New York, NY 1001.

Australia: RWG
PO Box 92, Broadway, Sydney 2007, NSW

All these are mail only addresses.

AIMS AND PRINCIPLES OF THE DIRECT ACTION MOVEMENT
1. The Direct Action Movement is a working class organisation.
2. Our aim is the creation of a free and classless society.
3. We are fighting to abolish the state, capitalism and wage slavery in all their forms and replace them by self-managed production for need not for profit.
4. In order to bring about the new social order, the workers must take over the means of production and distribution. We are the sworn enemies of those who would take over on behalf of the workers.
5. We believe that the only way for the working class to achieve this is for independent organisation in the workplace and community and federation with others in the same industry and locality, independent of, and opposed to all political parties and trade union bureaucracies. All such workers organisations must be controlled by workers themselves and must unite rather than divide the workers movement. Any and all delegates of such workers organisations must be subject to immediate recall by the workers.
6. We are opposed to all States and State institutions. The working class has no country. The class struggle is worldwide and recognises no artificial boundaries. The armies and police of all States do not exist to protect the workers of those States, they do exist only as the repressive arm of the ruling class.
7. We oppose racism, sexism, militarism and all attitudes and institutions that stand in the way of equality and the right of all people everywhere to control their own lives and the environment.
8. The Direct Action Movement is a federation of groups and individuals who believe in the principles of anarcho-syndicalism; a system where the workers alone control industry and the community without the dictates of politicians, bureaucrats, bosses and so-called experts.

leaflet produced by North and East London Solidarity Federation (2000)

The debate around repeal of Section 28 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1988 has focussed on schools. It has addressed homopho­bic bullying, discrimination against children without conventionally mar­ried parents and sex education policies. This is all very well, but Section 28 does not actually apply to schools because they are no longer controlled by Local Authorities, which is what the Act applies to.

The legal aspects of Section 28 are a red herring, its effects are more ideological. Instead of just campaigning for its repeal, we need to understand its real impact, and what can be done about it. Its effects can and should be fought now.

"Section 28" actually forms an amendment to Section 2 of the Local Government Act 1986. Section 2A, paragraph (1) of that Act states that: A local authority shall not -
(a) intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality;
(b) promote the teaching in any maintained school of acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.

Other legislation like the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964, however, places a statutory obligation on Local Authorities "to provide a comprehensive and efficient service for all who wish to use it". More­over, Department of the Environment Circular 12/88, issued on 20th May 1988, states that: "Local authorities will not be prevented by this section from offering the full range of services to homosexuals on the same basis as to all their inhabitants. "

Section 28 doesn't legally restrict the provision of public services, it just bans the mythical "promotion of homosexuality". It has still done serious damage, however. It has created an atmosphere in which discrimination can flourish, and where there is little or no discussion of the provision and development of services to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgen­dered people. It has reduced these services from being the responsibil­ity of all workers to the second class status of "personal interest".

Chiefly, this means lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered workers have taken on responsibilities by default. The responsibility for selecting library materials aimed at lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people, for example. It also means anyone who takes these services
seriously is assumed to be "gay", leaving them open to snigger­ing speculation if they are straight, or not open about their sexuality. It has isolated these people; and they are assumed to be working in their own interests, not simply doing their job. The repeal of Section 28 alone will not change this.

Everyone needs to be involved in the provision and development of services to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people. The standard approach of the trades unions to this would be to demand that management tackle the problem. Management are likely to throw the ball back to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered workers, this being our "personal interest". The issues are best tackled directly, by discussing them at workers' own meetings, to generate support for restoring these services to their proper status.

People will recognise arguments based on concrete examples, like the one given above. Discussion will also break down the vicious circle of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered work­ers being seen as the only people responsible for these services, and promote an understanding of heterosexism and why every­one needs to fight it.

The aim of this approach is to establish the responsibility of the workforce as a whole for these services, tackle discrimination and isolate the bigots Section 28 has supported. This has the added advantage of the workers retaining both the initiative and the means to combat heterosexism. At worst workers will be able to put pressure on the management to take responsibility and do something.
Direct Action
This approach is called direct action and it shouldn't just stop with the effects of Section 28. It involves actually doing some­thing about the problems we face in our daily lives where we work and where we live. It is direct because it doesn't involve asking politicians to change the law, trades union officials to negotiate on our behalf, lawyers to win a case for us, or the media to tell us what's happening. You face up to the problem, discuss a solution among the people who are going to apply it, and do it!
By taking direct action, instead of leaving it up to the "experts" whose loyalty to the status quo guarantees their status, we gain a sense of our collective strength and a measure of real control

over our lives. The more control we take the less power other people have over us. This is the only way to reduce and eliminate discrimination, which will always flourish while anyone has power over others.

We are not discriminated against because of ignorance, but be­cause capitalism needs heterosexism to maintain itself. Capitalism needs the nuclear family, and the ideology of "Family Values" which promotes the "traditional family" as superior to the ever more com­mon alternatives that fit our lives. New Labour aims to finish the dismantling of the Welfare State which the Tories became too weak to do. They promote family responsibility for health and social care as an alternative to the responsibility of society for looking after those who need caring for. This will help them cut taxes further and make Britain even more attractive to investors who resent paying taxes and decent wages.
Pride or prof it?
The organisation and sense of common purpose we gain from direct action also builds us a support network. The Lesbian & Gay Community, is supposed to provide us with support, but in reality it's dominated by business interests and is about them selling us vastly over-priced drinks and lifestyle accessories, not about us gaining a genuine sense of our own self-worth. There is widespread discon­tent with the commercial scene and the gay press, dominated by money, body fascism and conformism. Most of us need a real alternative but none exists at present. It is up to us to build one for ourselves.

The lesbian and gay business people who run the gay media and the commercial scene support capitalism because it delivers their wealth and privileges. They promote the Pink Pound, the idea that we can all buy equality and happiness. This idea reduces our value as human beings to our spending power. It is the flip side of capitalism's reduction of our value as people to that of our labour, and its exploitation of us through wages and salaries worth a fraction of what we produce.

The epitome of such "gaysploitation" is London Mardi Gras who have taken over the annual Pride march, and the arts festival, to use them as promotional tools for their profit-making festival. They need to recoup losses of nearly half a million pounds, incurred in a single year, and to start to make a profit for their investors. The much­maligned Pride Trust only managed to lose £45,000 in all its years - so much for the efficiency of business!

Pride should be about our diversity and our hu­man rights, but London Mardi Gras need to de­politicise the march to avoid frightening off the sponsors they need to recoup their losses and turn a profit. They have also defined the market they are selling to their sponsors as "Gay and Lesbian" - not bi, not trans, and dykes come second! This is not what they tell Community Forum meetings, where they are keen to portray themselves as "inclusive" because they need us to pay the entrance fee, spend money in the club tents, and be outrageous for the cameras.

We have to reclaim our humanity to truly liber­ate our sexuality, and to do this we have to destroy the capitalism which commodifies our lives. The only way to destroy capitalism is to build an alternative based on solidarity, mutual aid, social diversity and libertarian communism.

POWERLESS? FRUSTRATED? ANGRY?

In this society we are ripped off at work, have little control over much of our lives, and we are expected to quietly accept this. we reject this set up as one run solely in the interests of the bosses. Political parties offer us no alternative. We can't change this on our own, we have to organise together.

Economics -money, if you like -underpins all forms of oppression in this society. Changing society's economic heart is essential, and is also the most pressing fight for working class people.

We can only make a successful social revolution through a struggle which not only overcomes the existing power structure, but also lays - in working class culture and in fact - the foundations of a free society. To do this we have to organise the right way to get the right result. Revolutionary consciousness has to flow from the structures and methods we use. To present a set of limited demands achievable within existing society (see next page) may seem to be contradictory, but to set impossible demands is to fail.

Revolutionary Unionism - the alternative, run by workers for workers

A social revolution can only be made by the working class as a whole, and a real revolutionary organisation must be able to in­clude all class-conscious workers. We are heartily sick of the "revolu­tionary left" and their games. We despise their perpetual courtship of defeat and the relish with which they greet a sell-out. It is only by winning, and by organising effec­tive action around immediate is­sues to force concessions from the bosses and the state through our own efforts that we will redis­cover our power, and use it to change society for good.

A different kind of union:

- Direct Action (that is stopping the bosses' and the state's at­tacks, or taking what we want, ourselves; not "campaigning" for it, protesting about it, or having union officials or politicians plead on our behalf); and Direct De­mocracy - decision-making and control of all actions, negotiations and policy-making by the rank and file.

- We refuse to limit our agenda to simple "bread-and-butter" issues like pay and working conditions (although these are crucial, and any union must deliver on these, or become irrelevant).

This means fighting against the bosses' attacks, and also for Work­ers' Selfmanagement of produc­tion and the end of the Wages System and bosses. (Self-man­agement means that workers own and manage the enterprise they work in collectively. Only the work­ers who do a job know best how to do it efficiently, safely and well. We are opposed to the Wages System because it is the means by which we are paid less than the value of our work, with bosses, shareholders, etc. living off the difference. Instead of this exploi­tation, we want to create a society based on the principles called Lib­ertarian Communism - from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.)

We reject the trades union/politi­cal party division embraced by both the official Labour Movement and the "revolutionary left". A workers' organisation must both fight back and work to change society, and its organisational principles must avoid creating "leaders" and "fol­lowers".

This is how revolutionary unionism works:

- All decisions affecting workplace issues are made by Workers' As­semblies - regular mass meet­ings for all workers-with the power to make binding decisions and with control over all committees and delegates elected by them.

- Everyone who accepts the bind­ing nature of decisions, and takes part in any action, has the right to participate in Workers' Assem­blies. The right to have a say in decisions can not be bought by payment of union dues (nor de­nied to those who don't pay dues, but who meet the above condi­tions). Class solidarity demands that scabs and management are kept out.

- Anything won by workers is the result of effective action and solid organisation, or of the credible threat of the former, not of good will on the part of management. At present, any attempt to take effec­tive action runs into a minefield of anti-union laws and victimisation. Sometimes it also has to face hos­tility from the existing unions. The best defence against legal action is to win any dispute as quickly as possible. This can demonstrate that the anti-union laws are use­less in the face of well-organised defiance. It will also show that workers can retaliate against pu­nitive measures, and defend vic­timised activists.

- The anti-union laws aim to isolate workers and to force us to fight alone, and we need to attack them by giving and demanding solidar­ity between workers, by picketing and by boycotting. The best form of action to take must be decided by the workers ourselves, based on our knowledge of what will be most effective. As a general rule the action which causes maximum financial loss in a short period is the best. There is no point taking ineffective action as a gesture. It is important that any campaign of action has maximum involvement from workers affected. It must not divide, demobilise or demoralise people.

- The election of a workplace con­venor, Safety Representatives, and any negotiators, dispute com­mittees or shop stewards is by the Workers' Assembly. It must be held at least annually, prefer­ably on an ad hoc basis wherever practical. All officials must be un­paid, and must get enough facility time from the management. They are accountable to and recallable by an Assembly convened as swiftly as adequate notice can be given. Shop stewards or other delegates don't have the power to negotiate without a mandate. They must get one before negotiating, and get the result approved by the Workers' Assembly.

-The revolutionary union wants all workers to join, but rejects the passive, "check-off" membership of the existing unions. Revolution­ary union members must pay sub­scriptions, and do organisational work. They must also sell the revo­lutionary union and its principles and methods to non-members. A revolutionary union also aims to form a workplace branch as an active organisation in oppo° ";ion to passive, consultative bodies like Works Councils. (These are com­mon on the continent and pro­moted by the Maastricht Treaty's Social Chapter- unions run slates of candidates like in a parliamen­tary election, and they represent you just like your MP does - ie not at all.) Permanent, bureaucratic negotiating bodies aren't much better. Ideally all workers should join the workplace branch so that it becomes the Workers' Assem­bly.

- Solidarity between workers in the same industry is encouraged on local, regional, national and inter­national levels. This is based on direct links between workplace organisations, and on forming in­dustrial networks at each level. Organisation beyond each workplace doesn't mean giving up control to a "higher level", either to officials or to lay committees. Revolutionary unionism organises on the basis of Federalism, where all co-ordinating bodies are directly elected, and composed of del­egates who have a specific man­date from their constituency. Ini­tiative and decision-making power remain with the Workers'Assem­bly or workplace branch, which has the ultimate right to withdraw from any body which tries to im­pose decisions on it. (No-one should hold office on more than one level, eg a workplace con­venor should not also be a del­egate to a local industrial commit­tee, etc.) The Solidarity Federa­tion is already networking on an industrial basis, and aims to form workplace branches in order to turn loose industrial networks into federalist industrial unions.

- A revolutionary union does not simply have an industrial struc­ture, but as it aims to organise the working class as a whole, it also has local and regional structures. All members are part of a Local, which exists to provide solidarity, support and resources to workers in its area. This serves to provide help and back-up where there are few or no members in a workplace. It works to recruit workers to the revolutionary union, and to defend them in the face of management attacks. It provides experience, support and resources to help with organisation and recruitment. It demands solidarity from other workers in the area in the case of disputes. Locals provide meeting space, information on workplace law, health and safety, company profits, etc.; and to make political literature and educational re­sources available to workers.

- A Local is also a base for action on a wider social agenda, not sim­ply for supporting workplace ac­tivity. This means the revolution­ary union can address all working class issues, wherever and when­ever they come up.

We want real social change

Today our lives are defined by work, or by our exclusion from it. Life is split into "work" and "lei­sure". Cash is what controls us, far more than the threat or use of violence. Our labour is sold cheaply to the boss who owns what we produce through the Wages Sys­tem. Leisure is supposed to be freedom, but is really what the bosses get us to pay for to relieve the boredom. A revolutionary un­ion must end this division, and fight against it in existing society. This means demanding work which is useful, interesting and fulfilling, not organised by parasites fortheir own advantage. We'll only get this by workers' control leading to Self-­management.

"A decent society means reducing the amount of boring and degrading work"

Similarly, we've had enough of the passive consumption for profit which passes for relaxation and recreation. Everyone must have the opportunity to contribute to society if they wish to benefit from it, and get to use their full range of abilities both for the common good and for fun. A decent society means reducing the amount of boring and degrading workthrough technology and responsible be­haviour.

A useful contribution to society is not just going to work for the bosses' profits. It is also house work and care work which are not part of the cash economy, but which capitalism relies on -usually through the unpaid and unsung work of women - in order to repro­duce its workforce andd maintain social stability. Without this work society would collapse, but the bosses won't admit this and pay for it because it would cost them too much. We must make them, but not with Wages - we want an end to exploitation, not its expan­sion.

We also need to organise life to support this work, not to make individuals slaves to it, but to take away the burden and make it a choice. Equally, those who choose to do it must be valued, not taken for granted. Carers must control their own lives, not have them dictated by "society".

Cultural exclusion, discrimination, harassment and violence on the grounds of gender, race, national­ity, sexuality, age or "disability" permeate all aspects of society, and won't be stopped by slogans and simple demands. These are oppressive in their own right, not just tools of the bosses which some people think will disappear if differ­ent people get power. They aren't just bad because they "divide the working class", either.

The revolutionary union is not just about the workplace, but all hu­man life. We need to link workers' organisation in public services with organisations of local people who can work out what services are needed and how they need to work. Then we can challenge their con­trol by government and councils, so they belong to working people.

"The revolutionary union is not just about the workplace but all human life"

"We need to build a basis for more permanent organisation...."

The fight against the Poll Tax proved that it is possible to organ­ise outside the workplace, and that we have strength if united in a common aim. Anti-Poll Tax groups disappeared with its defeat, how­ever, and we need to build a basis for more permanent organisation. Where we can start is by organis­ing street or estate meetings to discuss issues which affect the areas we live in and what we can do about them. For issues which have a wider impact, local action committees can be organised on a Federalist basis. It is only through organising and resisting in this way that we stand a chance of gaining something in common on which to build community
Our housing, transport, healthcare, education and childcare are con­trolled by those concerned with profit and political advantage. Our environment, food and water are polluted because profits mean more than our lives. Power and control - not seizing powerthrough control of the state, but taking it into our own hands through our own organisations - are the key to solving most of the problems we suffer.

We need genuine revolutionary organisation where we work and where we live to do it. The Soli­darityFederation is building such organisation, and working to es­tablish Direct Democracy. Join us in this.

THE AIMS OF THE SOLIDARITY FEDERATION

The Solidarity Federation is an organisation of workers which seeks to destroy capitalism and the state. Capitalism because it exploits, oppresses and kills working people and wrecks the environment for profit worldwide. The state because it can only maintain hierarchy and privilege for the classes who control it and their servants; it cannot be used to fight the oppression and exploitation that are the consequences of hierarchy and the source of privilege. In their place we want a society based on workers 'self-management, solidarity, mutual aid and libertar­ian communism.

That society can only be achieved by working class organisation based on the same principles - revolutionary unions. These are not Trades Unions only concerned with "bread and butter" issues like pay and conditions. Revolutionary unions are means for working people to organise and fight all the issues - both in the workplace and outside - which arise from our oppression. We recognise that not all oppression is economic, but can be based on gender, race, sexuality, or anything our rulers find useful. Unless we organise in this way, politicians - some claiming to be revolutionary - will be able to exploit us for their own ends.

The Solidarity Federation consists of Industrial Networks and Locals which are the nuclei of future revolutionary unions and centres for working class struggle on a local level. Our activities are based on Direct Action- action by workers ourselves, not through intermediaries like politicians and union officials; our decisions are made through participation of the membership. We welcome all working people who agree with our aims and principles, and who will spread propaganda for social revolution and revolutionary unions. We recognise that the class struggle is worldwide, and are affiliated to the International Workers' Association, whose Principles of Revolutionary Unionism we share.

Today we are fighting for:

• A maximum 35 hour working week, with an end to overtime. and full compensation for anti-social hours, without loss of earnings.
• Full employment rights for part-time and temporary workers, with immediate effect from starting a job.
• An end to bogus "self-employment" and individual contracts, free collective bargaining direct with the real boss.
• An end to wage differentials. equal pay_ for work of equal value, consolidation of bonuses. overtime. etc. for all.
• The right to retire at 55 for men and women on full pension:
• The right to a minimum of six weeks' holiday a year with full pay. sick pay at full rates, one year's maternity/paternity leave, flexible hours and easy access to full childcare facilities, and a minimum of two weeks' dependency leave:
• The right to hold Workers' Assemblies in working hours without loss of ay, and to adequate facility time to carry out union duties:
• The right to strike or take other forms of industrial action without fear of dismissal, including solidarity action. picketing and boycotts:
• A healthy and safe working environment. full access to all relevant information. and the right to stop work without loss of earnings or threats of victimisation until any defects are corrected:.
• Freedom of association, expression and speech which does not directly or indirectly discriminate on grounds of gender, race, nationality. sexuality. age. disability or health:
• Recognition of care work (including bringing up children) and domestic labour as being both socially useful and worthy of full remuneration and
  of flexible domestic, partnerships

• Decent, affordable and accessible housing and transport
• Free, accessible and quality healthcare
• Free, accessible and quality education
• And end to the treatment of healthy and uncontaminated food, air and water as luxuries not meant for working class people, and the replacement of agricultural production and, transport methods which damage our environment by sustainable alternatives.

Tomorrow: control of our lives

STOP THE CARNAGE!

Week in week out workers are killed or maimed in 'accidents' on site. Over 3,000 building workers have been killed on site since the Health and Safety at Work Act became law in 1974 (this figure doesn't include all those people who have died as a result of work-related illness). This is the hidden cost of the building industry, workers killed or crippled leaving loved ones to pick up the pieces. There is a popular perception that construction work is unavoidably dangerous and therefore the risks attached are inevitable. The fact is, all building work can be made safe.
Why then is health and safety on sites so bad? In a word profit, it costs money to ensure safe working conditions with adequate training and appropriate and well maintained equipment, money the employers, developers and investors would rather keep themselves. Fast production processes and deadlines (often literally), involving piecework and bonuses which force workers to work dangerously fast, are responsible for killing and maiming more building workers than any other single reason in the construction industry. Why do contractors consider workers
lives so expendable that sites have become death-traps?
It is cheaper for the employer to allow dangerous
conditions rather than to maintain a safe working
environment.

LEGAL DEADENDS!
Most 'accidents' aren't investigated and when they are they rarely go to court. Even if a company is found guilty, its fine is a fraction of the cost of preventing injuries and fatalities. No building employer has been jailed for a death on site. The Health & Safety Executive have the power to investigate 'accidents' and prosecute guilty employers, but it lacks both the resources and political will to do so. Despite much rhetoric the unions have done little, beyond calling for further legislation, how this will help when current law isn't enforced, is anyone's guess. We cannot rely on the law, employers, the HSE, politicians (no matter how left-wing) or full time union officials. It is not their lives at risk. The only way that this horrendous situation can be changed is, by the workers. Only site workers have the motivation and desire to fight for safe sites.
WHERE OUR POWER LIES!
The site is the only place that building workers have real power, so we must use it there! Although it is important to get site workers in a union, we need to move beyond the unions, to organise on an industrial basis and create democratic structures controlled by the rank and file. We must'nt let the bosses to divide us by nationality, race, religion or anything else. It is only through our class solidarity that we can stop the killings and maimings.
NEVER CROSS A PICKET LINE!
We need to elect in mass assemblies, site stewards, conveners, and safety reps who are instantly recallable and subject to the control of the workforce. Then we must subject the construction process to daily health and safety checks. If any hazards are found we tell the employer(s) that if it is not rectified immediately no one will work there. If anyone is sacked we will strike. Also if any worker is killed or seriously injured work will stop and will not be resumed until all safety issues are resolved. Rank and file building workers must picket sites where death or serious injuries occur including other sites! 'Prevention is better than cure' but we must raise the costs so that employers realise that it's not worth neglecting our health and safety.
SAFETY ON SITE BECAUSE WE ARE WORTH IT!
The only language building employers understand is cost and that's why they are afraid of industrial action, it threatens their profits. Whilst strike action is usually a weapon of last resort in the case of safety on site, it should be used immediately, to protect life and limb. It is clear that only when workers hit employers where it hurts - in the pocket - will they take our safety seriously.

Health and Safety at work-an organising tool
Taking up health and safety issues at work can seem a daunting task. There is a mass of confusing regulations, procedures and laws. Safety in the workplace is a major problem, and things are getting worse. Since the introduction of the Health and Safety at Work Act in 1974, thousands of workers have been killed at work. Nearly all of these were preventable. Added to this, are the tens of thousands of serious injuries, deaths and illness caused by work-related conditions.
Decent standards impose costs which the employers want to avoid. so it's hardly surprising that safety is so lax. The unions seem more interested in lobbying the state and employers, appealing for improvements in legislation, despite the fact that current laws are not enforced. No attempt is being made to organise around health and safety, despite it being one of the most vital issues affecting workers and one that effects all workers, cutting across divisions of craft, union and nationality.

What rights do we have?
To get to grips with Health and Safety, it is useful to know what the law says and how we can use it to our advantage. The best up to date and jargon free sources of information are the Labour Research Department (LRD) guides, Hazards etc.
It is important to keep abreast of new directives, regulations and legislation, LRD cover this in their monthly magazine 'Labour research'. Workers are the real experts about the work we do, and how safe it is. We can use research, technical information and the law, but ultimately, it is we who have the hands on awareness of what is safe.

A collective approach
Elect Safety reps at a mass assembly of all workers (except scabs and bosses of course), never rely on union full timers. It is important that the rep is in a union to help prevent victimisation, but also as non-union reps status, means that they only have to be “consulted”.
First identify the issue, collect information- get information from workers (questionnaires are useful)- then carry out a site inspection. The Safety reps should hold a meeting to discuss the information and what to do about it. At the meeting workers should elect a representative (responsible to all workers and recallable at any time by them) to take up the issues with the employer, and to meet with other Safety reps to co-ordinate activities and pool information and resources.
Like any other workplace issue, workers' strength and unity is a basic requirement to both prevent victimisation and to push management to make improvements. Reps should get an office, access to a telephone and fax, time off with pay to attend union training courses and use of a suitable room for meetings. It may require flexing our industrial muscle to gain these rights.

In our hands
It is important to recognise that health and safety standards can only be established and maintained through taking collective action. Workers need to cut through the bureaucracy that has given the impression that you can only get anything done if you go through the right channels. These exist to individualise the problem and diffuse them into “non-conflict”, time consuming procedures, designed to manage disruption by administering control through mollifying only the worse excesses.
It is the profits that the boss is worried about losing, not lives and limbs. So lets hit them, where it hurts, in the pocket. Health and safety issues also challenge the bosses' control of the workplace.

If workers want to win real gains in health and safety, including decent basic wages, the lack of which give rise to many dangerous working practises we see, and to end life threatening conditions. We need to organise independently of full time union officials and if needs be against and beyond them. We need to organise as industrial workers, not as craft workers with different unions or nationalities. It is only on the basis of class solidarity that any lasting gains will be made.

This leaflet was written by workers for workers.
Produced by the Solidarity Federation.
For futher information and advice; www.solfed.org or
address

WINNING THE CLASS WAR: AN ANARCHO-SYNDICALIST STRATEGY

First published by DAM-IWA, 1991

THROWING DOWN THE GAUNTLET

Major social changes have taken place these last few years in Britain and throughout the world, and changes continue to take place at an increasing rate. 'Thatcherism' has, over the past decade, made a decisive move away from the mixed economy and welfare state of the so?called post?war political consensus, stridently bearing the standard of free?market capitalism and anti?trades unionism. It is becoming increasingly apparent to everyone that our fate is very much tied in with international economics and politics. The events in eastern Europe will have major repercussions on the whole world, and the balance of power within it, as will the creation of the Single European Market in 1992.

The working class needs to take stock of the new situation in which it finds itself, and needs to
organise itself as a class if it is to fight for its interests against the bosses.

The once all?powerful British trades unions have, faced with a hostile Tory Government and with employers not prepared to accept the gains made by workers over past decades, failed, and failed miserably. How many times since the steelworkers' strike of 1980 have we seen sections of workers left to fight on their own with the TUC leaders merely mouthing words of support?

The trades unions are not going to fight for workers' interests in the 1990s and beyond. In the past the unions paid lip?service to the emancipation of the working class and to Socialism (meaning Labourism). They don't even pay lip?service now.

Originally, unions were an inevitable reaction by workers to the realities of life in a class society. The workers needed to defend themselves against the opposing interests of the bosses and organised themselves into combinations and trade unions in order to do this, realising that workers' strength lay in the organisation of their large numbers.

The unions in this country accepted the legitimacy of the existence of social classes. They did not
want to put an end to an exploitative social system but to get the best for workers within it, which, in practice, means collaborating with the bosses and the capitalist system. The class collaboration of the unions has led them to become more and more a part of the system. It now means that they not only fail to defend workers' interests but often go firmly against them. Their priority if getting ‘recognition' at any price (recognition from the bosses, of course, not the workers). Getting back to the good old days of beer and sandwiches at Number 10 is what they are interested in, not fighting the class struggle.

All the time we hear workers and left?wingers accusing the trade union leaders of selling out and being bureaucratic. This is, of course, true, but we view this as inevitable in organisations that aim to collaborate with capitalism rather than to destroy it.

The reality is that if the working class doesn't take things to the heart of the matter and destroy the class system and take control of society, we are doomed to a perpetual struggle to live: we fight ? they give a bit ? they take it back ? we fight …

Workers' gains might last for some time (for example, the conditions won by printworkers, which have now largely gone out of the window) or only a short while (until management reinterpret the agreement they made the week before) but, sooner or later, the struggle starts all over again.

What is needed is a long?term perspective that goes beyond wages and conditions, that iooks to
Winning a decisive victory in the class war.

Only workers through organisations they themselves run can gain that victory. For years, political solutions have been put, by trade unionism, in the hands of the Labour Party, supposedly fighting for us in the bastions of power and privilege. What have workers got to show for it all? Neil Kinnock? The answer is not to put our faith in more radical or 'revolutionary' political parties. The answer is having faith in ourselves, in our class to fight our own battles. The slogan of the First Workers' International has stood the test of time: "the emancipation of the workers is the task of the workers themselves". The workers themselves, not the 'professional revolutionaries' and the intellectuals who follow in the footsteps of the dictators Lenin and Trotsky.

We must recognise no power over the working class, and likewise we can allow no institutionalised power within our own organisations. The apathy and powerlessness the present unions create in their members cannot be allowed to continue. The decision making process must be under the control of the workers. Real workers' organisations have no need for full?time officials. They become superfluous when we take our destinies into our own hands.

Working class organisations should seek to unite our class (and that includes those not in work) rather than fighting for petty sectional interests. Look at the trade unions: fighting each other to 'unionise' workplaces that haven't even been built, like they are bidding for a contract ? lowest offer wins. Instead of this, SOLIDARITY must again become the morality of the workers' movement. An injury to one is an injury to all.

But the most important thing of all is that workers' unions should not only fight for immediate improvements in our lives but should have the aim of creating a free and classless society, based on workers' control and the satisfaction of human needs.

Since the trade unions are not in any way designed to carry out these aims and, indeed, are themselves an important part of capitalism, our objective cannot he to reform them (still less to elect 'better' leaders), but has to be to create a new and altogether independent workers' movement.

After years of dominance by social?dernocratic trade unions and Labour Party what we are advocating ? revolutionary unionism ? is certainly a bold step. However, what we want is not entirely new and untried. With the failure of trade unionism and the collapse of Marxism?Leninism the old traditions of revolutionary unionism and anarcho?syndicalism inspire and teach us as we build a new workers' movement.

Finally, this pamphlet is not a blue?print for the creation of such a movement. The precise directions of a living movement cannot and should not be laid down in advance in pillars of stone. It represents, rather, a first step in the process of bringing about a revolutionary workers' movement.

THE PHONEY WAR

Surely if nothing else the Thatcherite eighties have exposed the bankruptcy of reformist trade unions. In the very first year of the decade the planned attacks on the organised sections of the working class began with the brutal closure of steel mills resulting in the loss of thousands of jobs and the destruction of whole communities. It was to set a dreadful pattern repeated throughout the decade as groups of workers from miners, print workers through to ambulance workers were left, with honourable exceptions, isolated to slug it out with rampant management backed by the full force of the state. A by?product of these long hard disputes is the now common sight of groups of workers being forced on to the streets in order to collect money just to survive. Indeed, as the decade came to an end with the ambulance dispute, union leaders, having now dropped totally the idea of class struggle and the need to spread disputes to other groups of workers, came to see street collecting not as a weakness but part of the strategy for winning. The idea being that it is not collective strength that wins disputes but convincing the 'general public' via the media that you have a 'just' case. and of course large amounts of money collected can be offered up as a sign of so?called public support. The archetype of this new union thinking being the leader and main spokesman during the ambulance dispute, Mr Media himself Roger Poole, who even went so far as to employ a media consultant as an advisor. If as workers we are not going to be left to the mercy of these PR men masquerading as trade unionists it is essential that we start looking at why the struggles of the '80s were lost and at the very nature of reformist trade unions. We must look at what the unions' aims are. how do they function and what role do the clich6d rank and file have within them? We also have to look at the 'lefts' traditional response to the unions and the role they play within them. In short we have to start by asking what lies behind the myth of British trade unions?

Let us start by looking at the basic building block of any union ? the branch. The first thing to note is that the vast majority of branches exist and function away from the point of struggle, that is the workplace. The only contact with the workplace the branch has, and therefore the union, is through the workplace activists who attend and the workers who bring problems encountered in their daily working lives to the branch to solve. This they only do on rare occasions and it is safe to say that most workers only attend branch meetings on a handful of occasions throughout their working lives, if at all. Indeed, surveys show that at any given point only 5% of union members attend branch meetings. Nor is it necessarily the case that even those who attend on a regular basis have much in common. Many unions organise meetings on the basis of where members live, these meetings can consist of groups of people who may not work in the same workplace or even the same industry, the only thing in common being that they happen to belong to the same union. This type of meeting can even be reduced to members just turning up to pay dues. Even those in unions that do organise on an industrial basis union meetings are still dominated not by Workplace matters but internal union business. The staple diet of such meetings being the endless correspondence, various motions and the countless elections and nominations to the various committees. conferences and union positions. Which may be all well and good if the views expressed at branches were treated for what they are ?the views of the tiny number of activists. But they are not. What happens at union meetings is that you have tens of people acting for hundreds and occasionally hundreds acting for thousands. The culmination of this charade being the block vote where union leaders get up at various conferences casting votes on behalf of hundreds of thousands of members on policies and for people that the overwhelming majority of members will never have heard of let alone voted for.

We should also dispel the idea that all branch activists are also involved in the workplace struggle against the bosses. For a start, in many unions branch secretaries are full?timers so never see the workplace. And even when they are not officially full?time they can become so through the back door method, by sitting on so many committees and holding so many positions they do not have the time for something as mundane as work. Then there are those who are active in the union but have no base in the workplace. These people can even be on the so?called 'left' of the union who will argue for all sorts of motions to be passed from 'troops out' to bringing down apartheid, all of which will be achieved by strongly worded letters from the union, but do little to organise in the workplace and would not dream of organising strike action in defence of basic rights. Indeed it could be argued that unions act as a check on militancy even at branch level. How often do angry workers turn to the branch for support and advice over incidents that have happened at work only to have all that anger deflected away from taking effective action by branch officials promising to 'get something done' by contacting head office or bringing in the full?timer. If then, branch meetings are hardly hives of activity where the mass of workers meet, argue and exchange ideas, it can be said that they so at least retain some links with mass of the membership.

Which is more than can be said about most union bodies above branch level. We now enter that strange world of the full?time union official whose working lives consist of endless meetings with other union officials, management and union activists. The only time these people come across ordinary union members is when they are called in, often by management to 'resolve' a problem. The higher up the union structure the more remote they became, ending with union leaders who only come across ordinary working class people on a day to day basis when they have a friendly chat with their chauffeur or the office cleaner.

It is safe to say then that the unions exist in the main outside the workplace with the bulk of union activity taking place above the members heads. The ordinary members commitment being limited by paying subs and perhaps seeing the need to 'support the union'. Looking to the union in return for help if trouble does arise as individuals or collectively.

Given that the unions organise away from the point of struggle, let us turn to their aims and how they set about achieving those aims. The main aim of any union is to maintain its power within as part of the wider trade union movement and also to exert pressure and maintain influence on the state, management and society as a whole. They seek to do this in various ways, one of the most important being maintaining as high a membership as possible. This is of prime importance not least in the TUC pecking order. This has now reached the point where it seems to matter little how remote or inactive that membership is or maybe just as long as the dues are coming in and membership figures are up. Getting to the bizarre stage where unions sign up members, in single union deals for factories that are not yet even built. As for their role within the state and government, this has all but been eliminated under Thatcher. But the desperation of the unions can be seen for instance in the willingness of the 'mighty' TUC, in return for being allowed some involvement with what was the Manpower Services Commission, helping to administer youth schemes like the YTS that not only pay slave wages but encouraged dangerous working conditions for thousands of working class young people. But of all the areas that the unions seek to have influence in by far the most important is its dealing with management, for it is from this area that all their power flows. They must retain the right to negotiate wages and conditions with management. It is by having the power to negotiate on behalf of workers that they retain their influence within the workplace and ultimately attract and retain members.

In turn it is having that control and influence in the workplace that they are of use to the boss class. The unions offer stability in the workplace, they channel workers anger, shape and influence their demands and, if need be, act to police the workforce. Perhaps t ' his is best summed up by a quote from the boss class themselves: a manager when asked by a reporter why his multi?national had recognised unions in South Africa replied "have you ever tried negotiating with a football field full of militant angry workers?" And it was this threat of an uncontrollable militant, if not revolutionary workforce, that first persuaded the capitalist of the need to accept reformist unions~ seeing them as a way to control the workforce.

Not that this position between workforce and management has been easy to maintain for the unions. On the one hand they have struggled to control workplace oriented strikes at times of workers militancy, often refusing to make strikes 'official'. They have even, lowered themselves to issuing threats of the removal of union cards in the days of the close shop, thus endangering workers' jobs, if the workers refused to go back to work. On the other hand, in times of recession and reduced workers militancy, union bosses are face with a management freed from the need to control the workforce, to a degree anyway, so the union has a reduced or no role at all, leaving them with no option but to call strikes to defend their position. No better example of this can be found than in the 1989 railworkers strike. British Rail having virtually ignored the union for years decided to go the whole hog and withdraw national pay bargaining. The panic?stricken NUR leaders had no choice than to call a national strike, for only the first time since 1926, apart from the one?day fiasco in 1962.

Because of the union weakness in the workplace, they had to lump a number of issues together, call for the most acceptable action possible, and organise tours of workplaces to try to get the message across. Needless to say, even with a highly successful strike the action was soon called off and all other issues dropped once management conceded national pay bargaining.

But then strikes have always been the last resort for unions and then only for short?term gains. In the long term they seek the election of Labour governments, under which the leadership could sit down with capitalists and the state to administer society for the supposed benefit of all. The control over the workforce would be their guarantee of power. However, the Thatcher years have meant that the unions have had to redefine how they maintain their position. Whereas in the past their power has been based on their ability to both control and at times promote workers militancy, now much more emphasis. is being placed on the old enemy, the law, to guarantee their position. Under a Labour government's so?called 'positive workers right' not only will the unions right to recruit workers be made law, but a new system, guaranteeing negotiating rights, based on the European?style Workers Councils, will be introduced. There is no doubt as we enter the '90s that the trade unions are looking for the Northern European style of unions, with their emphasis on individual rights, as opposed to the collective rights with binding arbitration, and co?operation as opposed to strike action as the way forward. To quote that rising star of the TUC and assistant to Willis, John Monks: "We still represent 40% of the workforce. Social partnership is the norm in Europe. It is Britain that is out of step." And even without a Labour government, with 1992 and the European Social Charter, Mr Monks may still have his way.

As the movement in the unions away from strikes gathers pace, we must consider how little trade unions have used the strike weapon in any case. To do this it is important to distinguish between two types of strike: the first are those organised by the union which may or may not have the backing of the workforce; and secondly those organised in the workplace by the workers themselves and which are not supported by or made official by the union. It is the latter which forms the bulk of strikes and which have in fact been the mainstay and backbone of workers militancy in Britain. The Donovan Report, which came out of the Royal Commission into the unions and was set up by a Labour government, found that no less than 95% of post?war strikes were unofficial. The people often at the centre of these strikes were shop stewards who, being based in the workplace and having the support of the people they worked with daily, were in a position to organise quick and effective strikes which resolved problems and made gains. But by acting as the focal point of workers struggles, not only did shop stewards come into conflict with management, they also came into conflict with the unions who did everything they could, in the main unsuccessfully, to contain them. To quote Bill Jordan of the AEU, commenting on why the unions 'social contract' with the Labour government went wrong, states: "We reverted to type, as if fighting a 19th century class war. We failed to respond because of the rise and rise of the power of the shop stewards. The power of the full?time officials was passed into the factory ... when national officials were asked to deliver their side of the social contract they couldn't." In other words the unions could not keep their side of the bargain with the state because workers were ignoring the unions' call for class collaboration and had taken matters into their own hands.

The question must be asked, why after decades of militancy, workers were unable to organise a general fight back against Tory government attacks? And with hindsight it is not hard to see some of the fundamental faults which existed. One of the most basic being that workers still restricted themselves, through the unions, to economic struggles. No wider political perspective was put forward linking the day?to?day struggles with the need for an alternative to capitalism. This was not so much a problem in the post?war boom, but come the recession in the late 70s where management were opening their empty order books to workers and blaming the international slump for redundancies, then there was a crying need for an organisation committed to putting forward an alternative to capitalism. A role the reformist trade unions were unwilling and unable to take on.

Again we had workers in conflict with and feeling betrayed by the unions whilst no alternative was put forward. Few national workplace organisations were built where workers could come together to discuss problems and plan actions. This left them dependent on the unions for an overall view of their industries. Whilst direct links with workers in other industries were not made, meaning that relations with other groups of workers was conducted through inter?union bodies and the TUC. These factors tended to leave groups of workers isolated with their efforts concentrated on the immediate day?to?day issues. As the Donovan Report found, the vast majority of strikes were over local issues only lasting for a few days.

The above problems were to prove fatal when Thatcher came to power. For what the '80s have shown was not that workers were not prepared to fight, after all group after group of workers have attempted to take on the state, but that workers have no organisation that could co?ordinate and plan a class?wide offensive. Having few direct links with workplaces outside of their own industries, strikers were forced to appeal for support through other unions and the TUC. These bodies, in the majority of cases, did not even try to mobilise support. On the few occasions when unions did back workers from other unions, links with their own members had become so weak that they were unable to get them to take action. No better example of this is the miners' strike of 1984?85, when the TGWU ordered its members to boycott coal, only to be ignored by the vast majority of members. On the other hand, when workers did take solidarity action, it was often the case that because of the nature of their jobs that they had strong links with the people they were supporting. For example, some of the most effective solidarity action during the '80s was taken by railway workers during both the steel and miners strikes, it cannot be mere coincidence that the railworkers gave such tremendous support to two groups of workers with whom they had strong historical links, by working together on a daily basis.

That is not to say that the 'left' has not tried to get over the problems posed by the dominance of the reformist trade unions. Since the war they have attempted to organise 'rank and file' groups in the unions. These have taken various forms, for example Flashlight and Building Workers Charter have set up around the National Rank and File Movement of the 70s, and of course there is the broad left. But the very nature of these groups, and of the politics of those who have organise them, has meant that these groups were also doomed to failure.

Since the war this has taken the form of trying to build rank and file groups within the unions. This task has been undertaken by various political groups from those set up by the CP in the 1950's and 60's, eg Flashlight and Building Workers Charter through to the SWP?dominated rank and files of the 70's and of course the militant?dominated Broad Lefts. Needless to say, such Marxist groups were not slow to manipulate rank and files for their own ends, even if this was to the detriment of those rank and files and the workers involved.

For instance, Building Workers Charter, which ahd widespread support in the building industry failed to appear in the massive and bitter building workers' strike in the early 70's due to the manoeuvering of the CP. Thus they not only failed to provide an alternative lead to the reformist unions in a crucial strike but so demoralised supporters of Building Workers Charter that it led to its eventual collapse.

Again in 1973 when the IS (now the SWIP) tried to set up a national rank and file movement, the CP?dominated rank and files boycotted the conference organised to launch the movement with the Morning Stor denouncing the whole event as an IS plot.

The conference itself was so bogged down with the manoeuvering of various sects that the movement never got off the ground. The manoeuvering of the Marxists should come as no surprise because they all saw rank and files not only as recruiting grounds but also as a way of increasing their influence in the unions. This followed from their. political theory, that the unions were the place where workers organise at an economic level, whilst the 'more advanced' would wish to organise on a political level and join their organisation. With this outlook the Marxists deliberately set out to limit the rank and files to the basic day?to?day economic struggle. Though there were variations between rank and file groups, with some making vague references to the nationalisation of industry, they were, in the main, devoid of revolutionary politics. You will search in vain for any attempt to link the day?to?day struggles with the need to transform society. The links between the Labour Party and the unions were never challenged, in fact attacks on the Labour Party were restricted to the 1 right wing'. Their aims were limited to reforming the unions and defending pay and conditions through the use of industrial action.

It would be a mistake, however, to put down the lack of politics simply to the Marxist influence. Instead we should look at the nature of rank and file groups themselves. They were not made up of masses of ordinary workers but trade union activists who were members of political groups with axes to grind, sinking their political differences to the lowest common denominator, that is militant trade unionism. Perhaps a quote from the paper of one of the more successful rank and files of the 70's. the NALGO Action Group, will illustrate this. An editorial stated: 'the future development of NALGO Action Group remains as it always has, in the hands of its supporters whose political persuasions are less important than their common desire to work for greater democracy and militancy within NALGO and larger trade union movement'.

Indeed as rank and files were made up of activists, often of different political persuasions, it was vital that differences did not surface. Where faction fighting did occur there were all sorts of problems. For instance a number of attempts to start a rank and file in the rail industry in the 70's failed due to political in?fighting. Again, in Building Worker (at the time of writing, still a functioning rank and file) progress has been hindered by differences. To use just one issue of their paper as an example, the 3 main articles consisted of one arguing for the need for a revolutionary party; one for the need to support reform of the Labour Party; and the other for the need for building workers to join the T&G.

The attitude of the post?war rank and files towards the trade unions, all without exception never sought to challenge the reformist nature of the unions. Instead of developing a revolutionary alternative in the workplace they concentrated on trying to reform union structures, often seeking to do little more than making unions more democratic and accountable to 'ordinary members', which in reality, as we have seen above meant little more than the tiny minority that attended branch meetings. This meant that much time and energy was spent working within the union structures outside the workplace. This ranged from caucuses before union meetings; building support for motions to national conferences; and standing for positions at branch level right up to national level. Some even put forward people for TUC elections.

It is true to say that rank and files did some excellent work around various disputes, but by acting as a group standing somewhere between the union and the workplace they also played a negative role. By constantly arguing for changes to the union structure; the need to make branches more democratic; the need for the leadership to be more accountable etc, they not only offered false hope but channelled energy and discontent away from the real problem ? the social democratic nature of reformist trade unions.

CLASS MOBILISATION

At the turn of the twentieth century, Britain had a large revolutionary (syndicalist) union current. It was still widely believed that the trade unions were, to some extent, malleable; that they were still reformable to a revolutionary position. But following the Russian Revolution, this current was largely seduced by Bolshevism and so became irrelevant to the growth of any real mass working class organisation. Many activists were busy trying to build the Communist Party, rather than a revolutionary class organisation.

Internationally this was not necessarily the case. Anarcho?syndicalist unions were fighting to destroy capitalism and the state either as the majority workers organisations in that particular country, i.e. Argentinian FORA and Spanish CNT; or as minorities, i.e. the Italian USI and the SAC in Sweden.

But eventually revolutionary unionism lost out everywhere to repression from democratic, fascist or Stalinist states, and to the charms of consumer and welfare capitalism.

The economic crisis which has developed since the 1960s, and the failure of reformist unions to fight anti?working class legislation, has led to a regeneration to revolutionary unionism in many parts of the world.

Groups have developed to promote the ideas in Britain, Japan, most of Europe, and in places such as Spain there has been the re?formation and growth of the older established anarcho?syndicalist unions.

Elsewhere we have seen the development of 'independent' unions, for instance in Poland, South Africa and the Phillipines. But these lack, have lacked, a clear revolutionary perspective which consequently leads to problems.

In Poland workers are now governed harshly by 'Solidarity'; in South Africa unions are being taken over by middle class politicians of the ANC. Independent unions are not in themselves revolutionary. Clear revolutionary political goals are also vital for any real change to develop.

So, what does constitute revolutionary unionism? How is such a union organised? What does it do? What does it believe in?

First and foremost, a revolutionary union has to be more the purely economic in its outlook. It has to be political. Not in a party political sense, but in the knowledge that it is aiming for a completely different kind of society. No doubt members of liberal?social democratic unions will claim that they want something completely different. Well, perhaps they do want something different to Thatcherite freedom and collectivist self?management. They simply want an arena in which they can be involved with the bosses in the running of welfare, pseudo democracy, where they will get the chance to govern come election day with their soul?mates in the Labour Party.

A political outlook cannot develop merely out of the election of politicians. It develops out of an involvement in political decision making. This is a learning experience. Politics and economics are not to be artificially divided. Social democratic unions are bankrupt of any credibility because of their insistence on this divide. When we take economic action through strikes and boycotts, for instance, we should also be learning self?management and solidarity. There is also the opportunity of becoming internationally aware ? for instance, the miners strike saw for the first time workers meeting fellow workers and learning from each other, instead of from the pages of some tatty newspaper, or through stereotypes of Spaniards and Germans.

What we want is a libertarian communist society, built by organising in the workplace and the community. What we want is nothing less than the complete overthrow of capitalism, in whatever malign or benign guise it may adopt.

Our union must be based on mutual aid and solidarity. Such fundamental principles are not negotiable. They involve fighting the class war. A phrase so out of fashion with chic, middle class lefties. We know that the class war is ceaseless. We defend our immediate and future needs, whether as part of the union or not. For instance, health and safety at work is vital for all workers as is the wage struggle. Where we differ from the liberals is that we fight for our gains and take them. We totally reject collaboration with the exploiting class. What they deign to give us, they may take back. What we take is ours, and we will not allow them to steal from us again.

So, whilst fighting the class war for immediate gains, we never lose sight that without an end to capitalism, gains are only transitory. We only have to look at how improvements in the conditions of mineworkers and printers were savagely destroyed in the '80s to be aware of this. Even the 'right to strike' is being taken away by Tory legislation, and the Labour Party intends to maintain much of such legislation. What we call for is not the 'right to strike', it is our duty to take industrial action. The end of welfare is evidence that we cannot, and should not, depend on the state for our well being. Welfare has been used as a weapon against our class, by threats of its withdrawal, and not only threats, so lulling us into servile acquiescence.

Our union must be a combatative, pro?active revolutionary organisation, which uses direct action to achieve its goals.

Its structure is totally different to any reformist or existing working class organisation. However the difference of structure is in itself not enough. The activity and involvement of the union members is still the most important part of any anarcho?syndicalist union. The difference between anarcho-syndicalist and present unions is this basic point: the structure of an anarcho?syndicalist union with its power and decision making at its base, its system of federation and networking means that it con fully utilise what is actually the real power of any working class organisation ? vitality and initiative and the day to day involvement of the members.

Current unions squander this vitality. As any active member will show, activity is not based on workplace matters, but wastes time at meetings, futile campaigns, electioneering, and matters arising outside the workplace.

The decision making base of an anarcho?syndicalist union is the workplace. There is only one branch of the union in any workplace as trade divisions are just that ? divisive. So anarcho?syndicalism is based on industrial rather than trade divisions. These then link together with other workplaces of the same industry.

This in turn links to a national industrial federation. Workplace unions may link with other unions of any trade in local and area federations for greater local and cross?union solidarity. This would also help create community bases and ties. The locals form the backbone of the union. Together with industrial federations they form the Confederated Union.

An anarcho?syndicalist union has no permanent fun time paid officials. Decision making is done via delegates, whilst the running of the union is done by recallable elected people with limited terms. If, as has been known at various times, the workload is so great, a wage may be agreed but only at the holder's previous wage. The practice of an anarcho?syndicalist union, though, is to be as non-bureaucratic and decentralised as possible.

This structure enables effective tactics to be discussed and worked out in the workplace. But the tactics themselves are based on the principles of Anarcho?Syndicalism. Such tactics would then become relevant with co?ordination for maximum solidarity within the Confederation.

How often have we heard the irrelevant cries from the left to ask the TUC to call a General Strike whenever a group of workers is in struggle. And conversely, how pathetic is the TUC in its tokenistic posturing, calling for 15 minutes 'dignified' stoppages, days of action, birthday parties for the NHS.

People taking industrial action know what is best for their workplace. There are classic examples of effective action, from work to rules to go slows, sabotage, selective and all?out strikes, sabotage.

During the 1989 local government workers' strike there were instance of computers being sabotaged and essential files being locked away to stop any scabs doing the work. French railway workers sabotaging tracks, ambulance workers occupying stations, miners blocking motorways, solidarity actions where, for instance, miners supported nurses, railway workers refused to carry scab coal, and so it goes on. The best methods are those suited to the prevailing situation, and no?one knows that better than the workers involved.

Faced with a violently hostile government, prepared to spend a fortune to win industrial disputes, the all?out and stay?out approach is as archaic as the reformist trade union movement itself. As shown by the miners, P&O Seafarers and the News International printers, holding out month after month was no substitute for class solidarity. Glorious defeats will not change society or overthrow capitalism. We have to use our experience and imaginations to do whatever is necessary to win. To allow the imagination to flourish, workers must be in control of our own destinies, not pawns in some union leader's power game.

So what is required is the imagination of the workforce coupled with a flexible approach, workforce control and immoveable principles, if we are to ensure effective activity.

We also recognise that concerns at work do not end at the factory gates, there have to be links with the communities in which we live. Toxic emissions concern not only workers, but the people living downwind from such plants; poisoned food is eaten by everyone including the workers who produce it; housing matters concern workers and tenants and the homeless; we cannot leave concerns to a few individuals and small sections of workers, or we end up with such debacles as Sellafield, where people have been dying for years whilst government experts say there is nothing wrong, and workers choose to hide their heads in the sand rather than confront the bosses.

This also extends into our international approach. All workers suffer the yoke of capitalism. The environment, multinationals, maldistribution of food, the third world debt, militarism, concerns every one of us and calls for international working class action.

We can no longer, nor could we ever, depend on political leaders to improve our society or our world. The time has come for a radical form of organisation based on internationalism, solidarity and the class war. We can live without the bureaucrats of whatever persuasion.

It is our struggle, it is up to us to organise to win the war now.

ON THE OFFENSIVE

Having stated how we perceive an anarcho?syndicalist union and why we see such a development as necessary, the union cannot be built out of thin air or with paper membership, nor can it be linked by economic militancy alone. An anarcho?syndicalist union is not just an economic fighting force, but also an organisation with a political context. To build such a union requires a lot of work and experience. As a step in this direction the DAM is initiating what it calls Industrial Networks.

The idea of an industrial network is a break from the past where rank and file efforts to organise have been within the constraints of the existing social democratic organisations and practices. There have been others that have grown up mainly out of struggle and displayed healthy methods of organisation but as a consequence of their purely reactive nature and limited political content have faded away once the focus of struggle has moved.

An industrial network would initially be a political grouping in the economic sphere, aiming to build a less reactive but positive organisation within the industry. The long term aim of industrial networks is, obviously, the creation of an anarcho?syndicalist union.

In accordance with this aim, and in keeping with the principles of anarcho?syndicalism we must build a framework from which such a union can be built. To do this the industrial networks must be organised at the grassroots and work through mutual federation with other networks in the same industry to create a national federation within that industry. Also to federate on a local level with networks in other industries to create a locally based organisation. Federation is basically very simple, but because of its flexibility it would be unwise to lay down rigid guidelines as to how to put them into practice. Solidarity and mutual support are the essence of federalism.

It would be a futile leftist prank, of the kind the working class has seen far too much of in the past, if an industrial network was merely a network of contacts. We see no point in industrial networks unless they provide a framework for militant workers to begin to be able to set their own agenda and independence of action. By this we mean that we should be able to choose our own issues and set of demands. Anything short of outright revolution can only negotiate temporary gains under capitalism. The boss class is forever changing the rules, changing its demands, taking away hard fought for benefits. We believe that we should adopt a reciprocal attitude to the bosses. One day we might fight for National Pay Agreements, the next for local ones, the contradiction doesn't bother us. We should fight for what we want, when we want it and not allow the bosses or reformist unions to decide for us what is and is not permissible. This is what we mean by setting our own agenda even though it may include, from time to time, fighting for the same things as the reformists.

Initially industrial networks are likely to be groupings not necessarily based within the same workplace as this would limit activity, but the issues may be able to be generalised. Local and industry wide issues can be tackled, and being based locally and within the workplace, the members of a Network are ideally positioned to stimulate debate. Network members are also in an excellent position to help break the isolation felt in many workplaces as to the situation in the rest of the industry. The reformist unions maintain an iron grip on information which, especially during disputes, is vital. Workers need an overall view and reliable sources other than the media or union if they are to take effective action. This, along with encouraging workplace organisation, holding local meetings and trying to stimulate solidarity, independence and flexibility of action gives industrial networks a key role to play during disputes.

Networks will always be seeking to grow through activity and action, based upon our principles. Not for its own sake, nor as a mere opposition force to the social?democratic union structures but as an independent force aiming to become an anarcho?syndicalist union. This obviously brings us on to how we see the relationship an industrial network and its militants have with the existing trade unions.

We make no bones about our attitude to the trade unions. We may be members of them, we may fight for union rights, but we are totally against the present unions, not just their leadership, but also their structures and aims. We intend to use the unions to suit our own interests, so we defend union rights solely to fight for the rights of the workers. We do not intend to fight for positions within the unions, nor should networks be pushed through branches. To become absorbed within the union, particularly within its hierarchy, is to nullify militancy and flexible thought, with endless meetings that bear no relevance to the workplace or to the members of the union. To us the only organisation capable of representing the workers' interests, has to be workplace and industrially based, especially if it is syndicalist in its outlook. That is, it sees workers' organisations as the only legitimate bodies of expressing the opinions and interests of workers, that bureaucrats and intermediaries are surplus to the requirements of workers as they only serve to control militancy and their own dubious positions.

We have no intention of isolating ourselves from the many workers who make up the rest of the rank and file membership of the unions. We recognise that a large proportion of trade union members are only nominally so as the main activity of the social democratic unions is outside the workplace. Though the industrial networks are fairly specific in so far as they are anarcho?syndicalist and aim to create an anarcho?syndicalist union, they aim, in accordance with anarcho?syndicalist principles, to encourage general workplace activity ie workplace meetings, strike committees, etc, outside of the sphere of influence of the unions and other 'interested' bodies, like political parties.

We would see these activities as broad based, and whilst obviously respecting the consensus, industrial networks would maintain their independence and identity. But it is part of our political/economic outlook to fight vigorously for these kinds of bodies outside of the TU control. We aim to unite and not divide workers.

It has been argued that social democratic unions will not tolerate this kind of activity, and that we would be all expelled and thus isolated. So be it. We, however, don't think that this will happen until there is a threat to the TUs themselves. To present such a threat would imply a degree of success in stimulating workplace activity and building of anarcho?syndicalist networks of militant workers. This in turn would imply that workplace militants had found a voice independent of the TUs and so they become less useful to us anyway. Our aim is not to support social democracy, but to show it up as irrelevant to the working class.

We have claimed that the idea of industrial networks and their combined economic / political outlook are new. And in the history of the last few decades they are. But to be honest, these are only reconstructed ideas from the days when the working class had a bit of clout, before social democracy entwined itself around and strangled our ideas and organisations. They were effective then and can be more so now that social democracy has shown itself for the bankrupt system that it is.

The ambulance workers dispute of 89/90 showed how fully social democracy is willing to sell out workers for short term gains. The trade union was willing to sacrifice the right of workers to strike in return for a settlement. Roger Poole, the union's stitch up man was forever claiming each deal that he got was the best that could be expected, and the final sell out was so far removed from the workers' demands that Poole had to actively go out and try to sell it to the workers. To us this is utterly absurd.

The railway workers' dispute of 89 was another example of trade unions placing their own interests above those of the workers to protect the positions and egos of the leaders. Knapp gloried in the media attention whilst controlling the effectiveness of the actions taken so that he could settle for an extra 0.1% without a deal on conditions. This kind of increase on the original offer without fulfilling the demands on conditions, some of which were basic demands, shows the ineptitude of the unions' powerbroking and the self inflated importance of the leadership.

Contrast this with the London Underground workers who took action on their own accord and did very well until the trade unions kidnapped the dispute. The workers never really regained the initiative and were thus forced to accept the unions negotiated sellout. A further example of unions nullifying militancy. The last decade or so has been full of similar examples of unions selling deals to its members, counteracting any militancy, total inflexibility and the complete abdication of class interests as they wrangle and cajole to get their feet under the bosses table.

Rank and filism which we have experienced in the recent past is no longer acceptable to us as it entails either political subordination to its inventors, who act as external influences on the organisation, the Socialist Workers Party, Communist Party and Workers Revolutionary Party being particularly noteworthy examples of external manipulators, or else the Rank and File Groups lack any political outlook and ends up as a permanent critic of the leadership, and nothing more.

We want to encourage genuine grassroots activity, on its own initiative and with its own aims and agenda. But we also want a politically conscious and motivated network of militants both to encourage this and to learn and develop its own independence. Not all members of an anarcho?syndicalist organisation have to be anarcho?syndicalists, they have only to accept the organisational framework and principles. For us this is the only way forward for the class. We must stop the dependence on the petrified corpse of Trade Unionism and stop abdicating political responsibility to the middle class in its Labour Party garb.

A CALL TO ARMS

The 1990's herald a new decade, we are told that this will be a decade of hope for the future, for freedom and democracy. How easily these assumptions are pulled out of a public relations stock phrase book.

It is difficult to predict the future particularly with the world of capital realigning itself and the very market?hungry forces within it all set to capitalise on the political realignment in Eastern Europe. With the submerging of competing nations to form economic blocks, about to become more formalised in 1992 and the apparent elimination of socialism from the political arena, it is obvious that the world is changing rapidly. But this changing world is the world of capital readjusting itself in its time honoured fashion of averting perpetual crisis by carving more profit for itself. The avaricious tentacles of capitalism ingesting power and capital and excreting an homogenous culture of coca cola, big macs and prime time TV so destroying working class identity cultures and language in its pursuit of total world capital. Now it seems that this relentless devastation of the planet and the people that live on it can continue unchecked.

The much hailed collapse of socialism, or rather the Marxist? Leninist interpretation of socialism, has added further fuel to the fire of those who see the sole aim of the trade unions and the Labour Party is to accommodate the working class within capitalism rather than destroying capitalism itself. We see nothing in the Marxist?Leninist interpretations of socialism and revolution that is of benefit to the working class. Its combination of historical determinism and elitism led it on an inevitable course of centralisation and rigidity and unashamed dictatorship. The effects of this on the working class of the countries that came under its influence is well documented. We want revolution but not the false idea of some mythical homogenous mass rising to fulfill its historical destiny. This is pure fatalism of the kind that destroys any chance of a genuinely creative force capable of destroying capitalism once and for all. We seek and desire a revolution of the individual and community in harmony, where every member of society feels a part of that society and so plays an active part in it, rather than being a mere cog in a vast machine outside of their control. Capitalism needs to be totally eradicated. To allow ourselves to be accommodated within it as the likes of Kinnock and Willis would have is to destroy our humanity and lose all social responsibility.

The 'Social Charter' advocated by our so?called representatives within the EEC is part of that process of assimilation which highlights their lack of understanding of the needs of the working class. It is solely a tool to enhance the all?powerful super?state and economy of Europe, and as usual leaves us with as little as possible in the attempt to buy us off and accept capitalism. It displays the absolute bankruptcy of the trade unions and the so?called parties of the working class. They no longer have any connection with the day?to?day needs of the working class let alone any desire for revolution and the overthrow of capitalism. A cosy seat on the boardrooms of Europe would seem to be the height of ambition for our brave trade union leaders, the 'fighting organisations of our class'.

The need for an organisation capable of fighting the bosses and of furthering revolution is so starkly obvious that its absence can only further demoralise any rebellious spirit. We want to see a workers' organisation that is both political, economic and internationalist. Any divisions between these are totally artificial. We want the organisation to be controlled by its members, and for it to be a creative force in society.

The idea of class and revolution are deemed antiquated by those in power, particularly those on the left as they have most to lose. The left wing middle class cosy in their homes discussing socialism over quiche and perrier, keeping it for themselves as a nice academic exercise whilst maintaining their control over our class within their positions as union or political leaders or in their university trained occupations.

But we see revolution and class analysis as being more valid than ever. The time has come for the working class to fight back. As the field seems to have been cleared of opponents to capitalism the trade unions, the Labour Party, and the Marxist? Leninists have all shown their cowardice and inadequacies, so now anarcho?syndicalism will be the potent force for fighting back. It contains all the strengths needed to defeat capitalism and bring about a libertarian communist world.

As we said earlier, the 90's have been heralded as the decade of caring, of hope, of freedom and democracy, but these must be on our terms and we'll have them - BUT NOT WITHOUT A FIGHT

THE PRINCIPLES OF REVOLUTIONARY SYNDICALISM

Revolutionary syndicalism is based on the class struggle and holds that all workers must unite in economic combative organisations. These organisations must fight for liberation from the double yoke of capital and the state. Its goal is the reorganisation of social life on the basis of libertarian communism, which will be achieved by the revolutionary action of the working class. Considering that only the economic organisations of the proletariat are capable of reaching this objective, revolutionary syndicalism addresses itself to workers in their capacity as producers, as creators of social wealth, so that it will take root and develop among them in opposition to the modern workers' parties, which it declares inept for the economic reorganisation of society.

Revolutionary syndicalism is the pronounced enemy of all economic and social monopoly. It aims at the abolition of privilege by the establishing of economic communes and administrative organs run by the workers in the fields and factories, forming a system of free councils without subordination to any power or political party. Revolutionary syndicalism poses as an alternative to the politics of states and parties, the economic reorganisation of production. It is opposed to the governing of people by others and poses self?management as an alternative. Consequently, the goal of revolutionary syndicalism is not the conquest of political power, but the abolition of all state functions in the life of society. Revolutionary syndicalism considers that the disappearance of the monopoly of property must also be accompanied by the disappearance of all forms of domination. Statism, however camouflaged, can never be an instrument for human liberation and, on the contrary, will always be the creator of new monopolies and privileges.

Revolutionary syndicalism has a twofold function. It carries on the revolutionary struggle in all countries for the economic, social and intellectual improvement of the working class within the limits of present day society. It also seeks to educate the Masses so that they will be able to competently manage the processes of production and distribution through the socialisation of all wealth. Revolutionary syndicalism does not accept the idea that the organisation of a social system based exclusively on the producing class can be ordered by simple governmental decrees. It affirms that it can only be obtained through the common action of all manual and intellectual workers, in every branch of industry, by self?management, in such a way that every region, factory or branch of industry is an autonomous member of the economic organism and systematically regulates, on a determined plan and on the basis of mutual agreement, the production and distribution processes according to the interests of the community.

Revolutionary syndicalism is opposed to all organisational tendencies inspired by the centralism of the state and church. These can only prolong the survival of the state and authority and they systematically stifle the spirit of initiative and any independence of thought. Centralism is the artificial organisation which subjects the so?called lower classes to those which claim to be superior. Centralism leaves the affairs of the whole community in the hands of a few ? the individual being turned into a robot with regulated movements and gestures. In the centralised organisation, the necessities of society are subordinated to the interests of a few, variety is replaced by uniformity and personal responsibility is replaced by unanimous discipline. It is for this reason that revolutionary syndicalism founds its social conception on a wide federalist organisation, an organisation which works from the bottom to the top by uniting all forces in the defense of common ideas and interests.

Revolutionary syndicalism rejects all parliamentary activity and all collaboration with legislative bodies. It holds that even the freest voting system cannot bring about the disappearance of the clear contradictions at the centre of present day society. The parliamentary system has only one goal: to lend a pretence of legitimacy to the reign of falsehood and social injustice.

Revolutionary syndicalism rejects all arbitrarily created political and national frontiers and declares that what is called nationalism is the religion of the modern state, behind which is concealed the material interests of the ruling classes. Revolutionary syndicalism recognises only economic and regional differences and demands for all groups the right to self?determination without exception.

It is for these reasons that revolutionary syndicalism fights against militarism and war. Revolutionary syndicalism advocates anti?war propaganda and the substitution of permanent armies which are only the instruments of counter?revolution at the service of capitalism, by workers' militias which, during the revolution, will be controlled by the workers' syndicates; it demands, as well, the boycott and embargo of all raw materials and products necessary to war, with the exception of a country where the workers are in the midst of a social revolution, in which case it is necessary to help them defend the revolution. Finally, revolutionary syndicalism advocates the preventive and revolutionary general strike as a means of opposing war and militarism.

Revolutionary syndicalism supports direct action and supports and encourages all struggles which are not in contradiction to its own ends. The means of struggle are: occupations, strikes, boycotts, sabotage, etc. Direct action is best expressed through the general strike. The general strike must, at the same time, from the point of view of revolutionary syndicalism, be the prelude to the social revolution.

While revolutionary syndicalism is opposed to all organised violence of the state, it realises that there will be extremely violent clashes during the decisive struggles between the capitalism of today and the free communism of tomorrow. Consequently, it recognises as valid that violence which can be used as a means of defence against the violent methods used by the ruling class during the social revolution. As expropriations of the land and the means of production can only be carried out and brought to a successful conclusion by the direct intervention of the workers' revolutionary economic organisations, defence of the revolution must also be the task of the economic organisations. Defence of the revolution is not the task of a military or quasi?military body developing independently of these economic organisations.

It is only through the economic and revolutionary organisations of the working class that it will be possible to bring about the liberation and necessary creative energy for the reorganisation of society on the basis of libertarian communism.

The international bond of struggle and solidarity which unites the revolutionary syndicalist organisations of the world is called the International Workers' Association (IWA).

ENDS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE IWA

The IWA has as its aims:

a To organise and press for revolutionary struggle in all countries with the aim of destroying once and for all the present political and economic regimes and to establish a libertarian communist society.

b. To give a regional and industrial base to the economic syndicalist organisations and, where that, already exists, to strengthen those organisations which are determined to fight for the destruction of capitalism and the state.

c To prevent the infiltration of any political party into the economic syndicalist organisations and to combat with resolution every attempt at political domination within the unions.

d Where circumstances demand it, to establish through a given program which is not in contradiction with the above, provisional alliances with other revolutionary and working class organisations, with the objective of planning and carrying out common international actions in the interest of the working class. Such alliances must never be with political parties and with organisations that accept the state as a system of social organisation.

e To unmask and combat the arbitrary violence of all governments against revolutionaries dedicated to the cause of social revolution.

f To examine all problems concerning the world proletariat in order to consolidate and develop movements which defend the rights and new conquests of the working class the world over.

g To undertake shows of solidarity in the event of important economic struggles against the declared or concealed enemies of the working class.

h To give moral and material support to the working class movements whose management is in the hands of the workers themselves.

The International only intervenes in the affairs of a union when its affiliated organisation requests it or when this submits to the general decision of the International.