Speech to NUMSA: Anarcho-Syndicalism for South African Unions Today

Submitted by x332349 on Sat, 03/22/2014 - 11:59

Speech by Lucien van der Walt - March 7, 2013

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Speech to metalworkers: Anarcho-syndicalism for South African unions today?

Lucien van der Walt

Lightly edited transcript from Lucien van der Walt’s discussion at 1st National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) Political School, September 2013. From his debate with Solly Mapaila, 2nd deputy GS of the South African Communist Party (SACP) on anarcho-syndicalist versus Leninist views of the revolutionary potential of unions.

Captures van der Walt’s main points: the debate on the anarcho-syndicalist view that revolutionary trade unions, allied to other movements, creating a self-managed worker-controlled socialism through mass education, counter-power and workplace occupations; anarcho-syndicalism as a working class tradition; the anarcho-syndicalist view that unions can potentially be more revolutionary than political parties including Communist Parties, & be revolutionary without leadership by parties; the view that electioneering can be replaced with direct action campaigns; that the Spanish Revolution (1936-1939) shows unions taking power and making a bottom-up worker-controlled revolution; and how NUMSA’s current actions refute Marxist-Leninist theory; other problems with that theory’s traditional approach to unions; and the implications of all of this for current debates over the form of a new socialist movement in South Africa and elsewhere; and the nature of the South African ruling class and the primary social contradictions.

Lucien van der Walt is co-author of “Black Flame: The revolutionary class politics of anarchism and syndicalism” (w.Michael Schmidt, 2009, AK Press) and co-editor of “Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870-1940” (w. Steve Hirsch and Benedict Anderson, 2010, Brill). He has a long history of involvement in the working class movements.

Initial input in response to David Masondo’s presentation, titled “From Rustenburg to Ongoye: The Evolution of the SACP’s Programmatic Approach”

[…] LUCIEN: Okay now, Comrade David, you lay out only two options.

First: we fix the SACP or, second, maybe we set up a SACP Mark 2, the new version, the new edition.

Comrades who are auto workers know that every couple of years you bring out a new car. The problem is that a car is a car. And a car can’t fly, and if there is a problem with cars only some changes can be made. There are certain things that they can’t do and certain things they can do. Same for parties.

Maybe the question is to think about the political form itself. Is the political party an appropriate form? Do we need a party to carry out the political vanguard role of the working class? Why can’t this role be done by a trade union? Right now, actually, that’s what’s happening. We are debating if it’s a possibility, but right now we have a situation where NUMSA is ALREADY providing a vanguard leadership to the working class. Not just in its own ranks. Sections of COSATU [the Congress of South African Trade Unions], sections of the unemployed, sections of social movements, they all look to NUMSA.

You now want to bring the SA Communist Party back on track, although you have left it far behind. You’ve left it behind; you, the unions, are far ahead of that party. You are also two steps to the left of the Communist Party. You are playing a vanguard role that the Communist Party hasn’t done. But then, you say: “No, we must go back to the Communist Party to have a vanguard”!

Tags: 
National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA)
South Africa
metal workers
Marxism
anarcho-syndicalism
green syndicalism
ESKOM

Energy Crisis and Social Crisis

Submitted by x332349 on Sat, 03/22/2014 - 11:24

By Miquel Amorós - libcom.org, March 13, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Every sector of the economy depends on it: energy of one kind or another. Energy makes the world go round and the power that rules the world is linked to the way energy is produced and consumed. The capitalist regime did not really gain momentum until the steam engine and the energy produced by the combustion of coal could be harnessed to industry. The initial dependence on coal was the cause of the vast size and appalling filth of the first industrial factories and cities; as the basis of the productive process, this dependence was responsible for the centralization of the entire system and the intensive exploitation of labor power. The internal combustion engine and the turbine put an end to the rule of coal, but not to the basic characteristics of society that had been created by it. Although the generalized use of electricity and gasoline made production more flexible and extended the range of consumption, facilitating the decentralization of factory production and the unlimited geographical expansion of the cities, social development continued to proceed within the framework that had been established by “carboniferous” capitalism: not only was the model of concentrated and hierarchical power maintained, but it was further reinforced by the new technologies. The refinement of machine production only reduced the role of the workers in the productive process, intensified exploitation and stabilized the class order. The new technologies consolidated class society and reinforced the foundations of domination.

Petroleum and electricity allowed productive activities to be relocated far from primary energy sources, that is, they capitalized the world. The extreme separation between the production and consumption of energy made transport the main strategic factor and at the same time the weak link of the system. Any serious disruption in the energy supply would cause all of society to collapse very quickly. Capitalism cannot exist without an extremely robust privatized distribution network to connect energy sources, which are under the control of financial enterprises or state-based mafias, with their consumer hostages. The expropriation of energy resources is a most instructive characteristic of social inequality: the proletarian from this perspective is the person who does not have unrestricted access to free energy. This explains why the ruling class strives to maintain the private ownership of energy resources and thus to keep the population in the most complete dependence. By fighting against the socialization of energy resources, locally controlled power generation and distribution networks and consumption, the ruling class is simply defending its social status.

Without cheap, inexhaustible and easily accessible energy, industrial society cannot continue to grow. The ruling class became aware of this “energy reality” when oil prices spiked after the creation of OPEC in 1973. The response was two-pronged: on the one hand, massive investments in nuclear power; on the other, the arms race of the great powers that was required by geopolitics, that is, the art of controlling of the world’s main oil and gas fields. The militarization of the world became indispensable for the system’s survival. This was a deliberate choice: it was the only way that power and servitude could be maintained.

Tags: 
renewable energy
Big Oil
capitalism
green capitalism
energy democracy
energy
solar communism
libertarian-socialism

Cowboy-Indian Solidarity Challenges the Keystone XL

Submitted by x332349 on Sat, 03/22/2014 - 10:58

By Brian Ward - System Change Not Climate Change, March 18, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Earlier this month nearly 400 students were arrested in front of the White House protesting the Keystone XL Pipeline . The next group of people to head to Washington, D.C. will be the Cowboy Indian Alliance, farmers and ranchers and American Indian communities living along the proposed northern part of the Keystone XL pipeline, mostly based in Nebraska and South Dakota. They will camp out near the White House for a week beginning April 22 (Earth Day), ending with a mass demonstration on April 27th.

The Alliance is representing people on the front lines of the Keystone XL. Their goal is to protect their land and water for future generations. The proposed pipeline is planned to go through the Ogallala Aquifer (Northern Nebraska), which is the largest source of water for drinking, ranching and farming in the area. If there was a spill, and pipeline spills aren’t uncommon, it would put crops, public water supplies and wildlife in danger.

This type of coalition is rare in the Western United States. Ever since the encroachment of settlers onto native lands, many whites and Native Americans have been at odds over water, land, and hunting rights. The U.S. laid its foundation on stolen native land and resources, which further expanded its interests internationally as it became the global power it is today.

Tags: 
Keystone XL Pipeline (KXL)
Cowboy Indian Alliance
Black Hill Alliance
tar sands
fracking

Workers are Disposable in the Fracking Industry

Submitted by x332349 on Thu, 03/13/2014 - 17:13

By Walter Brasch - Dandelion Salad, March 9, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

The oil and gas industry, the nation’s chambers of commerce, and politicians who are dependent upon campaign contributions from the industry and the chambers, claim fracking is safe.

First, close your mind to the myriad scientific studies that show the health effects from fracking.

Close your mind to the well-documented evidence of the environmental impact.

Focus just upon the effects upon the workers.

The oil and gas industry has a fatality rate seven times higher than for all other workers, according to data released by the Centers for Disease Control. (CDC). According to the CDC, the death rate in the oil and gas industry is 27.1; the U.S. collective death rate is 3.8.

“Job gains in oil and gas construction have come with more fatalities, and that is unacceptable,” said John E. Perez, secretary of labor.

Not included in the data, because it doesn’t include the past three years, when the oil/gas industry significantly increased fracking in the Marcellus and other shales, is a 27-year-old worker who was cremated in a gas well explosion in late February in Greene County, Pa. One other worker was injured. Because of extensive heat and fire, emergency management officials couldn’t get closer than 1,500 feet of the wells. Pennsylvania’s Act 13, largely written by the oil and gas industry, allows only a 300 foot set-back from wells to homes. In Greene County, it took more than a week to cap three wells on the pad where the explosion occurred.

The gas drilling industry, for the most part, is non-union or dependent upon independent contractors who often provide little or no benefits to their workers. The billion dollar corporations like it that way. That means there are no worker safety committees and no workplace regulations monitored by workers. The workers have no bargaining or grievance rights; health and workplace benefits for workers who aren’t executives or professionals are often minimal or non-existent.

Tags: 
fracking
oil workers
Big Oil
green unionism

The Myths of “Green Capitalism”

Submitted by x332349 on Thu, 03/13/2014 - 17:03

By Brian Tokar - New Politics, early 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Today environmental politics in the U.S. appears hopelessly polarized. Liberals and progressives try to sustain and occasionally strengthen environmental legislation, while those on the right are inalterably opposed, even seeking to defund core institutions such as the EPA. This extreme polarization, where anti-environmentalism has become part of the cultural as well as the political apparatus of the right, is a recent, and hopefully short-lived, phenomenon.1

In the early years of the environmental movement Republican politicians, allied with outdoor enthusiasts and some in the corporate world, often supported the passage of environmental laws. For some it was mainly because they preferred a predictable and relatively malleable set of uniform rules to what in the late 1960s was a trend toward increasingly stringent regulations and punishing lawsuits at the state and local levels. But for others on the right end of the spectrum, something simply had to be done about out-of-control pollution that made it unhealthy to breathe the air, drink the water, or live downstream from polluting industries.2

The backlash began almost as soon as the various environmental agencies and laws became established, and continued under the influence of both political parties. In the late 1970s Jimmy Carter established a Regulatory Council, aimed at “streamlining” federal regulations at the behest of affected parties. But it was the administration of Ronald Reagan that first attempted to dismantle environmental regulations. His EPA administrator became notorious for backroom deals with industry officials and ultimately resigned, facing charges of contempt of Congress. Reagan’s Interior Secretary, the notorious James Watt, sought a massive transfer of federal lands into the control of private interests.

By the time the elder George Bush took office in 1988, the reaction to Reagan’s anti-environmental excesses had nearly reached a fever pitch. Concern for the environment was at a long-time high; the annual budget of the ten largest U.S. environmental groups had increased more than 50-fold during the 1980s, from less than $10 million to $514 million.3 Pollsters reported that Americans by large margins supported more environmental protection, even if it meant higher taxes or local job losses.4 By 1990, as environmentalists were gathering to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the first Earth Day, a new kind of environmental politics was emerging from America’s boardrooms, an overtly corporate environmentalism that extolled the virtues of the capitalist “free market” and suggested that adjustments in personal lifestyles through “green” consumerism were a better way to curtail pollution and further environmental goals while simultaneously increasing profits. If this seems familiar, it is because these same approaches continue to shape today’s environmental policy discussions.

Tags: 
Brian Tokar
green capitalism
greenwashing
capitalism

Greenwashing and the Bloombergification of the Globe’s Cities

Submitted by x332349 on Thu, 03/13/2014 - 16:52

By Peter Rugh, - System Change not Climate Change, March 5, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Have you ever been caught tapping a friend’s phone calls? Called out for the exploitive maltreatment your employees? Are you a multi-billionaire prone to going through the pockets of black youth in the hopes of finding marijuana?

Consider talking about your concern for the environment, particularly the effects of climate change. Leading governments, corporations, and political figures under fire for civil and human rights violations are giving it a whirl.

Greening Injustice

After the New York Times, via documents provided by former security contractor Edward Snowden, revealed on February 16 that the NSA had spied on Indonesia and U.S. attorneys representing the nation, Secretary of State John Kerry found himself in a tough spot. He was visiting Indonesia at the time. What did he say when he took the podium in Jakarta? He warned the country about climate change.

“President Obama and I believe very deeply that we do not have time for a meeting anywhere of the Flat Earth Society,” Kerry told the press.

Never mind that the U.S. outranks Indonesia in greenhouse emissions or, that the State Department issued a bogus report claiming that the fuel fuel intense Keystone XL pipeline will have significant impact on U.S. greenhouse gas output. Forget that the U.S. has fought against reparation initiatives that would see historically high emitters in the West providing poorer nations like Indonesia with funds to move off fossil fuels. 

Tags: 
greenwashing
green capitalism
gentrification
climate change
New York (state)
Michael Bloomberg
global warming
System Change not Climate Change (SCnCC)

Brazil: Assessment After 6th MST Congress

Submitted by x332349 on Thu, 03/13/2014 - 16:28

By Itelvina Massioli - Radio Mundo Real, February 20, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

A two-and-a-half year process of work which resulted in a meeting with several thousand Brazilian peasants; “a process that didn’t start now, and that won´t end here,” said Itelvina Massioli, national leader of the peoples´ struggle for land, agrarian reform and food sovereignty, in interview with Real World Radio after the 6th Congress of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST).

During the interview, the leader stated that this congress “managed to mark the beginning of a new stage in our struggle for land and our class struggle in general.”  “The balance is very, very positive”, said Itelvina.

An increasingly important role for women

In the past years, the feminist agenda, specifically peasant and popular feminism, has been strongly established within Latin American peasant movements. This has come hand in hand with peasant women taking on more political roles. “We can speak of an advance in the political prominence of landless women in the building of the movement of the past 30 years, but especially on the political struggle, on the struggle for land and agrarian reform,” said the leader.

On the congress, Itelvina said that their participation was not limited to a matter of numbers: “We ensured strong participation by women from all states, not just in terms of percentages. We led the process and the development of the congress, where many of our women friends intervened at the different tables and moments of our congress”.

Tags: 
eco-feminism
agriculture
Brazil
Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra (MST)

Who's Afraid of Ruins?

Submitted by x332349 on Thu, 03/13/2014 - 16:19

Out of the Woods - libcom.org, February 18, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Capitalism is locking-in climate change for centuries, but in the process, making radical social change more realistic than tinkering around the edges.

I : Ruins

There is an oft-quoted passage from the Spanish anarchist militant Buenaventura Durruti. Many readers will know it by heart. It reads:

It is we who built these palaces and cities, here in Spain and in America and everywhere. We, the workers. We can build others to take their place. And better ones! We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth. There is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world here, in our hearts. [...] That world is growing in this minute.

Durruti's quote brims with the optimism of a social revolution in full-flow. The insurgent proletariat and peasantry had met an attempted military coup in the streets, and in response launched a profound social revolution. Land and workplaces were seized and reorganised along collectivised lines, moving as fast as possible towards libertarian communism.

Three months later, Durruti was dead. The revolution was not far behind. Starved of arms and isolated, the movement stalled. Uneasy collaboration with the republican forces put the revolution on hold. Stalinism and the remnants of the republican state put it into reverse. And with the revolution dead and nothing left to fight for, Franco's forces swept the remnants into prisons and mass graves. Durruti's optimism gave way to fascism, and the unparalleled destruction of the Second World War.

Eight years, seven months, and twenty-six days after Durruti's death, the ruins got a lot scarier. The Trinity test, the world's first atomic bomb, exploded with a yield of 20 kilotons in the desert of New Mexico. Soon after, the Japanese cities of Hiroshima, then Nagasaki, were reduced to ruins in an instant. The mass destruction of World War II could now be visited on cities in a single warhead. The spectre of mutually assured destruction would dominate the remainder of the twentieth century, as warhead yields grew and delivery mechanisms proliferated, with long-range jet bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and submarine-launched nuclear weapons.

Tags: 
global warming
climate change
capitalism

From D.C. to Connecticut, Obama Met with Keystone Pipeline Protests

Submitted by x332349 on Tue, 03/11/2014 - 17:51

By Dan Fischer - Capitalism Vs the Climate, March 7, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

This past week [March 1-7, 2014], Connecticut residents and students traveled as far as Washington DC and as close as New Britain to protest the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline would carry leak-prone tar sands oil from Canada into the US. Both demonstrations targeted President Obama, who has the legal authority to block the pipeline. Although Obama campaigned on promises of climate protection, his repeated embrace of fossil fuel infrastructure recently led Business Week to deem him president of “The Petro States of America.”

On Sunday March 2, students from over 80 colleges met in Washington DC and marched to the White House in a demonstration called “XL Dissent”. At the White House, many took part in a “human oil spill” and locked themselves to the gates. Police arrested some 398 people. Democracy Now! reporter Amy Goodman commented the protest “could be the largest youth sit-in on the environment in a generation.” Several Connecticut students and residents participated.

Tags: 
Keystone XL Pipeline (KXL)
ecosocialism
tar sands
fracking
Big Oil
Barack Obama

Being a Woman Organizer isn’t Easy

Submitted by x332349 on Fri, 03/07/2014 - 10:56

By Luz Sierra - Industrial Worker, March 14, 2014

The following article is written by Miami IWW member, Luz Sierra. In this piece she shares her tribulations of facing gender expectations in her family while trying to develop as an organizer.  She provides an outlook of her family  background,  her experience with women in Miami, and personal dilemmas fighting against gender oppression.  It is an amazing piece that leaves a hopeful note for women organizers everywhere.  In honor of Women’s History Month we share you this piece and encourage everyone to read it.

This past year I became politically active. I went from being completely unaware of the existence of radical politics to doing organizing work in Miami with an anarchist perspective. It has been both a rewarding and difficult journey, yet gender seems to haunt me wherever I go. I am probably not the first woman to experience this, but I believe that I should demonstrate how this is a real issue and provide my personal insight for other women to have a reference point for their own struggles.

Being raised by Nicaraguan parents and growing up in Miami’s Latin community, I have firsthand experience with the sexist culture in South Florida. Many families that migrated from South and Central America and the Caribbean arrived to the United States carrying traditions from the 1970s and 1980s. Daughters are raised by women who were taught that their goal in life is to be an obedient wife and to devote their time to raising children and making their husbands happy. Latin women are supposed to be modest, self-reserved, have the ability to fulfill domestic roles and be overall submissive. Some Hispanic families might not follow this social construction, but there are still a large number of them who insert this moral into their households. For instance, this social construct is apparent in the previous three generations of my father’s and mother’s families. My great grandmothers, grandmothers, mother and aunts never completed their education and spend the majority of their life taking care of their husbands and children. Meanwhile, various male members of my current and extended family had the opportunity to finish their education, some even received college degrees, and went on to become dominant figures in their households. The male family members also had the chance to do as they pleased for they left all household and childcare responsibilities to their wives. As the cycle continued, my mother and grandmothers attempted to socialize me to fulfill my expected female role. I was taught not to engage in masculine activities such as sports, academia, politics, and other fields where men are present. Unfortunately for them, I refused to obey their standards of femininity. I have played sports since I was 10 years old; I grew a deep interest in history, sociology and political science; and I am currently part of three political projects. Such behavior has frustrated my parents to the point that I am insulted daily. My mother will claim that I am manly, selfish for devoting more time to organizing and promiscuous because the political groups I am involved with consist mostly of men. My father will state that I am senseless for wasting my time in politics and should devote more time in preparing myself to become a decent wife and mother.

Tags: 
gender equity
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

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