green syndicalism

By staff - Black Rose Anarchist Federation, January 30, 2018

As the “uberization” of the US economy continues, along with it is an ever precarious workforce struggling to make ends meet in the dog-eat-dog world of the so-called “sharing economy.” This trend is the same around the world, with Uber claiming to have more than two million drivers in over 80 counties across the globe now.

In Indonesia these conditions are little different. But radical unionists are hoping to change this and are organizing to take back their dignity, better pay and conditions and for great control over their work and lives. Kommunitas Uber Mainstream, abbreviated KUMAN which means ‘bacteria,’was formed by three Uber motorcycle drivers in the Spring of 2017. They have since crafted a list of 14 demands, led four one-day strikes and have grown to a membership of 6,000 drivers. All but two are male in the male dominated field of drivers. KUMAN is structured horizontally with regional sections meeting regularly in parks or other available spaces to discuss strategy and in turn chose delegates to larger general meetings. The union has no dues and supports itself largely by sale of stickers and t-shirts. Drivers can become members by proving they are an active driver and answering three basic questions: 1. What’s your perspective on this group?, 2. Are you a freedom fighter or a loser? and 3. What do you know about what working with Uber is like? KUMAN works together with Persaudaraan Pekerja Anarko-Sindikalis (PPAS), the two-year old anarcho-syndicalist initiative in Indonesia and an affiliate of the International Workers Association (IWA). The majority of the union has decided to adopt the ideas and strategies of anarcho-syndicalism for their struggle, although other political tendencies exist within the union.

KUMAN is continuing to escalate the fight for justice at Uber, with more strikes and actions planned. We hope that this interview will help inspire solidarity with their cause, so that workers around the world will answer KUMAN’s next call for action and join in putting pressure on Uber. We particularly hope that other rideshare and sharing economy workers will learn from the experiences we share here and connect with KUMAN drivers to build international networks of struggle and organization.

We were excited to be able to talk with Enrique, an Uber driver from Jakarta, Indonesia who was one of the initial three founders of KUMAN. We were also joined by Ricardo, originally from Surabaya, Indonesia but now living in Melbourne, Australia. He works in retail grocery and is active with the Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation – IWA. The interview was conducted by Jesus, a Los Angeles based healthcare worker with Black Rose/Rosa Negra. The three sat down together in a cramped Hong Kong hostel room to talk about the situation of Uber drivers in Indonesia now and how anarchist ideas are being applied to build workers power among drivers in Indonesia.

Please note that for purposes of translation, clarity, and length this interview has been heavy edited.

By CrimethInc. Ex-Workers Collective - It's Going Down, January 19, 2018

Notes and Links

By Jamie McCallum - Jacobin, January 22, 2018

“We are worried, but we are ready to fight,” says Barbara Madeloni, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA). “We are more ready than ever, actually.”

With 110,000 members, the MTA is the largest union in the state, a status that could soon change once the Supreme Court hands down its anticipated ruling against unions in Janus v. AFSCME [the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees]. That decision would allow public-sector workers — some of whom are currently mandated to pay “fair share” fees if they opt out of full-fledged union membership — to receive union representation and benefits without paying anything. This would expand right-to-work conditions to the entire public sector in the United States, a crisis even for a movement that is accustomed to crises. Say the word “Janus” to union organizers and they say things like “devastating,” “catastrophic,” “cataclysmic,” and “fucked.” And “organize.”

Two years ago, unions escaped with a victory in a similar case, Friederichs v. California Teachers Association, only because the timely death of Justice Antonin Scalia resulted in a 4-4 decision. But no one is counting on a favorable court ruling this time around; hence, a call to arms.

By Yasha Levine - Transcend, January 22, 2018

Our popular economic wisdom says that capitalism equals freedom and free societies, right? Well, if you ever suspected that the logic is full of shit, then I’d recommend checking a book called The Invention of Capitalism, written by an economic historian named Michael Perelmen, who’s been exiled to Chico State, a redneck college in rural California, for his lack of freemarket friendliness. And Perelman has been putting his time in exile to damn good use, digging deep into the works and correspondence of Adam Smith and his contemporaries to write a history of the creation of capitalism that goes beyond superficial The Wealth of Nations fairy tale and straight to the source, allowing you to read the early capitalists, economists, philosophers, clergymen and statesmen in their own words. And it ain’t pretty.

One thing that the historical record makes obviously clear is that Adam Smith and his laissez-faire buddies were a bunch of closet-case statists, who needed brutal government policies to whip the English peasantry into a good capitalistic workforce willing to accept wage slavery.

Francis Hutcheson, from whom Adam Smith learned all about the virtue of natural liberty, wrote: ”it is the one great design of civil laws to strengthen by political sanctions the several laws of nature. … The populace needs to be taught, and engaged by laws, into the best methods of managing their own affairs and exercising mechanic art.”

Yep, despite what you might have learned, the transition to a capitalistic society did not happen naturally or smoothly. See, English peasants didn’t want to give up their rural communal lifestyle, leave their land and go work for below-subsistence wages in shitty, dangerous factories being set up by a new, rich class of landowning capitalists. And for good reason, too. Using Adam Smith’s own estimates of factory wages being paid at the time in Scotland, a factory-peasant would have to toil for more than three days to buy a pair of commercially produced shoes. Or they could make their own traditional brogues using their own leather in a matter of hours, and spend the rest of the time getting wasted on ale. It’s really not much of a choice, is it?

But in order for capitalism to work, capitalists needed a pool of cheap, surplus labor. So what to do? Call in the National Guard!

Faced with a peasantry that didn’t feel like playing the role of slave, philosophers, economists, politicians, moralists and leading business figures began advocating for government action. Over time, they enacted a series of laws and measures designed to push peasants out of the old and into the new by destroying their traditional means of self-support.

By David Van Deusen - It's Going Down, January 18, 2018

What follows is an excerpt from the new book On Anarchism: Dispatches From The People’s Republic of Vermont. Dispatches contains works written by David Van Deusen, and in some cases, the Green Mountain Anarchist Collective. This excerpt is the introduction to a strategic plan that was put forward by the Green Mountain Anarchist Collective in 2004. The proposal, until now, how never been made available to the public.

The Old Socialist Labor Hall, Barre, Vermont 2004 – The current social and political dynamic within North America, and much of the western industrialized world, is one of both growing hope and an escalation of capitalist oppression.^[1]  While workers are being attacked by the forces of capital, and while the U.S. ruling class embarks upon imperialist campaigns of war, conquest, and cultural-political-economic homogenization, a mass movement is building within the very walls of the empire.

The 1999 Battle of Seattle witnessed the coming together of a great and diverse new American left.  As the anti-globalization movement matured, culminating in the 70,000-100,000 strong Battle of Quebec City in 2001, a mass anti-capitalist, pro-democracy movement was in full swing.  This momentum was effectively stalled due to the hesitation demonstrated on the part of the left immediately following the tragic September 11^th terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers, and the four civilian jetliners.

However, momentum against the empire not only became reinvigorated, but grew to massive proportions with the people’s movement against the imperialist invasion of Iraq.  Let us not forget the more than half-a-million people who marched in opposition through New York City on February 15^th.  Nor should we forget the tens-of-thousands of others who marched in hundreds of other North American cities and small towns.^[2] Let us also remember the 13 million people who took part in sister demonstrations across the world, making February 15^th, 2003, the largest day of global protest in the history of humankind.

While we did not succeed in stopping the war, we did, temporarily, make the neo-conservative’s scale back their rhetoric about invading other nations such as socialist Cuba, communist Korea, Ba’ath controlled Syria, and Islamic Iran. And like in the streets of Seattle, DC, and Quebec, this opposition included millions of union workers (i.e. U.S. Labor Against The War), socialists, anarchists, students, environmentalists, and many others.  In short, while the audacity of the ruling class grows, so too does our movement towards socialism and direct democracy. It is with this in mind that NEFAC must begin to up the ante, and develop a coordinated strategy with the end goal of popular victory.

What is this popular victory?  While it would be arrogant to state exactly what a post-capitalist, democratic, socialist world would look like (as this will be defined by the people themselves), we can, at minimum, say that it will be one where communities are organized by directly democratic assemblies, industry and agriculture will be coordinated by directly democratic unions, and all people will have (among other things) access to food, housing, healthcare, higher education, childcare, jobs, and social security.

By Anonymous Contributor - It's Going Down, December 26, 2017

A lot of debate over political and economic issues surrounding the latest GOP tax bill has flooded social media, news outlets, and propaganda outlets lately. It’s certainly troubling to think about; “cost-cutting” legislation that doesn’t pay for itself has historically had disastrous effects on the working class and on the economy as a whole. To make matters worse, the bill is a barely disguised christmas present of millions of dollars to large corporations, lobbyists, and the richest Americans who pushed this bill through the republican party. I’m sure by now you’ve figured out that this bill is going to be even more disastrous than the failed tax cut bills from previous administrations. The income inequality in America has become a horrendous giant that continues to grow day by day, and Donald Trump is about to feed it steroids. While the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, the structure of our capitalist system is quietly teetering on the brink of collapse. When the next economic crash arrives, several extremely dangerous deficit bubbles like student loan debt, unfunded pensions, healthcare costs, and many others are going to pop at once. However, the most damaging of these bubbles is arguably the growing income inequality gap. It’s simple math, we cannot continue with this broken system. The rich are literally running out of wealth to steal from the working class.

Even now we see minimum wage jobs not yielding enough wealth to afford even the most basic of family needs like housing, food, and education. When the poor and working class can no longer be monetarily exploited, the last block at the base of the economic jenga tower will be pulled. The economy will tank like it never has before, and the tax overhaul has just accelerated this process tenfold. This issue coupled with the fact that our planet is entering self destruct mode makes our future seem very grim indeed.

The incredibly irresponsible actions of government officials in Washington have certainly set future generations up for failure. The exploitation of the working class has been written into law yet again, but we didn’t need it to be law for us to know it is already widespread. Institutions like consumerism, the market economy, racism, wage slavery, labor laws, and lobbying have already made inequality as American as baseball. I think it will be very interesting to see how the government reacts when the wealth gap reaches its climax. Our elected officials will be forced to choose between allowing a full-blown crisis to unfold or dramatically change the structure of American society and our “free market.”

Since capitol hill has repeatedly shown its ability to be sold out and used as a tool by elites, we cannot trust them to do the right thing in such a dire situation. Who knows what kind of deal corporate elites would attempt to barter with politicians in order to save their fortune, all we know is that it will be very ugly. Even if the government decided to bail out the people, it would be furiously debated in the house and senate as to how to carry out such a task. It’s not like reshaping the United States is the most partisan issue anyway. It would likely take weeks for Washington to make a semi-competent solution and even then it might not actually be a solution. The point is, it will be out of the peoples control as to what to do next, which is exactly what got us into this mess in the first place. Allowing a broken government to make decisions for all citizens in such a desperate time is irresponsible and dangerous. By the looks of how quickly the government is becoming incompetent, they may not even be capable of making any decisions.

To say a regime change is necessary would be obvious. Anarchists and other leftist activists have been saying that for years, I’m just the latest. Even though a “revolution” might prevent the impending collapse of American society, this will probably not happen. The apathy of many Americans along with our unbelievable ignorance prevents us time and time again to fix what’s broken. The possibility of regime change will arise only when our nation falls. It is imperative that the people and the working class decide what the appropriate change is. If not, exploitation is bound to continue for years to come. We would be fools not to take this opportunity, even though the opportunity comes in the form of crisis.