The Role Of The Workers Union

[sarda karaniwan]

The existence of the Capitalist society depends on the three major institutions that act as pillars to support this society and thus make it stable. These three institutions or pillars are the schools, the industries, the markets. The people of this society doesn’t have much of a choice but to make use of these institutions as their lives became dependent on them, so they cling and support these institutions like holding on to the pillars as to keep them from swaying and keep the society more stable.

The workers of course by way of their union can establish the same three institutions and that is by way of cooperatives.  What’s going to make it different is that, every union will create three cooperatives, a cooperative school, a cooperative industry, a cooperative market, and establish a trade relationship among each other. Once these cooperatives are establish, the process of accepting membership begins, and the membership will not be limited only to union members but also to others not employed by the Company, so this may include family members, relatives and friends, or any unemployed person be it a homeless or a beggar. This is how the workers will show how to solve the problem of society. As the people turn to cooperatives to secure their livelihood, there will be less and less to support those capitalist pillars, and with no one holding on to the pillars, they begin to sway violently and then starts to crumble. Of course, the capitalists will react and try to oppose this revolution of cooperatives  but now the people have a more clearer view of the picture and can decide which side to choose.

Many workers union today never really thinks of cooperatives as a way to free the workers from the drag of capitalist employment.  Union have become a tool of deception by capitalist Companies, a Union only exist to make it look like the Company is democratic when it is really not, the leadership have made the Union so dependent to the Company that when it goes down the union goes down with it too, the leadership has made the thinking of its constituents so limited that the word “strike!” becomes something like a joke. The leadership make themselves appear as courageous heroes but compromise with the company management in secret. The Unions today have become themselves big businesses where people pay for protection, that’s all there is.

sarda
an Ordinarian
 

[alanjjohnstone]

There are a few like Richard Wolf and Gar Alperovitz who argue this type of approach and they have some support from the likes of Chomsky who suggested the alternative to Obama's federal bailout of General Motors should have been the unions making them into co-operatives like Mondragon.  I think most on this list would judge that cooperatives can be of a short-term benefit to some workers in a particular situation but isn't a permanent solution on a class-wide, world-wide level. Our website and blogs have several articles explaining why we think it is ultimately a doomed strategy. Just one link amongst many for you to followhttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2013/no-1312-december-2013/cooking-books-co-operatives-can%E2%80%99t-escape-capital

[sarda karaniwan]

I always believe that a product in order that people may be able to buy it and taste it, must come first into existence. But trying to sell only label without yet the product attached to it will surely make people stay with the old brand for a while. Cooperative is a taste test of socialism. Don't expect the workers to join the socialist party, it is the socialist who should join the workers, and the union cooperative is a chance to give it a socialist guidance. It is the chance for the workers to see and taste what the product is all about. sardaan Ordinarian

[alanjjohnstone]

Sarda, co-operatives are not a new idea, nor are they recent organisations.Many hundreds of millions of workers over the last couple of hundred of years have  participated in a variety of different forms of co-operatives.Criticisms of them are not from any abstract theoretical basis but from actual experience of how they begin, how they develop and what they evolve into, and sadly, in many cases, why they fade and disappear. Co-ops have been well and truly thoroughly tested and found to be wanting. We have to learn from the lessons of past and not go on repeating our mistakes. We have to learn to drop flawed ideas. Co-ops are, as we suggest, a means of coping with our disadvantaged position within capitalism but it is not a solution to it. As a training school for socialists or as a method of achieving socialism, they simply have too many inherent faults to be used effectively as a strategy or tactic.We cannot keep on repeating the errors of the past, nor should we keep re-inventing the wheel.Workers will always opt for the easiest road, unfortunately, it is not always possible to have a smooth path despite the claims of those who say they are leading the way. And the easiest road usually ends up in a dead -end after very many detours , regardless of the short-cuts they say they are taking.Socialists have a map which we use as a guide and we possess  compasses to determine our direction. Those who advocate co-operatives as method of liberation are going around in circles and end up where they began. 

[sarda karaniwan]

Alan, the workers are the most materialist people of society or else they would not be working. I know that the idea of cooperative has been around for a long time, and I also know that most of them fails. First, it fails because there is really no socialist guidance to it, you see, it goes like this, if a simple cooperative program cannot be run effectively by a socialist, how much more governing a country or society?Another reason is that, most of these cooperatives are all profit-oriented, all members think they are shareholders, they all expect a share in the profit, people are made to think like capitalist, but in reality, all the people and the workers only want is to save, have some savings. A cooperative must be a place where one can save money or help extends one's purchasing power for a longer time.Anoher reason is that it doesn't uprade to another level like establishing a cooperative school, where people like you and other devoted socialist can teach and share that "socialist map" you are talking about, and finally a little cooperative industry, where people can get a job. So cooperative store or market, cooperative school and cooperative industry, and the cooperative triangle is complete, this is nowhere like the Mondragon cooperative where it only stays on one kind of cooperative, it is where the workers start to control the three main institutions of society, the school, the industry, the market. this is where the workers starts to competes and rivals it capitalist nemesis. With so many unemployed, where do you think these people will go?As I have said, ordinary people are by nature materialist, you can talk of the "brand" for all its beauty, but if it's only a label and the real product doesn't exist, people won't buy it, because, they cannot buy it.People should know what it is that they are really fighting for, and not wait just only  for the reason that they are hungry.I guess that is why I am not a socialist, nor I will claim to be, It's hard to have the knowledge and thought, too many things to read, it is not for the ordinary people to understand.sardaan Ordinarian

[alanjjohnstone]

i think you quite accurately state the problem with co-ops and why they cannot succeed. I think you wish it might be different and suggest improvements but for those to be adopted is as much a struggle to achieve as it is to convince workers to accept socialism.  Some of us will become involved with the union movement, and some will take part in other things like neighbourhood councils, school activities, local food allotments and co-ops…anything that can make our lives under capitalism easier to survive or offers a better opportunity to resist. We can sometimes show the linkage between our everyday lives and the type of society we aspire towards…democratic decision-making, popular participation, rotation of delegates …ways that render the need for a special leadership role superfluous. We don't need to be academically or book-clever expert on socialism, the recommended reading list is surprisingly not very long. (And we probably all disagree on what should be included in it)It is interaction with other people, the talking, the discussions, the exchanges, the debates, all the informal education that takes place within socialist organisations which is the important thing in my opinion. We never ever stop learning and the more we are active, the more lessons we have to learn.The school for socialists, is the party, and i think every party has its study groups and education classes and other members who act as teachers and tutors and mentors (not leaders). There is a basic core that we should all agree with to join together and act in unison for socialism, but some secondary side-issues we can have divergent opinion and differ upon without effecting unity of purpose. If you visit some of the other topics on this forum, you will recognise that we have members possessing contrary ideas but who fully concur on the important principles.    

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