A-Infos (en) Britain, Anarchist journal Direct Action #47 Summer 2009

http://www.direct-action.org.uk/docs/DA-SF-IWA-47.htm ---- Inside this issue ---- The Aims 
of the Solidarity Federation; Principles of Revolutionary Unionism; Anarcho-Syndicalism
     * Editorial - Why Anarcho-Syndicalism remains relevant today ---- A contradiction at 
the heart of Chaos: Regulation of global financial markets to solve boom and bust is a 
non-starter ---- Occupy and Defy: the Visteon workers’ struggle & their union --- Lewisham 
Occupation ---- Fujitsu Attack on Pensions ---- Dirty deeds done dirt cheap - Immigrant 
cleaners: the “hard-to-organise” are self-organising; The Amey Five; Lancaster Workers; 
Mitie Workers; Why the Unions Fail us ---- Breaking isolation: Domestic abuse and 
workplace support ---- The Big Green Con: Seeing through the sham of “green” capitalism
     * The Great Dock Strike of 1889
     * No Platform for Fascism
     * Have your say - Anarchism & Crime; The Miami Five; English National Resistance; 
Left Luggage
     * A Rebellious Tradition
     * (Spain) CNT vs. Ryanair;
     * (Peru) General Strike for the Amazon
     * (International) Killing for Profit
     * (Reviews) Live Working or Die Fighting (Paul Mason); Meltdown: The end of the age 
of greed (Paul Mason); A Grand Cause: The hunger strike & the deportation of anarchists 
from Soviet Russia (G. P. Maksimov); The Federación Uruguaya Anarquista (translated & 
edited by Paul Sharkey); Salvador Puig Antich & the Movimiento Ibérico de Liberación 
(edited by Anna Key & translated Paul Sharkey)
     * (Closerlook) Seeing sense in the age of stupid: Alienation, power and the case for 
social tranformation
     * SF literature; contacts; locals; other local contacts; other contacts & 
information; friends & neighbours

editorial

Why Anarcho-Syndicalism Remains Relevant Today

Apart from the obvious recurrent global economic crises, we live in a world where some 
30,000 children continue to die every day, not because of a lack of resources, but because 
of a flawed set of economic priorities that places the profits of the rich above all 
others. As capitalism has gone global, the majority of the population suffer growing 
absolute or relative poverty, increasingly repressive governments, financial uncertainty, 
and social divisions. As transnational corporations grow ever more powerful, workers 
across the world face sub-contracting, migration, “race to the bottom” pay policies and 
non-contract labour in their quest to earn a living.

In Britain, the added uncertainty of unemployment, pension devaluation and the spectre of 
home repossession have been thrown into the mix. Amidst a burgeoning financial crisis, 
millions in taxpayers’ money has been funnelled into propping up a failing financial 
system and into funding greedy bankers’ ostentatious salaries. As government borrowing 
goes through the roof, the remaining public services face being sold off, partially or 
completely, or being ruthlessly cut back over the coming months and years.

Aside from, but linked to the floundering economy, the world is facing a severe 
environmental crisis, escalating militarism and conflict between imperialist powers over 
declining resources like oil. Large scale power abuses by corrupt politicians, thuggish 
police and paedophile priests are exposed in the public domain. As public disillusion 
grows, increasingly draconian anti-terror laws and population surveillance methods are 
rubber stamped – measures used to target and marginalise minority groups and dissuade 
populations from fighting back. These are the inevitable symptoms of a system that always 
puts profit and power before people.

And what of popular resistance? The old left, social democratic reformism and 
nationalisation have all failed miserably in their bid to implement anything vaguely 
representing socialism. The unions, born out of past working class struggle, have morphed 
into overbearing corporate structures of more value to the bosses than workers. 
Politicians of all persuasions offer only false solutions and more of the same. 
Institutionalised sexism and racism still run rife, despite all the politically correct 
rhetoric about “equality”.

To address all these problems, we need a completely different world system, one based on 
mutual aid and co-operation. We need to dispense with power structures and markets once 
and for all. Crucially, we also need to challenge the ideologies that erect false barriers 
and divide us like religion, patriarchy and nationalism. But revolutionary change can only 
occur through the conscious will of the majority. A transitional approach, breaking down 
barriers to build confidence by winning gains in the here and now, is also needed. This is 
only the first step on the journey to more lasting and substantial social reconstruction. 
This requires grassroots organisation, constructive action and direct democracy; means by 
which we can fashion a new world in the here and now. You cannot change the world by 
throwing stones.

And there are signs that grass roots organisation is beginning to emerge. The workers at 
Visteon did not wait around for ballots and legal niceties; they took control of their own 
dispute by occupying the three factories involved. Just as encouraging, support groups 
were quickly established helping to ensure that the Visteon workers were not left isolated.

Again at Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire workers didn’t bother waiting for the trade 
union bureaucracy and long drawn out legal processes. If they had the dispute would have 
been lost. Instead, when 51 people were effectively sacked, the 600 workers took immediate 
action and walked out on strike. They were soon joined by up to 4,000 contract workers at 
power stations and oil and gas terminals up and down the country who walked out in 
sympathy. This mass show of solidarity soon had the employers, the oil giant Total, 
backing down.

Other instances of workers organising beyond the official union structures include 
immigrant cleaners in London (covered on pages 12-15) and the actioins of London 
Underground workers over recent months and years (covered in Beyond the Usual Union 
Structures in DA46).


Nor is it just in the workplace that resistance is being organised. Schools threatened 
with closure in both Glasgow and Lewisham have been occupied by parents and community 
activists. In Glasgow, the Labour controlled council’s decision to close 22 schools and 
nurseries was met with fierce resistance by local communities leading to a number of 
schools being occupied. As we go to press the St Gregory’s and Wynford primary schools 
campaign reoccupied Wynford primary school in protest at the closure attempts. Already 
they have been successful in blocking attempts by the City council to demolish the school. 
(The situation in Lewisham is covered on page 10.)

These examples of working class people using direct action as a means of self-organisation 
are welcome signs of an emerging fight back against the state and capitalism. They come at 
a time where there is a groundswell of opinion emerging that not only rejects capitalism, 
but also sees political corruption and intransigence as the inevitable by-product of 
constituted power. From this consciousness, we believe that a mass global movement can 
coalesce into an irresistible force for social change. Rank and file unions and 
horizontally organised communities of resistance can form the building blocks capable of 
changing the world without taking power. Workers’ self-management, the assuming of 
economic and political control of the means of life, is a prerequisite to creating the 
classless libertarian socialist society we desire.

Anarcho-syndicalism recognises that the major crises we face are caused by capitalism and 
the archaic, outmoded structures and beliefs that prop it up. We seek to destroy all power 
structures and ideologies that divide us. Anarcho-syndicalism offers a practical means of 
enacting the wholesale social changes needed to build an ecologically sustainable global 
community; a community founded on the most positive aspects of human solidarity, freedom 
and equality.

     * Bristol Anarchist Bookfair. Saturday 12th September. 10:30am to 6:00pm. The Island, 
Bridewell St, Bristol, BS1 2PY. www.bristolanarchistbookfair.org
     * Manchester Anarchist Bookfair. Saturday 26th September. 11:00am to 5:00pm. Jabez 
Clegg, 2 Portsmouth Street, Manchester, M13 9GB www.bookfair.org.uk

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