A-Infos (en) Australia, Rebel Worker* #28/3 Sep-Oct 2009 - The Anarcho-Syndicalist Approach to Counter the Intensified Employer Offensive & Economic Crisis

Firstly in this article I want to briefly outline aspects of anarcho-syndicalism and the 
ASN (Anarcho-Syndicalist Network) approach toward it in the contemporary Australian 
context. I'll then move onto a discussion of our views on how to counter the current 
accelerated employer offensive. ---- Anarcho-syndicalism is about spreading anarchist 
ideas of organisation and industrial unionism within the labour movement. Such ideas 
include federalism — unions as voluntary associations without full time officials invested 
with executive powers — decision making on the basis of workers' assemblies and the strict 
mandating and instant recall of delegates for coordinating decision making. In this 
framework, the taking of direct action — forms of action controlled by workers such as 
strikes, work to rule, sabotage, occupations and work-ins and outside the control of any 
union hierarchy, industrial courts or political parties.

Industrial unionism involves uniting all workers in the same industry in the same union. 
Union Halls would become centres for workers self education, discussion and lectures. 
Associated with all this would be the emergence of a syndicalist mass media — newspapers, 
radio and television stations to counter the bourgeois media and anti militarist 
organising to organise the workers in uniform in the armed services and the creation of 
workers' militias. The overall effect of this activity and institutions is to prepare 
workers for taking over the running of industry and ejecting the bosses. On the community 
level, the raised morale associated with waves of direct action launched by this 
syndicalist industrial movement and the support of syndicalist unions would see the 
emergence in working class areas —of community associations which would focus on such 
issues as combating high rents via organising rent strikes and combating unwanted 
developments via seeking the support of the syndicalist building union to impose green 
bans. Similar to the famous green bans of the NSW BLF (Builders Labourers Federation) of 
the late 1960's and early 1970's.

In a revolutionary situation associated with the overthrow of the capitalist setup, on the 
basis of ultra democratic processes workers’ councils and regular assemblies on the job 
would decide how are things are produced. Whilst community councils and associated 
neighbour assemblies would decide what is to be produced.


"Smoke & Mirrors" & The Rightwing ALP (Australian Labor Party) Machine


Existing Australian unions are radically different of course. They are highly bureaucratic 
with whole layers of full time officials both elected and not elected, closely connected 
to different factions of the ALP. They help fund the ALP via donations, preventing 
outbreaks of industrial action in league with the mainstream media, the bosses and the ALP 
and Liberal Govt's in power.

They are playing a very important role in the employer offensive via facilitating 
enterprise bargaining and the use of their machines consisting of union reps and full time 
officials to conduct "smoke and mirrors" performances. Whereby workers are given the 
illusion, that they will gain wage rises without losses in conditions/job losses. However, 
particularly via obscure clauses in the EBA documents, they are obliged to agree to 
various wages and conditions reductions. Facilitating such subterfuge, the union officials 
refuse to call mass meetings where adequate debate can occur regarding the enterprise 
agreement to expose nasties. Various techniques are deployed by the officials to lower 
workers' expectations such as leaflets with highly slanted questions to encourage support 
for trade off s in the EBA. (1) Buttressing the enterprise bargaining "shell game", are 
the highly repressive Liberals' "Work Choices" and now Rudd's IR legislation which outlaws 
the approval of EBA via mass meetings and outlaws most effective industrial action. Some 
interesting examples of this nefarious technique has occurred in recent years. One example 
is various EBA's sold by the Rail Tram & Bus Union (RTBU) hierarchy in State Transit in 
NSW in recent years. Whereby there is a clause which allows management to change bus 
drivers' shifts on a highly discriminatory basis. So workers are given the illusion that 
they have received a 4%pa pay rise. However due to this clause they can lose up to several 
hundred dollars a pay due to cuts to their shift lengths. (2) Most notoriously, in Rail 
Corp, the RTBU officials conned workers in 2008 into approving an EBA which okayed major 
job losses on the basis of the duplicity that they had won some victory in the lead up to 
the Pope's Visit and World Youth Day due to a threatened strike and there would be no 
trade off's associated with the EBA. (3)


Anarcho-Syndicalism & Leftist Vanguard Sect Building


The heritage of bureaucratic unionism in Australia going back well over 100 years makes 
anarcho-syndicalist unionism very much an abstract phenomena. Today some drawn to the 
anarcho-syndicalist label, being very young, lacking in experience of the class struggle, 
often students or academics, have a very simplistic concept of anarcho-syndicalism. They 
see their tiny group as the nucleus of mass syndicalist unions and are often influenced by 
the unsavoury ways of the Trotskyist/Stalinist legacies. They get drawn into formalism and 
inward looking attitudes. Lavishing much attention on their own micro bureaucracies and 
the macro bureaucracy of the IWA(International Workers Association) which internationally 
links up such sectlets and in some countries such as Spain, small syndicalist union 
movements. Other groupings within this spectrum are not completely lost in these 
"formalist" charades, and are more outward looking but are lost in aimless, opportunistic 
activism and "tail ending" whatever workers' struggles arise and like the sects from the 
Trotskyist/Stalinist traditions are usually unsuccessful in recruiting workers to their 
groups through this whirlwind of opportunistic activity. Both types of sectlets are 
heavily influenced by the bogus divisive identity politics and develop positions on 
various issues fashionable in the leftist subculture for recruitment purposes.


Independent/Breakaway Unionism in Australia


The ASN orientation is to take a realistic approach to the question of building mass 
syndicalist unions in Australia. Recognising the need for precision long range activity 
involving the focusing of limited resources and personnel. We realise that militant 
workers unconnected to any leftist sect will build mass syndicalist unions and the 
transitional steps leading to their emergence. We consider also that certain industries 
are of more strategic importance in regard to the level of class struggle and the employer 
offensive. Associated with moves to establish mass syndicalist unionism would be a climate 
of raised morale amongst workers and heightened levels of class struggle. Without such a 
climate of militancy, new independent unions are stymied in their growth such as the 
Shearers & Rural Workers Union, a split from the AWU-FIMEE(notorious rightwing ALP 
controlled rural, mining and manufacturing union and key bulwark of the Rightwing ALP 
faction)which emerged some years ago. It failed to expand due to the hostility of the 
other union hierarchies such as in the case of the defeat of its organising effort amongst 
wool scourers at E.P. Robinson in mid 1996.(4) In the case of the NSW Taxi industry, the 
ASN helped the emergence of a split from the TWU(Transport Workers Union, another 
rightwing ALP controlled union) some years ago which became the Taxi Drivers Employees 
Association. Initially, it had a militant orientation, with its launching of a protest 
blockade outside NSW Parliament House. However, following the establishment of an 
executive committee, it rapidly degenerated into a lobby group, similar to the TWU. 
However, lacking Rightwing ALP/Industrial Relations Club connections, and the TWU already 
possessing this "franchise" it was denied the right to negotiate enterprise agreements 
with employers. Whilst some key figures in its micro bureaucracy were attracted to close 
financially lucrative relations with a key new force in the taxi industry, until they were 
expelled. (5) The major focus of ASN activity has been in Transport. Currently in regard 
to State Transit Authority Buses in NSW and NSW Railways, V-Line in Victorian Railways, 
and Maritime Transport in NSW. Apart from assisting existing militant worker networks as 
in the NSW Railways, we have also helped to establish such networks and facilitated their 
activism such as Kickstart in State Transit in 2002, which was the first such organised 
opposition movement in State Transit for over 20 years. We have also helped build 
subsequent networks in this sector. The other key thrust of our work has been associated 
with assisting militant activity to counter the employer offensive.

For anarcho-syndicalist style organisations to form in industry, its vital that the tempo 
of the employer offensive is slowed down. Traditionally in Australia, Governments at 
various levels have played a key role particularly in regard to the public sector in 
taking initiatives to accelerate the employer offensive. Spurring on private sector 
employers to carry out efficiency drives — cut staff, introduce new waves of speedups, cut 
wages, restructure work forces and introduce new technologies to deskill and cut out jobs.

In the depression of the 1930's, the Govt played a key role in the introduction of 10% 
wages cuts. These cuts were initially introduced in Govt industry in the case of the 
railways. Initially in the NSW Railways where workers' militancy had been weakened due to 
the fallout of the defeat of the 1917 Great Strike and then generalised throughout the 
railways in other states. Subsequently, private and other Govt employers were encouraged 
to push successful for the Arbitration Court to generalised the pay cuts throughout 
industry. The subsequent Premiers' Plan savagely cut public service staffing and Govt 
expenditure and social welfare. Spurring on private sector employers to follow suit. (6)

Today a most important prong of the employer offensive in which the Govt and the union 
hierarchy are involved in facilitating is privatisation. The ASN over the years has been 
playing a significant role in association with militant workers in various campaigns in 
the NSW Railways to counter it.


Privatisation & The Contemporary Employer Offensive


One important dimension privatisation moves have taken is the restructuring of the City 
Rail Station network for the formation/selloff as franchises. Involving creating groupings 
of profit making stations with staff based on the largest station in the group and during 
the day working at the smaller stations. This restructuring will involve new waves of 
speedups and staff cuts. In 1999 in the lead up to the Olympics, rail bosses in league 
with the union hierarchy tried to get something like this introduced, called Customer 
Service Management. At a key mass meeting held at the Sydney Trades Hall, stemming from a 
petition for a general RTBU meeting of station staff launched by militants. At the 
meeting, union endorsement of CSM was defeated. To head off a grass roots controlled 
campaign to fight CSM initiated by the meeting, the union hierarchy arbitrarily took over 
the campaign and called a lightning state wide rail strike next day with the complicity of 
railways management. The ASN played an important role in the success of the militants at 
this meeting through over the years assisting the exposure of the treacherous role of 
union officials to the grass roots. The next day the officials called a mass meeting at 
Parramatta, which was difficult for most workers to attend and was in area where the 
officials still had some influence, to consider the future direction of the fight over 
CSM. At the meeting the officials were able to maintain control of the campaign by a 
narrow margin at the meeting and defeat a motion to disaffiliate the union from the ALP. (7)

Despite the officials stymieing of a grass roots controlled campaign and subverting the 
fight into a means to alienate commuter support for industrial action by workers during 
the Olympics via calling the snap strike and not bothering to educate commuters about the 
issues, key components of CSM were defeated. The big rail strike formed the crest of a 
small public sector strike wave. At the time there was also industrial action by council 
workers and nurses involving grass roots initiative and union officials complicity. The 
officials used it to put pressure on the Rightwing ALP controlled NSW Govt. via an ALP 
conference which was held on the weekend of the week of the public sector strike wave to 
gain more influence and a consultative role. Since the defeat of CSM, the rail bosses with 
the support of the union hierarchy, proceeded to impose 12 hour shifts on workers via a 
new enterprise agreement. Whilst being presented as a temporary measure for the Olympics, 
it's become permanent. It has contributed greatly to disorganising militants through 
exhausting them and making outside the job meetings difficult. (8)

Had the restructuring for privatisation in the railways been successful, its highly likely 
that the Govt would have moved more rapidly with privatisation moves in regard to STA 
buses, the Ferries. Associated with such an agenda was the introduction of the T-Card, the 
public transport smart card. It was to play an absolutely critical role as with the 
carving up of public transport into numerous franchises, an interchangeable ticketing 
system was required. It will also play a key role in the neo liberal "Strong State". As it 
contains enormous information and would be linked up with new digital cameras on buses and 
trains and the ID Card that Howard was proposing at the end of his Govt's term in office. 
According to a source in RailCorp ticketing section, this defeat of privatisation measures 
put off the introduction of the T-Card.

The effect of a successful public transport privatisation surge at this time would in turn 
fast track privatisation in other Govt utilities and spur on private sector employers to 
•downsize workforces, impose speedups, introduce new labour saving technology. The advent 
of privatisation would create more difficult terrain for militants to organise. Fear would 
be increased, there would be more exhaustion from new waves of speedups and lengthening of 
the working day, etc.

In 2007 a renewed push was made by the NSW Govt to introduce this restructuring for 
privatisation via a functional agreement avoiding involvement of the union hierarchy. 
Following some hard hitting criticism by militants assisted by the ASN, the union 
officials launched a campaign with the support of some militants and the Greens to oppose 
the functional agreement and enlighten commuters concerning its impact involving likely 
major staff cuts at stations. Subsequently the functional agreement was defeated in a ballot.

In recent months, RailCorp has proceeded with a savage staffing review at CityRail 
stations, using the argument that workers endorsed the 2008 enterprise agreement, which 
provided 4% pa wage rises of which 11/2% was a trade off for job losses, they had agreed 
to the staff cuts due to a clever "smoke and mirrors" performance by the union hierarchy 
prior to World Youth Day. This restructuring is part of a much more ambitious 
privatisation push. As RailCorp is also moving to phase out train crews via DOO (Driver 
Only Operation) of trains and then eliminating the driver by operating trains from super 
control boxes. With the introduction of the T-Card, booking clerk and barrier jobs would 
be decimated. As in the case of 1999, all these measures would accelerate the employer 
offensive in both the public and private sectors. Together with moves to establish a 
strong state, such as more aggressive policing in the wake of the APEC protests and 
Anti-Terrorism laws.

So over the years we have been trying to counter the employer offensive by at least 
slowing it down, which has been done particularly via assisting militants self activity 
and networking in harsh conditions.

An important objective of our work is to help militants get big actions going to counter 
the privatisation moves, raise workers' morale generally and defy the new Rudd Industrial 
Relations legislation and break out of enterprise bargaining.

Those in the transport sector are potentially well sited due to their industrial muscle 
for launching such a worker counter offensive.


Syndicalism & Union Reform Movements


In regard to how all this relates to building mass syndicalist unions, it's basically up 
to militant workers on the job to determine the form transitional steps will take leading 
to the emergence of this alternative unionism. One likely approach is via union reform 
movements which create more favourable terrain for militant activity. An obvious example 
and the closest we have had to a mass syndicalist union is the NSW BLF in the 1960's and 
early 1970's. During this period militants who held leadership positions and activists on 
the job achieved major reforms in the union so that the executive rubber stamped grass 
roots decision making at mass meetings, limited officials' tenure of office, etc. The 
union also became drawn into a syndicalist trajectory entailing various forms of direct 
action such as work-ins, large scale sabotage and the famous "Green Bans". (9)

Associated with this "union reform" approach, the ASN has been very energetic in recent 
years particularly in public transport in assisting militants' election campaigns. It has 
occurred on various levels which has recently met some success and has involved using 
these campaigns and associated literature and agitation to get syndicalist ideas around on 
the job. A contemporary example of such a union reform movement is one which has developed 
in the NSW Fire Brigade Union and has been assisted by the ASN, particularly in regard to 
its workplace paper. Several years ago this movement won control of leadership positions 
in the union and moved to revive delegate networks which had been in decline and helped 
carry out some major spectacular direct action in the shape of a blockade protest in 
Sydney by fire trucks in early June 2008 which was largely blacked out by the main stream 
media. Unfortunately, despite some brilliant counter intelligence work by the ASN, the 
Rightwing ALP faction in the union which is likely to be connected with a network of 
undercover cops and a layer of ex-cops were recently able to regain influence in the union 
via infiltration, a coup and all manner of dirty work. Latest news, is that militants are 
far from demoralised and are fighting back to regain influence. Whilst the ASN is showing 
its fighting fit in this arena. (10)

Another associated way mass anarcho-syndicalist unionism could form assisted by strategic 
organising favoured by the ASN, is that big actions carried out by transport workers would 
raise workers morale generally and defy Rudd repressive IR laws and break out of 
enterprise bargaining. Whilst with the solidarity of those workers in these more strategic 
sectors such as at busy times e.g. truckies banning deliveries and blockades at workplaces 
at say Xmas time, new syndicalist unions would be assisted in winning recognition by 
management and demands in various workplaces e.g. at Department Stores, Govt. Departments 
and so wiping out the base of tame cat bureaucratic unions and the ALP factions. So an 
expanding dynamic mass syndicalist union movement would arise.

The emergence of such powerful syndicalist movements in Australia and elsewhere would 
create the possibility of internationally coordinated direct action by workers to combat 
multinational companies and Governments. Consequently a genuine internationally organised 
syndicalist mass union movement could arise. Similar to the International Workers 
Association when it emerged after WWI, in sharp contrast to what it is today.

In conclusion, as shown in this article, it is possible for syndicalist groups to assist 
militants in efforts which can result in the slowing down of the employer offensive . The 
creation of more grass roots friendly union leaderships is also important in facilitating 
this activity and creating the basis for transitional steps leading to the emergence of 
mass syndicalist unionism and turning the tide decisively in the class struggle.

Mark

Notes

(1) See Rail Workers Discuss RailCorp EBA issues RW Vol.26 No.3(197)Oct-Nov 2007

(2) See NSW State Transit Newsflash RW Vo1.26 No.3(197) Oct-Nov.2007

(3) NSW Railways News RW Vo.28 No.2(203) June-July 2009

(4) See Green Left Weekly 22/4/96 228#

(5) See Discussions on NSWTDA forum list & Discussion with Taxi activists.

(6) See Trade Unions & The Depression by L.J.Louis Page 70.

(7) See NSW Railway News in RW Vol.18 No.4 (161) Oct-Nov 1999.

(8) See Strike Upsurge in NSW in RW Vo.18 No.4 (161) Oct-Nov 1999.

(9) See Green Bans Red Union by Verity and Merideth Burgmann

(10) See Report of Protest in the Age 4/6/08 and discussion with firey activist
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* From Rebel Worker Vol.28 No.3 (204) Sept-Oct 2009 – Paper of the
Anarcho-Syndicalist Network www.rebelworker.org
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