A-Infos (en) alas barricadas: Revolutionary syndicalism today: global class and integral action by Rubén C. Batres (ca) [machine translation]

From one year to this part there is a lively debate by intellectuals and activists on the 
state of revolutionary syndicalism. I would like to give my vision as a worker and 
activist in the Port of Sagunto, based on my experiences and collective memory . I hope 
that this reflection is useful in other local or regional realities and that it fits into 
a more diverse worldview. ---- I will be direct, today the revolutionary syndicalism does 
not exist . The defeat suffered by the industrial working class in the 1980s, capitalist 
globalization and the cultural hegemony of neoliberalism, together with the restructuring 
of production and reproduction of capital through the introduction of new technologies, 
dissolved the collective subject that previously we called the "Working Class" .

But as in every shipwreck something is saved. For example, after the closure of the Hornos 
del Mediterráneo in 1984, and thanks to the struggle of staff and citizens, the industrial 
fabric  did not disappear from the Camp de Morvedre. In this way, the CGT is able to 
introduce combative trade unionism , with all the contradictions of the legal framework 
LOLS , in the main production plants in operation ( ArcelorMittal , Pilkington , Ferrodisa 
, Baux ), as well as establishing new trade union sections in large production services 
companies ( Daorje ), in the stowage ( Sesasa ) and in the tugboats of the dock ( 
Remolques del Mediterráneo ).

Starting from this union base and with the experience acquired by the youngest and some 
veterans of the union in the social movements ( Antiglobalización , 15M , Cooperatives, 
etc.), we have come into contact with the most unprotected sectors of society and with 
intellectuals of the middle classes who have brought us new realities and tools of 
analysis. This dialectical union between youth and experience could become the catalyst 
for union change, and not only on generational lines, but fundamentally in the 
understanding of the new objective and socio-political conditions that surround us, which 
serve to connect us with reality and intervene successfully. In this way we could consider 
the constitution of a new revolutionary subject .

We have to be able to imagine the new working class . I think that this will have an 
industrial foundation, but not of a hegemonic nature, but rather to offer the accumulated 
experience of the class struggle. Certainly "the new class" may have a confused and 
contradictory ideology at first, but its gestation and development process could be based 
on an ethic of clear anti-capitalist, antipatriarchal, ecological and libertarian 
character. The struggle in the neighborhoods for culture and living conditions will be the 
link with the metropolitan working class arising from neoliberal restructuring, which is 
already undertaking processes of self-organization (Las Kellys , Manteros Union) or 
organized around combative syndicalism ( Telemarketing , Startups ). The spaces will be 
very jealous of their autonomy and the confederation, as unity of equals, will make sense.
The new working class will be global . If capitalism colonized all aspects of life, 
commodifying and extracting more value and enjoyment of it, it will be necessary to fight 
capital integrally, on all fronts that are possible. Experience shows us that where there 
is oppression there is a liberating force, even if it is only present as potential. 
Capital has been reinforced by other existing oppressions: statism, patriarchy, 
productivism , etc. so that the new subject will not arise from the industrial worker, but 
of the mestization of the latter with women and migrants, declassed, precarious, 
unemployed in perpetuity ... a new class that gives us back the desire and initiative to 
rationally transform what surrounds us instead of consuming it until extinction . 
Obviously all this means a break with the classic revolutionary syndicalism and the 
abandonment of those that were once immovable principles but which today are only 
meaningless dogmas.

From the Camp de Morvedre we will try to contribute our grain of sand to the building of 
this global revolutionary syndicalism by participating and constituting initiatives of a 
cultural, feminist, cooperative nature from a class perspective, together with combative 
trade union action in companies.

http://alasbarricadas.org/noticias/node/38849
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