LABOR HISTORY

Nixie Boran: nationalist, social revolutionary, miners’ leader, trade unionist

‘He stood strong’: How Nixie Boran revolutionized Castlecomer’s coal miners in 1930s

Wed, Jan 5, 2022, 

Anne Boran

 1

Nixie Boran, aged 29, taken from his wedding photograph in 1934.

 

It is not often a man shakes up society so much that the powerful of the day combine to destroy him, his ideas and his followers. That happened with Nixie Boran. Born in 1904, he lived through intense turmoil in Irish history and labour relations. His actions sent a tremor through the political, religious and industrial powers of the day because he dared to set up a communist trade union in Catholic rural Ireland.

Each era presents its own challenges; Nixie’s was about the reality and nature of freedom; today this is being questioned anew as the failures of the main political custodians to deliver equality are exposed.

Nixie was born into a farming family on the Castlecomer estate of the Wandesfordes in north Co Kilkenny on the Leinster coalfield. Like other small farmers, the Borans depended on supplementary earnings from the coal mines, also owned by the Wandesfordes, but conditions and pay for the miners were bad.

By Nixie’s youth there were four pits with 500 miners and 300 carters, but they were all replaced by Deerpark pit, opened in 1928, which would continue until its closure in the late 1960s. The miners’ wages sustained the economy of the area, but they struggled to improve their pay and conditions despite some efforts by the Irish Transport and General Workers Union in 1918.

Nixie lost of his mother at the age of four. Aged 12, he joined the Brotherhood, which offered future prospects and a good education but he left after two years and went into the mines. By 1922, he had already experienced the dangers of mining, its mean wages and its legacy of early deaths due to poor safety conditions and lung disease. He had witnessed the failure of strike action to pressurise the mine owner. At the same time, he was a youth during the upheaval of the War of Independence. In June 1922, Nixie was forced by the turmoil and unemployment in the mines to join the new Provisional State army. It was just six days before the outbreak of the Civil War and he was posted to Tipperary.

In November 1922, he was with Free State forces in Clonmel fighting against men such as Dan Breen and Dinny Lacey. But the introduction of the Public Safety Act on September 17th, and the executions of Republicans that followed, were too much for Nixie. He deserted to the Republican side and spent the rest of the war fighting with Breen’s men. He was shot in an ambush and hospitalised in Limerick alongside three Free State soldiers. His cover was blown and he had to be rescued before going back to fight. Nixie was finally captured in the Glen of Aherlow on May 8th, 1923. He was condemned to death but made a daring escape on August 2nd from Emmet Barracks, Clonmel.

His time on the run exposed Nixie to ideological influences about the nature of freedom and control of state resources. He had already imbibed Connolly’s thinking and subsequent contacts with the left wing of the IRA inspired him towards a Workers’ Republic combining small farmers and labourers. The Russian Revolution provided an example of how a different, fairer system was attainable.

Nixie brought these ideas with him when he returned to Castlecomer. Nothing there had changed since independence, and he began mobilising. The miners collected money to send him to the Red International of Labour Unions conference in Moscow in August 1930. Refused a passport, he stowed away on a ship and made his own way across Russia to the event. There he met activists from around the world and also James Larkin Jr and Sean Murray from Ireland. They returned to organise revolutionary workers groups and run the Worker’s Voice newspaper to support workers in their struggles.

The authorities arrested Nixie on his return home but protesting miners forced his release from Garda custody. A period of activism followed with the foundation of the Mine and Quarry Workers Union in January 1931 and also a local revolutionary workers group.

Opposition came in torrents. The local parish priest canvassed against the dangers of communism in schools, from the pulpit and in visits to miners’ families, accusing them of receiving Russian funding and being misled by Nixie. The State harassed them and their families and the mine management refused to consider their claims. They went on strike in 1932. Although a small concession ended the strike, further organisation generated intense controversy. Eventually, the Bishop, Dr Collier, made it clear that union members could not be Catholics and communists at the same time and indicated they were excommunicated. The local community was encouraged to reject everything they stood for and to squash the union.

So, Nixie Boran had defied newly-independent Ireland over its failure to deal fairly with workers. Faced with collapse, they changed tactics and formed a separate branch of the IT&GWU. Three strikes followed. In 1940 a strike of 11 weeks got payments for formerly unpaid coal products, there was later a successful seven-day staydown against the Government wartime wage freeze, and in 1949 an 11-month strike finally forced the company to substantially improve wages and conditions for all mine workers.

Nixie was elected to the executive of the IT&GWU in 1952. This gave him membership of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and he used those positions to fight for legislation on the miners’ disease, pneumoconiosis, and on safety in the mines. He represented Ireland as a delegate to the International Labour Conference in Geneva in 1956. His feet, however, remained firmly planted in his local community.

The ultimate challenge Nixie faced was the end of mining in Castlecomer. He put all his efforts into preventing closure then, when it looked inevitable, helped to delay the process through surveys and pressure on the union and politicians. He even joined the board of Castlecomer Collieries and helped keep Deerpark mine operating for three extra years until final closure in 1969. By that time some alternative employment opportunities had been created in the area.

“He stood strong” was a term used to describe Nixie by a woman from Castlecomer whose father had been killed in the mines. He had the qualities of conviction, ability to inspire and doggedness when up against intransigence. He was also able to compromise. His value system was based on equality, fairness and intolerance of oppression. The challenges of today demand leaders with similar qualities.

Anne Boran is the author of Challenge to Power: Nixie Boran (1904-1971): Freedom and the Castlecomer coal miners (Geography Publications, Dublin)

Nixie Boran: nationalist, social revolutionary, miners’ leader, trade unionist (irishtimes.com)

New unionism - when mass workers' action changed Britain

In the second of our occasional series on the history of working-class struggle in Britain, Iain Dalton looks at 'new unionism'.

Hull docks 1882   (Click to enlarge)

Imagine the Port of Shanghai, the busiest in the world, with 125 docks and 19 terminals, serving over 2,000 container vessels, was paralysed by strike action for a month. Such a display of working-class power was the high point of the 'new unionism' movement. 100,000 dockers were on strike at the Port of London in 1889, then the busiest port in the world, at the heart of a world-spanning empire.

Karl Marx's lifelong co-thinker Friedrich Engels greeted the strike: "This host of utterly despondent men, who every morning when the dock gates open fight a regular battle among themselves to get the closest to the fellow who does the hiring.

"This motley crowd thrown together by chance, and changing daily in composition, has managed to unite 40,000 strong, to maintain discipline, and to strike fear into the hearts of the mighty dock companies. How glad I am to have lived to see this day."

Impossible

New unionism spanned 1888 to 1892. Wave after wave of 'semi-skilled' and 'unskilled' workers, who many had said were impossible to organise, took strike action to win recognition of their unions and improvements in pay and conditions.

Up to this point, trade unions had largely been 'craft' organisations, based on 'skilled' workers - engineers, boilermakers, plumbers, compositors, etc. While they did organise strike action from time to time, in the main their leaders sought to secure higher wages by restricting the numbers of skilled workers who paid substantial membership fees.

There had been sporadic attempts to organise unions among other workers. But many of these organisations were short-lived, and strikes ended in defeat. But a number of things were about to change.

Firstly, since the mid-1870s, the British economy had been in a period of depression which increased unemployment. But new unionism coincided with a temporary recovery, where workers sought to improve their conditions and win back past losses.

Secondly, the new unions had much lower membership fees than the old craft unions. The new unions sought to sustain themselves by winning concessions from the employers to improve their members' living standards.

Thirdly, many of the leaders of the new unions were socialists. They had been through previous struggles, and applied what they had learned.

The new unions grew at a tremendous rate. In 1888, in Hull, the local class-collaborationist dock union had 400 members.

By the beginning of 1890, the Dock, Wharf, Riverside and General Labourers Union had 4,000 members in Hull. By September, it was 12,000. And, by December, there was 100% union density on the docks.

New unionism spread as victories among one group of workers gave confidence to others. The matchwomen's strike at Bryant and May in London in July 1888 gave confidence to the dockers.

Many of the matchwomen were the wives, sisters and daughters of dockers. Dockers sometimes worked at the gas works in neighbouring areas when work at the docks was slack in the winter.

Left-over money from the dockers' strike fund was donated to striking tailors in the East End who successfully took action in 1889 to win a ten-and-a-half-hour day and a limit on overtime.

As the economic climate worsened and unemployment surged, many of the new unions fell back to half the size they'd been at the height of the movement. Some smaller new unions disappeared entirely.

Strike-breaking by the employers and state was also a key factor. This was most pronounced on the docks.

Shipping Federation

There, the vast majority of employers organised themselves as the Shipping Federation. They sought to smash the new unions.

In Southampton, the dockers' union organiser was imprisoned for three months following a five-day strike. The Shipping Federation wanted to introduce 'free labour', i.e. scabs, to break the 'closed shop' the new unions had established.

The most brutal repression occurred in Hull. In 1893, there was a bosses' lockout against 15,000 dockers and seafarers. Substantial forces were moved to Hull to break the strike - 1,000 strikebreakers and 250 soldiers.

Two gunboats were stationed in the Humber estuary. Regular baton charges by the police and stone throwing by strikers were exchanged.

Similar treatment was meted out to workers elsewhere. In Bristol, a lantern procession in December 1892 to build support for the strike at the sweet factory was broken up by 200 mounted troops, known as Black Friday. Dockers' leader Ben Tillet was charged with incitement to riot even though he wasn't even present!

In Leeds, there was a gas workers' strike in 1890 to preserve the gains the workers had won when they founded their union the year before. The Liberal council owned the gasworks. It brought in strike breakers from around the country, housed them in the town hall, and supplied them with food, drink and tobacco.

A police and armed military escort marched the strike breakers to one of the city's gas works. But the workers and their supporters physically blocked large numbers from entering the gas works, and convinced many to return home, with train fares paid by the union.

In 1892, the predominantly women workforce in Manningham Mills in Bradford were on strike. They faced hostility from the Liberal council that refused permission for meetings, Liberal 'poor law' guardians who refused strikers out-of-work assistance, and the Liberal watch committee that set the police on them. As the repression intensified, the need for political action alongside industrial action became clearer to many workers.

Eleanor Marx reported to an international socialist meeting: "Great as the victories of the new unionism have been, magnificent as the work is of organising thousands upon thousands of hitherto unorganised workers, this growing class consciousness of the British workers is a greater, a more noteworthy fact, than either of the two others."

Initially, this was sporadic and most concentrated around West Yorkshire, where the role of Liberal councils in strikes had broken the domination in the local workers' movement of those who favoured achieving labour representation through the Liberal Party.

In May 1892, the newly formed Bradford Labour Union elected a councillor unopposed in Manningham, where the mill strike had taken place. And, in November, a second councillor was elected.

In the 1892 general election, the Bradford Labour Union nominated dockers' leader Ben Tillett to stand in the Bradford West parliamentary constituency. He won 30.2% of the vote. More spectacularly, in West Ham South, Keir Hardie was elected as an independent Labour MP.

Workers elected

West Ham's Liberal mayor had already sacked his bakery workforce after they put in a wage claim, and leaders of the new unions, such as Will Thorne of the gas workers, had been elected to the local council. These developments were brought together with the formation of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) in 1893.

Even though Hardie lost his parliamentary seat in 1895, the employers' offensive forced the question of working-class political representation more to the fore. A motion from one of the predecessors of today's transport union RMT led to the formation of the Labour Representation Committee (LRC).

The Taff Vale judgement in 1901 made unions liable for companies losses during strike action. It quadrupled the numbers of trade unionists affiliated to the LRC, paving the way for the development of the Labour Party.

Although no two eras are ever the same, there are enormous lessons to be learnt from this period for the struggle today to rebuild fighting unions and a new mass workers' party.

• Read the first in our series 'Chartism: The world's first working-class movement' at socialistparty.org.uk

Britain: what strategy for the left in the trade unions?

Rob Sewell

WWW.MARXIST.COM

05 January 2022

A TROTSKYIST ANALYSIS

Image: Steve Eason, Flickr

A number of key unions have seen seismic shifts to the left in recent months, as workers turn to the industrial front for action. To beat the bosses, the left needs a strategy for united action, as part of the struggle for workers’ power.

“When the time is ripe things will move there with enormous speed and energy, but it may take a while till that point is reached.” Frederick Engels

Over the last six months important changes have taken place within the trade unions.

There have been shifts to the left, not least in the largest public sector union, Unison. There have also been signs of increased industrial struggles, with strikes or the threat of strikes involving rail workers, scaffolders, civil servants, bin workers, local authority workers, lecturers, and others. Unite is involved in more industrial disputes – over 50 – than at any time in its history.

These are clearly important changes, so what does this all mean?

An interesting article appeared recently in labourlist.org entitled ‘New Unionism: Radicalism is sweeping through the trade union movement’ by left-wing Labour MP, John McDonnell. In it he talks of “change in the air”, and describes “a wave of radical New Unionism”.

‘New Unionism’ was the name given to the industrial upsurge in the 1890s in Britain. This marked a transformation, and saw the creation of mass trade unions of unskilled workers – sections formerly considered as impossible to organise.

In this current period of instability that has opened up, these shifts to the left are an indication that significant changes are close at hand.

Given the decades-long ebb in the class struggle and the decline of trade union membership and power, these events indicate the potential for a qualitative change in the situation. The trade unions can once again become the main focus for resistance and fight back for the working class.

Capitulation

Over a long period of time, the bulk of the trade union leadership has acted as a colossal brake on the movement of the working class.

“The full-time apparatus in some unions are seen as having an iron grip on the levers of power within the organisation, stifling democratic decision making by lay members and restraining their members’ willingness to mobilise and campaign”, wrote John McDonnell.

Rising inflation tends to be accompanied by rising levels of strike action, as workers attempt to claw back what they have lost / Image: Socialist Appeal

The right-wing union leaders did everything to dampen and dissipate any attempt to struggle. They laid the blame on the members for lack of a fight. ‘We can only go as far as the members are prepared to go’, they would cynically say.

The right-wing leadership of Unison was typical in this regard, being heavily embroiled in class collaboration with employers and government.

This policy of open capitulation and retreat has had disastrous effects, resulting in the biggest cut in real wages in the last ten years in any decade since Napoleonic times. Privatisation and casualisation proceeded apace, resulting in the widespread destruction of workers’ terms and conditions.

Of course, there were honourable exceptions to this abject capitulation, such as the left-led unions like the PCS and RMT, and a few others.

But now the whole terrain is changing. Once considered a very stable country, Britain has become extremely unstable.

Seismic shifts

In fact, over the recent period, we have witnessed a series of earthquakes and shocks.

These include, for instance, the dramatic rise of the Scottish independence movement and the collapse of Scottish Labour; the rise and fall of Corbynism; the Brexit vote; the decline of Unionism in the north of Ireland; and a generalised crisis of the regime, compounded by the actions of the Johnson government.

In the current period of instability that has opened up, the shifts to the left in the unions are an indication that significant changes are close at hand / Image: Socialist Appeal

All these phenomena have common roots. At bottom they are a reflection of the deepening crisis and impasse of British capitalism, which has degenerated into a third-rate power on the fringes of Europe, governed by a gang of incompetent upstarts, liars, and rogues.

The more far-sighted strategists of the ruling class are deeply alarmed at the situation. In the past, they could rely upon the Tory Party and right-wing trade union leaders to guarantee their interests. These were important levers with which to control the situation and maintain a degree of stability. But this is no longer the case.

The Establishment’s control over the Tory Party has slipped from their grasp, especially under the maverick Boris Johnson. Just as serious is their loss of control over key trade unions.

The 1.4 million-strong Unison, the previous bastion of the right-wing, has shifted to the left, with the election of a left NEC and President. While the Establishment’s candidate for the Unite general secretary, Gerrard Coyne, was heavily defeated, and the subsequent victory of Sharon Graham has pushed the union further to the left.

This growing turmoil could never have happened at a worse time for the ruling class. The anger and bitterness in society is reaching explosive levels. The working class is facing a dramatic fall in living standards in the months ahead, with prices rising and energy bills going to double in April. This is described by the Resolution Foundation as a “cost of living catastrophe”.

“The overall picture is likely to be one of prices surging and pay packets stagnating. In fact, real wages have already started falling, and are set to go into next Christmas barely higher than they are now,” states the Foundation.

Periods of rising inflation have tended to be accompanied by rising levels of strike action, as workers attempt to claw back what they have lost in terms of the purchasing power of their wages. The ruling class therefore finds itself sitting on top of a volcano that is ready to erupt.

Discontent

Previously, the widespread anger and radicalisation had found an expression in the emergence of Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party. This was a political channel through which the working class found a way of expressing its desire for change.

But now with Starmer returning Labour back to Blairism, the political front is blocked. As a result, the working class is turning towards the trade union front.

The mood of anger in the union ranks was reflected in the election of Sharon Graham as the new general secretary of Unite, who promised a revival of workplace militancy / Image: Socialist Appeal

This is how we explain the highly significant election of a new Left leadership of Unison, the first time in 20 years. The Left would also have won the general secretary position, but for the sectarianism of the Socialist Party and those who supported a rival ‘left’ candidate, which split the vote, allowing in the right-wing candidate.

The mood of anger in the ranks was also reflected in the election of Sharon Graham as the new general secretary of Unite, who promised a revival of workplace militancy.

“What are we trying to achieve? What are we facing? And what do we need to make change?”, asked Sharon in a recent article.

“Speaking plainly, it is time to face facts. There is no Westminster hero coming to save us. We must do it ourselves, before it is too late. Specifically, we must build popular, working-class power.” (Tribune, 30/12/21)

In this, Sharon Graham has championed the need to build up union support from the workplaces, linking reps across the combines, and coordinating industrial action, together with other unions. This is potentially a big step forward.

With the Left controlling the NEC in Unison, and Paul Holmes as President, united and coordinated action is possible not only between the two biggest unions in Britain, Unite and Unison, but across the movement, as advocated by the PCS leadership over the last two decades.

This shake-up in the trade unions is part of the same process that propelled Corbynism to the top of the Labour Party, and is now being expressed on the trade union front. They are both part of the same phenomenon: the growing discontent and anger in society.

It is also a confirmation of our perspective that the working class, blocked on the political front, will swing to the industrial plane.

Learning the lessons

Reformists tend to swing from elation to despair. When Corbyn was riding high there was a mood of confidence that a government that defended the interests of the working class was around the corner. Once Corbyn was removed a mood of deep depression gripped layers of the left. But our task is neither to laugh nor to cry, but to understand.

The defeat of Corbyn was not the end of the story. What had propelled Corbyn to the top, the anger of the working class, had not gone away; it had simply been stifled. It was bound to find another expression.

And as John McDonnell explains in his article, “Each victory over recalcitrant trade union bureaucrats or exploitative employers not only heralds the emergence of New Unionism, but inspires its dynamic spread.”

This means the reemergence of the class struggle on a level that we have not seen for decades. This is extremely promising but we also need to learn some lessons.

A vital lesson drawn by the new Unison Left is that it is not possible to appease the union’s right wing. This is a lesson drawn from the negative experience of Corbynism in the Labour Party, where the left – for fear of upsetting the right – refused to take the battle to the end.

Class collaboration

The right-wing within the trade unions – and the Labour Party – reflect the pressures and interests of the ruling class. Their philosophy is open class collaboration, an attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable class contradictions in society. Their model is ‘business unionism’, to create a cosy relationship with the bosses.

The lack of fighting spirit permeates the right-wing trade union leaders. This is because they see no alternative to capitalism, and view their role as working within the system.

With fuel bills soaring, benefit cuts and tax rises, workers in 2022 will face a “cost of living storm”. But instead of leading a militant campaign of strike action to fightback, TUC leaders advocate class collaboration policies / Image: War on Want, Flickr

The General Council of the TUC, as the elected leadership of the trade unions, should in theory function as a general staff of the labour movement in the struggle against the bosses. Instead it seeks agreements and cooperation with the Tory government.

This was expressed most recently in the TUC’s demand that the Tory government establish a ‘National Council for Reconstruction and Recovery’, together with the employers and the trade unions.

Class collaboration has a long history going back to the middle of the 19th century, with Model Unionism following the defeat of Chartism. This was the period of imperialist expansion and the growth of super-profits, which were used by the capitalists to buy off sections of the working class. It is viewed by the right-wing as a recipe for ‘industrial peace’, and a panacea for all ills.

In her New Year’s message, Francis O’Grady, the general secretary of the TUC, underlined this view by urging Tory ministers to work with unions to develop a “long-term economic plan”, bringing together worker and employer representatives.

However, at the same time the TUC warned that families were “bracing themselves for a cost of living storm in 2022”, with fuel bills soaring, recent benefits cuts biting, and taxes set to rise.

But rather than lead a militant campaign of strike action to push up wages and take on the bosses, the TUC leaders instead advocate class collaboration. The left unions, such as the PCS, RMT, FBU and others, in recent years stood out against this approach, but they were largely isolated.

Now with developments in Unison and Unite, and strikes picking up, things are changing. To win her election as general secretary, Sharon Graham articulated this radicalised mood. “We must continue to build that confidence, and to show workers that as leaders we stand with them – not with the boss or the politician,” she said.

In a very positive move, she has come out in favour of closer union collaboration, which raises the possibility of united front action. “Wherever coordination with other unions is required, I will make the calls to try and help that happen. The ground is there for us to build on.”

“For me, this is what real change within the trade unions looks like: building the power to take action, again and again. This is a real fighting strategy,” she explained.
Confidence

Unfortunately, however, even some of the left within the trade unions, given their reformist outlook – i.e. their lack of confidence that society can be radically changed – are not totally free from class collaboration.

Such lefts have adapted for so long to past defeats and setbacks that they lack confidence in the workers to struggle. They cannot see the real mood that has been building up from below, a mood which has simply lacked a point of reference for it to express itself.

This lack of confidence has even seeped down into the union’s lay activists, many of whom have lost faith in the workers they were elected to represent.

It is true that workers are not always and everywhere pushing for strike action, especially when they know the battle will be hard. Taking strike action is the last resort. What is required here is a perspective.

Even if today layers of the working class are not yet ready to embark on strike activity, as Marxists we understand that the present crisis of capitalism is going to push even the most moderate of workers towards militant action.

Generally speaking, workers look to their leaders for guidance, and when this is lacking, it serves to spread despondency and apathy. It demonstrates the fact that class conscious leadership is crucial at all levels.

A Marxist leadership of the trade unions would prepare the ground for battle, raising the fighting spirit at each step, and putting themselves on the line. This would serve to inspire confidence and sweep away any doubts and difficulties.

Such a leadership would expose not only the bosses, but also the capitalist system as a whole, using each opportunity to pose the socialist alternative. In the words of Lenin, they would be “tribunes of the people”.

Prepare for battle

In this epoch of crisis and the death agony of capitalism, there are great challenges facing the working class. It would be a grave mistake to think that it can be ‘business as usual’, or to follow how things operated in the past.

Given the severity of the crisis, it will require the mobilisation of the whole movement to stop this bosses’ offensive in its tracks. However, while individual battles can be won, in order to stop cuts and privatisation overall, action must be generalised and co

In this epoch of crisis and the death agony of capitalism, there are great challenges facing the working class. It would be a grave mistake to think that it can be ‘business as usual’, or to follow how things operated in the past / Image: Steve Eason, Flickrordinated.

When capitalism was in its heyday, it could afford to grant reforms and therefore strike action could quite quickly lead to winning important concessions from the bosses. But that is not the situation today.

It is true that given the present supply chain problems, employers in some sectors are presently being forced to pay higher wages – such as in the case of the truck drivers – due to the shortage of labour. Yodel, the delivery firm, for example, agreed to raise some drivers’ pay by almost 20% – but only after they were threatened with strike action.

Obviously, workers should take advantage of this situation where possible. But this is more the exception than the rule. Millions of workers, especially the low-paid, face wage cuts, and their anger is growing. It is this pressure that is feeding its way into the trade unions.

The shifts to the left we have seen in one union after another are an indication that after a long period of passivity, we are now witnessing the first stretching of the muscles. The sleeping giant of the working class is beginning to stir.

Up until now, however, there was no point of reference for this growing discontent. Initially there were high hopes in the Corbyn movement, but that has come to an end. All eyes therefore are presently on the trade union front, where there are hopes that the new Left leaders will deliver.

Unfortunately, what is lacking is a perspective of where things are heading, and the drawing of the necessary conclusions.

As Karl Marx said about the trade unions at the founding of the First International in 1864: “One element of success they possess – numbers. But numbers weigh only in the balance if united by combination and led by knowledge.”

However, ‘knowledge’ or theory has always been a weak point of the British labour movement, which has instead relied on pragmatism and ‘common sense’.
Guide to action

What is required is a clear perspective. The highest theory for the working class is Marxism, which is an essential guide to action and perspectives.

As Marxists, we understand that without the struggle for day-to-day reforms, there can be no struggle to change society, which is the only real solution to the problems. That is why we must be at the forefront of fighting to improve the lot of the working class. “Not a minute on the day, not a penny off the pay”, to use the words of A.J. Cook, the past Miners’ Federation leader.

However, we also understand the limits imposed by capitalism. Every concession won by the working class with one hand, the capitalists will eventually seek to take back with the other.

Does that mean that to fight for reforms is pointless?

On the contrary! The class struggle is a struggle of living forces, and it is this that determines the outcome. It is precisely through the class struggle that workers learn from their own experience, through victories and defeats. It is through this school of hard knocks that consciousness is raised.

A trade union leader must be like a good general in war-time, but in the class war. They must have clear tactics, but also have a fully worked-out strategy.

“A Marxist trade union leader must not only grasp the general tendencies of capitalism, but also analyse the specific features of the situation, the conjuncture, the local conditions – the psychological element included – in order to propose a position of struggle, of watchful waiting, or of retreat,” explained Trotsky.

He added that, “It is only on the basis of this practical activity, intimately linked with the experience of the great mass, that the trade union leader is able to lay bare the general tendencies of decomposing capitalism and to educate the workers for the revolution.” (Trotsky, The Spanish Revolution, 1931-39, p.293)

As Trotsky explained, the role of a Marxist trade unionist should be to raise the level of understanding of the workers and to explain the forces that confront them. Marxism, otherwise known as ‘scientific socialism’, provides this class understanding.
Workers’ power

Sharon Graham has correctly said that through our unions “we must build popular, working-class power”. She has linked this to the importance of internationalism: “And we can’t do that without international trade unionism, without international struggle”.

The task facing us is the transformation of the trade unions into fighting organisations that challenge the domination of capital. That is the fight for ‘workers’ power’.

The task facing us is the transformation of the trade unions into fighting organisations that challenge the domination of capital. That is the fight for ‘workers’ power’ / Image: Steve Eason, Flickr

In order to build militant trade unions they need the maximum democracy, with the full participation of members, and the full accountability of full-time officials and union leaderships.

This also means the building up of democratic broad-left organisations in every union. As the saying goes, the price of our democratic rights is eternal vigilance. That is why the battle to defeat the right must be carried through to the end.

Sharon went on to list the challenges facing the working class: global climate catastrophe, mass automation of jobs, new waves of austerity, and emboldened mega employers.

Every one of these challenges is rooted in the crisis of capitalism, in Britain and internationally. The solution strikes at the very root of capitalist ownership and the fight over who is to control industry. To use Sharon Graham’s words, this is the essence of ‘working-class power’.

Struggle for socialism

This means that the struggle over day-to-day problems must be linked in a transitional manner to the public ownership of the major monopolies, banks and insurance companies, under democratic workers’ control and management. This revolutionary aspiration was, and in many cases remains, enshrined in the constitutions of the trade unions.

Only the overthrow of capitalism can offer a way forward for the working class. New Unionism led to the creation of the Labour Party and the ‘Great Unrest’ prior to the First World War. The new period we have entered will also set the scene for revolutionary convulsions in Britain as elsewhere.

The shift to the left in a number of important trade unions in Britain is a harbinger of what is to come. A new generation of activists will come to the fore seeking to change society, and in so doing they will fight to take back control of the trade unions, organisations which were built by the working class to fight the bosses.

The conditions are now emerging where the old right-wing trade union leadership can be removed in preparation for a new period of class struggle. In this way the trade unions will be able to step up to the mark and play an active part in fighting for socialism and the overthrow of capitalism.

Strike Wave in the U.S.?

Labor Historian Nelson Lichtenstein on Union Drives & Worker Revolts

Watch Full Show


GUESTS
Nelson Lichtenstein
research professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and author.

LINKS
Nelson Lichtenstein on Twitter
"Are we witnessing a 'General Strike' in our own time?"
"Is This a Strike Wave?"
"State of the Union: A Century of American Labor"
"The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business"

Image Credit: BCTGM International

As unionizing efforts have taken the U.S. by storm, we look at the history of the U.S. labor movement and how unions have acted as a bulwark against corporate power. Worker organizing at Starbucks, Kellogg’s and Amazon shows that unions help enforce health and safety measures and protect workers who speak out. “A working-class consciousness ebbs and flows,” says Nelson Lichtenstein, director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “A union is a way of capturing that consciousness and making it the law of the land.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

As we look now at how the union victory at the Starbucks in Buffalo, New York, probably won’t be the last and comes amidst a wave of union drives and labor justice actions, including strikes, around the United States, we’re joined by Nelson Lichtenstein, who’s a distinguished history professor at University of California, Santa Barbara, where he directs the Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy, the author of State of the Union: A Century of American Labor and also The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Professor Lichtenstein. We just talked about Kellogg’s and, before that, Starbucks, the first of almost 9,000 Starbucks stores, that have been unionized, in Buffalo, New York. You have talked about the significance of what you call this tiny acorn.

NELSON LICHTENSTEIN: Yes, thank you. Yeah, the Starbucks thing, what’s remarkable here is that the enormous amount of effort and money that the management put into stopping this organizing drive, it’s really a statement on the part of management on how important unionism is. If they’re going to spend all this money and bring their top executives to prevent a handful of workers from unionizing, that’s the best endorsement of unionism I’ve seen in a long time.

And, of course, what’s interesting about that is that they had to bring in some of their top people. One of the dirty little secrets of all of these retailers is that lower-level management is unreliable as union busters. The local managers of — this is true at Walmart, at Target and at Starbucks — they’re unreliable. They know the people. They work with them. And so that’s why they bring in these well-paid managers of all North America, etc. So, if you have 20 or 30 or 50 Starbucks — and this seems quite possible: Every college town has a red hot Starbucks ready to organize — then this will spread much too thin the top management, and they will be — really, they’ll be unable to stop it.

I mean, it’s — plus, of course, the Starbucks, in particular, has a — you know, their clientele is sort of hip collegiate and, you know, Upper West Side of New York, what have you. So I think that there is the possibility of, really, a sort of fire, you know, at Starbucks, which could spread through the entire company. And clearly, management is afraid of that.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Professor Lichtenstein, I wanted to ask you, in terms of — you’ve studied the changing nature of the American labor movement. And we hear a lot about deindustrialization, when in fact there are probably more industrial jobs in the world today than there ever have been. The difference is that fewer and fewer of them are in the advanced industrial countries. And we’re now faced with, like, Walmart, which you studied, Amazon. These are superstores and superwarehouses, no longer the superfactories that used to exist. They’re now mostly in China, Mexico, Vietnam, Bangladesh and other parts of the Global South. So, how does this affect the ability of workers to organize, that we’re basically dealing with the reception and distribution or warehousing of goods made elsewhere?

NELSON LICHTENSTEIN: Yeah, well, lots of manufacturing, of course, has gone abroad. I mean, it’s now a totally integrated system, with the big container ships. We’re seeing that now with the problems in the supply chain.

But many of these jobs that are — well, all of them, like Amazon, for example, or a large retailer or Starbucks, these, quote, “retail” or distributional jobs are — today they resemble factory work of the past quite a bit. Amazon, these distribution centers have 2,000, 3,000 workers. They’re blue-collar industrial kind of jobs. And the same motivations that led to the great labor upsurges of the 19th century, the '30s and then later on in the ’60s, they're present in all these large retailers and distribution systems.

So, I would also make the point that whilst one of the Starbucks, any given Starbucks that shuts down or could be closed by the management, you know, it doesn’t affect the rest of the company. But a distribution center that Amazon has, these reflect — have an impact on a whole area. And so, you know, they’re kind of the — as I put it, the commanding heights of American capitalism has shifted from the steel mills and the auto plants to the distribution centers and the great retailers.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And in terms of the ability of the workers who are organizing to maintain their unions, to win not only recognition but then contracts, could you talk about the changing nature of labor law and the ability of workers to organize?

NELSON LICHTENSTEIN: Yeah. Well, labor law is rotten, and your spokesperson from Starbucks made that very clear. The ability of top management to flood these stores, to intimate workers, to hold captive audience meetings, all of this — all of this is legal, by the way, all of these. And so, this is — there are no penalties, by the way. When they do — when the management is found guilty of illegality or firing a worker, there are no penalties. The worker gets their job back, but the situation is so uncomfortable that they always quit. So the labor law is totally rotten.

But even more important than the labor law is the managerial mindset. Now, at various moments, when we had great social movements in this country, whether it’s the women’s movement or civil rights or other, we’ve had a section of capital which has made the decision that it’s better to accommodate the social movement than not, that the — whether it’s public relations or political or possibly being broken up, that the dangers of resisting this movement are too great. Clearly this was true with the civil rights movement, where Midwestern manufacturers in the ’60s, through the Republican Party in the Midwest, decided that they would support the civil rights laws.

What I’m looking to is, if enough pressure is put on these companies, if the Democratic Party makes — understands that one of its great problems it’s facing is the absence of a trade union movement, which used to be a pillar of the Democratic Party, then you will get a change in managerial attitudes on this — not everyone, but certainly a company like Starbucks, which is going to face a public relations disaster if it’s fighting 50 or 60 Starbucks unionizing drives all of the country and they’re publicized all the time. Then, I think that that’s a possibility, that you could see a switch, in the same way that firms today advertise the fact that they’re really good on diversity or they promote women or they are good on the environment. I mean, why wouldn’t that be the case with the trade union movement? Now, I think trade unions have a special power and, in the management’s point of view, a special danger. And I think that we’re now seeing that, in part.

But the labor law is rotten. It’s not about — the PRO Act, the Protect the Right Organize, is not about to be passed in this Senate, given the filibuster. Bernie Sanders has inserted some elements of the PRO Act into the reconciliation bill that’s before the Congress. But, basically, you know, what has to be done is these tactics have to be advanced outside the existing labor law.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Lichtenstein, I’m looking at a very painful text chain of a man, a worker named Larry Virden, who was in the Amazon plant in Illinois when the ceiling caved during the tornadoes. And he’s writing, “I’m fueling up now … will be home after the storm.” “What you mean,” he’s asked. “Amazon won’t let us leave.” And then the response, “All it’s doing … is lightning … So what you doing … I hope everything is ok … I love you.” Larry Virden left behind four children. I believe six people perished in the Amazon warehouse, told not to leave. If you can talk about this and also the piece you wrote just recently for The Washington Post about America striking, and this W.E.B. Du Bois quote at the beginning of your piece, “W.E.B. Du Bois defined the shift from slavery to freedom as a 'general strike' — and there are parallels to today”?

NELSON LICHTENSTEIN: Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously, one of the things that trade unions do you is that they keep their eye on health and safety. One of the functions of a trade union is to, quote, “police” the laws that already exist, health and safety laws, other laws. And because it’s impossible for bureaucrats in Washington to spread out all over the country and to inspect firms, you need people on the floor to do that. And if you’re in a union, you’re not afraid of being reprimanded or fired or penalized for speaking up. And so, there’s no doubt that unionized firms have a better health and safety record than those that aren’t. And clearly, the manager at that Amazon place was under the gun during the Christmas rush to keep people working, and so you have this tragedy. But it’s just another indication of why we need trade unions.

I make one other point. Institutions are really important. Consciousness, a working-class consciousness, ebbs and flows. Right now we’re at a period of heightened consciousness — it’s a good thing — because of the pandemic and because of the money that’s been flowing through the economy. And so workers are clearly in an activist mode. That isn’t necessarily going to last for a generation. A union, like a civil rights law or any other institution law, is a way of capturing that consciousness and making it the law of the land, so that in periods when things are — when you have a recession —

AMY GOODMAN: Twenty seconds.

NELSON LICHTENSTEIN: When you have a recession, then the workers have this, can rely on this. Du Bois said, when slavery was ended, that this was a “general strike,” he called it. He wrote this — he wrote his book in the middle of the 1930s.

AMY GOODMAN: Five seconds.

NELSON LICHTENSTEIN: And I think we’re having that again today.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Nelson Lichtenstein, I want to thank you for being with us, at the University of California, Santa Barbara. We will also link to your books, State of the Union. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. Stay safe. Wear a mask.

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 TRIPARTISM 

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Free Access

The cooperation between business organizations, trade unions, and the state during the COVID-19 pandemic: A comparative analysis of the nature of the tripartite relationship

Bernd Brandl

First published: 14 December 2021

 

https://doi.org/10.1111/irel.12300

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Abstract

The COVID-19 outbreak has led to an increase in social dialogue in general and, in particular, to an increase in tripartite cooperation between social partners' organizations and state authorities. This paper takes a critical look behind this cooperation and investigates the underlying rationales behind the tripartite cooperation in 19 countries. It is shown that even though the cooperation generally fulfilled its problem-solving function, an expressive function that signaled unity was identified to be of equal importance in such a time of crisis. This expressive function is also identified to potentially serve as the basis for a renewed social partnership.

The cooperation between business organizations, trade unions, and the state during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A comparative analysis of the nature of the tripartite relationship - Brandl - - Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society - Wiley Online Library

As Europe leads on remote worker rights, will others benefit?

Advocates say new laws to help remote workers don’t go far enough while unions fret some workers will be left behind.

By Urooba Jamal

Published On 31 Dec 202131 Dec 2021

London, United Kingdom – Kiasi Sandrine Mputu has worked from the bedroom of her London flat since the pandemic struck in March 2020. Like legions of crisis-minted remote workers the world over, she says the arrangement has its pros and cons.

“I love working remotely,” the 30-year old told Al Jazeera. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to come back [to] the normal routine.”

An assistant manager at a London-based import-export firm, Mputu’s home office is a testament to how personal and professional spaces can become quickly entangled by remote work: a desk with a company-provided computer monitor nestled next to a drawer full of clothes that’s adjacent to her bed.

Though she’s adjusted to the flexible sleep-work space, Mputu still struggles with feeling isolated from colleagues.

“I [sometimes] spend all week by myself,” she said.

Mputu says her employer occasionally organizes virtual social gatherings. But she wants the British government to follow Europe’s lead and do more to support the mental wellbeing of remote workers like herself.

But workers’ advocates want Europe to go even further – by ensuring new laws addressing remote work arrangements cover all employees, no matter where they earn their living.

Right to disconnect

In a major victory for better work-life balance, Portugal last month rolled out new regulations for the remote-work era, including granting workers the “right to disconnect” by forbidding firms from contacting employees outside of working hours except in cases of emergencies.

The new rules – designed with an eye towards attracting more tax-paying “digital nomads” to the country – also require firms to help pay for home gas, electric and internet bills; forbid them from surveilling their remote workforce; and require them to allow parents of young children to work from home without getting prior approval.

Kiasi Sandrine Mputu said she loves working remotely and can’t see herself ever returning to a pre-pandemic, full-time office routine [Courtesy Urooba Jamal/Al Jazeera]

But Portugal stopped short of granting workers the right to turn off their devices and ignore messages from their bosses outside of working hours – a rule Italy enacted earlier this year.

Strides are also being made in France and Germany, where employers are required to have a valid reason for turning down employee requests to work from home.

Trade unions and experts in the European Union and the United Kingdom welcome the momentum to advance the rights and wellbeing of remote workers, but they want the new rules to go even further.

The flexibility stigma

Experts say the explosion in remote work during the pandemic has laid bare how obsolete some labour laws have become.

The “right to disconnect”, for example, is a hot-button issue that predates the pandemic, with France putting a pioneering law on the books back in 2017. While other European countries followed suit, the European Parliament is still pushing the EU Commission to give workers throughout the bloc the right to power down their devices when they are not at work.

Heejung Chung, a researcher on overtime and work-life balance at the University of Kent and author of The Flexibility Paradox told Al Jazeera employers have been contacting workers outside of formal working hours more frequently as the boundaries between home and office are obscured, leading employees to work around the clock – a growing problem the right to disconnect is designed to correct.

A sole focus on home working rights would create new inequalities for those in jobs where home working isn’t possible

FRANCES O GRADY, GENERAL SECRETARY FOR THE TRADES UNION CONGRESS

She also said that remote workers are often burdened with the “flexibility stigma”, where working from home is looked down upon as less productive than in-office arrangements. That negative perception, she said, can lead employees to work longer hours to compensate.

Many workers’ rights advocates say the right to disconnect is just a start, and that companies need to grant workers the power to determine their own work schedules to promote a healthier work-life balance.

“A lot of the boundaries that were afforded by labor laws about … [working] overtime … [became] obsolete,” said Chung.

Data cited by the European Trade Union Institute found that 27 percent of European remote workers were worried about their jobs when they were not actually doing them, and that 29 percent felt too tired after work to do some domestic chores.

Not interrupting employees outside of working hours “will not prevent these workers from suffering stress when they are back to work,” Ignacio Doreste, an adviser to the European Trade Union Confederation, told Al Jazeera.

While Mputu feels fortunate her boss does not contact her outside work hours, she said she would prefer to set her own work schedule, rather than be tethered to one her employer determines.

“At the end of the day, we are at home, so if I can do my job at night or in the morning, that wouldn’t really make a big difference,” she said.

All workers, not just remote ones

While many workers’ rights activists welcome the drive to empower remote workers, some are concerned that the relentless focus on work from home could leave behind a vast swath of the workforce.

“A sole focus on home working rights would create new inequalities for those in jobs where home working isn’t possible,” said Frances O Grady, General Secretary for the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Britain’s largest trade union.

A poll conducted by TUC in June found that people in the United Kingdom who worked higher-paid jobs were much more likely to have worked from home during the pandemic than those in working-class jobs.

“All workers need stronger rights to the full range of flexible working options like flexitime, predictable shifts and job shares,” O’Grady told Al Jazeera, “otherwise there will be a new class divide, with some people getting the flexibility they need and others excluded.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA