Category: Workers Struggle

[Leaflet] Direct Action: 14 ways to improve your job

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Direct Action: 14 ways to improve your jobAuthor: Unknown | File size: 98 KB

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Workers run the world. Everything would stop without our labour. Withdrawing our labour is our weapon, and the right to run things is our demand…. At the same time, most work is a bore. As it is organized in our society, most labour kills the spirit and body of the worker, not to mention the mind. But to simply call for a four-hour day at eight hours pay is not enough. Who will benefit from the automation that could realize such a demand? Who should control technology’s introduction and integration into the economy? Potentially, we can.

Source: http://www.oocities.org/capitolhill/lobby/2625/14_ways.txt

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Syndicalism: An International and Historical Perspective

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Syndicalism: An International and Historical Perspective - Dek KeenanAuthor: Dek Keenan | File size: 330 KB

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This paper will introduce syndicalism both as an historical international phenomenon and as a contemporary international model and movement. It presupposes very little knowledge of, but hopefully some substantial interest in, the subject on the part of the reader.

What does Syndicalism mean to us as labour movement activists? It may mean the million workers in the Spanish CNT fighting with a new world in their hearts during the Spanish Civil War. It may mean the legendary Industrial Workers of the World organising the One Big Union across craft and trade, race and gender lines. It may mean a vast movement of workers across Latin America during the first half of the 20th Century. It may mean Starbucks baristas fighting today to build unions in coffee houses in New York and Santiago. But it very possibly means none of these things.

Because syndicalism constitutes one of the least understood currents in the workers movement. And yet syndicalism was the driving force of immense and powerful labour movements across the globe in the first decades of the 20th Century; from Argentina to Japan and from Australia to Portugal workers gathered under its flag. And today it represents a small, but growing, part of the international labour movement; albeit one that remains unduly obscure and marginal.

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What is Anarcho-Syndicalism?: A Selection of Writings by Rudolf Rocker

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What is Anarcho-Syndicalism?: A Selection of Writings by Rudolf RockerAuthor: Rudolf Rocker | File size: 401 KB

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Includes:

  • The Objectives of Anarcho-Syndicalism
  • The Methods of Anarcho-Syndicalism
  • The Role of the Trade Unions: Anarcho-Syndicalist View
  • The Political Struggle: Anarcho-Syndicalist View

This collection of writings by one of the leading theorists of Anarcho-Syndicalism, Rudolf Rocker(March 25, 1873 – September 19, 1958), is taken from two of his books, namely Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice and his shorter work,Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism.

Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice was first published in London in 1938. In 1937, Emma Goldman had asked Rocker to write an introduction for the general public on the ideals fuelling the Spanish social revolution that was then in full swing. Within the book, Rocker offered an introduction to anarchist ideas, a history of the international workers’ movement, and an outline of the syndicalist strategies and tactics embraced at the time (direct action, sabotage and the general strike). The chapters from the book on The Objectives of Anarcho-Syndicalism and The Methods of Anarcho-Syndicalism have been included in this collection.

In 1946, Rocker wrote an abridged version of the book, entitled Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism. It was published for the first time with the same title in New York in 1948. It consists of slightly revised passages from different parts of the book Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice. This Zabalaza Books collection includes the chapters from the book on The Role of the Trade Unions: Anarcho-Syndicalist View and The Political Struggle: Anarcho-Syndicalist View.

Zabalaza Books
June 2014

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James Connolly: Syndicalism and the Struggle for Irish Independence – National Liberation through Class Struggle!

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James Connolly, Irish SyndicalistAuthor: Various  |  File size: 1.01 MB

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JAMES CONNOLLY (1868-1916) is a revolutionary hero, known for his role in the struggle for Irish independence from British imperialism, and for his revolutionary syndicalist politics – he was part of a long tradition of anarchist and syndicalist anti-imperialism worldwide. The texts in this pamphlet outline Connolly’s life and ideas, as relevant to anarchists, syndicalists and anti-imperialists today as at his death.

Connolly promoted a radical vision of decolonisation: a “workers republic,” under worker-peasant self-management, free of both British imperial and native Irish elites, and part of a larger socialist world community and struggle. He was active in the syndicalist-influenced Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU) — which built its own militia (armed forces), the Irish Citizens Army, in 1913.

Connolly and the Irish Citizens Army joined with Irish republicans in the armed 1916 Irish Easter Rising against British imperialism. Severely wounded during the fighting that followed, he was arrested and shot by a British firing squad. The Irish war of independence that followed the Easter Rising was a major defeat for British power, but ended in a capitalist Ireland far short of Connolly’s “workers republic.”

It is essential to reclaim alternative anarchist and syndicalist visions of anti-imperialism, like Connolly’s, which show a better way.

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Anarchists and the Trade Unions: Be active! be involved!

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Anarchists and the Trade Unions by Gregor KerrAuthor: Gregor Kerr  |  File size: 356 KB

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Trade Unions are important organs of the working-class. Gregor Kerr – a member of the Irish National Teachers Organisation who has been involved in campaigns against “social partnership” and in many strike support groups – argues that trade union involvement should form a central part of the political activity of all anarchists.

This article is from the WSM’s publication Red and Black Revolution, #3

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In Place of Compromise: Why we need a Rank and File Movement

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In Place of Compromise: Why we need a Rank and File Movement - AWGAuthor: Anarchist Workers Group  |  File size: 936 KB

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The most striking feature of recent industrial struggles has been the way in which the ruling class has attempted, and largely succeeded, in using the power of the bureaucracies within the trade unions to its own advantage. The militant Syndicalist miners in their pamphlet ‘The Miners Next step’ urged that:

“The old policy of identity of interests between employers and ourselves be abolished and a policy of open hostility be installed”.

But the trade union leadership will not do this for us. We must do it for ourselves. This pamphlet outlines how.

First published by the Anarchist Workers Group
October 1988, Huddersfield, England

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