(en) ZABALAZA Beating Back the Bureaucrats: A Rank-and-File
Struggle for Trade Union Democracy in Argentina and its Strategic
Implication by Jonathan Payn
"Much time has been spent on the left discussing whether or not the existing unions can
still be seen as capable of representing workers' interests or whether they have been
completely and irrevocably co-opted to manage and contain worker struggles on behalf of
the bosses - be they private or public. Consequently, a lot of time has also been spent
debating whether unions can be taken back by workers (and made to serve their interests),
or whether they should be abandoned altogether in favour either of revolutionary or dual
unions or so-called new forms of organisation such as workers' committees, solidarity
networks etc..." ---- Text from: Recomposition: Notes for a New Workerism ----
Introduction by Recomposition ---- We are happy to present Beating Back the Bureaucrats
from a comrade writing in South Africa. The piece focuses mostly on a recent initiative
called Bloque Sindical de Base in Argentina. Argentina's labour movement and its many
divisions are not well known or understood by English-speakers in the workers movement.
Having a history of revolutionary unionism that pre-dates the IWW by some decades and has
continued through multiple dictatorships, union labour laws modelled after Mussolini's
Italy, and more recently a severe crisis in 2001 that led to 75% unemployment and a broad
uprising, Argentina's history contains a lot organisers can learn from about building the
IWW and more broadly militant workplace organisation. How do we deal with government
control over the labour movement? With efforts that push organisers into bureaucracies?
With reform efforts within unions? Beating Back the Bureaucrats is a welcome addition to
bring some of the perspectives and debates to our audience.
The author gives a general history of the development of Argentina's two largest trade
union federations today, the CGT and CTA, starting at the birth of the CGT, its
unification with the Peronist movement, and the fights and splits that have followed in
the past 50 years since. Much of the work focuses on a recent initiative by union
militants within the rival federation CTA which split from CGT. These militants formed a
current called Bloque Sindical de Base aimed at increasing rank and file participation and
combating bureaucracy within the unions it organises. Bloque Sindical de Base uses union
assemblies to mobilize worker participation on the one hand and on the other runs slates
in union elections. Drawing from his analysis of Bloque Sindical de Base, the author
argues for positions about the development of more combative and libertarian workers
movements, and how new unions initiatives could help or hinder that situation. We have
some reservations about the strategy presented at least where we live in the US and
Canada, but the article raises important questions for anyone that wishes to develop
revolutionary unionism, and we hope it can inspire constructive debates over these issues.
- - - - - - - -
Much time has been spent on the left discussing whether or not the existing unions can
still be seen as capable of representing workers' interests or whether they have been
completely and irrevocably co-opted to manage and contain worker struggles on behalf of
the bosses - be they private or public. Consequently, a lot of time has also been spent
debating whether unions can be taken back by workers (and made to serve their interests),
or whether they should be abandoned altogether in favour either of revolutionary or dual
unions or so-called new forms of organisation such as workers' committees, solidarity
networks etc.
It is not the intention of this essay to dwell too much on the theoretical arguments in
favour of one position or the other. Rather, starting from the premise that "There is no
other way to explain the formation of trade union movements except by the need of workers
to organise on class lines to defend and advance their own particular interests in
opposition to those of the bosses",[1] the intention is to look at a contemporary case
where rank-and-file working class militants are having some success at beating back the
bureaucracy and democratising their union from below and - in discussing this experience
alongside two prior attempts at establishing more independent and democratic dual unions
in the same country - draw lessons from the empirical evidence and put forward conjecture
on its potential strategic implications. This text thus looks at the experience of a group
of workers that first joined the rank-and-file of an existing orthodox union believing it
would help defend and advance their interests as workers and then - on seeing how the
bureaucracy was an obstacle to pursuing their real interests (and often working against
them) but still believing there to be benefits to maintaining union membership - started
organising against the union bureaucracy in order to democratize the union from below and
make it congruent with the workers' interests as determined by them.
Historical Background of the Argentine Trade Union Movement
The present day organised workers' movement in Argentina is divided into two main trade
union centres: the Confederación General del Trabajo de la República Argentina (CGT) and
the Central de Trabajadores de la Argentina (CTA).
The CGT, or General Confederation of Labour, which is the dominant and historic labour
federation in Argentina, was founded in 1930 through the merger of the socialist
Confederación Obrera Argentina (COA) and the revolutionary syndicalist Unión Sindical
Argentina (USA) - the successor of the FORA IX (Argentine Regional Workers' Federation,
Ninth Congress). Throughout the 1930s, the CGT (which was founded on the model of the
French CGT and had a somewhat revolutionary syndicalist profile - although it was more a
revolutionary syndicalist and Marxist-Leninist coalition in reality) competed for
influence with the historically anarchist FORA V (Argentine Regional Workers' Federation,
Fifth Congress). It split in 1935 due to a conflict between socialists and
anarchists/syndicalists, reflecting the unstable nature of the coalition, and again in
1942; leading to the formation of the anti-communist CGT Nº1, headed by the railroad
worker José Domenech, and the CGT Nº2, led by Pérez Leirós, which grouped together various
communist and socialist unions.
The CGT, having lost what revolutionary syndicalist orientation it had, was later
strengthened as a federation following the 1943 coup d'état when its leadership allied
itself with the supposedly pro-labour policies of then Labour Minister Colonel Juan Perón.
While Peronism - the political movement inspired by the ideas of Perón - was endorsed by
the CGT leadership it should be noted that there was also a mass base of support for
Peronism in the unions, due to Peronism's mixed-bag nature, including a sector of former
anarchists and revolutionary syndicalists that liquidated their politics into support for
Peronism. The CGT Nº2 was dissolved by the military government the same year.
With regards to Perón's so-called pro-labour stance it is important to bear in mind that,
in 1938, Perón went to Europe to study the political systems of various European
countries, including Italy and Germany. On his return he talked about his positive
impression of the fascism and national socialism practiced in Italy and Germany under the
governments of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler respectively - that involved a state-led
corporatism which allowed for massive state control over the actions, finances and
leadership of the unions - believing that these countries would soon become social
democracies and stating:
"Italian Fascism led popular organisations to an effective participation in national life,
which had always been denied to the people. Before Mussolini's rise to power, the nation
was on one hand and the worker on the other, and the latter had no involvement in the
former.[...] In Germany happened exactly the same phenomenon, meaning, an organised state
for a perfectly ordered community, for a perfectly ordered population as well: a community
where the state was the tool of the nation, whose representation was, in my view,
effective. I thought that this should be the future political form, meaning, the true
people's democracy, the true social democracy."
Later, the CGT was instrumental in securing Perón's release from prison and in calling for
elections and was one of the main supporters of the Peronist Movement and of Perón's
successful 1946 election campaign, becoming in 1947 the only trade union to be recognized
by his government.
When Perón was ousted by the 1955 military coup and Peronism outlawed the leadership of
the CGT was replaced by government appointees (although the CGT itself initiated a
destabilisation campaign aimed at lifting the ban on Perón and bringing him back from
exile). The electoral ban on the Peronists was lifted in 1962 although Perón himself
remained in exile - mostly in Franco's Spain - until 1973. He was re-elected to serve his
third term as president in 1973, this time as the Partido Justicialista candidate. The
populist Partido Justicialista (Justicialist Party, PJ)[2] was founded in 1947 by Juan and
Evita Perón and the CGT has historically been its largest and most consistent support base
ever since.
In 1968, as a product of the internal political differences that existed within the CGT
some of the more combative union leaders, who held a more anti-imperialist and
anti-bureaucratic line and were against collaboration with the dictatorship, left the CGT
- which had adopted a position of collaboration with the military junta - to form CGT de
los Argentinos (CGT of the Argentines - CGTA). The CGTA was more directly involved in the
struggles against the implementation of neoliberal policies in the late 1960s and early
1970s. It played an important role in the May 1969 Cordobazo[3] student-worker uprising
and called for a general strike which took place on June 30, 1969, following which most of
its leadership was jailed by the military junta. Following the defeat of a strike at the
Fabril Financiera industrial conglomerate that lasted 120 days and the reconciliation
between Perón and Augusto Vandor - then General Secretary of the CGT and the leader of the
collaborationists (the union leaders who collaborated with the military junta) - most of
the CGTA unions joined the Peronist political front of the CGT; the "62 Organisations".
The CGTA lasted until 1972.
During the 1970s, paramilitary death squads like the Argentine Anti-communist Alliance
(AAA), linked to the right wing of Peronism, started operating in and heavily suppressing
the workers' movement: their methods were brutal, from following and persecuting workers
to kidnapping, torturing and murdering combative union leaders and militants that were
organising within the CGT as an alternative to the corporatist and collaborationist
leadership.
This whole process of repressing and disciplining the workers' movement was consolidated
under the last military dictatorship in Argentina, from 1976 to 1983 - paving the way for
the path of least resistance to full-scale neoliberal restructuring in the 1990s.
Bureaucratisation, Patronage and the Contemporary Argentine Union Movement
Neoliberalism had a negative effect on union organisation in Argentina. This was due,
amongst other things, to the fact that the union leadership (of the CGT) were the ones who
acceded to the policies of privatisation and labour flexibilisation implemented by the
incumbent Partido Justicialista in the 1990s, under President Carlos Menem; which led many
workers to see the leadership's moves as negative and traitorous and to lose confidence in
the unions. Massive retrenchments, outsourcing and the casualization of labour also had a
negative impact on worker organisation and union density.
Similarly to the CGTA and also in the context of neoliberal restructuring, albeit on a
larger scale, the CTA, or Argentine Workers' Central, was formed in 1991 when a group of
union leaders - largely from the public sector, oriented towards the struggle against
neoliberalism and seeking to revive the experience of the CGTA - decided to split from the
CGT. The formation of the CTA was considered at the time as an advance for the workers'
movement in all of Latin America because it was the only union federation that allowed for
free elections to leadership posts.
The CTA presents itself as being more progressive than the CGT and can be seen as heir to
the process initiated by the CGTA in the 1960s and 1970s. However, it still shares many of
the same bureaucratic characteristics as the CGT in practice. Over time more bureaucratic
leaders have emerged; in their attempts to consolidate their positions they have assisted
in giving rise to the bureaucratic CTA of today. It is now commonplace for union leaders
to perpetuate their terms in office, and, as part of these efforts, to make agreements -
over workers' heads - that favour their own interests (now distinct), and those of the
bosses and government they prop up.
Today, the CGT is divided into an opposition camp, headed by Hugo Moyano, and a
pro-government or "oficialista" (official) camp, whose main leader is Miguel Caló.
Similarly, the CTA is also divided into pro-government and opposition camps, headed by
Hugo Yasky and Pablo Michelli respectively.
The CGT brings together the most influential unions in the Argentine economy, such as
metalworkers and truck drivers. Since neoliberal restructuring resulted in the closure of
freight rail and the predominance of road freight, transport workers have increased their
presence and power within the growing sector: when transport workers strike, they can
paralyze the entire country, from the petrol pump to the supermarkets, because they
control the transport and distribution of goods and services.
Then there is the CGT oficialista, headed by Caló, which groups, primarily, unions in the
automobile and metallurgical industries. Both of which also have a lot of weight in the
national economy.
The CTA is likewise divided into pro-government and opposition camps, headed by Hugo Yasky
and Pablo Michelli respectively. It groups together mainly public sector workers, such as
those in health and education. Within the CTA, the union with the most economic weight is
the Sindicato del Neumatico (the tyre-manufacturing industry workers' union).
The oficialista wing of the CTA - led by Hugo Yasky, a former teacher - organises mostly
public school teachers; the opposition faction - led by Michelli - is more linked to ATE,
Asociación de Trabajadores del Estado (Association of Public Workers).
Both federation leaderships are clearly bureaucratic: they have developed interests
different to those of the workers they represent, and they often make decisions that
favour the bosses and government without consulting workers. Some have a profile oriented
towards a more reformist or economistic trade unionism (Moyano or Michelli), and others
that want to associate themselves with a certain progresismo (progressivism) that
envisages a more central role for government in imposing "solutions" to social
problems.[4] In the CGT this progresista faction is led by Miguel Caló; in the CTA this
faction is led by Yasky. Both leaderships and their decision-making processes, however,
are equally bureaucratic.
Although both union leaderships are clearly bureaucratic the CGT does not really have any
objections to presenting themselves as such, whereas the CTA has certain statutes that, at
least in theory, are more democratic although in practice the leadership effectively
maintains control of the whole union apparatus. Both federation leaderships are also very
much linked to the structures of Peronism and justicialismo (Peronist movement and
ideology linked to the Partido Justicialista, the name of which was derived from the
Spanish words for "social justice").
Moreover, because of the stakes involved both federation leaderships employ quite corrupt
and violent practices. This is more prevalent in the CGT, probably due to the fact that it
has more economic weight and because there are therefore a lot of economic resources at
play both within the unions and the Argentine economy itself. Because the CTA largely
organises in the public sector, where there are perhaps less economic resources at stake,
such violent politics is less common (although it does arise from time to time, as it
always will when power is challenged).
Within the government opposition the CGT faction is dominant but more to the right of the
current government. The CTA opposition is weaker but has a more progressive and sometimes
Marxist-Leninist or Trotskyite-oriented profile.
Both the CGT and the CTA are linked to Peronism and the Peronist movement, but whereas the
CGT is linked more directly to the ruling Partido Justicialista and to justicialismo, the
CTA has a more progressive and "Left" Peronist orientation. That is to say that, while
both are associated with the Peronist movement, the CGT draws on the national socialist
and corporatist aspects of Perón (i.e. "right" Peronism), whereas the CTA is more Marxist
in its orientation (i.e. "left" Peronism). However, despite the "right" or "left"
alignments of the dominant factions in each, bridging the two federations there is a
"pro-K" (Kirchnerist)[5] faction - represented by Yasqui in the CTA and Caló in the CGT -
and an "anti-K" faction - represented by Michelli in the CTA and Moyano in the CGT.
Left is in inverted commas above because this so-called Left Peronism - the adherents to
which currently lead the CTA - is the current of Peronism that in the 1960s and 1970s saw
Peronism as an anti-imperialist project linked to what had been taking place in Latin
America at the time with the Cuban, Bolivian and Guatemalan Revolutions. These were
political (as opposed to social) revolutions with a more nationalist and anti-imperialist
thrust, and it was in this context that the Unites States made strong advances in terms of
maintaining economic control over Latin America through so-called developmentalist
policies and the "Alliance for Progress". Peronism, albeit inspired in part by the fascism
and national socialism of Mussolini and Hitler respectively, represented an alternative to
US imperialism - that is, a reorganisation of capitalism but with a more "social" face.
Perón himself, who settled in Spain in the early 1960s under the protection of fascist
dictator Francisco Franco, began building ties both with the authoritarian far left, such
as the Montoneros,[6] as well as with ultra-right groups such as the Tacuara Nationalist
Movement[7] - modeled on Primo de Rivera's Falange.
It is out of this context that we now find, within the Argentine labour movement, the CGT
being more influenced by and linked to the practices and structures of justicialismo, or a
more right-wing Peronism, and the CTA more linked to and influenced by a more left-wing
Peronism and various Left or so-called workers' parties, mostly with a Marxist-Leninist
orientation such as, notably, Partido Obrero (Workers' Party, PO) and Izquierda Socialista
(Socialist Left, IS).
A struggle against union bureaucracy is currently being waged inside both of these two
major trade union federations. However, owing to its slightly more democratic profile, is
more advanced in the CTA. (Here violent, corrupt and authoritarian practices are less
widespread, which opens a bit more space for more anti-bureaucratic and rank-and-file
militancy.) The CGT is very bureaucratic and very hierarchical, lacking even basic
assemblies. It is also very thuggish - driven largely by the massive economic interests at
stake in the sectors in which it organises. All of this complicates the potential for
rank-and-file militancy and the struggle to democratize the unions from below.
The CTA has, at least, inscribed in its statues the assembly method, despite the
bureaucracy's somewhat successful attempts to harness and control them. In terms of the
management of resources, both federations are linked to the practices of Peronism and
clientelism - where the bureaucracy's access to the movement's resources are put to use
for managing and manipulating people and support.
Bloque Sindical de Base and the Struggle against Union Bureaucracy
One of the unions that has quite a lot of weight in the CTA, and one which is also
growing, is the education workers' union - the Central de Trabajadores de la Educación de
la Republica Argentina (CTERA, Central of Education Workers of the Republic of Argentina).
It is here that the struggle against union bureaucracy and for internal democratisation
from below is, perhaps, at its most interesting and advanced. CTERA is a national
federation that unites various different provincial education workers' unions, including
the Sindicato Docentes Provinciales (Provincial Teachers' Union) and, in the Province of
Buenos Aires, Sindicato Unificado de Trabajadores de la Educación de Buenos Aires (SUTEBA,
Unified Education Workers' Union of Buenos Aires). SUTEBA is subsequently divided into
different branches or "seccionales", each with its own leadership, which collectively make
up the central provincial SUTEBA leadership.
In SUTEBA there exists a group of rank-and-file and politically independent education
workers who met through the union assemblies. This group has been organising against the
trade union bureaucracy for some time; it has been implanting the idea that workers need
to organise themselves as anti-bureaucratic militants and urges workers to put themselves
forward for the leadership of their seccionales - independent of political affiliation and
in opposition to the incumbent party-affiliated leadership.
Electoral processes in SUTEBA are such that each list of candidates for the union
leadership is assigned a colour. Lista Bordó (burgundy) arose out of Bloque Sindical de
Base (Rank-and-file, or, Base Union Bloc); founded around 2006 by the aforementioned
education workers of independent socialist, unorthodox Trotskyist, "grassroots" Peronist
and anarchist or libertarian socialist persuasion. This anti-bureaucratic bloc went
through a long process of political development and union education and training; in 2013
it ran for SUTEBA's General Sarmiento branch in José C. Paz, Province of Buenos Aires.
This was part of an attempt to challenge the existing leadership represented by Lista
Celeste (sky-blue, as in the Argentine flag). Bloque Sindical de Base had previously
supported Lista Multicolor, a union front of various Trotskyist political parties.
Bloque Sindical de Base arose in a context in which La Multicolor was in the leadership.
During this time, from about 2003 to 2009, this leadership would hold periodic delegates'
meetings but prioritized the assembly method. These assemblies, however, were very often
dominated and manipulated by the party militants in the union leadership, who used their
positions to impose their party's political line on the union. The strategic and political
line of the workers' organisation thus did not emerge organically from the rank-and-file
through open debate, as the militants that formed Bloque Sindical de Base think it should,
but was imposed from above, from the central structures of the political parties down to
the union's rank-and-file through their union front.
This was seen by Bloque Sindical de Base as a weakness in the union because it would
strengthen the influence of the political parties involved, as opposed to increasing the
participation of rank-and-file members and strengthening the union. When union members
realized the assemblies were being used more for discussions about how the parties would
position themselves than about doing union business, they got frustrated and began
distancing themselves from the union. As workers drifted and disappeared, the union
leadership, instead of addressing their concerns, senselessly responded by trying to
recruit them into the very parties responsible for their disillusionment - increasing the
distance. Refusing to concentrate on increasing the participation of the rank-and-file,
the leadership prioritized imposing the front's political line on the union branches -
despite warnings from the Bloque Sindical de Base that this path would result in their
loss of the union.
In the 2009 union elections, the pro-government bureaucratic bloc represented by Lista
Celeste was able to take over the union from the Trotskyist front. Following the takeover,
between 2009 to 2013, no initiatives were put in place to unite the Trotskyist front with
other anti-bureaucratic elements, and so Bloque Sindical de Base decided to present
themselves as candidates for the leadership of the General Sarmiento branch in the 2013
elections.
Today, they are the strongest and most developed force in opposition to the union
bureaucracy. Lista Bordó came second in the branch elections, after the Lista Celeste
bureaucracy (which remains in office), followed by Lista Multicolor in third place.
Although the front representing the Trotskyist parties won more votes, it should be noted
that it is a front formed by five different blocs, each representing a different party,
and essentially formed by five different candidature lists. Lista Bordó won more votes
than any one of the five Trotskyist groups on its own and, importantly, has gained a much
stronger presence in the assemblies.
Its focus on increasing rank-and-file participation is notable: every time the union
bureaucracy calls an assembly - a practice often not driven by any democratic commitments
or allegiance to the assembly method, but rather as a mechanism for rubber stamping its
decisions in compliance with constitutional statues - Bloque Sindical de Base militants go
from school to school (workplace to workplace) encouraging workers' attendance and
facilitating participation. They are now the majority force in opposition to the incumbent
bureaucracy in their branch and this process has brought them to the point where the front
of workers' parties has recognized them as a legitimate and popular force. To the extent
that, after the 2013 elections, they expressed interest in forming a larger
anti-bureaucratic front with Bloque Sindical de Base - whatever the motivation might have
been.
However, what Bloque Sindical de Base argues and organises for as an anti-bureaucratic
group is that the union be driven from below, by the workers. The political line and
direction of the organisation, in this view, should be developed by the workers
themselves, through open and democratic dialogue and debate involving a plurality of
positions and ideologies; rather than being imposed by external political structures. It
struggles for the union to maintain the assembly method: that decisions in the unions be
made through general assemblies with the participation of the highest number of workers
possible. It also underscores the importance of a pro-active approach, where unions go to
the workplace, in this case the schools, where workers face daily problems. This is a very
different approach to current practices, whereby workers that are experiencing problems
have to find time outside of working hours to go to the union structure - which often
doesn't respond to their grievances anyway, because of the bureaucracy's focus on looking
after its own interests. It also argues for a rotation of posts in the union: if tasks and
responsibilities are not shared by everyone it is very easy for a layer of bureaucrats to
emerge and entrench itself, as has happened to the CTA since it split from the CGT.
In addition, they demand better conditions not just for themselves as workers, but also
conditions that are more conducive to a healthy learning environment for the learners.
(This partly relates to the nature of the industry, which is located at schools with
children as opposed, say, to on a production line.) When education workers struggle in
Argentina the media usually presents their struggle as being only about the wage question;
in reality it is about both the question of wages and working conditions and, importantly,
the pedagogic question - because, as public school educators, they work with the sons and
daughters of the Argentine working class which includes the next generation of education
workers. As an example, at the beginning of 2014, teachers went on a 17-day strike, not
only over higher wages but also over the state of school infrastructure and in pursuit of
an increase in the government's education budget. This strike mobilized a lot of teachers,
including those that were not necessarily political but critical of the union bureaucracy.
Building on that momentum, the following school term started with a two-day strike in
response to non-payment of wages, and because the increases acceded to by the government
at the beginning of the year were consumed by inflation.
A challenge Bloque Sindical de Base faces in organising education workers is that teachers
often tend to regard themselves as professionals or state functionaries - as opposed to
workers. This can of course impede unity and the attainment of higher union density.
Members of Bloque Sindical de Base recognize themselves as workers due to the condition of
being salaried - which puts them on the same side as the rest of the working class in
Argentina - and try to convince their colleagues of the same.
Another challenge is that by virtue of being workers employed at public schools an
education worker's boss, their employer, is the national or provincial government. This
adds yet another limitation to the bargaining councils,[8] which are supposedly to mediate
between the workers - represented by the unions - the state ministry and the boss. In this
case the Ministry of Labour and the boss are part of the same government as state mediator
and employer respectively. Obviously, the Ministry of Labour will rule in favour of that
which represents their own class interests, which coincide with those of provincial and
national government, instead of those of the workers. In this way education workers are
always disadvantaged in annual wage negotiations in Argentina because they are faced with
the Ministry of Labour as the government representative, on the one hand, and the
government as the employer on the other. One should also bear in mind that the union
leadership is oficialista, or pro-K (it supports the current administration), meaning that
they always seek solutions that represent their own class and political interests and act
in defence of government policy; leaving workers out in the cold, forced to accept
whatever they are offered when possibilities of intensifying or prolonging the struggle
don't exist.
As far as education worker unions go we can say, then, that the anti-bureaucratic struggle
inside SUTEBA is divided into two main fronts: between, on the one hand, the front
represented in union elections by Lista Multicolor, which represents different education
worker groups that fall under the structures of various left-wing political parties (the
dominant ones being Partido Obrero, Partido de los Trabajadores Socialistas[Socialist
Workers' Party, PTS] and Izquierda Socialista); and on the other hand by Encuentro
Colectivo Docente, a collective of SUTEBA groups that are anti-bureaucratic and
class-struggle oriented but that are independent and don't fall under the structures and
control of any political parties. Lista Bordó/ Bloque Sindical de Base is part of this space.
There are about 15 groups in Encuentro Colectivo Docente, each pertaining to a different
SUTEBA branch, or seccional, in the Province of Buenos Aires. In some cases, such as in
the Bahía Blanca branch, rank-and-file workers from Encuentro Colectivo have been in the
leadership of their branch for ten years already. In the December 2013 SUTEBA elections,
Encuentro Colectivo also regained some old branches as well as beating the oficialista
union bureaucracy and winning nine new branches. There are of course a lot more branches
in the Province of Buenos Aires, but there have never before been so many branches that
are organised on an independent rank-and-file and anti-bureaucratic standing. Militants
from Encuentro Colectivo are present in the majority of branches with an anti-bureaucratic
or non-Peronist/oficialista leadership.
In this process of anti-bureaucratic struggle and democratisation, everything indicates
that more anti-bureaucratic fronts are starting to be formed. Because 2013 was a year of
union elections, it was a year of intense struggle for Bloque Sindical de Base, which had
to organise against the Lista Celeste bureaucracy and the Lista Multicolor opposition.
Bloque Sindical de Base has declared itself decidedly against the bureaucracy but is also
open about its political differences with the Trotskyist anti-bureaucratic front - a
tricky task considering that around the time of the elections they come under attack from
all sides, both by the bureaucracy and the Trotskyist opposition. However, after the last
elections, in 2013, the socialist opposition recognized Bloque Sindical de Base as a
legitimate popular force; this could give way to a process of uniting the two to form a
broader anti-bureaucratic and class struggle front in order to more effectively challenge
the trade union bureaucracy.
This, of course, would present new challenges. Bloque Sindical de Base shares its
anti-bureaucratic stance with the predominantly Trotskyist front, but it is also against
the direction of the union being decided through party political structures outside the
union. Something the Trotskyist front has done in the past and would surely try to do
again. While Bloque Sindical de Base may work with this front in a tactical alliance in
order to decisively oust the Peronist bureaucracy, it would have to wage an ideological
battle against it soon thereafter were they to succeed.
However, such an alliance might not be necessary if Bloque Sindical de Base can continue
mobilizing rank-and-file members to put themselves forward as politically independent
candidates for the leadership of their branches and convince other education workers to
vote for them rather than the party-affiliated candidates.
Organising beyond the Confines of Union Bureaucracy
Not only is Bloque Sindical de Base interesting because of the struggle it is waging to
democratize the union from below; it is also organising outside the union and reaching out
to students, precarious contract education workers[9] and workers from other sectors.
The group produces a newsletter, called La Boya (The Buoy), that critiques the clientelism
and corruption of the union bureaucracy and provides commentary and analysis on various
issues. It organises cultural evenings with live music and poetry and it organises public
monthly trade union education meetings under the name Catedra Libre Agustin Tosco (Agustin
Tosco Open Lecture),[10] in order to reach out to and establish contacts with other
teachers and workers from other sectors. Bloque Sindical de Base militants are sometimes
also involved in supporting activities of territorial (community-based) and piquetero
(unemployed) movements such as Federación de Organisaciones de Base (Federation of
Base/Grassroots Organisations, FOB)[11] and participate in the annual Encuentro Social
Desde Abajo y por Fuera del Estado gathering of class struggle organisations (Social
Encounter from Below and Outside the State).
Towards an Independent and Anti-Bureaucratic Rank-and-File Movement
Despite many heroic and hugely significant, even revolutionary, episodes of militant
workers' struggle, self-organisation and rank-and-file union democracy the history of the
Argentine workers' movement since the end of the 'glorious period' of anarchism and
syndicalism, in the 1930s, and the rise of corporatism and Peronism has been marked - like
workers' movements elsewhere - both by bureaucratisation, party- and power-mongering and
conflicting class interests as well as some notable attempts to overcome or break with
these characteristics in the interests of advancing worker organisation and struggle.
In the years since the decline of anarchist and revolutionary syndicalism, two significant
attempts have been made in Argentina to organise workers on more democratic class struggle
lines in response to practices of political patronage and the manipulation, by governments
and parties, of workers and their primary organisation - the CGT - in the struggle for power.
Both the CGTA and, later, the CTA splits from the CGT are examples of such attempts to
break away from the corporatist harnessing - both fascist/nationalist and Peronist - and
political domination of the unions and establish a more left-wing, independent and, for
militants such as Agustín Tosco, anti-bureaucratic and rank-and-file workers' movement in
Argentina.
Both attempts, however, failed to do so.
A large part of the CGTA was reincorporated back into the Peronist CGT from which it had
split with the formation of the Peronist "62 Organisations" political front - partly
owing, tellingly, to a betrayal on the part of some of its leaders - who put their
political interests ahead of those of the workers. The section that remained outside soon
disappeared; those that re-entered the CGT, while maintaining an anti-bureaucratic and
non-collaborationist position, were heavily suppressed.
The CTA, on the other hand, despite remaining outside of the CGT - and somewhat more
politically independent - and maintaining a formal commitment to union democracy and the
assembly method, has proven unable to escape the centralist and bureaucratic logic both of
the parties that have fought for the dominance thereof and of its origin in the CGT, and
is beset by the same bureaucratisation and political contest that plague the CGT.
An important lesson lies in the failures of both the CGTA and the CTA to build a more
participatory and democratic workers' movement - a lesson from which Bloque Sindical de
Base appears to have learnt.
Both the CGTA and the CTA breakaways from the CGT were conceived and engineered by a
relatively small number of union leaders who were opposed to the political direction and
leadership of the CGT and rallied the support of sections of the rank-and-file around an
alternative vision of a more democratic and independent union that would supposedly defend
and advance workers' interests free from bureaucratic and corporatist fetters.
Regardless of how well-intentioned these initiatives may have been, however, the reasons
for their failure are multiple. Not least of which has to do, obviously for some, with the
statist and vanguardist logic of some of those responsible for setting up the dual unions
in the first place - which led to them merely replicating the structures and practices
from which they were trying to escape; the centralisation necessitated by political
interests distinct to those of the class also facilitated the emergence of a bureaucratic
elite who subsequently developed distinct economic interests as well.
Another reason is the fact that organisational cultures and the practices of working class
militancy do not change either over night or by decree. The level of participation of an
ordinary worker - one who has neither undergone political or organisational training nor
gained leadership experience through struggle - depends on their confidence: regarding
their participation, their understanding of the functions, procedures and objectives of
the organisation, and their ability to fulfil tasks given to them. This confidence, and
the practical ability to perform organising and union functions it enables, is often
developed over years of militancy and handed down from one generation of workers to
another. That is to say, the level of participation of the rank-and-file majority in a
union is often established over years of the union's existence. It is both internalized by
workers, and institutionalized in the practice of the union. If the majority of workers
have internalized their role, perhaps due to lack of confidence, experience or
opportunity, as being one of low-level engagement and participation (where the most
important functions and decisions are left to a layer of leaders or bureaucrats), then
they will likely carry that behaviour through into other unions they might in future join
or play a part in forming.
Even if they disagree with the centralisation of decision-making and work, without
accessing the space to gain their own experience in these roles, this practice (or lack
thereof) will carry through into new experiences - including into initiatives started to
redress this problem in the first place.
What the Argentine experience shows is that irrespective of how many splinter-unions and
break-aways are formed, if these are not preceded by a deliberate program of political
education, organisational training and sustained effort to increase rank-and-file worker
participation and militancy in every aspect of union life, by building workers' capacity
and self-confidence to do so, then the leading militants that drive these moves - whether
they set out to do so or not - will often reproduce old hierarchies and patterns by taking
upon themselves the most crucial roles in decision-making and task implementation. In the
process, they begin to constitute a new bureaucratic or technocratic elite, removed from
the rank-and-file, that 'represents' workers and runs the union on their behalf rather
than contributing towards building a new non-bureaucratic and worker-controlled union.
Rather than being taken either by a 'politically enlightened' or 'revolutionary' vanguard
(whether they claim the title or not) or layer of militants, the decision to break away
and establish a dual union should come as a result of anti-bureaucratic and class struggle
self-organisation and pressure from below and should come as a last resort when other
attempts to dislodge the bureaucracy, democratize the union and stimulate worker
self-activity and control have been tried and failed; and if there is reason to believe
that, if done strategically with adequate preparation and at an opportune moment,
significantly large sections of the rank-and-file would support the initiative and jump
ship for the new union. Essentially leaving nothing of the old union but a bureaucratic shell.
This, again, should be seen as a last resort because as long as workers think the existing
unions offer even the slightest defence of their interests, however modest, and don't see
a viable alternative that they are confident could offer them the same or more protection
the vast majority of workers will remain in even the most bureaucratic and corrupt
sweetheart unions and will not risk abandoning the devil they know for the one they don't.
Therefore, any attempt to form a dual union without adequate preparation and impetus from
the base will, in all probability, fall flat on its face or, at best, succeed in
establishing a perhaps qualitatively better union; but one quantitatively insignificant
and marginal in the eyes of the majority of workers.
In contrast, rather than engineering a split from the CTA - which is in turn a split from
the CGT - and thus further fracturing the workers' movement, Bloque Sindical de Base opted
instead to try and challenge the political and organisational culture of the union from
within. This is because they believe that, rather than abandoning the fate of the majority
of workers to the bureaucrats' will by breaking away to form a minority splinter union,
the union itself is something that can - and should - be contested and, ideally, brought
under worker control by democratizing it from below and driving the bureaucracy out.
It is important to note here, however, that Bloque Sindical de Base does not aim to seize
control of the union from within, but rather to encourage workers to become the
protagonists of their own union both by contesting the leadership thereof independent of
political parties and organising independently of the bureaucracy.
No one can predict the outcomes of their struggle for democratisation from below against
the union bureaucracy. Perhaps they will succeed, fully or partially, by bringing
increasingly more branches of the union under democratic control. In this case, workers
may be left to forge the direction of their union and struggles in a directly democratic
way through the assemblies, without allowing political parties to impose themselves on the
union by transmitting their political line through party representatives. On the other
hand, there is a real danger that if the democratic practices promoted by Bloque Sindical
de Base become a threat, the authoritarian and statist elements - socialists and Peronists
alike - will close rank and attempt to drive them out of the union altogether.
In this case, perhaps they will admit defeat and attempt to form a dual union, taking as
many of their fellow workers as they can with them. This would be regrettable in that it
would fracture the organisation of education workers - unless they succeed in taking the
vast majority of workers with them. But this would largely depend on their success at
mobilizing workers in the present to fight the bureaucracy. However, while it might
ultimately prove necessary to break away to form another union it is important first to
contest the organisational and political space within the existing unions and, in so
doing, prepare the rank-and-file and accustom them to direct worker participation and
self-activity instead of a radical or revolutionary minority initiating a breakaway
without first preparing the conditions and capacity for worker control through
self-organisation and struggle.
Ultimately, first prize would be to completely discredit and drive out the incumbent
bureaucracy and defeat any attempts by authoritarians, opportunists and centralists alike
to take over and maintain the centralisation of the union apparatus by putting workers
forward as independent rank-and-file candidates in union elections and encouraging them to
do so themselves, as well as both by stressing - as did Tosco - the primacy of the
assemblies as the highest un-replaceable bodies of the unions and by encouraging the
self-organisation and activity of workers in struggle both beyond questions of wages and
the confines of the union apparatus.
However, this is all up for speculation as it is unlikely that either of these scenarios
will play themselves out any time soon. What is important, rather, from the point of view
of building a rank-and-file movement is not so much whether they succeed to democratize
the entire union and drive out the bureaucrats, or whether they are expelled before then.
Rather, it is the process and initiative itself: of struggling against the bureaucracy; of
ordinary rank-and-file workers gaining experience; in workers participating more in the
daily life of their union in the here and now, that is the lesson to be taken away from
the Bloque Sindical de Base experience.
After all, it is a truism that the best arena for the formation of militants and the
development of self-activity is in struggle, where workers are more likely to come
together to discuss their problems and plan responses. Struggle is also precisely what
corporatist bureaucratisation of the trade unions is in place to contain; and so the
struggle against union bureaucracy is a legitimate class battlefront in the process of
forming militants and encouraging self-activity as it is through such struggle that
workers can be accustomed to taking on a more active role in the union and through which
the antagonistic class interests that exist in the union can be polarized. It is precisely
the experience and the accompanying rise in worker consciousness and confidence gained in
this battle that will determine future outcomes - and this is where the Bloque Sindical de
Base experience is at its richest.
Moreover, in so doing, and by reaching out to and linking up with other (emerging)
rank-and-file and anti-bureaucratic groups, resistance societies (such as the FORA),
likeminded individuals from different branches of SUTEBA and different unions within the
CTA - and even the CGT - across sectors and including so-called casual or fixed-term
contract workers Bloque Sindical de Base, Encuentro Colectivo Docente and similar
initiatives would already be constituting the beginnings of an anti-bureaucratic and
rank-and-file current within the unions and workers' movement more broadly. This could
serve to stimulate anti-bureaucratic militancy, worker self-organisation and activity,
develop and coordinate common rank-and-file campaigns and activities and support the
fostering of an independent rank-and-file consciousness and movement for workers control
across regions, sectors and unions; across all spheres of worker resistance and uniting in
common cause as many independent, anti-bureaucratic, revolutionary and rank-and-file
workers' organisations and initiatives as possible.
Indeed, it is through modest but principled and non-sectarian initiatives such as Bloque
Sindical de Base, in concert with other rank-and-file and anti-bureaucratic initiatives,
that the seeds of a rank-and-file movement could take root.
Notes:
http://zabalaza.net/2010/11/28/trade-unions-and-revolution-zacf/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justicialist_Party
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordobazo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirchnerism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montoneros
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacuara_Nationalist_Movement
As a result of the corporatism of Peronism only the CGT has full union status and the
accompanying rights to participate in planning institutions, intervene in collective
labour negotiations, monitor compliance with labour law and social security, work with the
State in the study and solution of workers' problems etc. Full union status is one of the
historic demands of the CTA, which currently only has union recognition, which grants the
CTA less extensive rights and is generally seen as a first step to gaining full union status.
Contracted and precarious labour is also a feature of the teaching and education sector in
Argentina, reflected in the Kirchnerist government's new education finance plans such as
the FINES Plan (Secondary Studies Finance Plan). FINES is promoted as a program to help
young adults who dropped out of school to complete their secondary studies, in two years
instead of four, but with reduced content and no recognition of labour rights for
education workers. For teachers this is a neoliberal attack - an attempt to undermine and,
eventually do away with the program of adult nights schools that has been in place in
Argentina for years. FINES undermines organised labour and workers' rights by promoting
the flexibilisation of labour whereby the tutors - that spend no more than two hours with
a student a week - are contracted for periods of four months, thus lacking job stability
and receiving only a basic salary with no benefits. Moreover, as with all other social
assistance programs in Argentina, access to them - in this case to tutors' contracts - are
awarded not according to need or merit but according to a system of political patronage
and clientelism. It also encourages high school students to drop out of school because
they feel that they can get the same qualification in half the time. In reality it is a
far inferior education: no standards govern the program, no external or independent
evaluations exist, and tutors can thus pass and fail students at a whim. It is a policy
that enshrines precarious education for poor students, and precarious work for education
workers; it is in this context that militants from Bloque Sindical de Base are linking up
with contract tutor-teachers and high school students struggling around the learning and
teaching conditions associated with FINES.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agustín_Tosco
http://prensafob.blogspot.com/
See also (in Spanish):
Bloque Sindical de Base Blogspot:http://bloquesindicaldebase.blogspot.com
Declaración del Bloque Sindical de Base:http://www.anarkismo.net/article/26868
Jonathan Payn is a researcher-educator at the International Labour Research and
Information Group (ILRIG).
www.ilrig.org
Text from: Recomposition: Notes for a New Workerism
http://zabalazabooks.net/2015/06/20/beating-back-the-bureaucrats/
