Socialists And Unions: Why You Should Join, What You Should Do!

The number of union members in Ireland has declined from a union density high of 63% in the 1970’s to roughly 22% of workers in unions today. The majority of union members today are concentrated in public sector jobs and with 4 decades of attacks by government after government on the rights of unions the law is not on our side.

The fight is not an easy fight and with worker’s struggle currently at a low ebb it might be tempting to withdraw from union activism either seeing it as a dead end or to concentrate on other areas of activism where easy recruits can be made. This is a mistake. Union work should be constant.

Leading up to May Day, International Worker’s Day, it is useful to look back at working class history and especially to the Russian revolutionary Lenin’s 1920 pamphlet “Left-wing communism, an infantile disorder” where he argued strongly against withdrawing from union activism.

Trade Unions are at the centre of class struggle:

In Ireland the union leadership have historically paralysed workers and the wider working class from within. From the TUC refusal to call a general strike in England in solidarity with Dublin workers during the 1913 lockout to Irish unions refusing to support the Limerick Soviet and other workplace occupations in the 1920’s.

From allowing the anti-worker 1990 Industrial Relations act to pass without a fight, to the capitulation during the austerity years, the trade union leadership have always shown that they are bound up with the ruling class against the workers.

With this historical and present context it is understandable when worker socialists and Marxists in general justs opt out of union activism saying it is a waste of time and impossible to work against the union bureaucracy and the conservative leadership.

But Lenin argued in his pamphlet that it is the duty of all Marxists to not only join their union, but to fight from within the unions against the bureaucratic and reformist tendencies, to fight for the leadership of the mass of workers.

Lenin believed it was unacceptable to refuse to fight within the unions because this means leaving “…masses of workers under the influence of the reactionary leaders, the agents of the bourgeoisie, the labour aristocrats or workers who have become completely bourgeois.”

Refusing to fight within the largest unions in Ireland is leaving the approx. 461,000 workers completely under the influence of our reactionary leaders!

Lenin called for activists to systematically carry out agitation and propaganda within the unions, persistently and patiently. If Marxists are to win over other workers, we cannot “fence ourselves off from them”. Our highly paid union leadership are more than happy for dedicated and class-conscious activists to withdraw from the union structure - it is one less thorn in their side.

If they call for a vote which does a disservice to workers, then it makes their job easier if there is not a loud dissenting voice from within the ranks. The capitalist system is in constant cycles of crisis and the government along with the employers have always used this as cover to attack workers’ pay and terms and conditions.

Despite record profits over the last few years companies have been using international crises as an excuse to suppress pay claims. The Irish media is only too happy to reinforce pro-employer propaganda with the aim of dividing workers and above all they do not want workers to link the greed of the capitalist class in Ireland with the housing crisis or the healthcare crisis.

They do not want workers to realise their power to smash the small elite classes in charge.

We can win over workers:

Trade unions are where most workers gain their first organisational experience and the collective power of using our numbers to affect change in our workplaces and in society. Marxists must work as activists within the unions to push for militant tactics such as strikes and wider solidarity actions.

We must build class consciousness within our workplaces and within the unions by linking economic struggles to the need for a political revolution. We must challenge the bureaucratic control of unions and use the unions to expose the leadership for the frauds they are - the Irish union leadership are collaborators with the employers and the government and hold back the revolutionary potential of the workers.

Lenin was clear that Marxists must not isolate themselves from workers. They must patiently work within the unions to win over workers who are not politically active or are being won over by right wing arguments which reinforce the status quo. He argued that workers within a reformist and conservative trade union are not a lost cause and that their class consciousness can be “transformed through struggle and education.”

As activists we must join our unions, put ourselves forward for positions of leadership in our workplaces and in the branch structures of the unions. Above all Lenin railed against any leftist who dismisses unions as a waste of time. He was clear – “If you want to help the ‘masses’ and win the sympathy and support of the ‘masses’… you must absolutely work wherever the ‘masses’ are to be found.”

By not joining our workplace unions and getting active we only strengthen the hold of the sellout leadership and allow them to maintain ideological dominance over the Irish working class. We must not denounce workers who have been won over by right wing propaganda but must win them over and expose the limitations of the current worker employer relationship maintained by the union bureaucracy and offer a revolutionary alternative.