Some Things I've Learned Since Becoming A Union Organizer PT. 1
I haven't written too much about my new job as an SEIU organizer, simply because when you're learning new skills, it's hard to tell when you actually start to "figure things out." Through your whole life, you either think you know everything, or you know you'll never know everything, but that you'll learn some things by challenging your assumptions. This shouldn't exclude one's need to theorize, but theory is often based on a synthesis of experience and challenges of your assumptions. So after 3 months of organizing hospital workers, I haven't even touched the full experience I'll gather over the years as a labor organizer, and I don't want to pretend to know a lot about organizing, but some of the most basic principles I thought were important to hold onto as an anarchist for the last 7 years have been shattered. Here's the first of the few...


part one...
"DEMOCRACY" AIN'T SO SIMPLE

Democracy is a loaded word, it carries many meanings for many people, and it inspires different images in different people's heads. It could be a principal in how to make decisions on the basic level, or it could mean the system of political "representation" in bourgeois society. For some it means freedom, for others, it means imperialism. Many see democracy as a driving force in how they view their place in history, while others cynically reject it as a hypocritical shell of an idea that is used by the powerful to create facades of "choice."

As an anarchist, I have always rejected bourgeois, representative democracy in the political sense, but I've upheld the value of grassroots decision-making quite passionately as a model of a new society that would be just and equalitarian. One of the biggest itches I haven't been able to scratch about "democracy," and the problem I've encountered a lot as a union organizer, is that democracy as a form of decision-making doesn't neccesarily mean that justice will prevail in any given circumstance. The reason being is that PEOPLE CAN DEMOCRACTICALLY DECIDE TO DO UNJUST THINGS, either to someone else, or even to themselves. Even when building a strategy to win power for workers in the workplace, if there isn't a PLAN that works, one that will actually challenge the power of a boss, or has the potential to flourish into a movement that carries weight for other workers, than democracy is a joke there. People can decide democratically to work against unionizing, to not give a shit at all, or even do stupid things that trip up or even drag down a campaign that otherwise would have a chance to win. Organizing a union is a complex thing, because in America, where "democracy" supposedly flourishes, we are flooded with assumptions from the day we are born about WHAT TO EXPECT in life. When it comes to work, we are to expect what we are told to expect, and we can democratically expect low expectations, we can democratically let our fear of confrontation overcome our desire to better our conditions, and we can democratically decide that organizing a union to challenge the power of the boss is NOT in our interest. What use is "democracy" then?

As an anarchist that has organized within and alongside the anarchist milieu for more than a few years, I've seen anarchists romanticize "democracy" as the ultimate idea, the chance to have EVERYONE make collective consensual decisions. The problem with this basic formula, is that we don't live in a vaccuum, and that we are influenced by the daily struggles we face, and by the IDEAS we want to project. We only use democracy as a structure for individuals to place these ideas on the table, and decide on how to act on them. Another problem with democracy is that not everyone sitting at the table starts out at equal power. Some have more influence over others because they have access to resources, they're well-connected, they have cred, they're louder, they're a certain race or gender, they're "hotter" than others, whatever. The point is, building a classless society is what's MOST important. We can democratically decide to carry out the goal of an equalitarian and classless society or we can allow liberal ideas such as "democracy" hold more weight while the bosses laugh as we bicker with one another over the details of how to carry out action.

If a whole bunch of folks come up with a horrible plan of action, and they do so democratically, how is that different than one person with a horrible plan deciding things for others? If we don't win, who cares HOW we don't win, we simply need to come up with a better plan. Now if someone comes up with a whole bunch of good plans that continue to work consistantly, and that person wants to head the plans for the future, the only reason I wouldn't want that person to AUTHORATATIVELY design a strategy, is if the plan included that person acheiving personal power to exploit others for their own gain. I'd much rather have an experienced organizer run an organization top-down with brilliant plans that unselfishly help build other people's power, than have a whole bunch of people argue with each other over what a plan might look like, simply because democracy is more important then the plan itself.

In SEIU, there are no perfect plans, and the union isn't the one path to revolution, but in the local I work for, it is run by class war feminist women who have ran many strikes and winning campaigns over decades, and have fought to empower thousands and thousands of people. Too me this carries more revolutionary potential than anything I've encountered in my life, yet, I am unable to challenge the power of their decision-making. As an anarchist, does this go against my principles? For a long time I would've thought so. But I've had to rechallenge myself again - what's more important to me? Is it carrying out a plan that was decided upon undemocratically, a plan that organizes workers to build the kind of shop floor power where they can make democratic decisions themselves? Or is the concept of democracy itself that trumps all else, and plans that are made undemocratically should be rejected, simply because this an authoritarian principle?

After seeing the result of these plans that some (myself included for some time in the past) would simply label "leninist," or reformist, or authoritarian, I've decided that workers being able to fight their bosses and gain power is much more important to me. That little part in the "anarchist me" that screams out to be "against all authority," is becoming more and more equated with the shit about anarchists I can't stand, like "fuck shit up," and "anarchy, dude" and other individualist attitudes that encompass the anarchist movement.

This brings us back to what about authoritarian decision-making should anarchists be against? Should everything be decided upon in our social movements in a collective manner? I've seen people come to consensus and build beautiful actions and organizations, and I've seen people do stupid stupid stupid things through consensus, and even through a majority. I've seen people lead organizations top-down and make decisions all by themselves, and carry out ruthless fucked up plans, while sometimes they can carry out wonderful advancements for many. Are the concepts of democracy and authority so simple? Simple as most anarchists make the ideas out to be? Or are they filled with complex contradictions, filled with internal struggles and values?

I'd like to propose that in some organizations, the power of the membership of the organization could carry out certain structures of decision-making, while certain people can be mandated to carry out specific plans of action that are entrusted to make sense. The thing is, I can't propose this, because it already exists. I work in an organization like this one. The workers run this local. They WANT the director to come up with the strategy. I like the fact that I don't have a say. I don't want to fix something that not only isn't broke, but is a strategy that has been developed over decades of organizing experience. Experience That I can't even fathom.

I've talked a lot of shit about "capitalist unions" and "business unionism," and "union bosses," and whatever over the years, only because it goes with the culture and propaganda of the current anarchist scene. It's understandably so to a certain extent, BECAUSE the labor movement in the U.S. has a mainstream history of social exclusion, elitism, capitalist industrial peace, and passivity, corruption, and selling out. There are exceptions to this rule, as there are parrellel labor movements to the mainstream one, as well as internal struggles for justice and power for workers within the corrupt movements. Anarchist critique of the mainstream labor movement is generally filled with rejection of all movements that aren't based solely in syndicalism, direct-action, shopfloor decision-making only, sabotage, wildcatting, etc. The problem is that within the old guard laboer movement, there has been a breaking out of a new guard, with several currents within the new movements that include industry-wide responses to neoliberal capitalism, and plans on carrying out new organizing campaigns to fight the bosses. These plans aren't perfect, but the labor movement, like all struggles, isn't a binary system of right and wrong, top-down or bottom-up, grassroots or internationally run, it's a system of vying power struggles within it that offer opportunities to further the goal to a classless society. As revolutionaries, I believe it's our duty to recognize these opportunities, and apply the pressures through pragmatic and unassumptive means to move these pieces of iunstitutions closer to our libertarian communist goals.

There are no perfect programs, whether democratic or not, there are only opportunites to move ANY kind of great programs to empower the most people to own their own power.