A presentation by Derek Keenan as part of a discussion on political language in unions at #ISS15

1. Syndicalism?

2. Revolutionary Syndicalism
Yesterday and Today
• Defining syndicalism
• Syndicalism as historical phenomenon
• Syndicalism as contemporary organising
model

3. Defining characteristics of Syndicalism
Centrality of class conflict
The emancipation of the working class is the
task of the working class alone
Direct action as the key tool
Distrust/opposition to statism
Autonomy of action by workers
The union as the vehicle of revolutionary
transformation

4. The syndicalist vision
Worker and community (generalised) self-
management of the workplace and society
Directly democratic structures of administration
Abolition of wage labour
Transformation of social relations

5. Syndicalism and Socialism
Democratic
Libertarian
Revolutionary

6. The ‘golden age’ of syndicalism

7. Syndicalism vs Feminism?
Oppositional masculinism (Shor, 1997)
Invisible women of the syndicalist movement
Reality of women syndicalists.

8. Syndicalist women organising
• Federación Obrera Local
• Federación Obrera Femenina – FOF
• Organising Cooks working in households; laundry; dairy; flower and other
street vendors
• 5 Hour Day for cooks; public child care centres; freedom of expression and
recognition of the domestic and retail sectors as public service
• FOL organised both established industrial workers and self-employed and
‘precarious’

9. The fundamental difference between
Syndicalism and the old trade union methods
is this: while the old trade unions, without
exception, move within the wage system and
capitalism, recognizing the latter as inevitable,
Syndicalism repudiates and condemns present
industrial arrangements as unjust and criminal,
and holds out no hope to the worker for lasting
results from this system.
Emma Goldman Syndicalism: The Modern
Menace to Capitalism (1913)
Syndicalism and Feminism

10. Let’s treat women’s unions not as something trivial,
but as a part of the general movement. It would be
ridiculous to think that a movement with such goals
as the syndicalist movement’s could ever reach those
without the practical help of the women.
Milly Witkop –Rocker
Der Frauen-Bund (Syndicalistische Frauenbund)
(1925)
Syndicalist Feminism

11. The struggle for the consistency of
means and ends
Critique of hierarchies
Valuing of organisation, spontaneity
and autonomy
Syndicalism and Feminism

12. International Workers Association
Berlin 1923
Delegates from 10 countries representing about 2 million
organized workers

13. The ‘end’ of syndicalism
• World War 1 – collapse of international
socialism
• State Repression
• Russian revolution/End of the revolutionary
wave
• Fascism
• Post-45 Class ‘Peace’

14. Re-emergence of syndicalism
International Workers Association
ASOCIACIÓN INTERNACIONAL DE LOS TRABAJADORES (IWA-AIT)

15. Red and Black Co-ordination

16. European Network of Alternative
Unionism

17. 21st Century Syndicalism
• Organising the unorganised, the abandoned and
betrayed (IWW slogan)
• Precarious workers, informal workers, workfare
workers and the unemployed
• Union as associational body rather than
representative (Solidarity Unionism)
• Horizontal organisation
• Intersectional
• Direct Action