I would caution against abandoning reactionary unions just as Lenin urged communists to engage with them just over a century ago. Many have emerging reform movements and we need to be able to provide political leadership to them which necessitates a degree of trust and organization.
I don't want to be dogmatic, but it will be at least a few more years before we can outright abandon these unions and call for an independent alternative. If TDU successfully leads a Teamsters strike this year (which, for the record, I'm not optimistic they will) that will completely uproot the idea of reactionary unions being unfixable. If we continue to see existing unions shoot themselves in the foot though it will probably be their death (at least as a viable place of struggle, if not literally).
this is the correct take. the class struggle within the unions themselves are unclear to most people and while trade union opposition and the formation of class struggle unions are historically avenues of struggle that communists have undertaken. it won't be until class struggle unionism is an emergent and apparent contradiction that "trade unionism" as Lenin put it needs to be addressed
Most definitely there is work that can be done within unions, we should be wherever the class struggle manifests itself. I was more cautioning against the tendency I’ve seen online and irl for some comrades to valorise unionism, thinking that forming a militant minority and attempting a hostile takeover of a union totally in thrall to a bourgeois political party is a worthy project to pour all your energy and resources into.
It’s the same as bourgeois parliament, there’s certain strategic reasons that make it a useful place to do some entryism under certain conditions, but shouldn’t be the be all and end all of our movement.
I would caution against abandoning reactionary unions just as Lenin urged communists to engage with them just over a century ago. Many have emerging reform movements and we need to be able to provide political leadership to them which necessitates a degree of trust and organization.
I don't want to be dogmatic, but it will be at least a few more years before we can outright abandon these unions and call for an independent alternative. If TDU successfully leads a Teamsters strike this year (which, for the record, I'm not optimistic they will) that will completely uproot the idea of reactionary unions being unfixable. If we continue to see existing unions shoot themselves in the foot though it will probably be their death (at least as a viable place of struggle, if not literally).
this is the correct take. the class struggle within the unions themselves are unclear to most people and while trade union opposition and the formation of class struggle unions are historically avenues of struggle that communists have undertaken. it won't be until class struggle unionism is an emergent and apparent contradiction that "trade unionism" as Lenin put it needs to be addressed
Most definitely there is work that can be done within unions, we should be wherever the class struggle manifests itself. I was more cautioning against the tendency I’ve seen online and irl for some comrades to valorise unionism, thinking that forming a militant minority and attempting a hostile takeover of a union totally in thrall to a bourgeois political party is a worthy project to pour all your energy and resources into.
It’s the same as bourgeois parliament, there’s certain strategic reasons that make it a useful place to do some entryism under certain conditions, but shouldn’t be the be all and end all of our movement.