DIY union

Do you sometimes feel powerless in the everyday life of your workplace? Especially when your boss has been giving you a hard time again? Is your boss an app and you have no direct superior? There are many examples of things that make us feel powerless and the list is endlessly expandable.

At the same time, when we fight back with our colleagues, we feel a tension and excitement before the action, because it is unusual to fight back openly. Bosses invest a lot of time in thinking about how they can get us to do what they want. At the universities thousands of future bosses are trained for such a thing.

Control techniques in everyday life
On the company side these mechanisms are trivialized as "control techniques" or "management styles". This sounds neutral, but disguises some things. They are techniques of domination. In the campaigns examined here, there is technical help for the bosses: the shift planning software at Starbucks, no guaranteed number of hours at Jimmy John's. Or the yelling at Burgerville, because colleagues didn't prepare the ice cream the way the company wants it standardized. The US is the leading world power at the moment. Therefore many techniques of domination are copied from there and arrive in the German Language Area (and other areas). If we observe the strategies of the fellow workers in the US, we can also use them in our contexts.

Proletarian creativity vs. entrepreneurial control
Even if the bosses want to control our smallest movements of creativity, our feelings, our body: they never succeed completely. That is why they are always thinking up something new. In the hospital these techniques look different from those used in the automotive industry or in construction. However, in all areas the following applies: If we understand which techniques they use, this opens up spaces for our resistance. Sometimes laws help us, but often they stand in our way...

You can find more on the subject of techniques of domination & the current social conditions here.

This is not a coincidence. The great defeats of the left in the 1980s, the end of systemic competition and the beginning of neoliberalism have left their mark. In the 1990s, the working class suffered a number of setbacks for the majority of the class: privatisation of the public service, reduction of collective bargaining coverage and a split of relatively secure core workforces in formerly well-organised large companies. At the same time, working conditions have deteriorated for workers under 50 years of age, especially female colleagues and immigrant workers.

2008/2009 was also the year in which the global economic crisis hit these groups the hardest. Many old wisdoms and world interpretations were shaken. As a result, various leftist movements emerged. Especially in the US and most parts of Western Europe there is a tendency for under-50s and especially milennials to think and vote left-wing. This is especially true for women, who sometimes vote much more left-wing than men in the respective age group. Material interests are a major factor here. We seem to perceive class relations more and more through the medium of "age". The common ground of a young part of the working class in the metropolitan areas is with a part of impoverished pensioners. On the other hand, there is a huge proportion of relatively well-protected men over 50 years of age with private property.

"New class politics?"
In recent years there has been much discussion in the german speaking left about with which part of the class should we organise ourselves with. It is often ignored that the composition of the population is changing. The working class looks different today than it did 50 years ago. Therefore, the confrontation of class vs. gender vs. migration is a cardboard mate. Perhaps it is simply a matter of lines of division within the working class and their respective experiences of struggle. For metropolitan regions in Germany, Austria and Switzerland these changes in class and its conditions of struggle are irretrievably part of it. To close oneself to this circumstance misses the reality. Correspondingly the fighting fields, focuses and methods are changing. Also our abilities as leftists must change.

An illustration of the tendency of the Milennials to use new methods to organize themselves under the precarious conditions, is this study. This does not mean that there can be no links across generations, but it does indicate that the balance of power is changing and must continue to change.

Possible ways of dealing with this situation
See the corresponding book for an analysis of the "Generation Left". A few strategic considerations to overcome the division of our class make some comrades from Plan C in the UK. Also in their podcast.

When we document our experiences here, we are talking about our self-defence, which can only be effective through solidarity. At the same time, we place ourselves in the tradition of the revolutionary working class.

While in capitalism there are those who live from their wealth and we have to live from our wages - the question arises why everything should remain as it is. However, since the global right has been quite successful in many places in the last decades, we are dependent on contributing to a revolutionary movement in which we fight for a world that is organized according to our needs.

For this form of society we also need skills and solidary relationships to realize such a society. For us, this form of emancipatory organization means to form the seed forms of a new society within the shell of the old. In our struggles we are testing solidarity forms of behaviour that help us to learn how to build a culture of support in which everyone can be different without fear. These attempts have to fail under the given social conditions, but not in the long run. We organize ourselves according to our interests as a fighting class and not according to national borders. We don't ask for the permission of existing institutions, but take what we are entitled to. Always in negotiation with our colleagues and based on our idea of solidarity unionism.

More on this later in chapter 3

While in the centres of the global North, trade union power seems to be dwindling, or at least formerly well-organised sectors are losing union organisation, new forms of organisation are developing in other sectors. In the Global South, too, new trade union strength is developing.

Militant Sectors
Sectors such as social and educational services, health care, catering and other services grow in numbers. In these areas either new union strength is developing or old experiences of defeat are being turned into new successes.

World champions in domination techniques
The US, Germany and China are among the world leaders in social division techniques. With many years of experience of divisions by means of technology, wage groups, residence status, gender and origin, claims to power are enforced here in a particularly delicate manner. Previous trade union strategies are being put to the test and it seems to be more and more important that the workforce proceeds strategically and tactically in a planned manner, in order to react to the attacks by bosses.

Experiences of defeat
40 years of neoliberalism, 10 years of austerity and the resulting experience of defeat have, however, left deep social and psychological traces. Especially among long-time activists. Experienced activists become tired or frustrated, younger activists are confronted with great insecurity in their lives, but also with little experience of success. In this documentation we ask ourselves how we can organize ourselves under these conditions and look at the USA, because there the neo-liberal restructuring began a few years earlier. We let you take part in our journey.

It makes a big difference whether we look at the history of the workers' movement from the perspective of organisations or from the perspective of the struggles. Certain sectors and sections of the population are often overrepresented from the perspective of organisations. This is especially true for relatively well-secured core workforces in the car industry or the public sector. White men over 50 years of age are often in decisive positions and often enough have the tendency to exclude female colleagues from negotiations and discussions. If we look at the history of struggles, it is often not this male-dominated skilled worker industrial proletariat that is the most militant part of the class. It is female fellow workers who are excluded from these areas, who have migrated or who have been deliberately pushed aside by men.

Different aspects of left-wing historiography
Against this background, different historical narratives of the last 30 years emerge. These often run along the lines of gender, origin and age. They are based not only on different perspectives, but also on real material conditions. The relatively well-secured core workforces in key industries and the public service are shrinking and with various lazy compromises a division of class along gender, origin and age has deepened. A huge low-wage sector faces relatively well-secured industries. Often in the same company with the same activities.

Changed world situation
These old core industries industries such as the automotive industry, coal and mining industry employ fewer people. So it is no coincidence that growing sectors such as the women-dominated social and educational services, health care and various service sectors even provide a larger share of the labour force. New struggles are also developing in these sectors, sometimes with little previous experience. In this part of the class many female fellow workers are active, those who are immigrants and/or bring their struggle experiences into the country. Historically, this part of the class was the main group of which the IWW consisted.

Learning to win
Since every generation has to learn to fight new and is also confronted with new techniques of domination and challenges, we are looking for ways to successfully build up counter power. Especially as a do-it-yourself union, we continue the long tradition of transnational networking. Thus we can observe how within the IWW in North America and the UK a new generation of activists between 25-35 is trying to regain their union fighting power. In the US the generation change started around 2004, in UK around 2012 and in the German Language Area around 2015.

Search with uncertain results
Many things are untried, many things are unclear, many experiences of defeat have to be dealt with. Many of us lack the imagination and hope for a better future. Of course not everything has to be reinvented, but previous experiences are helpful companions. It is also unclear whether the lines of division according to gender, origin and age can be productively overcome and what the result might look like. We want to share the journey in search of such counter-power with you.

In the Global North or highly industrialised countries, the creation of jobs in the low-wage sector since the 1970s has been directly linked to the dismantling of sectors that are well organised in trade unions. At the moment when de-industrialization and the dismantling of the family breadwinner model made women a larger part of the working population in the capitalist states.

More workers were hired for lower wages and longer hours, which also created a new need for cheap food. Companies saw a new opportunity to make a profit, while investment in other areas declined. The low-wage sector was inflated. The number of fast-food restaurants exploded from 1960 to 1970. McDonald's grew from 710 branches in 1965 to more than 3,000 in 1977.

As a clear sign of its time, McDonald's employed more than twice as many workers in the US steel industry in 1972. Chains like McDonald's are a good example of what is known as system gastronomy. They sell food standardised as a franchise, with a uniform logo, work processes and offers.
Source: Forman, Erik (2014), p. 209