A-Infos (en) Britain, Aanarchist journal Direct Action #40 - National: Are we all proud now?; National Shop Stewards’ Network; No new Trident

Are we all proud now? ---- Everyone here today is here to celebrate his or her 
own sexuality. Being open and proud is what Gay Pride is about, but are we 
really proud of our own sexuality? <image> Queer radicals showing their 
opposition to the people who brought you Section 28 ---- In the last few years 
according to many in the Gay Press we have all become free. The reason being 
that of a little thing called the Pink Pound. The Gay Community now through 
being pumped with cash from Big Business has won its freedom and won the right 
to be treated with respect. Homophobia is a thing of the past, worries about 
coming out at work are a thing of the past and we now live in a society that 
accepts people for their differences and where people are not discriminated against.

The Gay Community and people feeling may have transformed considerably in the 
last few years, but that has very little to do with the Pink Pound. People have 
only ever improved things in society through uniting to fight the problems 
facing them. This is the case with the LGBT community as with any other. Groups 
of people fought for decades to win the rights that we now take for granted. 
Once people started to gain respect, Big Business owners (capitalists) 
everywhere saw a potential market from which they could make a lot of money.

Whether these people are Gay, Straight or Bisexual is irrelevant: capitalists 
will happily exploit anyone for their own gain even if it is someone who has the 
same sexual orientation as them, so much for solidarity. It wasn't long ago that 
the some of these people were promoting homophobia in rags like the Sun or even 
in nice middle class newspapers like the Guardian; attitudes turn on a six pence 
if a buck can be made out of them.

Many of the supposed liberated sectors of the gay community now work up and down 
the country in gay bars on the minimum wage or less if cash in hand, oh the 
freedom. Being out and proud will not mean much if you are working for peanuts 
and being leached over by a domineering boss, this can just as demoralizing as 
being oppressed by homophobic bullying. For decent wages and working conditions, 
employees in gay bars and services will need to unite together and with straight 
workers against their bosses who are happy enough to maintain inequality in 
income and the relationship of order giver and order taker.

Whilst there may now be more Out politicians, business and religious 
leaders...this hasn't led to a more humane society. This pecking order change 
has brought about newer prejudices. Bisexuals and Transsexuals after all aren't 
specifically Gay, where do they fit in with all this?

The 2 biggest problems in our society for people fighting homophobia and 
discrimination generally are 2 things that are rarely mentioned. These 2 things 
are the State (government) and Capitalism (an economy run to make profit for a 
rich minority). Capitalism because it is based on the pursuit of profit and will 
make as much money out of peoples communities as possible, whether that means 
being nice or nasty 2 puffs and dykes depends on what is more profitable at the 
time and whether the system is looking for scapegoats. The other great obstacle 
to the improvement of our lives is the State. The state or government is a 
top-down form of control and built on hierarchy which always leads to the 
domination of one person or a group of people over a majority.

Pride and prejudices: Gays and lesbians have had to fight hard to increase the 
scope of our freedom. It's taken decades of struggle and increasing 
self-confidence to shape our identities and win some measures of equality. 
Capitalist society teaches that things are black and white, that you are part of 
the straight majority (still the preferred option) or a gay minority. However 
the reality of many people's sexuality is that is more fluid than fixed and 
people often experience attraction to people of either sexes at some point. Some 
gay people who have fought to defend their integrity in what has been billed as 
a 'them and us situation' with the rest of society may resent bisexuality as it 
appears to undermine the cohesion of the gay community.

Anarchists believe the only way that people in all areas of life can attain 
freedom and equality is by people actively collaborating to run things 
themselves without the unnecessary funnels of Government and Big Business. These 
two things have always used and abused people and it places people in a very 
vulnerable position to insist that they rely upon them. We say annihilate that 
vulnerability and cut out the middleman and do things yourselves. 
Homo/Bi/Transphobic views and every kind of prejudice must be challenged, it 
wasn't long ago that homophobia was the mainstream, why should any other 
prejudice be so?

We need to see how our experiences link into the need to fight all forms of 
discrimination, we shouldn't let the system divide and rule us. Legal 
protections have been won on the basis of mass campaigning activity but aren't a 
solution in themselves; for example we've had the Sex Discrimination Act and 
Race Relations Act for decades but sexual and racial inequalities are alive and 
kicking. We shouldn't just want equality with straights who are also trapped 
with the narrow and puritanical expectations of how men and women should act, 
but gain powerful allies whilst striving for genuine human liberation - which 
will include a struggle against rigid gender roles, prejudices and wage slavery.

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National Shop Stewards’ Network: Time to organise in the workplace

<image> Postal workers in Manchester at a picketline during a strike in June

In July a number of Solidarity Federation delegates and observers attended the 
launch of the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) in London. The overall 
impression reported back by our members was generally positive, while 
recognising that there may be problems which lurk over the not too distant 
horizon. Certainly the conference was successful in bringing together a good 
number of people who seem to genuinely see the need to concentrate on workplace 
activity and organisation.

SolFed had a visible presence which included a banner, literature stall and 
leaflet which was distributed to all present - see 
www.solfed.org.uk/nssn/pdfs/nssn.pdf for the full text. In the leaflet we argued 
that activists should…

     > Organise not merely on the basis of workplace representatives meeting 
with other representatives outside the workplace but on the basis of involving 
other workers to build effective organisation inside the workplace;

     > Encourage workers to confront basic workplace issues like unpaid 
overtime, health and safety, arbitrary and bullying management - in short, to 
just say "no" to management - which is badly needed in the overwhelming majority 
of workplaces;

     > Organise workplace meetings on such issues where stewards can be mandated 
and held to acccount as workplace delegates allowing negotiation to become 
effective, backed up by organisation and the real prospect of workers taking 
direct action;

     > Make links between different groups of workers, between different 
workplaces in the same industry and between workers in different unions; this 
should include groups and committees in workplaces with agency workers and 
subcontractors and which allow workers in different unions or who are unable to 
openly join a trades union to support, participate in and benefit from workplace 
organisation based on solidarity;

     > Encourage an awareness that by confronting workplace issues we are also 
confronting capitalism from which they arise - in other words, our interests as 
a class cannot be reconciled with those of management;

     > To avoid leaving politics at the workplace door in the same way that the 
existing unions leave political issues to be dealt with by political parties.

Some potential problems

At this stage it is unclear if the NSSN will go much beyond a thin layer of shop 
stewards. Restricting the network to "bona fide rank and file TUC affiliated 
trade union workplace representatives" is clearly meant to put stewards, rather 
than full time trade union officials, in control. However, we feel there needs 
to be more emphasis on the role of the rank and file of ordinary members in the 
workplace.

Besides this there are other issues with the potential to cause problems in the 
future. First, and despite the emphasis on shop stewards, NSSN has not (yet) 
clearly rejected the union bureaucracy. Indeed there is a tendency, similar to 
the 'broad left organising committees' of the 1980s, which seeks little in the 
way of workplace activity or organisation, but instead concentrates on getting 
motions passed at union conferences and getting left wing candidates elected to 
positions within unions - albeit with the usual proviso about them ony getting 
paid average earnings.

Second, there is the potential for political infighting to undermine the NSSN. 
Many at the conference were members of some political party or other, but there 
currently seems to be a truce amongst the various groups. This could be because 
no one group dominates or because things are so bad that for the moment people 
will sink their differences in the hope of building some resistance.

Third, and related, the ever present ghost of 'a new political party' kept 
rearing its ugly head. It is very odd indeed, at a conference called to help 
build a shop stewards' organisation, that this issue should be mentioned so 
often. Arguments over what form such a new party should take is another source 
of future problems for the NSSN, that is, if the stage of launching it is ever 
reached. In the meantime it is an idea that diverts attention away from where it 
is most needed.

Lack of structure is also problematic. Clearly many participants were present 
"in a personal capacity" rather than being delegated from their workplace. In 
addition, the fact that the NSSN committee was 'agreed' - if you stuck your hand 
up you got on the committee - rather than 'elected' immediately prompts 
questions like: who are these people?; who, if anyone, do they represent?; how 
are decisions going to be made in an accountable fashion?

A supportive critique

Despite these reservations, the SF members who attended the conference would 
urge all anarcho-syndicalists, as well as others with a focus on encouraging 
workplace activity and organisation, to remain or to become involved in the NSSN 
to put these ideas across and help to influence its future development.

As such we can argue for the central role of workplace organisation, for an 
alternative accountable structure for the NSSN, for our critique of political 
parties and union bureaucracy, and against the red herring of a 'new workers' 
party' as well as the idea of getting people elected to union positions beyond 
the workplace. Having said this, the NSSN is not a substitute for developing 
anarcho-syndicalist ideas and activities based on our own industrial strategy 
and the long term aim of building revolutionary unions.

There are many people involved in the NSSN who actively organise in the 
workplace. For this reason Solidarity Federation will remain involved but will 
continue to have a supportive critique of it. Should the worst come to the worst 
at least these people will have heard of an alternative to the toothless 
politicking that often gets in the way of the real work of organising.
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No new Trident

A nuclear attack would commit murder and suicide

Nuclear missiles have been compared to a pistol with two barrels, one pointed at 
the enemy and the other at the holder of the gun. A nuclear attack would commit 
murder and suicide.

Even the smallest nuclear wars would ignite fires and generate smoke which would 
be enough to trigger an epoch of cold and dark…a nuclear winter, blotting out 
the sun on which most life forms depend globally (1). Also radiation fallout 
would be blown around the planet and enter the food chain (parallels with 
Chernobyl).

Billions of pounds wasted on the development of a new set of nuke subs could be 
spent on much needed, other things.

But imagination is needed to create alternative employment for the 3,000-plus 
work force at the Barrow-in Furness shipyard where these machines are built. 
Almost totally dependent on MoD contracts, the yard is rather like an obsolete 
nationalised industry, only owned by BAE Systems shareholders.

Possible alternatives include work like the two fully equipped hospital ships 
'Amazon Hope' and 'Amazon Hope 2' that were refitted in recent years at Barrow. 
They help to make friends with people instead of frightening them with nuclear 
destruction.

There are other kinds of subs apart from nukes: they can be used for filming, 
research, tourism, the leisure industry and to harvest manganese on the sea bed. 
Some of these are a niche market, but cars, phones and computers were once 
novelties. Drilling platforms for oil and gas are alternatives as are off shore 
technologies to make power for wind, waves and tidal energy. All of these 
products could be sold internationally.

Barrow has time to recruit and train a research, development and sales team.

Ironically, it would be cheaper to send the workers at Barrow on holiday for 
life, rather than build new Trident subs. However successive governments have 
lacked the courage and foresight to dismantle these national status symbols. 
That goes to the heart of who makes decisions in our society…read on!

Needed for defence?

Wars mainly arise out of the competing interests of different national elites 
who battle for wealth, power and prestige in capitalist and state socialist 
societies alike. Class struggle anarchists support the replacement of 
conventional armies with democratic militias.

Other forms of defence include strikes, go-slows, and other forms of non 
co-operation. Propaganda aimed at 'enemy' troops who are usually drawn from the 
working classes of other countries who may mutiny as well as other forms of 
solidarity action by workers internationally. Workers and peasants in Vietnam 
defeated the US with a combination of these tactics.

This would not prevent part of another states ruling elite deciding to drop a 
bomb, although neither could having nukes as there are no defences against them.

So what’s the alternative?

In the short term anarchists work within anti-militarist campaigns and promote 
direct democracy and direct action within them. This can develop an alternative 
culture of defiance to the present system and encourage self reliance instead of 
being hood winked and sold out by politicians whom we have no real control of.

In the long term anarchists want to work towards a society where wealth is 
shared equally, and where human society is based on co-operation. We would not 
give up our decision making power to politicians of any persuasion. Instead 
local workplaces and neighbourhoods would arrive at decisions via consensus in 
regular meetings. They could elect delegates to carry out their mandates this 
would assist with everyday planning and co-ordination. Delegates would remain 
recallable and receive no privileges. History has shown that these would then 
federate outwards to form new structures of self-governance, with power residing 
at the base of society.

Examples of this libertarian tendency can be seen in embryo form in things like 
strike committees and the anti-poll tax unions. On a grander, scale in the 
beginning of the Russian revolution (especially in Ukraine) and the Spanish 
Civil war for instance. Therefore there would not be anyone to rule over us and 
decide when to 'press the button'.

(1) Sagan, Carl (October 11, 2006) The nuclear winter; A special report by Carl 
Sagan. Parade/ Daily News. Pp4-7.
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