Agitprop,
Part 8
Chicago Schools Strike 2012
How to Strike
Canadian Strike Manual; Management Strike Manual
In our whole series of ten-part courses, of which this is the
fifteenth out of sixteen, we have not yet had any education on how to strike.
Strike is the main weapon of the working class in its struggle with capital.
The communists are the partisans of the working class.
The knowledge of how to conduct strikes is embedded in the trade
union movement and in the minds and memories of millions of South Africans who
have been through the experience of striking.
To some extent the knowledge also exists in training institutions
like Ditsela, and in the academy. But the literature is scant. On the Internet
we have so far found rather little. The following is from the work of William Z
Foster called “Strike Strategy”.
Foster was a leader of the US Communist Party who ran an organisation called
the Trade Union Educational League (T. U. E. L.).
“STRIKE
ORGANIZATION
“It is not within the province of this
booklet to outline a complete system of the special organization machinery
necessary for the carrying on of strikes successfully. Nevertheless it is
timely to state a few of the general principles of organization and to indicate
some of the more urgent necessities.
“The strike committee, whether the regular
executive board or a special body, is the general staff of the strike and it
must be properly organized to carry on its work. It must be divided into
sub-sections to correspond with its various tasks. If the strike is national in
scope the strike committee must contain various departments, Finance, Relief,
Legal, Publicity, etc. The local strike committees must have sub-committees on
Policy, Picketing, Publicity, Defense, Halls, Speakers, Finance, etc.
“In the case of unorganized workers every
effort must be made to establish a real basis of trade union organization. Too
often the only organization of the masses in such strikes is in the strike
meetings. This is a mistake. The masses must be brought into active strike
work. It gives them a sense of responsibility and a feeling that the strike is
really their own. To thus draw them in, the numerous committees should be built
on a broad scale, T. U. E. L. formations of various sorts may also be used to
actively enlist the livest elements in the conduct of the strike.
“The picket committee, in most industries, is
the very heart of the strike. It is the cutting edge of the workers’
organization. It is the first line of defense and attack. It must be developed
to the highest degree of militancy and efficiency. It should be made up of the
very best fighters among the workers...
“The legal committee is also essential, but
the left wing must always be careful to hold the lawyers in check. They have a
rather fatal habit, once they are engaged, of trying to run the whole strike as
well as their legal department. If they succeed in this they soon strip it of
all militancy and reduce it to a state of impotent legalism. They are also
notoriously poor fighters at the conference table.
“The publicity committee is very vital. To
give out the news of the strike is fundamentally important, not only for the
information of the workers at large, whose support is wanted, but also for the
strikers themselves, whose solidarity must be maintained. Yet in almost every
strike, whether conducted by rights or lefts, the publicity arrangements are
primitive and inadequate in the extreme.”
Foster was himself a successful strike leader. His book is a
must-read.
There are works by Lenin and Luxemburg on
strikes, but they are rather more concerned with the theoretical aspect of
strikes as part of revolutionary strategy and tactics.
What we have found on the Internet, is the Canadian “PIPSC” Strike Manual (attached). This is a
real strike manual of a real union. It is a large union, and the scale of the
strike organisation described is large, and it is very instructive. Here is the
basic definition of a strike given in this manual:
“A strike is the refusal of employees to
perform some of or all of their work. Strike action may take
many forms, depending on the characteristics and nature of the work
performed by the striking group. Regardless of the course of action taken,
the objective remains the same: to persuade the employer to adopt a
position acceptable to the union and its members on the issues in dispute. The
union must be in a legal strike position before undertaking any strike
activities. Strike plans should be prepared prior to a legal strike
period. They must be treated as highly confidential to succeed.”
Employer’s
Strike Manual
Finally, we have an employer’s strike manual (attached). It is
very instructive indeed. It is particularly expressive of the aggressive frame
of mind of the employer, and of the employer’s managers, who are themselves
employees.
Reading all of these documents should make people aware of what a
strike feels like. Quite likely it will make you respect the working people who
go through this tough experience.
·
The above is to introduce two original reading-texts: PIPSC Canadian Strike Manual, 2009,
and Canadian Employer’s (Management)
Strike Manual, 2003.
