A-Infos (en) France, UCL AL #346 - .Culture, Read Karel Yon: Trade unionism is political: Strategic questions for union renewal (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr) [machine translation]

Trade unionism is political: the great social movement for our pensions 
has just demonstrated this. By bringing to the forefront the realities 
of work, the strike, inter-professional solidarity, the unions have 
initiated a dynamic of politicization of the working classes... ---- It 
is a proven fact: trade unionism is increasingly found more powerless 
after decades of neoliberalism which have considerably reduced its room 
for maneuver, in businesses and in society. ---- The power plants having 
chosen integration into management were able to realize this during the 
last social movement, facing a "neoliberal wall". Increasingly, unions 
have seen themselves transformed into organizations of mandated, expert 
and disconnected from employees.

In Unionism is political: strategic questions for union renewal, Karel 
Yon and 7 other researchers predict a repoliticization of unionism. This 
would partly involve participation in a new popular front, supporting 
and using the State to regain legitimacy, in the field of production of 
course, but also in democracy as a whole.

This proposal, although far from the revolutionary trade unionist 
strategy of our organization, offers questions and subjects for debate.

Sociological analyzes make it possible to justify common proposals. A 
chapter on the Yellow Vest movement and its relationship with trade 
unionism shows the capital interest of sociability in a political 
perspective for a large section of the proletariat (employees of small 
businesses, hospital civil servants, etc.), justifying then a 
development of local unions on the model of labor exchanges.

If most of the protest aspect developed in this book would, even if it 
comes from an alliance with the left-wing parties and the need for a 
balance of power, these proposals are an opportunity to highlight a 
proven lack perspectives for trade unionism and to propose medium-term 
objectives.

The socio-historical critique of our organizations highlights subjects 
on which we cannot remain without answers, such as knowledge of the 
company, orientations in production, reforms of a pseudo "social 
dialogue", the impossibility of being able to claim to take back control 
of the production apparatus or simply even worker control, the inability 
to link together the ecological transition and union action, the 
contradiction between necessary integration of the female proletariat 
and virilist tradition or even masculinist in the unions.

One chapter deals with the consideration of sexist and sexual violence 
in trade unionism (still not achieved everywhere). It highlights the 
necessary work that still remains to be done to open unionism to the 
extent of the class it claims to represent.

Based on an analysis of current dynamics during the 2023 retirement 
movement, having shown that unionism, when brought together, is capable 
of becoming the spokesperson for a class, the work therefore offers 
fragments reflections on the direction that organizations recording an 
increase in unionization could take.

Judi (UCL Caen)

Karel Yon (dir.), Trade unionism is political: Strategic questions for 
union renewal, Éditions La dispute, September 2023, 204 pages, 16 euros.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Lire-Karel-Yon-Le-syndicalisme-est-politique-Question-strategiques-pour-un
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