UK another blow to trade union/worker power

I think it depends where you live, I'm still paying my union dues to the (too)well established DGB-union in germoney, should change to the slowly growing FAU-IWW, but they still are hardly known and have little impact, one of my mates is the lone anarcho-skin amongst them, bit complaining about their secretarianism here and there.
Generally unionism is almost dead around here, low on numbers, not longer depending on the dues but offering a shitload of recreation and wellness programs to pay for, running an empire of advanced training and educational institutes, financed by the state and offering programs far from the actual situation on the job market.
They are more a service bureau than a class war tool, the last strikes, labor disputes and public protests are almost forgotten by now and ended with halfhearted diplomacy and behind-the-curtain agreements...

when i was active as a workers council member and youth representative the experience was mixed too, we could force our big buisness company to follow the agreements on the tarif agreements, but never achieved anything beyond that.
rationalization and outsourcing, relocation of production went through without much resistance, already agreed upon in some "higher" spheres - while our colleagues lost their jobs and asked us "what the hell are you doing?"

yes, i should change to the FAU-IWW... at least the got the more intresting monthly.

 

Read Berkman's ABC of Anarchism - Chapter 11 The Trade Union

Link below

http://everything2.com/title/ABC+of+Ana ... Chapter+11

 

I'm constantly harrassed by our FAU-skin to make the change and I almost agree with him that part of the problem was the ol'hierarchy and secretarianism creeping in - the german union struggles way back in the seventies were fought by leaders with roots back to the pre-war workers movement - workers taking the responsibility for their kind/class - but their successors never lost a drop of sweat in their life, while climbing the carreer ladder up and I wonder how many of them reached "equal" eye-level with their natural opponents.
and then the service era began...
We had this long dark (helmut) kohl-era too from 1983 - 1999 with the neo-liberals dancing:
16 fucking years of loss of purchasing power, increasing rents, increasing unemployment, solidarity tax after they bought the reunification, finally the introduction of the euro, the far left running wild against it every time, while the social democrats turned to the "middle of the spectrum" - taking the christdemocrats place and opening the space for the green party to turn "applewise", red on the outside, with whatever beneath - bit of a critique here and there, good to keep parliamentarism running - but not a single word to raise any resistance against whats going on.
I still think that the "german autum" 1977 and the police states reaction on the RAF did much to keep people away from the far left - while keeping inconspicuous and taking the little trinkets hardly covering the inflation from the unions completely occupied with "contributing to the overall responsibility" in the economic crisis.
When I joined the union my colleagues asked me - why do you pay for something we get for free?
talk about service...

Again: I should change and get active again to revive my humble syndicalism - ok, we work over here in kinda non-hierarchical neighborhood network (besides the wage slaving), doing social care and other services to support the people in the 'hood - but I think we should not give up the working organisation and your RMT example is a fine reason why:
The public/the people are hardly told that the strikes are for them - we had a very similiar strike in the public transport sector too - two unions competeting and getting critisized by the synchronized media for their disunity - but hardly a word about the background of the strike, which was similiar to the London Underground.
even if many will never listen, at least a few might catch flame...

 

Like the NHS, the unions aren't perfect but they are better than nothing. I do not see them remotely as a tool for serious change to work environments but they have helped me out recently and are I know they increase job security and workers' cooperation. The UK people is generally very short-sighted when it comes to union action and most people will probably not have a massive problem with attacks on union rights. I certainly can't see a major uproar if laws were put in place to further restrict unions.

The £500 fee for a tribunal is extremely disconcerting - that's the sort of shit that can intimidate workers from taking stands.