Great movements are what change the world. For socialists, the most important are workers’ movements. In the Communist Manifesto in 1848, Marx and Engels identified the working class as the ‘gravedigger’ of capitalism – the working class has the potential power to bury capitalism. When they wrote this, the working class was a tiny minority of the world’s population. The largest class across the world was the peasantry.
There was method in their argument. Capitalism, they argued, was the most relentlessly expansive system of production ever seen in the world. As capitalism enlarged its sphere of operations – by trade, by piracy and conquest – it also enlarged the working class. Today, the working class is the largest class in the world.
It’s not just simple size, however, that gives the working class its strategic importance for socialists. It’s also the collective capacity and power of organised workers. No exploited class in previous history possessed the high level of culture, literacy and education that the modern working class enjoys – indeed, it is far above the level of previous ruling classes.
Capitalism has to increase that level of education as a condition for its own production. No previous exploited class had the sheer organising capacity of modern workers. Concentrated together in vast cities, in great productive enterprises, workers have the means to organise themselves on a national and international scale, as peasants never could.
From the birth of industrial capitalism, workers everywhere have struggled to build trade unions, parties and other mass organisations to improve their conditions. Often they’ve faced fierce repression, in the shape of death squads, imprisonment, transportation and victimisation by employers. Also, working people have built a dense web of social, cultural, sporting and other associations. Often these seem ‘non-political’, but they represent part of the development of workers’ organisational capacities, and a means to improve and enliven their social life.
Both in workers’ trade unions and other bodies, there is no hard line between social and economic activities and politics. Inside union branches and shop stewards’ committees, there is a long tradition of debate about politics – sometimes, of course, about whether political questions should be raised! All these bodies are vital means by which working people organise to defend and improve their lives. They depend on day-to-day organising work by hundreds of thousands of working-class activists.
The organised working class offers the single most important arena for socialist activity. Trade unions are especially important. They are the front-line organisations in the class struggle. Trade unions are by far the largest organisations in Nigeria, certainly after the churches and mosques. When the trade unions organise general strikes – millions of unorganised workers and market women also respond. This happened during the three day general strike in Kaduna last May and even more so during the events of January 2012.
Socialists don’t just have to belong to the most appropriate trade union, they have to be active members. Where they can, they should stand for elected lay positions like shop steward or branch official. There are two aspects to a socialist’s job in their union. The first is to encourage active collective organisation among their fellow-workers. You can always tell a well-organised workplace: the supervisor or manager knows his or her place! That depends on workers developing a degree of confidence in each other, and being ready to stand up for themselves. Without that shared self-confidence, strikes over pay and other questions are harder to organise.
The second part of the socialist’s job involves bringing political issues into the workplace and the union. Selling a socialist paper, like Socialist Labour, to the best militants is vital. But equally important are apparently quite low-level things, like circulating a petition against an increase in fuel or electricity prices or passing out fliers in support of the doctors or other strikers.
At every level in working class organisations, socialists should always seek opportunities to form practical alliances with fellow workers on questions about which they can agree. A ‘socialist’ who stands aside from everyday struggles and just preaches the necessity of socialism is worse than useless.
Every workplace or local trade union branch includes people with a wide range of views. At one end we find individuals who oppose collective solidarity and who think in terms of ‘Number One’. At the other end are people with good anti-boss instincts. Socialists have to join forces with the second group, and attempt win over the majority. Where we can, we need to expand the number of active socialists.
It’s the same with regard to national union politics. As in the workplace, there are ongoing struggles in every union between left and right. These affect every kind of issue – how to frame a pay claim, whether and how to take industrial action, opposing police violence, links with political campaigns, making the union constitution more democratic, and so on.
These naturally spill over into contests over who should occupy leading union positions. Socialists always aim to form joint campaigning groups with other militants in their unions.
We need to try and elect better trade union officials locally and nationally. But just as important, we need to organise collectively to put pressure on the leaders to act properly and lead action. Socialists need to organise with others locally to ensure that local leaders reflect our views. We also need to try and organise with the best trade union members nationally to continue to push our leaders to lead effective strikes. Organisations like ASCAB or TPAP-M can help. We recognise that all trade union leaders face enormous pressure from the mass media, politicians and traditional leaders. They can also be bought off by politicians. Civil society needs to support trade union leaders when they take action, argue for support and solidarity during strikes and to try to prevent strikes being suspended before we achieve actual victories and the promised payments are made
