TRADE UNION INITIATIVES towards a fossil fuel free society

Major changes in society are brought about through the organised efforts of people (sufferers) armed with the vision of a better society. Evidently, along with other organisations of such people, the trade union movement has a very significant role to play. However, the alternative today, represents an alternative to industrialisation itself! Here is an attempt to explore the history of such initiatives and suggest what the movement can do in the context of the present crisis of capitalism.

Trade Unions in the Struggle and Reconstruction

For the last 150 years, trade unions have been in the forefront in the struggle of all working people for their due rights. When revolutionary changes occurred in Russia, China, Cuba, Vietnam and so on, they were in the forefront both in the revolutionary movement as well as in rebuilding of the society post the revolution. In transforming the present fossil fuels dependant capitalist society into a fossil fuel free society, the trade unions have a crucial role to play. As Marx said, capital creates its own gravediggers in the form of organised labour.

Whereas today, capitalism is imploding, crashing down on its own. The rug of concentrated energy has been pulled from under its feet; there is no alternative ready at hand. Organised left all over the world, by and large, is not ready for it in any significant way. A large section of it went the social democratic way, that is, capitalist way under a socialist name. They shared power and it got them thoroughly corrupted. The Indian left has faired no better. It is acting in an authoritarian fashion – where ever it is in power.

The trade union movement world over has also got either corrupted - with the union bosses acting like capitalists - or has been so politicized, that it no longer represents the workers or society’s interests. The working class movement and trade union movement, therefore, have to face the challenge in a different way. They have to plan to be free from their own party bosses and learn to act on their own.

Anarcho-Syndicalism

Such a tendency in the international working class movement has been known as anarcho-syndicalism. Anarcho-syndicalism is a branch of anarchism, which focuses on the labour movement. Syndicalism is a French word meaning ‘trade unionism’ – hence, the ‘syndicalism’ qualification. Anarcho-syndicalists view labour unions as a potential force for revolutionary social change; replacing capitalism and the State with a new society, that is, a democratically self-managed society by workers.

The basic principles of anarcho-syndicalism are workers' solidarity, direct action, and workers' self-management. Workers’ solidarity means that anarcho-syndicalists believe all workers, no matter what their gender or ethnic group, are in a similar situation with regard to their bosses (class consciousness). Furthermore, it means that, in a capitalist system, any gains or losses made by some workers from or to bosses will eventually affect all workers. Therefore, to liberate themselves, all workers must support one another in their class conflict. Anarcho-syndicalists believe that only direct action – that is, action concentrated on directly attaining a goal, as opposed to indirect action, such as electing a representative to a government position – will allow workers to liberate themselves. Moreover, anarcho-syndicalists believe that worker organisations – the organisations that struggle against the wage system, and which, in anarcho-syndicalist theory, will eventually form the basis of a new society – should be self-managing. They should not have bosses or ‘business agents’; rather, the workers should be able to make all the decisions that affect them themselves.

Rudolf Rocker points out that the anarcho-syndicalist union has a dual purpose: 1. To enforce the demands of the producers for safeguarding and raising of their standard of living; 2. To acquaint the workers with the technical management of production and economic life in general and prepare them to take the socio-economic organisation into their own hands and shape it according to socialist principles. In short, meaning, laying the foundations of a new society ‘within the shell of the old’.

Up to the First World War and the Bolshevik Revolution, anarcho-syndicalist unions and organisations were the dominant actors in the revolutionary left. After the collapse of Soviet Union in 1990 and China taking the capitalist road, the communist movement lost a lot of its prestige. It led to a revival of anarchist tendency, combining it with newly emerging concerns of race, feminism and environment. Anarcho-syndicalism remains a popular and active school of anarchism today and has many supporters as well as many currently active organisations. A green anarcho-syndicalist perspective visualises workers taking over existing units and transforming them into ‘green’ alternatives. For the rest of this essay it implies creating a fossil fuel free society.

 

Trade Unions in India today

The trade union movement in India represents less than ten percent of workers. In terms of number, however, it means something like 3 crores (3, 00, 00,000). This, along with its long history, it still represents, a significant potential force in social change which is far more than its mere strength in numbers. Trade unions have played an important role in the national liberation movement in the colonial context as well as leading the workers and peasants movements both before and after ‘independence’. In the last few decades the agriculture and industrial sectors have been on a decline and the service sector has grown enormously. The trade union movement has bases in the first two sectors and with their decline it has weakened enormously. This has resulted in closure of a large number of industrial units, both large and small, and has made millions of workers to move to unorganised sectors with consequent relative impoverishment. In the agriculture sector, the green revolution and globalisation has made millions of small farmers lose their land and turned them into agricultural labour or immigrants into city slums as unskilled labour. As a rule, traditional artisans have been losing their market and are giving up their trade and joining the urban and rural poor. Majority of Indians today are experiencing decline in their income and living standards. The bottom 30% is experiencing malnutrition, disease and death. Urban and rural suicides among working people have increased dramatically in the last decade.

The trade union movement today is on the defensive. Workers are trying to protect their jobs and maintain their wages in the face of rising inflation. When the units close down they try to restart it and if that fails they try to get their provident fund dues, get compensations and so on. Organisations like Nagarika Manch in Kolkata, Centre for Education and Communication (CEC), New Trade Union Initiatives (NTUI), Labour File, Delhi and many others have documented their struggles and plight. Altogether they are fighting a tough and losing battle. Today, the need of the hour is that they carry their struggle forward in such a manner that it prepares the working people of the country to face the present crisis of capitalism. And it prepares the people to move towards a fossil fuel free society. For that to happen, we must first take a look at the history of such struggles within the trade union movement in India. These combined the elements of ‘Struggle and Build’ (Sangharsh aur Nirman).

The Indian situation

The most important fact today is that all the parliamentary parties have abandoned the poor and particularly the trade union movement. This has not happened overnight. After the two-year drought in 1965 and 1966 and the consequent recession, there was an upsurge in trade union and mass movements. The ruling congress lost the election in eight states and many political parties split and many new movements were born. After the Bangladesh war, Indira Gandhi rode on a nationalist (read fascist) sentiment and brutally suppressed mass movements. In 1974 there was the great national railway strike and Nav Nirman Movement in Gujarat and the J. P. movement in Bihar. To suppress it, the government exploded a nuclear device to once again regain nationalist sentiment. Then the government declared emergency and let loose a fascist terror campaign against trade unions and mass movements.

However, the mass movements continued even though many important leaders were jailed. Finally, the government was forced to lift the emergency; conduct elections. The ruling Congress party lost the election heavily. Even after the emergency status was lifted, the trade union leaders like A. K. Roy and George Fernandes had to fight the election from jail. Only after having won the election were they released from jail.

This ‘victory’, however, was short lived. The coalition lost through infighting and manipulations by the Congress Party. The ruling party continued its politics of fomenting regional aspirations and manipulations. Finally it backfired and Indira Gandhi was assassinated on October 31, 1984. That year marked the end of support of popular movements by parliamentary parties.

On a chilly morning on December 4, 1984, when every one was asleep, the worst industrial accident in the world occurred in Bhopal. It killed thousands of people immediately. While it drew international attention and support for the people and workers of Bhopal; not a single Indian parliamentary party (except Socialist Unity Centre of India- SUCI) came out in support of the people! Since then, parliamentary parties have refused to support any people’s movement, be it against the big dams; against displacement by ‘development’ projects; pollution by sponge iron plants; or large-scale closure of industries and the subsequent retrenchment of workers.

By 1991, with India getting on the bandwagon of reform, of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation, the process was complete. The government, and this time all the parliamentary parties, once again rode on the middle class consent to its development ideas, growth of GDP, prosperity etc. at the cost of environment and people. With oil peaking this year the end of this era has begun.

Sangharsh Aur Nirman

Why do these parties abandon mass movements? A brief answer would be ‘power and greed for power’. In 1967, when CPI (M) shared power in West Bengal and Jyoti Basu was the Home Minister, he ordered police firing on the agitating peasants in Naxalbari  killing men, women and children. It also gave birth to the Naxalites - the largest anti-parliamentary organised group. Similarly, when these parties tasted power in 1977 they once again dropped their trade union comrades. A. K. Roy, the trade union leader in the Jharia coalfields was suspended from CPI (M) and so was Shankar Guha Niyogi, the trade union leader in Bhilai Steel Plant and iron ore mines.

These events gave rise to independent and creative trade union movements in the 70s. The slogan, Sangharsh aur Nirman (Struggle and Build) was given by Shankar Guha Niyogi and he symbolised this trend. Under his leadership, the workers’ built the famous Shaheed Hospital at Dalli Rajhara – the mining town in Chhatisgarh. Since then, many such peoples’ hospitals have been built. In Bihar, A. K. Roy was leading a red and green coalition between workers and tribal peasants who carried out land reforms and practiced collective farming. Everywhere workers education programmes had begun. In Tamil Nadu a big union of construction workers came into being and today it is building houses for Tsunami affected villagers. A few industries were and are being taken over by workers in various parts of the country.

All these independent and creative trade union movements have had a rebirth in the 21^st century. In the beginning of this century the effects of globalisation put a tremendous pressure on the working class; giving rise to a large number of movements. Among these NTUI or the New Trade Union Initiative is significant. Many of the constituents of NTUI are the erstwhile independent trade union movements mentioned above. In its document it says ‘ NTUI is a national platform of non-partisan left-democratic trade unions in the formal and informal sectors of work that represent workers in agriculture, forest, construction, manufacturing and services with the objective of forming trade union federation.’ In as much as constituents of NTUI are not bound by party affiliation, NTUI has a relatively greater space to look at the emerging issues.

Future Industrial Scenario

In a fossil fuel free society the industrial scene will be radically different. For this, the initiative taken by the workers should on one hand allow them to have a better quality of life and at the same time prepare them for such a society. We first take a quick look at what will and will not be there.

1. Because of the lack of affordable fuel, the first sector affected will obviously be transport. Luxury sectors like aviation are already under huge losses. Both Air India and Private airlines in India are posting huge losses to the order of millions of dollars. The world figure of losses is reported to be of the order of nine billion dollars! Truckers in Europe are facing problems of fuel shortage and prices. This will in turn affect international and long distance trade within the country. Again, this in turn will affect large-scale projects. To begin with, starting of new mega projects - be it in auto, power generation, steel plants, housing… will be abandoned. Existing mega projects will either live their life out or close down. Many of the service sectors will also vanish. Thus, there will be huge loss of jobs.
2. On the other hand, this will also lead to more local economy. Industries that are needed, like food, housing and textiles - the famous ‘Roti, kapda aur makan’ will obviously survive, but at a more local and regional level. The technology also will be simpler and often based on biological processes. Related local industries like rice mill, flourmill, oil mill and artisan trades like carpentry, pottery, leatherwork and smithy will survive and flourish. This will generate a large number of new jobs.
3. Food security through restoration of the fertility of the soil and water security through restoration of the forest with biodiversity will be the main agenda of the coming decades. This will create millions of jobs in agriculture, forestry and restoration of water bodies.
4. The science of agro ecology will flourish. This will create new jobs in teaching right from school to university level and open new research opportunities.

Problems of Trade Union initiative

While the future scenario is not all bleak, the actual participation of trade union in broader issues is a difficult one. By and large it has mainly been done with revolutionary political parties (in spite of all that we said about the political parties in India and about anarchist tendencies in the movement).

1. One of the biggest problems, like rest of the society, the unions and workers also find it difficult to believe that the industrial era is over. Except Cuba, no political party anywhere is having such an agenda.
2. We should remember that, although the tradition of anti industrial society ideas of Thoreau, Tolstoy and Gandhi has a history of more than a century, it never had a big presence. Even Gandhi’s - who had a big presence in pre-independence politics - ideas never really caught on.
3. The environmental issues of industrial health, air pollution due to industry etc. that affect the workers directly, have had few takers in the history of the working class movement.

So what should be the Trade Union initiative today?

The trade union movement is often accused for demanding wage rise only. This should now be seen in the context of equity. The workers, justifiably, feel they should get a higher share of the surplus value they generate. Why should the bosses/capitalists get such a high share of the produce? In the present crisis, their demand would naturally be: let the employers first take a cut in their earnings - the jobs must be saved. Secondly, the new society and the new technologies cannot succeed unless waste of resources - either by way of employers taking their undue share or by irrational production and consumption of goods - is stopped.

This very correct demand must be combined with initiatives based on regional planning for a fossil fuel free society. We cannot plan in vacuum. It has to be in the context of the actual situation of the region and the issues faced by working people.

The movement today is facing six kinds of situations related to the collapse of capitalism:

1. The capital has abandoned and the units are closed.
2. The industry is running into losses and is planning to close down.
3. The industry is running but it has enormous contradiction with the community due to pollution of land and water.
4. New units are proposed at the cost of tribals, peasants, environment and/or the activity is irrational from a futuristic perspective of a fossil fuel free society.
5. The industry is running as a part of the natural economy of the region and can easily fit into a fossil fuel future.
6. New industrial activity is planned in tune with the needs of a fossil fuel free society.

The Trade Union Response

1. The initiative should focus on the first problem because the need is acute and a new activity can be planned. One of the first things to do will be to claim the resources of the abandoned unit - land, housing colony, building, equipment and stores and cash compensation. The initiative should be centered towards the most distressed section of the working class and start with mitigating the distress. However it should be done through new initiative of mutual aid which would build a sense of community. It can start with ensuring food and shelter for the working people. Community kitchens could be one of the first things to start. Vegetable, fruit and agricultural activities should be immediately started. At the same time one should enter into a dialogue with the other working people of the region, which includes not only informal sector workers and peasants and artisans, but also professionals, who know the region’s potentials in terms of alternatives. Wherever possible support of political organisations and movements should be sought - like Naxalites, NAPM and others. Slowly a collective alternative should be built up.

Of course there will be repression by the state directly and indirectly. This is where the mass support will play a crucial role. Nagarika Manch in Kolkata and NTUI can potentially do a lot of good work in this area. Within the trade union movement regional federation of all the unions may be a new direction that the movement may have to take. Some of the big opportunities we may have probably missed were the closure of Kolar Gold Fields and Sindri Fertiliser Factory. In Kolar, the government offered the whole township to the workers! But, there are a lot many places where the need is urgent.

2. In the past, when an industry was planning closure, the unions tried to stop it. Today it will not be advisable. It is better to move in early to bargain for the workers share in the closing procedure. Like in the case above the union can take over the resources and run a new activity in collaboration with regional stakeholders.

3. The most difficult situation is one where the industry is running and the Trade Union movement is coming in sharp contradiction with the local population and environment groups. A classic example is the Coco Cola factory in Plachimada in Kerala. Here the first need is to start a dialogue between all the stakeholders. One should first come to an agreement on the long-term goals. Then, work towards a path where all the stakeholders’ needs are satisfied as well as the goal (closure of factory and alternative ‘green’ employment generation) is achieved. The case of shifting small-scale industry out of Delhi due to the pollution caused is another such case.

4. In instances where new irrational industrial activities are coming up, the path is quite clear. We have to join other movements which are opposing them and initiate alternate regional planning for a green fossil fuel free society. The coal-based power plant in Nandikur in Udupi district is one such case. So far, the resistance has succeeded in preventing three previous attempts to set it up. The present attempt of setting up the plant appears to be succeeding in so far as building activity is going on. But whether the crisis will allow it to complete construction or not is something that only time can tell. Similarly, the Mangalore SEZ and the SEZs all over the country are facing a big resistance from the people.

5. In cases where the industry fits in easily with a fossil fuel free future, the effort should be to save the industry. One can then move towards, a greater share of worker participation in running the industry; better conditions of work; making the industry ‘greener’ etc.

6. Finally, wherever new industrial activity is planned in tune with the needs of a future society, the Syndicalist approach can be put to full use. The workers can own the activity in some form of the cooperative run with full cooperation of regional stakeholders.

For the sake of simplicity, I have avoided putting disclaimers throughout the essay. I am aware that one person cannot be prescriptive to a great movement like, the Indian trade union movement is. So, the contents should be taken as material for worker education in the trade union movement.

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