I saw a lot of people I follow liked this thread and wanna say that I think this is an inaccurate reading of Vicky’s retelling of labor history, that emphasizes the militancy of workers who weren’t part of formal unions and the frequent exclusion of slavery from US labor history. https://twitter.com/horrastim/status/1301914058887749632
She makes the nuanced point that actions that appeared to be “disorganized” accomplished a lot and only appeared to be disorganized because of their lack of hierarchy or obvious leadership. And her critique of trade unions is about the same as any IWW member’s!
Existing US labor law was made to maintain labor peace and weaken labor militancy, ending the era of outright attacks on striking workers in exchange for legal recognition of unions that defanged them. The AFL-CIO includes police unions!
Big trade unions are mostly not radical, are bureaucratic, and undemocratic. And even leftist labor history often ignores the antiblackness of many labor organizers and the history of slaves going on strike and thus radically undoing property relations!
And these are all problems that can be solved! But they are problems regardless, and I think she addresses them thoughtfully. You can disagree, but she’s absolutely not anti-union or against all forms of organization, rather, she’s challenging what counts to us as organization!
When we conflate organization with hierarchy, we often fail to see how leadership stifles revolutionary potential and reifies oppressive ideologies including white supremacy! This is in line with arguments many Black anarchists have made that Blackness is inherently anarchistic.
You can disagree with all of that! But I really don’t think any of those ideas can be simply painted as anti-union or anti-organization.
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