Even before these negotiations began, bumper stickers began to appear that read, “Humanize Working Conditions.” These were significant because they were an example of union members reaching out and appealing to members of the community directly, and circumventing the union leadership in order to do so. They were forced to do this because the union refused to address what to them was the central issue of their struggle: the fight to control and organize the work process as they saw fit. Weir saw in this parallels to the successful campaigns of dockworkers on the West Coast in the early 1930s. By making the fight about working conditions, they had the courage to break from traditional union logic that said that they could only gain sympathy from the community and succeed if their goal was more money. If they were successful, they stood to gain substantial control of their working lives. By going around unions to do so, they made it clear that a victory would destroy the way unions had operated in the industry up to that time. The fight was about workers’ direct and democratic control of unions, and it was “new” because it so boldly and willingly declared the fight for workers’ control a fight for democracy at work.

By stating clearly that their struggle wasn’t about money, and declaring that the problems they had at work could be settled by nothing less than their direct control of production, they were dramatically new. But not only was the content of their struggle different, they were also new in the form their struggle took. This form Weir called an “American Shop Stewards Movement” and he compared it to the existing shop stewards movement in Great Britain. The British steward system had the notable advantage of, “provid[ing] alternative leadership, and a duality of power.”[17] This was important because by doing so, it “restricted the freedom of Britain’s labor bureaucracy.”[18]

The shop stewards movement was significant because it relied in practice on what Weir would later call “unions with leaders who stay on the job” who were selected by and accountable to informal work groups. Weir had experienced informal work groups at numerous workplaces, and realized their importance and potential. In the struggle for democracy, informal work groups and unions with leaders who stayed on the job are crucial because together they mean that leaders are subject to the direct pressure of their peers on the job through the various socialization processes mentioned earlier. The problem with bureaucrats is that they are bureaucrats: they are far removed from the daily problems, irritations, and stresses of the people they represent. As a result, they find bureaucratic methods for solving problems, such as filing grievances and talking to “our union reps,” perfectly suitable and acceptable.

Not so with leaders who stay on the job. Not only do they experience the same problems, irritations, and stresses of the people they represent, but they must go back and work with those same people the next day. If they do not represent their grievances fairly and accurately, or if they propose solutions unacceptable to them, they are held directly accountable to those decisions on the shopfloor by their peers and the informal work group at work. It is this direct accountability of leaders through informal, on-the-job work groups that ensures that representatives represent accurately and creates a democratic labor movement. Without it, we get what we have today.

The great strength of this new era of labor revolt was that the interrelationship between unions with leaders who stay on the job and the control of those leaders by informal work groups ensured democracy in a way few systems of labor, or representation on a larger scale, had been able to do. The informal work group both groomed and selected leadership from within its ranks. It also exerted control on that leadership that made it directly accountable to the people it represented.

The control of leadership by the informal workgroup means that leaders emerge naturally from informal, on-the-job groups, and are selected on the basis of their performance and ability to confront management and articulate workers concerns well. These same leaders are subject to peer pressure, directly, by their colleagues on the job. This is made possible because they work; they never become bureaucrats. Hence, if they start to stray, they are reprimanded or removed from their post. They have a limited mandate, and don’t have any more authority than they’re given, which is always subject to scrutiny and can be rescinded at any time. When Weir saw that this New Era of Labor Revolt had these characteristics as central features, he took strength from them, and found in them great hope.

La Coordinadora and Another New Era

“Working dockers and clerks designed [Coordinadora]. Their idea was to make an organization that from the bottom up depended upon built-in rank and file controls. They do not claim to have achieved perfection…But they have made progress and are rightly proud.” -Stan Weir, Longshoremen and Marine Clerks of Spain Building a New Kind of Union

Stan Weir fought valiantly on behalf of himself and his fired colleagues for 17 years, but they eventually lost their battle to retain the gains of the 1930s on the waterfront of the 1960s. In addition, the promise of that “new era” had gone largely unfulfilled. As both struggles wound down, a new avenue of hope opened to him. In 1982, he attended a meeting of the International Harbor Workers in Denmark, and met delegates from a Spanish network called La Coordinadora or, “the Coordinating Committee.” This network, and this way of organizing and running a “union” (for lack of a better word) gave Stan Weir hope for good reason. Here was a nationwide union, a union larger than that of the West Coast longshoremen, without a single paid official or staff person. Representatives of the union worked three weeks out of every month, and in the fourth week, they were supported by members of their local to attend to workers’ problems and concerns, and this only when there were complaints to handle. This could include networking – traveling to other cities in the country or in the international network – to meet like-minded people and expand the struggle, or taking grievances to employers, or coordinating potential national strike actions. Each of these reps was instantly recallable if he didn’t adequately defend the interests of the workers he represented. Because each worked three-quarters of the time, each was also subject to direct, on-the-job peer pressure, and was directly held accountable to decisions made at the network level.

New Beginnings, Old Principles

Direct action on the shopfloor, or on the waterfront; settling beefs oneself, not passing them on to future generations; commitment to these principles secured any gains the labor movement had ever achieved. But without “Unions With Leaders Who Stay on the Job” and the democratic control of Informal Work Groups, few of these movements were able to sustain themselves. A look at the fate of any of them is proof enough of the necessity for a combination of all three in equal measure. While it is true that principles such as “Unions With Leaders Who Stay on the Job” and the peer pressure of informal, on-the-job work groups do not provide a programmatic answer to the ills that plague the labor movement, such principles are necessary, along with a commitment to direct action, to ensure not only a democratic labor movement or workplace. Such principles form the basis of a new society, one based on free association, mutual aid, and democracy. Our dignity as workers, and even as human beings, depends on our commitment to these principles today.



Notes

[1] Weir, Stan. “The Informal Work Group.” In Singlejack Solidarity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004. 237.

[2] Ibid., 238.

[3] Weir, Stan. “The Role of the Individual and the Group in the Creation of Work Cultures.” In Singlejack Solidarity. 28.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Weir, Stan. “Unions with Leaders Who Stay on the Job.” In Singlejack Solidarity. 126.

[6] Ibid., 140.

[7] Ibid., 134.

[8] Ibid., 143.

[9] Ibid., 144.

[10] Weir, Stan. “New Technology.” In Singlejack Solidarity. 49.

[11] Ibid., 47.

[12] Ibid., 49.

[13] Lipsitz, George. “Stan Weir: Working-Class Visionary.” In Singlejack Solidarity. 351.

[14] Weir, Stan. “New Era of Labor Revolt: On the Job vs. Official Unions.” New York: Independent Socialist Clubs of America. 1966. p. 6.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid., 22.

[18] Ibid.

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