Category Archives: labor

The Fall of the House of Labor

  January 10, 2013 - 10:23 pm | , ,
Leave a comment

Since the last issue of this zine, in which I critiqued labor unions, these organizations have been prominently in the news again.  The biggest stories have been about the passage of a “right-to-work” law in Michigan and the Hostess bankruptcy, which many have blamed on greedy unions.  Labor is clearly under attack from business owners and politicians, and these two events, happening so closely together, have prompted me to once again devote most of the space in the December 2012 issue of anchorage anarchy to a consideration of the labor movement. (more…)

Union of Egoists

  January 10, 2013 - 10:07 pm | , ,
Leave a comment

Individual anarchy has often been treated as an interesting idea, but one with little bearing on practical group work.  However, during the late sixties in San Francisco, an individualist anarchist labor union (or “non-union” as it was later called) was organized with features unique in american labor history.

Initially, we were a small group of social workers who revolted against an AFL union, local 400, after repeated instances in which the AFL failed to act on issues.  These issues included firings without pretext with five minutes notice, refusal of the labor council to fund publication of the social services newsletter, DIALOG, and the dismissal of a worker for visiting North Vietnam during personal leave.  (more…)

Letter to anchorage anarchy

  January 10, 2013 - 9:59 pm | , ,
Leave a comment

Good article on unions.  I agree—and have been a member of several over the years, including a short-lived IWW Arts Branch in NYC, with members of the Living Theater and WBAI (Pacifica).  It’s no accident that Stirner spoke of a union of self-owning ones as the only possible strong (or even militant) organizational form for individualist anarchists.  Our Italian Leftwing Stirnerite guru “Brand” Arrigoni used to say the same, as did George Sorel (before he lurched to the Right).  See also Bob Black’s excellent article on the IWW in the new magazine Modern Slavery.   Unfortunately we now seem to be nearly as far removed from the possibility of a real radical labor union, as from Proudhon’s Mutualism or Landauer’s version of Kropotkin’s anarcho-federalism.  As the whole Movement of the Social appears moribund, no other organizational form seems possible for us but the “gang”—or as I once tried to put it more elegantly—the Tong.  But how to organize a “secret society” in an age without secrecy (a.k.a. privacy)?  Anarchist anthropologists like David Graeber and James C Scott talk about reversion to “earlier” economic forms such as swidden gardening—or even “the Gift”—but I sense no willingness amongst modern anarchists to embrace the luddism which would be required to “leave Civilization behind” to any real extent.  Individual revolt alone seems to remain possible—every moment lived outside the Technopathocracy is an act of propaganda by the deed.

Desperate Times,

Peter Lamborn Wilson

For the Union Makes Us Strong?

  July 14, 2012 - 11:05 am | , ,
Leave a comment

Several times over the last few years I have participated in a Mayday pageant here in Anchorage.  This is a staged reading of a script written by a local National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) staff attorney.  The narrative traces the development of the american labor movement from the Knights of Labor in the nineteenth century through the 1930s, focusing on two key moments in the history of american labor unions: the Haymarket events in 1886 and the passage of the Wagner Act.   It is a fun occasion where participants include labor union members, folks from Occupy Anchorage, and other local troublemakers.   It is an opportunity to interact with other union members and movement activists and provides a bit of generally unknown and ignored labor history to those who attend.  And to my mind, the positive depiction of anarchists in a performance geared toward regular working folks is more than welcome.

However, despite his largely accurate retelling of the circumstances surrounding Haymarket and sympathetic portrayal of the libertarian workers and organizers involved, I disagree completely with the primary message that the author wishes to convey to the performers and audience—that the National Labor Relations, or Wagner, Act (NLRA) is the logical and appropriate culmination of the efforts of the radical labor movements of the past.  (more…)