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There is an alternative... Workers' Control

Workers' Control Conference
University of Technology, Sydney
10th-12th October

Hi all,

This is an invitation to register for the "Workers' Control
Conference", which will be held from the 10th to 12th
October, 2003.

The conference will be a dynamic weekend of talks,
discussion and workshops on past experiences of workers
control and the current strategies of militant unionism.

http://www.jura.org.au/workerscontrol/

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Keynote speakers confirmed to date include:
* Michael Crosby (Co-director, ACTU Organising Centre)
* Joan Doyle (newly elected Secretary, Victorian Postal
Union)
* Martin Kingham (Victorian State Secretary, Construction
Division of the CFMEU)
* Humphrey McQueen (Author, historian)
* Paul True (Special Projects Officer, CFMEU. Speaking on
the NSW Builders' Labourers Federation and the Green Bans.
Author of "Tales of the BLF - Rolling the Right!")
* Hall Greenland (Author of 'Red Hot: The Life and Times
of Nick Origlass').

Topics to be covered by plenaries and workshops include:
* Reforming the Union Movement Today
* The Organising Model: Successes and Limitations
* The NSW Builders Labourers Federation and the Green Bans
* The Ability of Militants within Unions to Achieve
Change.
* The Possibilities and Limitations of Direct Action Today
* The Harco Work-in
* The Experience of the Melbourne Tram Workers
* Unorthodox Leninism: Gramsci and Workers' Control
* The Student-Worker Uprising in France in May 1968.
* The Workers' Revolt Against Stalinism in Hungary in 1956
* The Australian Experience of Workers' Self-Management
* The Social Responsibility of Trade Unions: the 1938 Port
Kembla Pig-iron dispute and the NSW Builders Labourers
Federation Green Bans.
* The Opera House Work-In
* Revolutionary Reforms and Andre Gorz.
* Creating a Workplace Newsletter
* Workers' Self-Management and the Upsurge of the 1960s
and 70s
* Workers' Control in Australia in the 1960s and 70s:
successes and failures
* The idea of self-management in Marxist revolutionary
theory.
* Workers' Self-Management and the Allende Government in
Chile 1970-3

AGENDA AND MORE INFO
To view a complete agenda for the conference visit the
conference website:

http://www.jura.org.au/workerscontrol/

REGISTRATION
We strongly encourage people to register before the
conference so that we can properly predict numbers for
seating, printing and catering. You can register by:

email workerscontrol@jura.org.au
Phone: 02 9572 9089
Or on our website at:
http://www.jura.org.au/workerscontrol/register.html

PLEASE include your name, phone number, email address and a
postal address. No money is needed - you can pay on the
day.

SUBMITING WORKSHOPS
If you would like to present a workshop please contact the
conference organisers by 25th September, 2003. Workshop
topics should be in the spirit of the conference. In your
submission, please include a title and a 50 word overview of
the workshop. Due to limited space and time, we may not be
able to accept all workshops. Please email
workerscontrol@jura.org.au

We are interested in workshops on any relevant topics, but
in particular would be interested in both practical
workshops on recent experiences of union organising in
various industries, and historical workshops on the
experiences of militant union movements.

PUBLICITY AND MEDIA
We would greatly appreciate any assistance with publicising
the conference. If you contact us, we can post you copies
of the agenda and posters. If you have access to your own
photocopying you can download PDFs of the material from our
website at:

http://www.jura.org.au/workerscontrol/promo.html

Please don't be shy about asking us for posters and
leaflets - we have thousands of them.

If you can assist by getting an advertisement or article in
your union newsletter or email list, that would be
excellent. If you need any statements or an article, please
contact us.

GET INVOLVED. INVITE YOUR FRIENDS.
The Workers' Control Conference is open to all genuine
participants. Please forward this email to people you think
might be interested, submit a workshop, register early, and
join us on the 10th, 11th and 12th for a dynamic weekend of
debate and discussion.

In Solidarity,

Nick Harrigan
For the Workers' Control Conference Organising Committee.

Phone: 02 9572 9089
Email: workerscontrol@jura.org.au
Mail: PO Box N32 Petersham North NSW 2049
Web: http://www.jura.org.au/workerscontrol/

CONFERENCE CO-SPONSORS
The Workers' Control Conference is an initiative of members
of Jura Books, the Centre for Radical Workplace and Union
Democracy and the Research Initiative on International
Activism at University of Technology, Sydney.

This is a very good and important conference, and I hope one could be organised for Melbourne; an excellent submission.

However, if we are serious about workers self-management of industry, which I believe we must, what about workers control of existing unions?

This must be the first step on the road surely, i.e. participatory unions run by the working class, not beaucratic unionism like we have at present. Beaucratic unionism fosters worker disillusion and deal making, mostly behind the backs of workers, with management and government.

The best example of this was the accord. The accord did have provisions for industrial democracy, but these were totally ignored by both the ACTU and the ALP. Under the accord, workers were required to sacrifice for the good of the nation, especially after the terms of trade crisis in the mid '80s. The real wages of workers fell as did the rate of industrial disputation. This is reflected in the changes to the wages-profit share during the period of the accord in favour of profits, something which senior ALP figures boasted about.

Now, this was done to increase the level of investment, that the Business class would invest their surplus, instead they took the money and went on a party, helping to create the conditions for the '90s recession, which as usual the working class had to pay for. The salaries of CEO's began to go through the roof, whilst workers were told to cut back on their demands, the pilots dispute being a good example of disciplinary unionism in action.

The accord gave the rich a party, paid for by the working class. Not only that, but the accord disciplined the working class, preventing industrial disputation at this critical time of ruling class leisure and pleasure. In parliament Labor ministers, almost every day, would boast to the Tories about how under Labor the number of strikes were way down from the Fraser years. Translation? We are much better than you Liberals in keeping the workers under control, what's more we are doing that precisely when we are taking money from their pockets and giving it to your constitutents; that, along with the Chifley actions against the miners, must rank as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the Australian labour movement.

That's what beaucratic, disciplinary, unionism is all about; keeping the working class in its place. It follows thereby that working class self emancipation and beaucratic unionism do not mix, the correct stance of the anarcho-syndicalist.

BEFORE WORKERS CONTROL OF INDUSTRY, LETS HAVE WORKERS CONTROL OF UNIONS.

In the revolutionary situation workers might take over industry therefore putting union officials out of a job.

The achievements of the Spainish working-class in Barcelonea, Catalonia and Aragon between 1936-1939 tend to cause the conforences agenda on the history of workers control to pail in to insignificance in contrast. When Franco's fascists finally recaptured the factories, fields and workshops for the ruling class back from the anarcho-syndicalist unions they counted more than 10,000 collectives. Is this not worth mentioning when disgussing workers control? And what about the anarcho-syndicalist influence in the Melbourne tram dispute, will that get a mention, or will you be claiming the history ( like the trots like to do ) for the I.W.W.?

he's always whinging and super-unfriendly against everyone and everything. just get a life, and please netizens, ignore him from now on...

Firstly the correct term of address is she; not he thankyou very much.
Secondly, I've been politically active for over sixteen years and always a member of atleast one collective or union. That is I have worked with many individuals on a friendly basis. If that makes me super unfriendly in your mind then it is a small one.
Thirdly, I have been involved in movements for workers control in that time and the subject here is workers control. Raising the question of concerning the Spainish working class is a fair one concidering the topic.
Forthly, I was involved in the Melbourne tram dispute for the full 33 days and think I deserve to comment.
Finally, I am only unfriendly to trotskyists and other red fascists, nazis and associated right wing nuts, and try hard politicians in the Greens and those trying to work their way into the workers or libertarian socialist/ anarchist movement. My posts on indymedia testify to that. Other than that my posts have concerned the matter of how do we organise a BROAD based anarchist-autonomist movement free of politicans and other control freaks. My posts are also very much against the use of slander and misinformation by people trying to manipulate and divid and censor the movement( see your post).
That said, I was wrong to assume that the I.W.W. might claim the history of the A.S.F. in the Melbourne tram dispute. I see on the sight that the history is still well within the Anarcho-syndicalist camp and thank you to the organisers for keeping it real.

Broad?
by Makhno's alcohol-destroyed liver Wednesday October 15, 2003 at 11:57 AM

Makhno's Horse, you control freak, look up the word broad in a dictionary.

1. Precisely what is your point concerning broad?
2. What have I said that allows you to accuse me of being a 'control freak' when you do not know me at all and my stated objective is workers control?

Also, you call a conference on workers control, inviting potentual participants to discuse that very topic on this sight and then turn on someone who does with all the organizational skill of a troll. What is your problem?
Are you accepting congradulations and rejecting discussion. Why don't you simply repond to my suggestion to include some Spainish working class history since it fits the conference topic so appropriately?

Are you the best person to deal with interested workers?

Finally, I am not an alcoholic, I don't even drink, not even sure that I can spell it, so what is your motive to infere that such is true?