Anarchists, Unions, and Hypocrisy.

As the G20 begins I wait in eager anticipation to hear of the protests that will inevitably strike downtown Toronto. The groups that have declared intent to assemble are varied and diverse, and most of them seem harmless enough, exercising their democratic right to freely assemble. However, as is always the case, it looks as though there will be a few miscreants looking for an opportunity to antagonize the police. As I went through the list of protest attendees and started reading the philosophies and principles of many of these groups, I found something that was a surprise to me. Many of the groups claiming to be Anarcho-communists were both anti-capitalist (No surprise there) but also Pro-Union. I was left staring at my screen, jaw agape, as I read the following:

“Anarchism will be created by the class struggle between the vast majority of society and the tiny minority that currently rule. A successful social revolution will require that anarchist ideas become the leading ideas within the working class. This will not happen spontaneously, it is up to anarchist militants to participate in the existing social struggles as an organized force. A major focus of our activity is work at those crucial points where working class people are organizing together for control over their lives, the decisions affecting them and against oppression. These areas stretch from workplaces activity in the unions, to neighborhood activism, an ecology movement that remembers class and in community resistance to forms of oppressions targeting particular identities.”

It occurred to me that many people may not realize that unions have become capitalistic in nature, and not just regular capitalism but its ugly dysfunctional brother crony capitalism
and, despite their claims to the contrary, are really just in it for the dough, our dough. Now as a disclaimer I’m not a big fan of Unions, I think they did good work before we had strong labour laws and I applaud them for that, but nowadays they’re just another socio-political body sucking money from both workers and business owners to pay for high priced ‘Presidents’ and to fund their own political agenda. However, don’t take my word for it, check out this site that details the financial assets of LIUNA (Labourers International Union of North America), including their top ten earners.

Now, I have a history of blue collar work including landscaping, reconstruction, and general labour, and my respect is unwavering for the tradesmen in our country. However, even those of my friends who are currently in unions, are well aware that the union is a Crony Capitalist organization. Worse, they are one that acts as a filter to artificially increase wages (They proudly boast that Union workers earn 50% more than the national average of non-union workers) and they use that as leverage to have their members hand over ‘dues’ which they then turn and use to support their own political agendas, independent of what their memberships own political leanings might be. It’s crony capitalism, it’s unaccountable, it’s not transparent and not only does it spit in the face of every non-union member, or believer in free market economies, but it does so while selling itself as an organization that is only interested in equality amongst workers.

Unions, regardless of your political leanings, are to be disdained. They are not going to help you with your ‘Workers struggle’, they won’t help us with our hope for a free market, and equality regardless of political affiliation, they are only out to make money for themselves by taking money from the taxpayer. Don’t believe me? Well check out this site, and in particular here where they talk about the War in Canada between LIUNA and other residential contractors.

Maybe the CTF could look into exactly how much money is going to LIUNA? I bet they could get to the bottom of it.