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Unions and Real Democracy, Yes, Now, but How?
Protesters of the #15 May Movement in Spain have claimed Real Democracy, Now! And masses of young people have said yes!
They have massively argued that political parties and traditional representative system, and trade unions that are adopting and imitating the same representative principles are not representing them!
This is a very strong message that has taken the streets and centres in Spain and elsewhere in Europe, and even beyond. It seems like the youth and peoples getting angrier, they say they are outraged before the injustice.
There is a rising dissent against the system and its actors. Unfortunately the youth sees unions among these actors.
Does campaigning for Decent Work enough, where there is no work at all? And where the attacks of the employer class in collaboration with the state elite getting stronger?
What lessons should unions draw from the arguments of the youth and masses they are talking to!
How can unions implement Real Democracy within themselves, and what role can social media and distributed social networking technologies play here?
Views: 26
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Philip Lillies on -
Hi Orsan,
Wow! I just got a friend request from you.
So here are my thoughts. This claim that they are not being represented is a great awakening for young people. It means that they are escaping the pit of indifference; however, they have not yet arrived at the level where we as union leaders need to operate. We as leaders embrace the concept of Gaia (at least conceptually) and aim for the all-inclusive sine qua non. They are merely claiming that THEY are not being represented. The question is how to lead them to the next level. Communication is key. They need to learn to work in groups rather than in dyads. Hence, the importance of struggle.
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Permalink Reply by Orsan Senalp on -
Hi Philip, Thanks for your reply and sharing your thoughts, and sorry for my delayed reaction, As far as I can see the indignant youth are pretty quick in learning working in groups, up coming Wallstreet and Brussels occupations are harmonised actions organised very professionally and their demands represent working man and women, in essence, better than the unions' demands, so they seems to be pulling unions forward to me. And as for representation and arriving at the level where union leaders need to operate, they seems to be claiming that they do not wish neither, since there goes some things wrong exactly at that level!
It is great to hear that there are union leaders who are embracing the concepts like Gaia, though I know from my personal experience that there are a lot of union leaders who prefers not to organise and get bigger in numbers only in order to keep their own positions! For that sake, not prevent using his contacts with state and employer. These may be most of the time non-progressive unions, but even progressive ones has to, most of the times, think of short term earnings and act accordingly. Also to keep their representative roles, they need to stop efforting to reach out many millions working man, women and children. I think I understand what do you mean by working with triads instead of dyads. You're referring to a technical problem, here I think, but there are several software solutions applied by indignados for example to overcome that problem of the social network sites. Like Skype, [since it is a private program they use Mumble] which allows you to conduct one to two tele-conferences, and to create common documents they employ softwares like titanpad, or piratepad.
Unions needs to adopt these tools that are commonly adopted by the youth, and communicate with them by talking their language, even -if it is necessary- by changing the level they are used to operate! I believe we urgently need non-representational unions that are not organisations in traditional sense anymore. Social networking principles and softwares would make invaluable contribution to this end.
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