Symposium on 'Working Class Movement in age of Globalization: Problems and Challenges'

The worldwide crisis that has been continuing since 2007 has extracted the heaviest price from the working

class across the world and the working class is still reeling under its pressure. As always, it is the working class which is bearing the brunt of the crisis of over-production and abundance of capital arising out of the greed of capitalists, in the form of unemployment and uncertainty. The bourgeois governments around the world handed out massive bail out packages to banks and financial institutions which had been ruined by the crisis, and imposed the burden of these packages on the common toiling masses in the form of inflation and retrenchment. That the bourgeois governments are the managing committees to manage the affairs of the bourgeoisie, has never been so apparent. The working class, which is the worst victim of the crisis, too, is not silent and it is taking to streets world over. In our country too, the workers have broken the lull which continued till the first few years of the new millenium, and right since 2005 many big workers' movements have taken place. From Ludhiana, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Delhi, Gorakhpur, Kolkata, Mumbai to various industrial areas of South India, workers have fought many struggles. Recently, the struggle of Maruti Udyog workers hogged the limelight in the national media. 

However, despite the bad health of capitalism, the working class has mostly suffered defeats in the recent working class movements. In such a situation, some serious questions are confronting the honest and revolutionary trade unions and political activistsorganizers active in the working class movement.

Polemic Invites you to 

Symposium on

Topic: Working Class Movement in the age of Globalization: Problems and Challenges 
 

Speakers:
 N. Vasudevan, National Secretary, NTUI

Milind Ranade, Sarva Shramik Sangh

Abhinav Sinha, Editor, 'Mazdoor Bigul'

Satyam, Bigul Mazdoor Dasta

Ajay Swamy, Delhi Metro Kamgar Union

Naveen Kumar, Karawal Nagar Mazdoor Union, Delhi

Time: 2 P.M., Sunday, June 17, 2012.

Venue: Brihanmumbai Union of

Journalists, 23-25 Prospect

Chambers Annex, D.N. Road, Pitha

Street, Above Gopalashram, Mumbai.

Organized by: Polemic

The most pertinent question is that why the unorganized workers working in the informal sector as well as the formal sector have been left at the mercy of bourgoeis, revisionist or corporatist fascist trade unions and organizations? Nearly 93 percent of the 40-odd crore industrial workers are unorganized workers working in the informal sector. However, the major trade unions of the country neither have will, nor intention, and nor any programme to organize them. In the age of post-Fordist Global Assembly Line, the share of such informal/unorganized workers in the working class is going to increase even more. According the the latest National Sample Survey, nearly 95 percent of the total rural and urban proletariat is unorganized. If we wish to see the resurrection of working class movement in the days to come, we certainly need to deliberate on the tasks and challenges of organizing this new and hitherto the largest working class in human history, to borrow from Mike Davis (the renowned author of Late Victorian Holocausts and Planet of Slums).

The second important question pertains to the direction in which the trade union movement needs to be developed today, in order to organize this huge population. Can we organize these workers merely through economic struggles? Can these unorganized workers be mobilized only through the trade unionist routinism? Is the conventional trade union agenda enough to unite them? Or, rather, do we need a significant paradigm shift within the workers' movement? Certainly, today we need to stress upon the element of change more, as compared to that of continuity. But, how are we supposed to conceptualize these elements of change?

The third significant question is that do we need new forms and strategies of the working class movement and resistance? Can we organize the workers through conventional methods in the post-Fordist era of Global Assembly line, outsourcing, etc? Or, is there a need for new means and methods, new forms and strategies of the working class resistance and struggle? Can the resistance of the workers be organized today merely through factory-based struggles? These are very important questions which the serious organizers and researchers of the workers' movement need to answer. The fourth question is that does the syndicalist, non-party revolutionist, anarchist and spontaneitist trend, born as a reaction of the past lapses and mistakes, as well as problems of the communist movement, has any alternative? Would it be appropriate to abandon the entire ideology and politics as a reaction to the mistakes committed during the past socialist movement, experiments and regimes and reify the spontaneity of the working class and celebrate it uncritically? Or, is there a need for a detailed critical assessment of the experiments, leadership and movements of the past? And the last question is that how to formulate the ideology and politics of the working class movement today? What would be the correct path of the emancipation of the working class? Would there be any role of a vanguard force in it? If yes, then what form will it assume? What will be the new forms and strategies of the working class resistance? How can they be executed?

       In our opinion, all these questions are extremely important to organize the working class movement afresh and without answering them, probably, we would not be able to advance even a few steps. Today, profound deliberation and contemplation is going on within the workers' organizations and trade unions which are thinking in a serious and different manner. With these questions in mind, 'Polemic' is organizing a symposium on this issue, where the representatives of a few trade unions and political activists active in workers' movement in different parts of the country, would share their views. 'Polemic' extends a warm invitation to you to participate in this symposium. 

With Revolutionary Greetings,

Polemic