Translation from Article «Schranken proletarischer Emanzipation – Zur Kritik der Gewerkschaften» of Kosmoprolet #3
Everybody who is involved in one of the current labour struggles – who watches them or tries to intervene in them – has to deal with the issue of unions. Whether acting as mediators or supporters, drivers or procrastinators, you meet them almost every time on the scenes of struggles. In workers' consciousness they are still important institutions, whether they are seen as leading the fight or playing some other role. And for those advocating class struggle, the unions have their fixed place: mostly as institutions in which the workers learn how to struggle, and as organisations that may indeed have corrupt leaders, but stand up for worker’s interests. Less frequently one encounters the opinion that unions are agents of capital that inhibit the working class and enchain it again and again.
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