AnarWiki/markdown/J.5.1_(An_Anarchist_FAQ).md

**J.5.1 What is community unionism? (An Anarchist FAQ)** is the 40th
entry in [Section
J](Section_J:_What_do_anarchists_do?_\(An_Anarchist_FAQ\) "wikilink")
and 1st entry of [Section
J.5](J.5_What_alternative_social_organisations_do_anarchists_create? "wikilink")
of [An Anarchist FAQ](An_Anarchist_FAQ "wikilink"). It details the
anarchist use of [community organising](Community_Organising "wikilink")
and creation of [neighbourhood
assemblies](Democratic_Assembly "wikilink") in [dual
power](Dual_Power "wikilink") with the state, citing anarchist
activities in the [Anti-Poll Tax
Movement](Anti-Poll_Tax_Movement "wikilink"), [Puerto
Real](Puerto_Real "wikilink") ([Spain](Spain "wikilink")) and [Spezzano
Albanese](Spezzano_Albanese "wikilink") ([Italy](Italy "wikilink")) as
two successful examples of this.

## Transcript

Community unionism is our term for the process of creating participatory
communities (called “communes” in classical anarchism) within the state.
Basically, a community union is the creation of interested members of a
community who decide to form an organisation to fight against injustice
in their local community and for improvements within it. It is a forum
by which inhabitants can raise issues that affect themselves and others
and provide a means of solving these problems. As such, it is a means of
directly involving local people in the life of their own communities and
collectively solving the problems facing them as both individuals and as
part of a wider society. Politics, therefore, is not separated into a
specialised activity that only certain people do (i.e. politicians).
Instead, it becomes communalised and part of everyday life and in the
hands of all. As would be imagined, like the participatory communities
that would exist in an anarchist society, the community union would be
based upon a mass assembly of its members. Here would be discussed the
issues that effect the membership and how to solve them. Like the
communes of a future anarchy, these community unions would be
[confederated](Confederation "wikilink") with other unions in different
areas in order to co-ordinate joint activity and solve common problems.
These confederations, like the basic union assemblies themselves, would
be based upon direct democracy, mandated delegates and the creation of
administrative action committees to see that the memberships decisions
are carried out.

The community union could also raise funds for
[strikes](Strike "wikilink") and other social protests, organise
[pickets](Picket "wikilink") and [boycotts](Boycott "wikilink") and
generally aid others in struggle. By organising their own forms of
[direct action](Direct_Action "wikilink") (such as
[tax](Tax_Strike "wikilink") and [rent strikes](Rent_Strike "wikilink"),
[environmental protests](Environmentalism "wikilink") and so on) they
can weaken the [state](State_\(Polity\) "wikilink") while building an
self-managed infrastructure of [co-operatives](Cooperative "wikilink")
to replace the useful functions the state or capitalist firms currently
provide. So, in addition to organising resistance to the state and
capitalist firms, these community unions could play an important role in
creating an [alternative economy](Solidarity_Economy "wikilink") within
capitalism. For example, such unions could have a [mutual
bank](Mutual_Banking "wikilink") or [credit
union](Credit_Union "wikilink") associated with them which could allow
funds to be gathered for the creation of self-managed co-operatives and
social services and [centres](Social_Center "wikilink").

In this way a communalised co-operative sector could develop, along with
a communal confederation of community unions and their co-operative
banks. Such community unions have been formed in many different
countries in recent years to fight against particularly evil attacks on
the working class. In [Britain](United_Kingdom "wikilink"), groups were
created in neighbourhoods across the country to organise non-payment of
the conservative government’s community charge (popularly known as the
poll tax). Federations of these groups and unions were created to
co-ordinate the struggle and pull resources and, in the end, ensured
that the government withdrew the hated tax and helped push
[Thatcher](Magaret_Thatcher "wikilink") out of government.

In [Ireland](Ireland "wikilink"), similar groups were formed to defeat
the [privatisation](privatisation "wikilink") of the
[water](water "wikilink") industry by a similar non-payment campaign.
However, few of these groups have been taken as part of a wider strategy
to empower the local community but the few that have indicate the
potential of such a strategy. This potential can be seen from two
examples of community organising in Europe, one in Italy and another in
Spain. In Italy, anarchists have organised a very successful Municipal
Federation of the Base (FMB) in Spezzano Albanese (in the South of that
country). This organisation is “an alternative to the power of the town
hall” and provides a “glimpse of what a [future libertarian
society](List_of_Libertarian_Socialist_Societies "wikilink") could be”
(in the words of one activist). The aim of the Federation is “the
bringing together of all interests within the district. In intervening
at a municipal level, we become involved not only in the world of work
but also the life of the community... the FMB make counter proposals
\[to Town Hall decisions\], which aren’t presented to the Council but
proposed for discussion in the area to raise people’s level of
consciousness. Whether they like it or not the Town Hall is obliged to
take account of these proposals.”\[“[Community Organising in Southern
Italy](Community_Organising_in_Southern_Italy_\(Pamphlet\) "wikilink")”,
pp. 16–19, Black Flag no. 210, p. 17, p. 18\]

In this way, local people take part in deciding what effects them and
their community and create a self-managed “dual power” to the local, and
national, state. They also, by taking part in self-managed community
assemblies, develop their ability to participate and manage their own
affairs, so showing that the state is unnecessary and harmful to their
interests. In addition, the FMB also supports co-operatives within it,
so creating a communalised, self-managed economic sector within
capitalism. Such a development helps to reduce the problems facing
isolated co-operatives in a capitalist economy — see [section
J.5.11](J.5.11_If_workers_really_want_self-management,_why_aren’t_there_more_producer_co-operatives?_\(An_Anarchist_FAQ\) "wikilink")
— and was actively done in order to "seek to bring together all the
currents, all the problems and contradictions, to seek solutions" to
such problems facing co-operatives \[Ibid.\].

Elsewhere in Europe, the long, hard work of the
[C.N.T.](National_Confederation_of_Labour_\(Spain\) "wikilink") in Spain
has also resulted in mass village assemblies being created in the Puerto
Real area, near Cadiz. These community assemblies came about to support
an industrial struggle by shipyard workers. As one C.N.T. member
explains, “\[e\]very Thursday of every week, in the towns and villages
in the area, we had all-village assemblies where anyone connected with
the particular issue \[of the rationalisation of the shipyards\],
whether they were actually workers in the shipyard itself, or women or
children or grandparents, could go along... and actually vote and take
part in the decision making process of what was going to takeplace.”
[Anarcho-Syndicalism in Puerto Real: from shipyard resistance to direct
democracyaand community
control]([Anarcho-Syndicalism_in_Puerto_Real_\(Pamphlet\) "wikilink"),
p. 6\] With such popular input and support, the shipyard workers won
their struggle. However, the assembly continued after the strike and
“managed to link together twelve different organisations within the
local area that are all interested in fighting... various aspects \[of
capitalism\]” including health, taxation, economic, ecological and
cultural issues. Moreover, the struggle “created a structure which was
very different from the kind of structure of political parties, where
the decisions are made at the top and they filter down. What we managed
to do in Puerto Real was make decisions at the base and take them
upwards.”\[Ibid.\]

In these ways, a grassroots movement from below has been created, with
direct democracy and participation becoming an inherent part of a local
political culture of resistance, with people deciding things for
themselves directly and without hierarchy. Such developments are the
embryonic structures of a world based around direct democracy and
participation, with a strong and dynamic community life. For, as [Martin
Buber](Martin_Buber "wikilink") argued,“\[t\]he more a human group lets
itself be represented in the management of its common affairs... the
less communal life there is in it and the more impoverished it becomes
as a community.” [Paths in
Utopia]([Paths_in_Utopia_\(Book\) "wikilink"), p. 133\] Anarchist
support and encouragement of community unionism, by creating the means
for communal self-management, helps to enrich the community as well as
creating the organisational forms required to resist the state and
capitalism. In this way we build the anti-state which will (hopefully)
replace the state.

Moreover, the combination of community unionism with [workplace
assemblies](Workers'_Council "wikilink") (as in Puerto Real), provides a
mutual support network which can be very effective in helping winning
struggles. For example, in Glasgow, Scotland in 1916, a [massive rent
strike](Glasgow_Rent_Strike_\(1915\) "wikilink") was finally won when
workers came out in strike in support of the rent strikers who been
arrested for non-payment. Such developments indicate that [Isaac
Puente](Isaac_Puente "wikilink") was correct to argue that:
“[Libertarian Communism](Anarcho-Communism "wikilink") is a society
organised without the state and without private ownership. And there is
no need to invent anything or conjure up some new organization for the
purpose. The centres about which life in the future will be organised
are already with us in the society of today: the free union and the free
municipality \[or Commune\].

“The union: in it combine spontaneously the workers from factories and
all places of collective exploitation. “And the free municipality: an
assembly with roots stretching back into the past where, again in
spontaneity, inhabitants of village and hamlet combine together, and
which points the way to the solution of problems in social life in the
countryside. “Both kinds of organisation, run on federal and democratic
principles, will be soveriegn in their decision making, without being
beholden to any higher body, their only obligation being to federate one
with another as dictated by the economic requirement for liaison and
communications bodies organised in industrial federations.

“The union and the free municipality will assume the collective or
common owner-ship of everything which is under private ownership at
present \[but collectively used\] and will regulate production and
consumption (in a word, the economy) in each locality. “The very
bringing together of the two terms (communism and libertarian) is
indicative in itself of the fusion of two ideas: one of them is
collectivist, tending to bring about harmony in the whole through the
contributions and cooperation of individuals, without undermining their
independence in any way; while the other is individualist, seeking to
reassure the individual that his independence will be respected.”
[Libertarian
Communism]([Libertarian_Communism_\(Pamphlet_by_Isaac_Puente\) "wikilink"),
pp. 6–7\]

The combination of community unionism, along with industrial unionism
(see [next
section](J.5.2_Why_do_anarchists_support_industrial_unionism?_\(An_Anarchist_FAQ\) "wikilink")),
will be the key of creating an anarchist society, Community unionism, by
creating the free commune within the state, allows us to become
accustomed to managing our own affairs and seeing that an injury to one
is an injury to all. In this way a social power is created in opposition
to the state. The town council may still be in the hands of politicians,
but neither they nor the central government can move without worrying
about what the people’s reaction might be, as expressed and organised in
their community unions and assemblies.