[Sticky] Objectives and Principles of the NLOC

To join or create an affiliated Gig Worker Committee, members must agree to the principles and objectives of the NLOC, along with the rest of the Draft Program of Struggle. 

• NLOC’s Five Objectives
  1. To begin preparing the ground for and planting the seeds of a new labor center that will struggle for the end of State Unionism and for the construction of a class-based, combative and independent trade unionism in the United States.
  2. To move beyond the struggle for economic demands, and work to forge proletarian class-consciousness through the political struggle against the labor aristocracy, the current labor-liberal establishment, the capitalists, capitalist state, their traitorous agents among the workers, and the mindsets of the imperialist, patriotic and middle-class “labor movement”. To always link our struggles and organizations to the ultimate historical goal of our class, the conquest of political power for the workers. To actively differentiate ourselves from the sell-out labor bureaucrats everyday through our methods, world outlook, and class stand.
  3. To practically start to break links with the US Imperialist State through the independent coordination of our struggle, the creation of new forms of organization and material support, and the development of new forms of unionist action that destroy and replace the bureaucratic machines that the establishment state unions have become. These forms can be direct or transitory, depending on the particular conditions of each sector. To abolish all remnants of legalistic class collaborationist unionism like no-strike clauses, managerial rights clauses, electoralism, pacifism, individualistic rather than collective forms of leadership, etc. To combat all types of errors of establishment union leadership such as careerism, “labor professionalism”, sell-out-ism, old boys club mentality, individualism, and prejudice/discrimination which undermine and destroy the possibility of working-class solidarity and industrial unionism. To adapt unionism to the modern imperialist economy by upholding internationalism and breaking down the false walls between “bargaining units”, companies, sectors, and even nations.
  4. To re-develop a unionism that upholds and puts into practice the old correct lines of relying on our own class, on the workers themselves, our own practical and political leadership, and our own strengths in everything we do. To defend unionism from attacks from the right, which turns unionism into a tool to control the workers and undermine our demands, and the ultra-“left” which denies the political importance of the struggle for working-class collective action and the daily demands of workers in the workplace. To elevate the principle of proletariat self-reliance and proletarian leadership in all aspects of our work.
  5. To foment and strengthen the spontaneous rebellion of the working class masses. To not lead the workers into the dead-ends of electoralism, back-door sell-outs under the guise of negotiations, pacifism and legalism. To not deny and downplay the workers’ correct and righteous anger and grievances, but rather elevate that anger and grievance to a new and more advanced level. To let the rebellion and actions of the workers and their allies overflow and be unleashed in a thousand new ways in our country. It is the duty of all class-conscious trade unionists to lead and sharpen the spontaneous struggles of the workers, raising their political and class consciousness in the process.
• NLOC Six Principles
  1. Class Struggle: The first principle of NLOC, from which all of our other principles stem, is that we recognize that true labor unions are and must always be organizations of struggle for the working class against the class that exploits them, the capitalist class, and its repressive government. This principle of class, the recognition that the working class and the owning class are locked in perpetual warfare and have irreconcilable interests, is a fundamental truth from which all of our other tasks and ideas flow. In particular we uphold the strike and other economic actions based around the withholding of our labor as the primary weapon of the unions, and resist all attempts to weaken, undermine, and restrain that weapon. We work to embody and uphold the old slogan of the class conscious workers “class against class”.
  2. Anti-Opportunism: From the first day, our organization will immediately differentiate itself from the state-sanctioned labor movement by rejecting all forms of opportunism, the default behavior and “method of work” found within ranks of the professional organizers and so-called “leaders” of the state unions. NLOC will not abide any sell-outs, traitors, abusers, serial liars, and con-artists disguised as “organizers”, “activists”, and “leaders” within its ranks. Opportunism means trading the long term interests of the proletariat for real or perceived short term gains, and its is non-negotiable that every member actively combat it in the course of their work.
  3. Independence: Our organization upholds the principles of proletarian self-reliance and autonomy. That the working class can have no champion but itself, must have its own leading organizations, and must primarily rely on its own strengths and the members of its own class. That we cannot rely on the state and its courts for recognition, and only recognize the legitimacy that comes from our support, leadership, and action in the workplace, on the shop floor. That we must develop our own networks of funding, support, and resources as concrete manifestations of our solidarity and growing strength as a class.
  4. Democracy: The NLOC puts forward the need for our organizations to be democratic and to embrace collective, democratic forms of leadership and structure in comparison to the bureaucratic and arcane structures of the modern state unionist labor movement. We uphold the shop floor committee model, the need for free and open union elections, accountability of leaders and organizers to the workers, and collective leadership on all levels. We reject the obligatory membership and dues model imposed and upheld by the state unions and embrace the model of conscious and voluntary membership and dues-paying.
  5. Anti-Imperialism: We recognize the self-evident but rarely talked about (at least in the establishment labor movement) truth that the US imperialist state is the number one enemy of workers and oppressed peoples both here and abroad. That it is our duty to concretely struggle and undermine US imperialism, in words as well as deeds. That we must actively encourage and develop an actual proletarian internationalist labor movement that workers across borders in a combined struggle against US imperialism. That this struggle also applies domestically to the struggle of internally oppressed nations and national minorities against the US Imperialist State.
  6. Working-Class Unity: We insist on the key principle and task of developing and patiently forging working-class unity through our work. In particular, a working-class unity not based on papering over currently existing divides and backwards mindsets among our class, but one which is actually center on overcoming artificial professional categories towards achieving industrial unity, and one which actively and acutely struggles against all forms of chauvinism (racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, nativism, etc.) that oppresses and attacks certain workers to privilege others. We also insist on targeting, in particular, the trend of class collaborationism in its many manifestations, not only because feeds the workers illusions of peaceful co-existence with the capitalists but also because it actively confuses the workers and places them in opposition to one another. We reject all unity with the capitalist class and their reactionary agents, and embrace all unity with the exploited masses and workers of this country who are willing to struggle alongside us.