Once Again On The KMU

By Peter Waterman

22 November, 2015
Countercurrents.org

This is going to be a short response to Kim Scipes’ dismissal of my criticism of both the KMU union confederation in the Philippines and his original presentation of it, both in CounterCurrents.org . I would rather hear new – and particularly Filipino or Filipina voices – than to bat this issue back and forwards between himself and me.

Have I or have I not read Kim’s 1996 book on the KMU?

Yes, both in various drafts and in the first 1996 Filipino edition. I just checked my copyof the book and found markers in places where Kim – at my frequent urging –made some criticism or took some distance from the KMU. I did not refer to it, nor his voluminous subsequent KMU writings, in my CounterCurrents critique of his article because 1) they are seriously repetitive, 2) they neither recalled his few 1996 criticisms nor followed these up in his CounterCurentspieceand 3) I was critiquing the latter, not all his multiple former pieces, and anyway provided a link to hisother KMU writings.

The KMU’s affiliation to the Eurocentred, Eurocentric International Trade Union Confederation

In response to my critique, Kim describes the KMU’s decision to affiliate, and comments

To me, while knowing the limitations of the ITUC, nonetheless, it made sense for KMU to join.

Now, in his 1996 book (p. 200), Kim condemned the Ferdinand Marcos-createdFilipino TUCP for receiving ‘considerable amounts of money’ from the ITUC predecessor, the ICFTU. And praised the KMU for only seeking support from sympathetic national unions or solidarity committees. Do we not need a historical and/or theoretical explanation here, rather than simple acceptance and endorsement of this fait accompli? And how come Kim failed, in his original CounterCurrentsreport, to mention this significant change (not to say reversal) of previous KMU international policy?

The KMU’s relationship with the Communist Party of the Philippines and its National Democratic Front.

Kim finds it contradictory that I should 1) quote JomaSison (founder/leader/theorist/strategist of the CPP/NDF)for evidence that the KMU is considered its ‘sectoralorganization’ for labour when I am 2) clearly and forcefully critical of him. Well, given that he has this status, why should I not take his embrace and endorsement of the KMU as evidence for the KMU’s affiliation/orientation to the CPP/NDF? Especially when, as I stated in my critique, the KMU invites him to speak at its Congresses and even to the International Solidarity Affair Kim attended. Which Kim also failed to report to us.

My motivations

Kim seems to think that I have a particular and incomprehensible hostility to the KMU and to his propaganda for it (since this is what uncritical identification amounts to). Actually this is part of a general and, I hope, increasingly recognised, critique oftrade unions locked into ‘the iron cage of capital and bureaucracy’ (Waterman 2014) - Right, Centre or Left; National, Regional, International; North, South or (Old Communist) East. This critique is, of course, extended to those intellectuals self-identified with such institutions. My latest critique is of the ‘foreign policy’ of the Dutch ITUC affiliate, the FNV (Waterman 2015). And, as Kim knows, my critiques of 20th centuryunionism are balanced off by my recognition and promotion of radical-democratic alternatives, understandings and occasional interventions to promote such (e.g. Waterman 2009).

For the rest, I invite interested readers to compare our contrasting pieces.

References

Waterman, Peter. 2009. ‘Needed: A Global Labour Charter Movement’. Interface: A Journal For and About Social Movements. Volume 1 (2): Pp. 255-262.

Waterman 2014. 2014. ‘The International labour movement in, against and beyond, the Globalized and Informatized Cage of Capitalism and Bureaucracy’,Interface: a journal for and about social movements. Volume 6 (2): 35-58.

Waterman, Peter. 2015. ‘A Feel-Good Coffee-Table Book on Dutch Trade Union ‘Development Cooperation’… but what has ‘International Union Solidarity’ to do with it when the State Pays the Bill?’.

Born London 1936, Peter Waterman worked for the International Union of Students and the World Federation of Trade Unions in Communist Prague (mid-1950s, later-1960s). Later he became an academic specialist on international labour and social movements, internationalisms (and electronic communications relating to such). This was at the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague (1972-98). Since retirement he has published various books, compilations and papers (Search on line: “peter waterman the hague”, or here: ResearchGate). He spends several months a year in Peru, where his wife, international feminist activist and writer, Virginia Vargas, lives. He recently published his autobiography, From Coldwar Communism to the Global Emancipatory Movement: Itinerary of a Long-Distance Internationalist, online and free. It includes his experiences in India, early 1980s. Email: [email protected]