Anti-Fascist Reflections on the Labour Struggle

By the Pōneke Anti-Fascist Coalition.

The battle for workers’ rights is a fundamentally anti-fascist kaupapa. In their struggle for liberation, unionists the world over have encountered fundamental connections between their emancipatory struggle and the struggle of others targeted by the extreme right. 

A core mission of anti-fascism is to see labour rights respected and enjoyed by all. Why? 

People often see the anti-fascist mission, and left-wing missions more broadly, as fundamentally interested in identity-based emancipation. However, the mission of the leftist is broader. Anti-fascism resists all forms of unjust hierarchy. Anti-fascists resist the unjust economic hierarchy that subordinates the worker to the boss, landlord, and capital owner, as well as all other unjust hierarchies: misogyny, queerphobia, racism, colonialism, and more. 

Because to be an anti-fascist is to resist oppressive and unjust hierarchies, it is a core interest of the anti-fascist to fight for workers’ freedom from the unjust hierarchy of capitalism and capitalist modes of organisation. 

The injustice of capitalism is not one-dimensional. Capitalism is merely one structure of oppression through which other forms of oppression manifest. In other words, capitalism does the ‘dirty work’ of other forms of oppression. And the dirty work of capitalism- its unique oppressive ideology that upholds the creation of value for those who do not labour to create said value- manifests in other contexts. For example, the denial of abortion rights to women is often based on the claim that womens’ core purpose is to produce value for society in the form of children and free domestic labour. 

The idea that some racial, ethnic, or caste groups are inferior manifests, with alarming frequency, in modern-day slavery.1, 2, 3 While other forms of oppression play out through capitalist structures, so too do capitalist forms of oppression play out through racist, sexist, ableist, anti-indigenous (etc.) structures. 

What About the Right? 

The deep relationship between the injustice faced by workers and other marginalised groups is played out by the far-right, too. When right-wing extremists seek to hurt the marginalised, they attack multiple groups at once.

More specifically, the desire to oppress certain identity groups frequently bleeds over into a desire to oppress workers and anti-capitalists. We see this play out in the right-wing symbol of the helicopter. Here’s the background: In 1973, Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet orchestrated a coup against democratically elected president (and communist) Salvador Allende. After, Pinochet’s administration tortured and executed thousands of communist supporters of Allende en masse.4 Many communist party members were killed, infamously, by being thrown out of helicopters into the sea.5 

Today, members of the extreme-right appropriate the imagery of the helicopter to signal their attitudes towards unionists and anti-capitalists. At a 2017 solidarity rally in Tāmaki Makaurau for the Muslims affected by Donald Trump’s travel ban, counter-protesting Trump supporters 

wore T-shirts emblazoned with a helicopter and the slogan “Right Wing Death Squad”.6 Overseas, infamous white-supremacist and domestic terrorist groups like the Proud Boys and Three Percenters wear slogans offering “free helicopter rides” to socialists.7 

It is not just the leftist, the ‘Antifas’, the communists, the socialists, or the green-haired septum-pierced liberals that see the connection between worker and identity-based oppressions. Right-wing extremists see it, too, and they use it to their advantage in their mission of subjugation. 

ACTION 

In Pōneke Anti-Fascist Coalition, we believe in taking action. What can you do to support the rights of the worker in an anti-fascist way? 

1. Join your union. Unions are there to protect their members by joining together to improve wages and conditions - instead of leaving you on your own against management. 

2. Seek diverse perspectives when working to improve your workplace conditions: people who are mothers, people who have different immigration status, people who are not White, etc. Create and respect identity-based interest groups within your union. Make your union a safe and supportive place for all people to be. 

3. Respect picket lines. Do not scab. Offer material support to striking workers. Strikes need support to effectively force concessions from the bosses. 

4. Learn about and show up for workplace struggles, including those that don't directly affect you, those you don’t understand, and from people you might not usually know.