A-Syndicalists and A-Femminists can and do get on in many organisations however i have always believed that when it comes to putting together a Federation theoretical unity is important.
I have no problem with a model where different Federations existed, say a A-Communist Federation along with any Eco/Fem Federations.
What worries me is that by trying to include different schools of Anarchism inside one Federation i suspect is a recipe for indecision and inaction.

Since I wrote What Is To Be Done? A proposal for an Aotearoa Anarchist-Communist Federation, there’s been some interesting questions raised by other anarchists which I thought I’d post my thoughts about here. Some of the discussion took pl…

“the WP were on the picket line a lot. Mark Muller was there everyday and worked hard and got respect. The only anarchist there more or more involved that WP would be Ingrid who also works at the NDU. Some other WP’s were there a lot but not as much and I was often in the office doing the press work if i wasn’t in the bus. I think the whole relating to the workers thing is silly. THey are people, we are people. Communications not complicated. I don’t think WPers seperated themselves.”

First, I just want to mention that this isn’t anything personal against the WP people who spent time at the picket line – during my conversations with them, they were always friendly.

I think a lot of the issue I raised has to do with the role that the WP people played – that of a union organiser, whether it be with the NDU (in Mark’s case) or Unite (in the case of the others). The WP people spent a large amount of the time in the bus (much of it plotting and planning, but not all of it), which, for better or worse, meant that they were seperated from the locked-out workers who were on the line itself (and their families that were there supporting them). Even when they weren’t on the bus, they spent much of the time with each other. Because of the way the NDU (and indeed all unions) are organised, this “elite” planned what would happen and then came out, called a meeting (for example) and told the workers what was happening. This position of power is guaranteed to occur in any trade union – in this case, however, the people in that position were members of the Workers Party. If those people had been there without being union organisers, if they’d been there in a personal or WP organisational capacity, then the situation may have been different – but thats not something anyone can know.

It may have been different in times when you were on the picket line, but during the time I spent there, it was certainly something I noticed strongly.