mandatory GMB membership?

I'm torn. On one hand I think people should be able to get from under a branch they don't want to be part of. Or in some cases branches have expelled members from the branch, but not the larger union. But on the other side I feel that letting people do this, makes people think they have a licence to run and do stupid things without accountability to anybody.

I would be against people joining branches or ROC they have no organic connection to.... This might sound confusing, but for example if I, living in California, say I want to be a member of the BIROC now. I think that would be dumb.

Also, I really hope we start to develop IU's again (I know Nate is with me on this on), do we create some procedure for a member determining whether they want to pay dues to their IU or to their local GMB, esp if both have a presence in the same geographic area?

Weaver, I think there's already plenty of

They didn't come from opting out of GMBs. What if your GMB is run by people with a stupidity license and they don't report, so you can't vote? I could see individual or even groups of wobs wanting to opt out for reasons like that. You could say "they should change the GMB instead." I agree with you, but that could be pretty daunting if you're way outnumbered or something, and the conversations around reforming the GMB could make it so unpleasant that people feel like it's not worth their while. Like, say three people are unhappy with the officers and much of the membership of the GMB, and they also want to form an IUB. In the short term, officers who don't do their jobs will make it harder for the IUB to get chartered (people aren't in good standing etc). I think in a situation like that opting out and focusing on organizing an IUB would make at least as much sense as fighting with the GMB.

Two other things I want to say on this. First, I think branches should be voluntary associations not mandatory ones. Period. Second, some of the arguments for mandatory GMBs go like this: "a union is a collective entity, so we shouldn't allow this individualist stuff." Fair enough, but that's a misrepresentation on two counts. There's no reason that opting has to be an exclusively individual(ist) thing. It could be collective, like in the hypothetical I mentioned where people opt out in order to build an IUB. That line of argument also misrepresents GMBs. There's nothing about a GMB that guarantees that people are really going to be involved. I'm sure every GMB in the union has inactive individual(ist?) members. GMBs don't necessarily promote collective activity. People can (and are) in them who aren't involved in any collective activity at all. I think making branches mandatory instead of voluntary will feed the dynamic of inactive members rather than fix it.

I feel exactly the same way about IUBs. Exclusive jurisdiction is not collective activity and does not promote collective activity. Good organizing does (both bringing new people in and winning, and also internal organizing - building relationships etc).