never posted there. dont think i want to now...
retailworker.org
When I worked at Target this time last year, I had looked at posting there several times, but it didn't draw my attention because it didn't seem to be a place of empowerment of retail workers, but just a place where sods could come together and bitch and feel hopeless, no thanks. Plus the idiot "libertarians" on there.
Sure, that bothered me too, considering I am from an immigrant family. I think we should have some sort of disclaimer that the IWW does not condone racist-hate speech of any kind, and such speech only serves to divide us workers, and nothing more. Its like that Nazi twat on youtube that talks about the IWW and how it was revolutionary, but it needs to just be for whites. By the way, anyone know where I can get an IWW flag, or a red and black flag?
retailworker was like a pandora's box when we inherited it. Even when a lot of wobs try to go on and regulate the madness, which has happened several times, there are just way too many users who have saturated the site with insanity for any organization to effectively manage, let alone our relatively resourceless union. I think we should jettison it and soon. If other feel the same, we should move a motion amongst the GEB.
They, thanks Kizzle.
I agree, If it is something that we can not regulate, its better to avoid being associated with that racist rubbish. I don't really know what else to do about it, if it is not manageable, its better to jettison it, or could we make it a IWW member only retail site? Just my dos centavos.
dont give out private email adresses on public sites. emial the branch adress. bayarea@iww.org
Partisano wrote:
They, thanks Kizzle.I agree, If it is something that we can not regulate, its better to avoid being associated with that racist rubbish. I don't really know what else to do about it, if it is not manageable, its better to jettison it, or could we make it a IWW member only retail site? Just my dos centavos.
go on msn and ill give you the "DL"
x357997 wrote:
dont give out private email adresses on public sites. emial the branch adress. bayarea@iww.org
Temporary lapse in common sense.
I don't want to do anything rash, but I have to say I walked away with a very bad taste in my mouth after posting there. I might feel better jettisoning retailworker.org if we had some activity on the IWW.org boards. I heard rumors of a site overhaul and especially an overhaul of the forums, can anyone confirm this?
Partisano wrote:
By the way, anyone know where I can get an IWW flag, or a red and black flag?
Not a clue my friend, but kind of randomly, IWW.org has labor history 2008 calenders for pre-order. They make great gifts and they're a good fundraiser for the union. Buy one for all the lefties you know.
Yeah, I already talked to X about it, I think I'll buy a couple of their flags, True that, I think I'll by myself a calendar, and one for a few friends as my anti-consumerist Christmas giving spree. That was a nice selling line by the way, lol. That a mil comrades.
pghwob wrote:
Rumours, rumours...As to retailworker, I think it did result in some leads, but then again, so could any site if it was allowed a public interface.
We got a million leads, but try to show me one that led to any kind of organizing drive. Let's ditch it.
The IWW host Prole.info? Oliver you know I love you and that I love prole.info but you're nuts.
Retail worker sucks. We should cut all the content and just put a link to the IWW site or the Sbux union site. Partisano and NC, if y'all aren't on the internal IWW email lists, you might consider signing up, you can do so on iww.org.
I suppose the one good point to retailworker would be the exposure the IWW wouldn't ordinarily have, but yes, we could just do the link. And the exposure is no good if it isn't concretely related to anything of importance.
Oliver wrote:
"hoping people create their own organizing drives."
Maybe I'm missing something, but how do you expect most people to do that without some advice, guidance, and further involvement by experienced organizers? It happens, but it is usually a hot shop situation I wouldn't call organizing.
Dunno how doable this is, but if you've got admin control then couldn't you get a policy sorted out , announce it prominently on all subforums etc, wait a week and then simply go through systematically and cull anyone on there who has violated, then follow it up with a bunch of postings from interested wobblies and supporters suggesting concrete solutions to any hopeless whining that's been going on? That'd all be above board, while getting control of it back and pruning out troublemakers.
If it's well linked (and it's a very good domain name) it'd be a shame to abandon it.
It was a little bit of a hyperbole, as I don't think prole.info is looking for a host. (Also I don't think i phrased it well).
However the responses are interesting.
Quote:
prole.info is something good to show to friends who want to become politicized or learn about class politics. I dont think many people will look for it and then start a union after reading it.
This is a really formalistic view - on the one hand you have "class politics" and in a separate sphere people "start unions". I thought the point of syndicalism was that workplace activity is itself political. If something like "Abolish Restaurants" does not motivate a single restaurant worker to begin job conditioning with their co-workers (far more important than "starting a union" in the abstract), but is only used to turn people's friends onto "class politics", then its a waste of fucking bandwidth and all the physical copies should be recycled, composted, or burned for warmth, because more use would come out of them that way.
Quote:
Maybe I'm missing something, but how do you expect most people to do that without some advice, guidance, and further involvement by experienced organizers? It happens, but it is usually a hot shop situation I wouldn't call organizing.
I'm not saying that we shouldn't help people organize as much as possible, but its one of our central principles that the working class has the capacity for self-organization. This doesn't happen all at once, and we want to help it along, but its still up to the working class to organize itself (or else we're all fucked).
Of course I don't think that means organizing "unions" in the abstract (and this is why maybe I shouldn't have used the phrase "organizing drive"), but there are informal work groups in every shop. They vary in size and strength, but they always exist. If the IWW ever organizes in a massive way, and actually does it in way distinct from the business unions, it will be based on these groups. More importantly, any working class self-organization will be based on these groups. Therefore something (like prole.info) which encourages workers to form and strengthen their informal work groups, not to mention to recognize their ability to change the world, is a good thing. I don't think retailworker.org does either of these things in its current incarnation (though maybe it could in the future?), and all it does is hand us dud organizing leads, yeah? So even if we don't literally begin hosting prole.info, maybe we should keep it in mind.
edited to clarify the last sentence: I mean that we should keep in mind the stuff that prole.info does well, not that we should keep it in mind for hosting.
I just want to confirm, Prole.org has not entered into some sort of unholy alliance with crimethinc, have they? The reason I ask is because a shitty crimethinc poster is using graphics from abolish restaurants (a bit too lifestyleist for my tastes). Here's the link: http://www.crimethinc.com/tools/downloads/
For the record, I saw the poster up at local a 'collective,' I don't frequent their site ,although I do live about an hour away from the crimethinc house. Feel bad for me, my town is crawling with those little twats.
And why is crimethinc a .com? Dirty bastards.
ncwob wrote:
For the record, I saw the poster up at local a 'collective,' I don't frequent their site ,although I do live about an hour away from the crimethinc house. Feel bad for me, my town is crawling with those little twats.
I remember North Carolina before CrimethInc., and when it was just a couple of punk bands. The next thing I know it's a cult.
So I while ago I attempted to post on the IWW-run site retailworker.org. Apparently we took over the administration of the site from some group or another. Either way, i found it to be, maybe not entirely reactionary, but certainly not an empowering place for workers to post. Possibly management stools, but I found I spent more time reading customer complaints (for whatever reason they thought we could solve their issues) and arguing with (American) 'Libertarian' Party-type nutjobs. Has anyone else posted there? Was your experience any more positive and do you think a co-ordinated effort of some Libcom Wobblies could be a worthwhile endeavor to improve the dialog on the site?