Duke I'll accept that minority campaigns are problematic, but let's say in some situation you got no choice. Like you got handed one or something, and are not given the option to end it. That is, I'm looking for you speculate a bit in order to give tactical advice, not strategic.
Jul 20 2007 01:21
Jul 20 2007 01:45
ending something is always an option.
minority campaigns that don't plan on reaching majority are silly.
blitzes are solely designed to get ahead of the approaching anti-union campaign and hold over fifty percent in the election that will be held three to six weeks after the blitz.
it's a bad idea unless that is your tactic.
Jul 20 2007 03:30
Ending isn't always an option for everyone - say you're the organizer assigned to run a fucked up campaign and you're not given the option to end it unless you want to get fired and that doesn't seem like an option, or whatever. Anyhow, all I'm saying is that I'm less interested here in the higher level strategy question of campaign type (and for what it's worth I agree that not seeking to be majority is silly). I'm more interested in help with how a particular tool, the blitz, can be adapted for different types of campaigns. I mean, no one's obligated to help me think that through but that's what I'm after in this thread. If a blitz is really useless for a minority campaign then so be it, but I'm not convinced that's the case. If anything, it seems to me it could be a way to push a minority campaign into being or trying to be a majority campaign.
Here's a question - if a campaign is already public, is there anything lost by doing a blitz? This may be simplistic of me but my take is that talking to a lot of workers is a good thing. Since a blitz is just trying to talk to as many workers as possible as fast as possible (by bringing in additional outside people for a short time) I don't see how it's a bad thing, but maybe I'm missing something. If executed properly - timing and such are important, etc.
Jul 20 2007 14:23
In long term campaigns, which a Minority Unionism campaign is, workers aren't talked to unless they are cleared first by multiple workers that can be trusted.
Blitzes create the anti-union attack.
The IWW and you nate need to think more strategically. Many unions use blitzes some of the best don't. My union DOES NOT blitz, ever anymore.
I'm pretty sure that your minority union campaign looks more like our long term undercover campaigns than an SEIU hospital campaign.
Jul 20 2007 16:28
yab wrote:
In long term campaigns, which a Minority Unionism campaign is, workers aren't talked to unless they are cleared first by multiple workers that can be trusted.Blitzes create the anti-union attack.
The IWW and you nate need to think more strategically. Many unions use blitzes some of the best don't. My union DOES NOT blitz, ever anymore.
I'm pretty sure that your minority union campaign looks more like our long term undercover campaigns than an SEIU hospital campaign.
I'd agree with this. Starbucks would work with a longer timeline less publicity and more of an HERE underground campaign model.
Jul 20 2007 16:51
I'd be keen to see any materials on that campaign model. Presumably the long term campaign eventually goes public, though, right? At which point the anti-union attack starts. Would a blitz not be useful at that point? In any case, I'll accept that blitzes are limited tools. What are the situations when they're more useful?
Jul 20 2007 16:52
you might blitz the remaining 20 percent of a shop that isn't covered by the committee, the day before you go public. But in this case you have a year of deep committement or more from the organization .
Jul 21 2007 03:09
Can someone define for mean the 2007 meaning of the term "blitz"? Thanks.
Jul 22 2007 02:58
syndicalist wrote:
Can someone define for mean the 2007 meaning of the term "blitz"? Thanks.
Its when you housevisit every worker you can in a particular campaign in a very short amount of time.
Jul 23 2007 14:48
Quote:
Its when you housevisit every worker you can in a particular campaign in a very short amount of time.
Humph, what a change since I last used it.
Thanks.
Jul 23 2007 15:55
syndicalist wrote:
Quote:
Its when you housevisit every worker you can in a particular campaign in a very short amount of time.Humph, what a change since I last used it.
Thanks.
Its not like this shit is rocket science dude. 
Jul 23 2007 19:21
syndicalist wrote:
Quote:
Its when you housevisit every worker you can in a particular campaign in a very short amount of time.Humph, what a change since I last used it.
Thanks.
Yo Tom, get the van. We're blitzin' again.
Jul 24 2007 12:04
duke, todays blitzing is significantly different than it was when we first started using the term -:)
Here's how, in part, I previously described our blitz
Quote:
I think my concept of a blitz might be a little different from what folks are talking about,perhaps.When I was with the UE I would basically look to see where there was a concentration of factories, etc. Scope out the area to see level of unionization (or not); determine working hours and so forth. Many times I was on my own, but I tired to get members to help coordinate a leaflet "blitz" of the area. When we we trying to organize plastic industry workers, we target shops and get a team to blitz with leaflets---this sort of blitz was first step stuff. To see if there was interest in the union, etc.
A bit different than how its evolved today.
Jul 24 2007 15:57
syndicalist wrote:
duke, todays blitzing is significantly different than it was when we first started using the term -:)Here's how, in part, I previously described our blitz
Quote:
I think my concept of a blitz might be a little different from what folks are talking about,perhaps.When I was with the UE I would basically look to see where there was a concentration of factories, etc. Scope out the area to see level of unionization (or not); determine working hours and so forth. Many times I was on my own, but I tired to get members to help coordinate a leaflet "blitz" of the area. When we we trying to organize plastic industry workers, we target shops and get a team to blitz with leaflets---this sort of blitz was first step stuff. To see if there was interest in the union, etc.
A bit different than how its evolved today.
Thats crazy. Did you ever win a campaign by having the first thing you did be leafletting publicly in front of the boss? That is completely insane.
Jul 25 2007 03:00
Quote:
Thats crazy. Did you ever win a campaign by having the first thing you did be leafletting publicly in front of the boss? That is completely insane.
We would blitz industrial areas where there were many factories and all sorts of people took leaflets. This was done initially on a cold call basis. In the shops where contacts were developed we went silent until the appropriate time.
Look, talking with workers at outddor luch tables was no "picnic" either.
In old factories that were converted into multi-unit shops, oft times we have a shop organized in the building and we use informal contacts with unorganized workers that way.
Now, times have changed and maybe the tactics are changed, but there wasn't a period of time that I wasn't involved in organizing---few from the leaflet blitz's I might add -:)
Can comment on articles and discussions
Yeah that was totally the only problem in China and Russia, a lack of popular support.
I'm not so sure I would go so far as to say blitzes are a write off but you wanna make sure yer damn ready- we weren't and it sunk us.