Paid organisers or full-timers

Submitted by jondwhite on January 30, 2017

What are the advantages and disadvantages of paid organizers or full-timers? The SPGB only has volunteers apart from some instances where Tony Turner may have been paid, but its proving difficult to work solely on volunteers.

Steven.

7 years 1 month ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Steven. on January 30, 2017

In terms of unions, there was a bit of a debate here, about which I wrote this blog entry which contains some thoughts
http://libcom.org/blog/leave-it-professionals-paid-union-organisers-23092014

Juan Conatz

7 years 1 month ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Juan Conatz on January 30, 2017

I can't speak of political parties, but for unions I'm fully in favor of permanent, full-time administrative staff, but not as for permanent, full-time organizing staff.

I know a lot of anarcho-syndicalists are against both, but a lot of the rhetoric for the latter, to me, doesn't sound that different from what liberal non-profits say to interns and low paid employees.

W0rkers

7 years 1 month ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by W0rkers on January 31, 2017

The classic problem with full-time paid staff is that it creates a situation where there's a financial incentive for staffers to report in erroneous and ommissive ways in order to make sure their money keeps coming in. It's not a new problem and has a tendency to create bureaucracy and corruption in all kinds of organizations, not excluding unions. I'd be very surprised to hear people who have been in organizational work for a serious length of time to not be aware of these issues and dangers.

Pennoid

7 years 1 month ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Pennoid on January 31, 2017

I've written a bit about it, trying to argue for it's application in the IWW. I think it can work even with organizer roles, I don't understand the problem. The IWW of old didn't fail because it paid organizers (which it did plenty).

The logic is relatively straightforward; the terms of social production are dictated by technological development and relations of production; it takes a certain amount of time a week to execute particular labor activities with consistency and effectiveness, given the available methods. Why people think they can 'will it' in their off time is beyond me.

EDIT: what I've written: https://communistleaguetampa.org/2015/10/17/the-iww-and-paid-staff/

https://communistleaguetampa.org/2016/07/01/on-staff-and-policy-in-the-iww/

Juan Conatz

7 years 1 month ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Juan Conatz on January 31, 2017

W0rkers

The classic problem with full-time paid staff is that it creates a situation where there's a financial incentive for staffers to report in erroneous and ommissive ways in order to make sure their money keeps coming in. It's not a new problem and has a tendency to create bureaucracy and corruption in all kinds of organizations, not excluding unions. I'd be very surprised to hear people who have been in organizational work for a serious length of time to not be aware of these issues and dangers.

That doesn't really seem like an argument against paid staff, but of having any positions that deal, directly or indirectly, with money. That seems virtually impossible.

Fraudulent reporting is an issue of corruption and something that is perhaps inevitable in a big enough organization, but not something that can't be, for the most part, prevented from being anything but an isolated issue.

In my experience in the IWW, it has been volunteer, unpaid delegates and local officers who most commonly are corrupt. This is for a number of reasons. The local membership does not notice red flags, the local organization does not have the sort of transparency in the form of regular audits and officer checks and balances that exist at the international/general administration level, etc.

It seems to me that the rules in place matter quite a lot when it comes to what paid staff are or have the potential to become.

Juan Conatz

7 years 1 month ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Juan Conatz on January 31, 2017

Pennoid

The IWW of old didn't fail because it paid organizers (which it did plenty)

The argument can certainly be made that the inability for the IWW to maintain permanent organization in the early years in some places is because they relied on parachuting paid organizers and speakers in to a situation that was about to blow or they hoped to get to a point to blow. Then they would move on to the next place.

Chilli Sauce

7 years 1 month ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Chilli Sauce on January 31, 2017

Juan Conatz

I can't speak of political parties, but for unions I'm fully in favor of permanent, full-time administrative staff, but not as for permanent, full-time organizing staff.

I get that argument. On the other hand, in a member-run union people are going to come with all sorts of different skills and everyone from that activist core is going to be expected to dedicate time the union. Beyond the arguments around the need for workers to do their own organizing, I'm not sure why that work can occur un-remunerated when admin work can't.

In my experience in the IWW, people do flake out on admin positions within branches too much. I'd like to think this would be less common in a functioning job branch, but I don't have the experience to gauge one way or the other, honestly.

All that said, I'm all for a well-stocked petty cash fund covering things like travel, childcare, a meal, etc available for anyone who undertakes union work of any kind.

fingers malone

7 years 1 month ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by fingers malone on January 31, 2017

Probably there's a difference in the power and influence that a paid organiser can have and a paid admin worker? Though admin workers can probably exert a fair bit of behind the scenes influence tbh.

RadBlackLove

7 years 1 month ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by RadBlackLove on February 1, 2017

Here's a few points against the paid organizer/staffer position from a while ago:

http://libcom.org/blog/leave-it-professionals-paid-union-organisers-23092014

Pennoid

7 years 1 month ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Pennoid on February 4, 2017

Juan,

With respect to parachuting organizers in; it worked in Cleveland 440 for a good while and saw them engage the working class there as a constituency even if they had a hard time educating workers about socialism. There are related problems about contracts, strategy, organizational permanence and so on that factor in. But I think paying someone to do organizing work can really be effective, though I agree they shouldn't be foreign to the industry and parachuted in, so much as drawn from people with experience organizing/negotiating in the industry. My main concern is that it takes a lot of preparation work and skill to address and coordinate the meeting of hundreds of workers (if not thousands) in a small region. It takes a great deal of work to identify those things which unite them as a constituency with respect to their employers/industry. It then takes a great deal of work to educate them (our main tasks) about the rights they barely have and the ones they ought to fight for and how.

I think the IWW has demonstrated that rank and file committees pursuing direct action grievance resolutions can be really effective; until their isolation sees them eviscerated by firings. I Think paid organizers (and admin of course) is what could take us to the industrial plane enough to stave off mass firings that undue years of organizing work by volunteers and rank and filers. The only long term examples we have of direct action grievance resolution over extended periods is dual card campaigns where the business unions basically screen for the IWW (even if passively, by having established firing procedures and other hard won rights at work).

I agree that rules around staff are paramount and that volunteer admin makes for lazy, in consistent admin. It's a catch-22 for a small organization and the solutions aren't easy!

W0rkers

7 years 1 month ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by W0rkers on February 4, 2017

Also people who are in FT paid roles should probably state that if they are defending them. Those positions really aren't for them to defend, they're for the rest of the organization to defend.

Juan Conatz

7 years 1 month ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Juan Conatz on February 4, 2017

W0rkers

Also people who are in FT paid roles should probably state that if they are defending them. Those positions really aren't for them to defend, they're for the rest of the organization to defend.

I'm assuming this concern troll, with an implied accusation of self-interest and dishonesty is directed at me.

I've been full-time, paid administrative staff since November. Started as part-time in September. The job is alright. My pay, hours, and benefits are slightly less than non-union warehouse/factory work, which is most of my employment experience. Not sure how long I'll stick with it. I don't like leaving union positions or campaigns without creating manuals and processes that make the work easier, more efficient for the next person, so perhaps when I feel like I've gotten to that point, I'll move back on to driving a forklift.

My positions on paid staff are the same as they were before I had this position, and which can easily be found on this site.

We should probably also disclose whether any of us have ever been involved in a functional syndicalist branch or local, so we can see who is talking from experience and who is speaking solely from an ideological perspective.

Pennoid, fair point on Cleveland 440. Organizing staff for sure played a part in establishing that local. I'm not sure how much. From what I remember reading from their internal bulletins and various communications, they usually had at least one permanent, paid organizer. I would need to read about them more to really say either way how big of a role they played and whether that local was possible without them.

Chilli Sauce

I get that argument. On the other hand, in a member-run union people are going to come with all sorts of different skills and everyone from that activist core is going to be expected to dedicate time the union. Beyond the arguments around the need for workers to do their own organizing, I'm not sure why that work can occur un-remunerated when admin work can't.

It seems like what you're saying is that you don't see why some administrative work should be paid while some organizing work should not? I think there are a few reasons, and of course this is limited to my experience in the IWW:

1) The power associated with the two are vastly different. In the IWW, people who do admin work, although they may spend a lot of time on it, do not receive organizational cred and informal power the way organizers do. People who mainly do admin work or who are in non-organizing officer positions are often looked at suspiciously and talked to as if they were evil, Stalinist bureaucrats. It's one of the primary reasons people burn out from these positions.

Meanwhile, if you're known to have been involved in a organizing campaign, particularly one where you were fired or that was high profile, your opinion carries more weight than almost anyone else. While I think this makes sense, this can also go too far. I've seen people like this get away with all types of stuff such as sexual harassment, corruption and destructive things based on this cred and informal social power.

That's just the way it is in the IWW. I feel like permanent, paid full-time organizing staff would amplify this dynamic and it wouldn't be long before the people in these positions were the real force in the organization, rather than membership.

2) The need is unclear. As the union is organized currently, with the inefficient dues stamps, paper reports, etc, there is a need for a minimal amount of paid administrative staff. There is concrete things that have to be done, we know what those things are, and we know that they require at least a few people pulling full-time to beyond full-time for them. We know this because we see GSTs, who are on salary rather than hourly, pulling 60-70 hour weeks and still being behind.

This is a tougher thing to determine with organizing. The few stipended organizer situations I'm aware of, the reasoning was unclear. They were utilized more as a magic bullet to common organizing roadblocks, rather than a solution for getting things done that couldn't be done by workplace committee. We don't even have a clear, standard justifications and expectations for temporary, stipended organizers, how can we talk about permanent, full-time organizers?

3) Organizing is the most important activity for the organization to be meaningful, to grow and to be a threat. Some admin work is the most important activity to maintain a minimal level of existence. If organizing isn't being done, a union will stagnate or possibly go into decline. If some more important admin work isn't being done, union funds will be taxed/seized by the state, officers can go to jail, etc. I think it is absolutely necessary for a union to maintain a minimal level of being able to exist, and it seems to me that the best way to ensure this is that this work is done by a minimal level of accountable paid staff, rather than 'whoever-can-do-it' volunteers.

W0rkers

7 years 1 month ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by W0rkers on February 5, 2017

Juan Conatz

I'm assuming this concern troll, with an implied accusation of self-interest and dishonesty is directed at me.

Probably best not to make assumptions because I wasn't "concern trolling" and didn't have you or anyone particular in mind at all. And my point still stands.