We have now decided, instead of continuing to hold separate Organizing Support Meetings, to simply integrate these organizing support elements within the regular monthly IWW meetings. That means we won't have time for quite as much of this stuff each month, but we felt this was ok since the amount of organizing support activity we've been doing has started to seem out of proportion to the amount of actual organizing we have going on...Anyway the hope is, by combining the organizing-support stuff with the formal branch decision-making stuff, we'll have branch meetings that are worthwhile and of interest to more than just the hardened few who handle branch administration. And those who come mainly for the organizing-support stuff will feel more like they're really taking part in the organization.. SeaSol members who aren't (yet) IWW members will still be invited too; they just won't get a vote on branch business. We'll see how it goes...
To come back to this earlier part of the thread for a minute: we just had our first IWW branch meeting with this new format, and it was great. There was only time for one roughly 35-minute "organizing support" session, and that's probably all we'll ever manage, but it worked great and really made the meeting far more interesting and worthwhile for people. It also reinforced the sense that workplace organizing is the main thing the IWW is about, and helping each other to do it is the main purpose of having a city-wide all-industries general membership branch. So we're going to carry on doing it this way, with one 35-min organizing training, "hot seat" support, or conflict strategy/tactics session each month. I think it's a really positive (though small) step forward for the Seattle IWW.
The ratio is roughly a few core organizers to the tenant/worker. There are exceptions, of course, but it seems like a typical fight has about 2 or 3 folks who are following it closely and making sure everything gets done. Obviosuly, the ratio has been very different for fights with a whole group of tenants.
No guarantees, Nate.
I think we're entirely of the same mind. The only difference is that I don't see coming into an organizing situation with preconceived plans and objectives as "undemocratic." The people we organize with are free to stop working with us whenever they want - as are we free to stop with them. When I or someone else says "here is the fight I want to start, and here are some of my ideas on how I would like to see it done," - that's entirely compatable with the idea of democracy, so long as we conceive democracy as something which is based on free association, and so long as we're not talking about ordering action without voting.