why are expelled IWA sections growing?

State funding?

Which unions are you referring to in Italy? Maybe I missed it, by what do you define as syndicalist unions - anarcho-syndicalist unions, revolutionary syndicalist unions or something else? Also, as far as I am aware, for example, in France, after initial start, unions such as CNT-Vignoles are getting smaller each congress.

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Forget it.

Hi Sorry.,

I don't think they all are growing, and the reasons they are bigger than the IWA sections there is different for each place.

Firstly, in Sweden and US there is no IWA section, and both the IWW and SAC have their own long histories. In Spain the CGT is bigger because of its tactics. If you are primarily oriented to workplace organising, the CNT is quite marginal and not present in some cities. The CGT offers all that, and many people would rather be in a big organisation than a small one, particularly when on the ground the political differences are relatively small except for the union elections issue.

In Italy, I am not sure that you can place Unicobas directly in the anarcho-syndicalist tradition, as it draws from many other traditions from the Italian left, particularly the Autonomia Operaia. From the impressions I've got as well, I think the USI are growing as well.

I also understand that the French CNT-AIT is growing now, having been involved in a lot of struggles of urban youth in the last couple of years. I also detect that they are more oriented now to their own activities, rather than attacking the CNT of Vignoles.

But this does bring us back to what constitutes "growing" and in what circumstances groups grow. In France the CNT split happened at a time of a lot of struggles, since then there have been ups and downs and I get the impression that the CNT-AIT is more in tune with the current mood amongst those workers and students in France who are being radicalised than the CNT-Vignoles. The IWW is growing at the moment in the US, but it wasn't the case 20-25 years ago, and it shrank for decades from the 1920s to the 1960s when it nearly ceased to exist.

There is also the question of the "quality" of that growth where it happens. The CGT might have 50-70,000 members, but they're not all active.

I think one of the things you're hinting at here, possibly not fully realised, is whether there's anything we can usefully learn from these groups' tactics. This, however, might mean we would need to dialogue with people we don't necessarily agree with, which won't go down well with everyone. But is it not worth asking CGT what they gain or lose from the participation in the union elections, or Vignoles a similar question?

Regards,

Martin

Why is there a need to do 'political recruiting' and 'typical leftist activism'?

I can understand that 'recruits' are likely to come politically, but that's different to active recruiting as something you do consciously. What typical leftist activism is solfed involved with? Do you mean anti-war marches etc? What's the need for that?

The IWA is an ossified church grouped around an anarchist orthodoxy?

you are asking why an organisation seeks to grow in size and influence? or why A-S group is stuck in political recruiting in its current stage?

Have a look at the discussion i responded to, basically some of the A-S groups in europe have grown lately and one reason mentioned for that is that the growth has been from economic rather than purely political organising and recruiting. Of course for A-S group these two go hand in hand, but as an example of mainly economic recruiting would be an organising drive at a workplace, or a group of workers making the shift from reformist union into a revolutionary union (political move with economic base).

No SolFed is not in a position where it could do organising drives within a workplace, and it would not be wise to do so i guess. So all new SolFed members are individuals from different backgrounds, workplaces and locations but who largely agree with the politics of the group and see it as a project worth getting involved in.

actually SolFed is pretty poor in recruiting There are no active recruitment drives going or anything, sometimes it is actually quite difficult to join SolFed because of lack of local group, or just the whole org feels remote and not easy to approach. So dont get me wrong, there is not conscious recruitment drives going on or anything like that, i mean recruiting in the broad sense of word, basically meaning getting any new members to join and the processes involved.

immigration issues and defence of asylum seekers, anti-racism, anti-war, solidarity actions and campaigns, stuff your boss, running the local radical social centre, organising events, talks, discussion meetings and what not.

SolFed also (at least in Manchester) offers workplace advice, help in disciplinary, grievance and tribunal issues, health and safety advice and so on.

OK it sounded like there was some kind of recruitment drive going on, which I'd not heard about before. This alongside the 'anarcho-syndicalist union not union of anarcho-syndicalists' stuff on other threads had me worried for a moment there

OK that's fine. I mean we'd like more people to get involved helping with this site, and that's going to be based on politics and not much else.

See none of these things are 'bad' per se, but some of those sound like a lot of work for not a lot of people.

Is that to other SolFed members (serious question in case it reads wrong)? Or are you running advice workshops/drop-ins open to anyone?

The same thing happens in Preston. We do not have formal sessions but we get people coming to us for advice because of local contacts. They seem to trust us to give an informed and honest with no strings attached. This comes from those already in unions who don't trust the officials and from individuals with no workplace organisation who feel totally alone. We always emphasise the need to talk to workmates to see if they are experiencing the same problems and to act collectively if at all possible.

haha what?