The IWW - a good idea? Practical?

Does this mean the AF has changed it's position on unions?

I think not. As you said earlier, the IWW isn't 'a real union' (assuming by this, you mean something that fits the established trade union model) and this can only be a good thing.

The AF has been talking about workplace resistance groups as part of it's industrial strategy for a few years and it seems to some of us, the difference between the IWW and our notion of 'workplace resistance groups' is virtually... nothing!

My views are probably known by loads on here, so I won't bother rehashing them.

But there has been a lot of talk in the AF about industrial organisation - spurred on in no little part by certain comments made by certain posters from another unnamed federation on libcom - which was something we'd had on our agenda for the last couple of years and had been unable to agree on.

From my own point of view, I'm in favour of getting into something that tries to unite all workers, not something that splits them into capital defined categories.

So i'm hopefully meeting someone from the IWW in Oldham to talk things over. I'll be going into it trying to find out what it's all about.

Incidentally, I've no doubt that we'll agree a common policy at our conference.

I like the idea of the IWW, but I don't think trade unionism based on personal politics is a good idea. Certainly not at this moment in time.

How could you unionise a place you were working if everyone there had to be an anti-capitalist? It seems a bit silly. I mean the best you could hope for is that these people just forget the whole aims of the union and joins anyway, but then what's the point of having the revolutionary aim?

No, because they're not unions. At present now they'll be more like propaganda networks for an anarcho-syndicalist union - and admittedly so.

Solfed has never pretended to be a union. The IWW does.

Entryism.

Surely historically that's what went on with the IWW in the US (there's no way their mass organisation was all united around anti-capitalism, just that the IWW was for all workers and that it wanted to see the end of the wage labour system; once someone's in the organisation and they see it benefitting them then they'll largely just go along with whatever happens to be being pushed), or even if you look at it from that angle the development of the ILP and communist parties in Britain circa 1910s and 1920s.

As I said, I'm only asking. I've not got a clear view yet.

But I don't see much difference between the two in terms of who you have to accept as members. I'm sure real anarchist syndicalist unions have exactly the same problem.

My main problem with the whole industrial union business is the idea of syndicates self-managing industries. (He says, throwing something new into the pot).

This is bordering on 'thought' really - maybe the admins could move it.

Have you read the IWW constitution - it's a work of genius. I sat and read it for hours, made neither head nor tail of it, and pondered what it must be like when, because you have 100,000 workers in one industry organised you set up an industrial branch or something. One of the cheeriest things I'd read in a while.

I suppose you could argue that the organisational structure of the IWW is more important than it's anti-capitalism. If you can call it a union, then it's a union run by it's membership, with a federal structure.

I really hope this is the case. Your above post leads me to think that my recent political evolution is not just me being crazy, as those are almost the exact ideas I have.

there's no real revolutionary group which can participate in the IWW the same way in the US (i'm not sure what i think about this); NEFAC for the most part are dismissive, though quite a few of us from CTC (the NEFAC supporter collective in Atlanta) have joined in the last few months, and some of the main organizers from the old Northwest Anarchist Federation are now Wobblies.

Anyways I hope the AF decides to strategically start organizing through the IWW, and that they also put together a good position statement on this as a reference for the rest of us anarcho-communists and left-communists who are wobbbly (or wob symp).

Loren Goldner, a left-communist writer who is extremely admirant of the Wobs, has written a good piece on this: http://home.earthlink.net/~lrgoldner/program.html

i think there is definitely a big difference in IWW UK and IWW USA. i must say, the legal recognition thing does seem to be pretty plausible. i think if it was recognised as a 'proper' union there would be more members- even non syndicalist members, even non-anarchist members. i'm not particularly syndicalist - more communist - but i joined because i think the workplace (or studyplace in my case!) is still an important area for organisation not only of those of the same class but also as a way of nurturing a radical community. If you know there's someone who is a member of some organisation then there is a certain social identity that suggests some sort of anchor: 'he's a wobbly'. 'what's a wobbly?'. 'well they've ot a website...' etc.

perhaps so. it's a bit of a problem with anything smallish- how to assert your particular way of looking at things to a large audience when there are relatively few?

out of interest, what's the membership like in the UK? hundreds? thousands?

I think this highlights a problem when people are really so far out in their conception of the size of the IWW. Also you may find that anarchists not in a majority of the membership.

Aye, if you can call it a union at all

E2A: My point was that the IWW would be great if it actually acted as a union (instead of being a propaganda group, as it is at the moment) regardless of it's ideological trappings, because it is run by the membership and thus not controlled by full timers with their own political agendas or what not.

Not true, about 150 (146 definitely, but the Northern delegate – incidentally also an AFer – claims its even more).

And there certainly is a lot of potential for growth – more so than most libertarian organisations as the US IWW (I think the biggest libertarian organization in the US) shows. San Francisco for instance has 150 members, and Portland had about 250 members a couple of years ago.

It would be silly if it was true. History and even the contemporary IWW in the US (or the 3000 Sierra Leone miners who organised with the IWW in the 90s, but were crushed or fled during the civil war) shows this isn’t true. You only have to agree with the working principles of the organisation.

SolFed is unlikely to ever become a functioning union. I think the fundamental flaw of SolFed’s approach (apart from placing too much importance on propaganda – ie being a political/propagandist rather than economic organisation – whereas the whole point is in organising workers along direct democratic lines and fighting against the bosses) is that it is too narrow ideologically and actually doesn’t accept people who aren’t already anarchosyndicalists - when again, the whole point is in bringing people over to libertarian ideas through struggle and direct experience.

Firstly, the approach of these unions who organised tens (and hundreds) of thousands of people (or even millions) is much closer to IWW’s approach than the SolFed’s. Secondly, unfortunately I don’t think these unions are really in the tens of thousands (even the moderate CGT only has about 50 000 members, and a much bigger influence apart from its membership for sure).

The recognition has been a major problem (no legal protection for the workers), but we’re getting close, a few months at least as it seems we have actually fulfilled all the legal requirements, but they are trying to stall it of course.

The IWW definitely can and does defend its members. The IWW in America does it all the time, and something a secretary working in the parliament IWW job branch said just yesterday disputes the claim business unions are here to “do the job”. It wasn’t the mainstream union that did anything to help them (they were actually extremely condescending and tried to persuade them to drop the case), while the IWW internationally started a solidarity campaign.

This is a common misconception, IWW being merely a “foreign import” with no connection to the British libertarian labour movement, although it has existed in Britain in some form or another ever since 1905.

The IWW in the British Isles definitely has a much longer and more substantial history than SolFed if that’s what you’re aiming at. See http://www.iww.org/en/culture/chronology/international.shtml (doesn’t cover new things, like the Edinburgh parliament job branch we have).

I just came back from an IWW conference in Edinburgh last weekend, and was pleasantly surprised by the state of the IWW in Scotland, which has our strongest groups today – Edinburgh & Glasgow. There are a lot of problems, but things are moving in the right direction. There has been a 30% growth in British Isles membership in the last year, we have revived Bread & Roses which should be out for May Day or sth like that, we’re moving closer to getting listed and recognition, the London group has been re-established and is standing on its own feet, with various possibilities (including a recent offer by a refugee activist to get about a 100 refugees to sign-up with the IWW, which we’re investigating and preparing for in terms of translations etc.). One of our weakest spots at the moment imo, the website, is also going to be brought into order. Our focus is on:

a) organising the unorganised into a libertarian union

b) building a militant network of dual carders active in their own business unions (see The Role of the Dual Carder in the IWW - By Joshua Freeze - http://www.iww.org/culture/official)