Right so as my fans and avid readers will have noticed, and as my new tagline shows i've recently gained much love for syndicalism. i more or less identify as a syndicalist now - its been a strange transition from platformism through left communism to syndicalism.
so i'd like to open up a little discussion on the IWW and the IWA. I don't want this to descend into an issue of John vs Gentle Revolutionary - it seems to my mind like GR has moved to put whatever issues there were into the past, but either way i hope it doesn't come into this thread.
the iww is clearly on the upswing. the north american section is transforming from an immature small wannabe revolutionary union to a somewhat more mature one with somee actualy growing workplace power. the uk section is also growing very quickly.
the iwa on the other hand, as folks have pointed out, has 2 unions which are larger than the entire iww and several natl sections bigger than the uk iww. i think they are also somewhat more theoretically advanced, in general (and they are explicitly libcom, rather than implicitly so). however they also clearly have some problems which are going to limit their future potential if they are not dealt with. Namely the 1996 splits in france and italy and the way these were/are dealt with (this is also shrouded in mystery). other things which seem problematic are the way in which WSA was excluded, as well as relationships with SAC and CGT.
Anyways i'd really like to see what other folks think about these things. I'd also like to see what other folks things about future collaboration between the IWW, IWA, CGT/SAC/CNTF/USI Rome, and other groups moving close to syndicalism.
