XXV Congress of the AIT-IWA

Would've liked a bit more news...

Thanks OliverTwister, I see what you mean, I think that the arrangement of having IWA Sections and Friends write their own analysis of their current struggles in the International Workers' Association (IWA) external bulletin when it is published, is helpful.

Oliver, there is not much more to tell. There was (unfortunately but necessarily) a dominance of technical issues. Setting internal systems for example the system for recalling the Secretariat, (which had been pending because there were some issues about the first proposal) for paying dues and what happens if a section has financial problems or needs to delay dues payment, discussion on the level of dues, on the frequency of Congresses, etc. These things are all important for our better functioning and for transparency of procedures, but not necessarily things to write about.

The Secretariat changes at the beginning of the year, so it is still the task of the current Secretariat to write the official IWA article about the Congress. Maybe it will be longer. You can find some different things in the article on the CNTE page if you like. That article is in a different style than the article on ZSP page.

Thank you for your interest though.

As for other things, which I suppose can be positive, like branch networks, I think it is much better to write about them when they are in place, because in fact we have yet to see what will come out of these efforts. It is one thing to propose something and another to make it happen. This procedure will take a bit of time since we have to go through various sections but hopefully if something starts happening with this in the future, people will know.

A few other issues are pending or strictly internal matters. Also, a few matters towards the end were treated too briefly because we ran out of time. We unfortunately sometimes have this problem because of too many matters. Congresses will be held every 3 years instead of every 4.

Oliver, this is the link to the article on the CNT page: http://cnt.es/noticias/xxv-congreso-de-la-ait-un-paso-m%C3%A1s-del-anarcosindicalismo-internacional

This is the Secretariat's report:
http://www.iwa-ait.org/content/report-iwas-xxv-congress-valencia-december-6-7-and-8-2013

International Workers' Association (IWA) external bulletin is updated with Oct 2013 issue from www.iwa.ait.org

self-deleted

FAS from Austria? What? The organization exists only active in Vienna. It's a handful of social worker.

Such a disasters are happening!

Just fed up!

FAS is a small organization, but it applied to be a Friend, not a Section. Austria is not a country where there has been an active movement for some time. We hope they will develop. No harm in showing solidarity in their hope to make an anarchosyndicalist organization. We hope they can start moving towards developing practical activity.

What's the actual name of the FAS and do they have a website or FB page or something public?

Now FAS is only active in Vienna, so maybe they should be reffered to as WAS. FAS was Federation of Workers Unions: their page no longer functions. But it is still up for reference: www.syndikate.at. Current page: http://wiensyndikat.wordpress.com/

FORA have made public an internal debate of IWA.

There is a thread in spanish in alasbarricadas
http://www.alasbarricadas.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=57085

That thread isn't started by FORA BTW, but by anti-FORA.

The text is written like "we in FORA" , "in FORA we think"... "we said in the congress"....
So we could say that at least is a text from some FORA member.

As CNT member I am sick of some actitudes, the smallest and useless a section is the more arrogant and unrespectful they are...

The text linked to is written by FORA but posted there by some types who want to bitch and pretend the CNT is 4-5 bigger than it really is. They seem to think that any people who are, by accident of birth, working in some other countries or realities should either keep quiet or lick the asses of a few vanguardists going around beating their chests. When you can be more productive in relation to other people in the world, you probably will get respect. In the meanwhile, my comment is that useless is an adjective which should be applied to people who make stupid proposals they know won't pass just to start fights and bitch instead of doing anything that can bring fruit and improve organization and mobilization.

Yepa

As CNT member I am sick of some actitudes, the smallest and useless a section is the more arrogant and unrespectful they are...

so perhaps you could quote or base your attitude on something. otherwise it seems it is just a useless post, you know...

Trusting over time information is shared.... mainly looking for positives. Because I think that's what folks want to finally see out of the IWA (and other international formations). Constructive stuff, not just internal housekeeping

And well said. So in order to bring positive things into the Congress and out of it, we need vision and people making concrete ideas for improvement. I think some were approved, as I noted above, but knowing life, I prefer not to spend a lot of time making publicity out of decisions, but instead try to work on implementing them. When good decisions are finally implemented and working, I think then it is worth talking about them. :-)

Happy New Year.

syndicalist

Trusting over time information is shared.... mainly looking for positives. Because I think that's what folks want to finally see out of the IWA (and other international formations). Constructive stuff, not just internal housekeeping

Now why would someone "down" this comment? I mean, of course I would like to know all the gory details of stuff. And I am interested if north america was discussed in any meaningful way.
But, candidly, if folks are gonna slice and dice themselves to death, no one benefits. And I really mean this for the IWA and other formations I may not have a whole lot of politics in common with.

Personally, I would much rather see anarchy-syndicalist influence in areas where it can. And not only amongst their own, but with others who may be friends and allies, in large measure. And I feel the same with specifically anarchist internationals and most networks as well. Basically, time to expand influence, guidance and in places and with willing folks. After 40 years at this, I'm not naive, just hopeful.

I'll answer your specific question. There was, in my opinion, no big discussion at all about N. America, although it was on the agenda. Only a few comments and some information distributed before the Congress. The reason for this is that there was not a lot of time and we did not get to all points, or treated some only in the most superficial way. I feel in general the IWA has not been discussing situations in different parts of the world too much. But on the other hand, there is not too much justification for speaking of the situation there too much, as we have tons to do and serious interest in joining the IWA tends to come from other areas of the world. I would personally prefer to spend more time organizing concrete campaigns and talking about improving our organization, then just sharing information, as that can be easily done by email any time of the year. Because there are no concrete proposals related to the USA and the time in Congress is best devoted to concrete matters.

I just was talking about respect, every section have the right of propose whatever and accept the congress result. That is it, but we have to decide stuff with respect. the problem is when disrespectful and arrogant actitudes come from people that should focus on doing things right in their area of influence, we the anarchist call that "propaganda of the deed". My union has the right to propose exactly the same next congress, and the other unions can say no again or just change their mind, as easy as that. Personally I think IWA should be 1 vote per city, like that CNT votes can be splitted and the general ideas of IWA members would be more representative. There is no easy solution, but 5% of IWA members controling IWA it is also not perfect.

First, you have to stop spreading false information about the IWA. The IWA is not controlled by anybody. You are making a conspiracy theory instead of acknowledging that your people just submitted a terribly unpopular idea. Which was not popular with a large enough percent of the CNT even, which was evidenced by the large applause from your own comrades when it was voted down.

When ideas are good and productive for most Sections, they pass. When not, they fail. It doesn't matter how many people you claim to be - if your ideas have no advantage for other people, they will reject them. And that idea was only for the advantage of part of the CNT.

The CNT does not represent 95% of IWA members. Together with USI, it does not represent 95% of the membership or even 85%. And it is the Section of the IWA with the largest membership drop, while others are growing. You should stop making myths about stuff. It doesn't help you with your problems.

Your new idea is surprising. You are against so-called small organizations having more influence than "huge" CNT but yours means that in cases where people set up small groups in dozens of cities, they have more influence than a very large functioning organization in one city. How is that supposed to be better? Beats me.

I think the real problem is CNT is in a hole, its members are frustrated and they are looking for any scape goats they can find instead of producing productive proposals for IWA activity and participating in what has been done in the last few years.

Anyway, I don't see why anybody needs to respect anybody else's attempts to marginalize others. When you come to the Congress with something positive, we will respect it. When you organize something concrete with workers, we also respect (and support it).

I agree it's not fair to leave it as a situation where thousands of people can get outvoted by a few dozen, but the ability of smaller sections to make themselves heard is important if we want to avoid having Spanish voting blocs with the ability to potentially make smaller sections do stuff which isn't in their best interests.

I'm not saying that would be deliberate, but it's pretty likely to happen because people can't possibly know precisely what the situation is worldwide when they vote, and will do so based on their own experiences, which will likely be similar on a national level but not necessarily globallly. Because of that I'd be against the one-city-one-vote option (also it really encourages fraud - I could see smaller sections setting up ghost branches if they got desperate).

Speaking of respect though, it's also pretty disrespectful to accuse comrades in other countries of not doing enough at home simply because they voice a strong opinion on the future of the international, so please stop that.

Edit: Cross-posted with akai

As I am no longer in the IWA, I can't comment on whatever the current situation over voting might be.

Let me just share these few thoughts and observations.

When the CNT was underground it was all these small groups (ours included) that did whatever we could to support the fighting CNT. And within the IWA, the CNT always held great sway and position. We always respected the CNT for what it did and what it was doing in underground Spain.

This also carried through when the CNT came out from the underground and a historic rebirth of the IWA as well. While the post-Franco CNT was huge and we were all tiny, our love and respect for the CNT remained. And the same carried over into the IWA as well.

The CNT has and will always have a special place in the hearts of many anarcho-syndicalists.
Those of us who are or have spent years carrying out workplace activities with less then successful outcomes have more often then not been envious of those, such as the CNT, who have been successful. And continued solidarity will always be with the fighting CNT.

Love and respect aside, because of the CNT's special and historic role within our movement, there have been times when it has used both its role and size to maintain perspectives close to its own priorities.I do not mean the historical patrimony, there is no debate about support for that view. But for the close to 30 years I was involved with the IWA, the CNT pretty much had its way (both in a good way and bad).

I can understand how some in the larger, functioning Union section's can feel a bit
frustrated. Especially when they have felt that some of the smaller and newer sections and friends challenged certain of their union practices.

That said, it almost seems reactive (not in a positive way) to simply try and place limits on organizational size, strength and certain practices..

I recall reading a 1961 issue of the Syndicalist Workers Federation (SWF) publication "Direct Action". In that issue there was a short report on a recent IWA Congress. And one of the main things that came out of that congress was a way to bring in the many smaller, non-union functioning anarcho-syndicalist and libertarian workerist groups from throughout the globe, mainly in the Americas at that time. I guess the point being, that international anarcho-syndicalism will always have elements of large and small. That on-the-ground conditions will create and dictate certain things. And that the ability for a functioning international will be based not only on historical respect, but also on respect as equals. And respect that Union sections may have to operate differently from non-Union sections. With both having to maintain an ability to allow the other to function in a manner and shape best directed by their own memberships (in accordance with the overall agreements freely accepted by those holding membership in the international organization).

Good cheer for the new year.

To be honest, I think the main problem in this dispute (and in most disputes between lefties) is that neither side seems to be able to look at things from the other's perspective (let alone actually accept that the other one might have a point).. so the big sections refuse to see that the littler ones might not fancy being relegated to sidekick status, while the little sections seem to refuse to see that maybe 'one section, one vote' is a bit unbalanced when one section has 50 people in it and another 5,000..

Now, with all the respect I have for the CNT, USI and FAU, I do kinda come down on the side of the smaller sections on this for the reasons they mention about marginalised etc.. ultimately I think it would be massively damaging for the IWA as a whole, especially in terms of new sections wanting to join.. like, if a group of a dozen anarcho-syndicalists from, say, Nigeria wanted to join, I think it would be kind of shitty to be like "yeah, cool, but you can't have any part in decision-making"..

That said, I actually had a similar idea which Yepa outlined above about a voting structure based on cities/local groups and was surprised when akai just dismissed it out of hand.. in terms of how it would be better, I think it would encourage more local participation in the international, as your local group could discuss it and vote directly.. so if you're in a city with a small local, or a minority opinion within your national federation, you can still have your say on an international level. Obviously, it could bring it's own problems (which Rob mentions), but then I think the current situation has problems as well. The point is to try to work through them rather than just talk shit about each other.

Edit: cross-posted with syndicalist.

Yepa

Personally I think IWA should be 1 vote per city, like that CNT votes can be splitted and the general ideas of IWA members would be more representative.

I like that idea (perhaps combined with some veto mechanism to stop smaller sections from being marginalised), it feels like the most natural way of taking decisions in a international(ist) libertarian communist federation. However would it not be quite difficult to decide what is/isn't a city in practice? Presumably it would fall to each IWA section to decide how many city-locals with voting rights there are, but that's problematic because then each section would decide how many votes in total it has within the IWA.

Well tbh, you then have your 100 member CNTe cities and your 10 member SF cities..!

"The CNT does not represent 95% of IWA members. Together with USI, it does not represent 95% of the membership or even 85%. And it is the Section of the IWA with the largest membership drop, while others are growing. You should stop making myths about stuff. It doesn't help you with your problems."

I am not talking about CNT, I am talking about 3 unions and a big group (4 secctions) that have 95% of IWA membership.

"I think the real problem is CNT is in a hole, its members are frustrated and they are looking for any scape goats they can find instead of producing productive proposals for IWA activity and participating in what has been done in the last few years."

I see CNT more optimistic and fordward that in the last 30 years, for the ones that think CNT is loosing members you will be very surprised soon, you can be expecting a big grow, numbers will be more realistic soon.

The proposal was very balanced, the biggest union with more than 100 unions have 3 votes and a group of 20 people in a country have 1 vote. We believed like that was better and other sections decide that not, that is it, no hard feelings, next time maybe we find a nicer idea that can fit everybody. What is not acceptable is the disrespect and insults.

And do not believe so much what some CNT members that are not agree with the CNT tactics nowadays could be telling you. CNT is stronger in workplaces that in the last 30 years. The years were the target was to survive has passed away, now survive is not enough we are getting ready to go forward.
The most polemic decisions that CNT could be taken are taken by 80% vs 20%, even if the 20% is very noisy, even if they all go to congresses and campings. Members have more information that ever, nobody read the internal stuff before, hundres of papers that nobody cares so much, now the members read pdfs online, now everybody could know everything with 3 single clicks, before only the ones like me that have spend half of our life in our offices reading internal stuff have some information of what was going on in CNT and in IWA.

Sorry for my broken english.

Yepa,

1. There were not 4 organizations supporting your proposal.
2. The organizations supporting it do not represent 95% of anything. You are exaggerated.
3. Your organization does not support it in 100%.
4. We don't "think" that your organization is losing numbers - we saw your numbers.

All of these things are just surrogate issues and the real issue seems that some people have no ideas about what to do. This virtual brainstorming about proposed voting systems is just leading to crazier and crazier ideas. I can just see all the possibilities for manipulation. What about cities (like mine) which had multiple unions? And the ones which don't have big groups in one city and so join in a union with nearby cities. We have 2 organizations that way. Guess they'd be better off splitting up into smaller units and getting more votes.

All these different ways ... which are all a substitute for making common working projects.

I just think people should get on with their work.

PS - suppose your so-called 80% "silent majority" is just also represented by some small group of people who go to meetings and vote on behalf of those people in international meetings. Am very glad that there are critical voices against this type of representivity of the passive memberships.

BTW, you might want to actually consider that some organizations are organized in workplace unions, branch unions, etc., not only in municipal units. Like our little "non-union", that have people organized in workplaces and branches which might be even in more than one city. And which might have more than one union in one city.

Comrades, please spend more time in your Sections seeing how you will participate in and implement some of the recent Congress decisions, so that we have some functioning projects in the future, instead of crazy discussions on the internet. Thank you.

Yepa

I see CNT more optimistic and fordward that in the last 30 years, for the ones that think CNT is loosing members you will be very surprised soon, you can be expecting a big grow, numbers will be more realistic soon.

as opposed to not being very realistic now?:D

Yepa

Members have more information that ever, nobody read the internal stuff before, hundres of papers that nobody cares so much, now the members read pdfs online, now everybody could know everything with 3 single clicks, before only the ones like me that have spend half of our life in our offices reading internal stuff have some information of what was going on in CNT and in IWA.

being able to get the information (sorry, but isn't this supposed to be a standard in an anarchist oriented organization?) and actually reading the information (and caring) are two different things.

as opposed to not being very realistic now?grin

it is about how we count the members. (Edited)

being able to get the information (sorry, but isn't this supposed to be a standard in an anarchist oriented organization?) and actually reading the information (and caring) are two different things.

Yes, but I come from the era before internet (in IWA not so long ago), every month 5 kilos of printed paper came from mail, Who tha fuck was reading that? yes, few people like me (hiperideologized) that were responsible to open the union every day, as nobody enters before in the union I had plenty time to waste. It was forbiden to take those papers home. Now people read PDFs at home. The time we are in the union we are busy with labour conflicts, organizing, helping other workers...
The more people get involved in "internal life" the healtiest an organization is and there are more people involved than in the last 30 years, still not enough, most of members focus local and see that amount of paperwork stupid burocracy and they does not want to even read it. telling them that this is not burocracy and this is important is every day´s work.

Yepa, I really think you need to shut up now because you are telling us all that your organization may be committing fraud inside the IWA and this can be the basis of an investigation. Especially since they were asked and gave an official explanation different then yours.

Our organization also has unemployed people and we waive their dues but pay for them on a solidarity basis. We know that other comrades work in the same way. Also, those who do not pay dues but have not received a waiver due to economic reasons lose their membership status in most organizations I assume. If we counted all the different people who hang around and sympathize with us and do things with us but don't pay dues, we'd probably be the third largest Section in the IWA. But we made a Congress decision NOT to do this, because we consider it dishonest and mental behaviour.

Now if people want to ask the real questions about proportional voting inside the CNT and how it might work, we can assume that the unions receive votes inside the CNT according to their paid membership. According to the above situation you claim, it would seem then that those that are poor (have a lot of unemployed comrades) and cannot pay their dues are thus losing their votes, while those who have more money have their full membership counted.

If we compare this shit with the real stigmatism of the one Section which asked for a discounted rate because of the huge employment and poverty in its country, we really have something like a double standard.

I will assume for now that you are so fucking desperate to put yourselves on some activist pedestal that you are not even thinking about what you are saying.

Back to the subject of the Congress... I think that it was mentioned somewhere that there were a lot of decisions which related to the good and transparent functioning of the IWA. Some Sections commented that these things are "bureaucratic" but they are meant as an improvement and we consider them so.

Hopefully nobody will mind if I mention the clarifications to the system of paying dues. It sets out clear rules for how this is done so that we can hopefully avoid any speculation as to whether dues were properly paid.

IWA Sections will get the new regulations next week. Among the things expected is that each Section clearly states the number of members when paying. If any Section has financial difficulties, it may apply for a discount or arrangement, but the Statutes are changed and this is no longer done by the Secretariat, but is decided directly by the Sections. So an explanation of the situation must be given. Those not paying within the given time frame are contacted and if the situation is not cleared up, they are declared not to be in good standing. Those found paying incorrectly are also not in good standing. Being not in good standing for some time means the question of expulsion is put on the agenda. / The Statutes have always clearly stated the obligation to pay dues, but this system sets rather clear limits and, we hope, will make the whole thing more transparent and discourage any incidents of abuse.

I think most serious organizations also have strict regulations about dues. But as people coming mostly from anarcho-communist traditions, we have to be very careful not to exclude people only because of legitimate financial problems.

I don't know about all other organizations, but as I said, ours tries to distinguish between those who really cannot afford to pay dues, and just people who participate on and off and therefore might be tempted to be irregular about their dues. We had some people like that but last year we cracked down and instead of having them on our "books", we simply say those people become sympathizers, not members, and they lose their right to vote. However, we have NEVER denied an unemployed or very low income person the right to be a member because they might have financial problems. In such a case, the local organization can waive the membership dues, but we should somehow find a way to cover that person's dues, for example if a payment is required to the central fund or internationally.

Anyway, we know that there is a big divide between "membership" in developed and richer countries and the rest of the world because of this. In some countries we see that people might pay some membership fee, regardless of whether they go to the meetings or not, just to be a member or support. In E. Europe, S. America, etc., we have NO people like that. It is not even conceivable to us that somebody who is not an active member would pay us money regularly. People simply do not part with their money like that.

Another cultural difference between the places which are richer and with bigger tradition who get people to sign up and pay more easily than in other places.

Interesting debate so far.

As a non-member of the IWA but a supporter of revolutionary unionism, I think there is a noticeable tendency which probably exists on the entire left of small groups whose main activity and reason for existing is to be part of one international or another. Even ignoring the times when this is clearly a caricature such as Ukraine (or possibly Uganda), I'm sure we can all think of some trotskyist faction of five members who are part of the workers international league for the reconstitution of the organizing committee for the IV international - and this is one of their main political priorities and activities.

What a few people want to do doesn't hurt anyone, but what it means concretely for those trotskyist internationals is that they become focused on finding new small groups, even if they are splits from larger groups, with the result that very few of them actually have any working class base - and that many of these internationals pay more attention to fighting each other over new sections then in building any working class base. Devrim recently described a similar process to the ICC, so I think we can safely say that it is not limited to trotskyists. I believe Devrim related this to the downturn of class struggle at the end of the 70s and the restructuring in the decades since then, so that there is basically no sizable left and small groups had to get used to being small.

I'm concerned about something similar happening to both the IWW and the IWA and I think it would be a tragedy if either one ended up in that kind of dynamic. I think both bodies have groups and individuals internally which are pushing them in this direction. However I think it is also reactionary to dismiss small groups out of hand just because they are small. Some of the small groups do really good work in really difficult conditions. Equally some "large" organizations rest on their laurels too much (and I definitely include the north american IWW in this!).

I do think there's a certain size where it is very easy for a group to have just one influential member, or exist in only one city, and not to have any kind of interaction with the working class. I don't think it does anyone any favors to go around seeking this kind of group and dressing them up as a "national section", which is not to say there shouldn't be support and mutual aid. This is especially problematic if we know nothing about this group and simply accept them as soon as they send as some cash with a letter of interest. On this respect the IWA, by having applications for sections sent to Congress, definitely does a much better job than the IWW, which charters new sections by administrative fiat.

Also there was a comment in the ALB thread to the effect of how tragicomic it was that voting procedures are one of the big topics for discussion at the congress of a revolutionary organization. I think this is on the money and could also apply to the difficulty that the IWW in talking about anything but procedure at our Conventions. The only meaningful discussion at Convention that I remember in recent years was about the no-strike clauses and staff organizers, and even then it was filtered through the level of a constitutional amendment. There is no reflection about our involvement in Wisconsin, the formation of a national body for Food and Retail organizing, discussing the future, etc. One has to either laugh or cry.

I can forgive to a certain extent congresses or conferences that include discussions that are the bones that the meat is put on, such as procedure and protocol. That is what happens, let's accept it. But I get the impression here that if things aren't always moving forward and growing, then what we do now in the interim is somehow a bit daft? or perhaps it's a case of some people liking the sound of their own voice? Truth is, for me, keeping a large - certainly the largest libertarian organisation on the planet - afloat and with its teeth sharp is no mean feat. I'd ask people to show a little more understanding before writing the IWA, the CNT or any other section off before they chip in, unless they can evidence that they are that superior revolutionary that thousands of others should follow.
Also, yes there was some minor controversies coming from the IWA Congress, shit happens and will happen next time (we aren't the effing Borg). Those loyal to any organisation they pay dues to would surely discuss things in a constructive manner closer to home - rather than on the blog?

In regards to north america, mention was made that nothing concrete has come from this part of the globe.Actually, although sent very late to the IWA, the WSA sent a letter, which our Secretary will be following up once the new IWA Secretariat is in place.

The letter reads, in part:

"The Workers' Solidarity Alliance after some years of growth continually is presented with the question of affiliation by our new and young members who see IWA-AIT as our natural comrades in the revolutionary unionist and anarcho-syndicalist struggle. In fact till this day we find ourselves in solidarity with the IWA-AIT's Statutes, it's Principles, and Goals of Revolutionary Unionism.
...
Considering this it has come to our attention that the IWA-AIT at the 25th Congress will be discussion the North American question. Since our members time and again ask of our organization to explore how we can be recognized again as the US Section, the WSA has a question for our comrades in the IWA-AIT:

What would be the process should WSA seek to be recognized as US Section of the IWA-AIT? Specific information would be very helpful. We are aware of a questionaire, so as each section can learn about the current state and aims of the organization. Is there anything more we must provide for you?"

Perhaps that is not concrete enough for comrades?

Yes, we will be following up with the new secretariat. Myself specifically as secretary of the WSA.

We would like to know what would be required of us to reapply, we understand there is a questionaire in order to know more about what an applying group does, etc...perhaps that is what is meant by having more concrete information and so on.

No matter what, rest assured there will be continued efforts to build anarcho-syndicalist organization and revolutionary unionism in the United States.

Hi, a response to the last 2 comments. Yes, a letter was sent from the WSA on Dec. 5, and the Congress started on Dec. 6. :-) So of course the letter could not have been considered any basis of anything since all topics for voting and official opinions must be submitted 6 months beforehand. And most of the delegates wouldn't even have seen it before the Congress, since they would have been travelling when it arrived.

That said, all questions sent will be answered and any delay in doing so is just caused by the time needed to transfer the secretariat.

Hope that is clear.

Exciting stuff, btw, WSA folks! :rb:

plasmatelly

Exciting stuff, btw, WSA folks! :rb:

Thanks. The main drivers are mostly -- tho not exculsively-- younger comrades.

akai

all questions sent will be answered and any delay in doing so is just caused by the time needed to transfer the secretariat.

fair enough

syndicalist

akai

all questions sent will be answered and any delay in doing so is just caused by the time needed to transfer the secretariat.

fair enough

Yes this is what we figured, and as syndicalist mentioned the drive by mostly but not exclusively younger members of the WSA did not happen until as our letter explains they heard that North America was going to be discussed, and so there was an internal push to inquire.

I suppose people in the US might have misunderstood why there was a "discussion". None of the Sections actually motioned for this when submitting issues. It was an issue left from previous Congresses. The IWA has a very annoying habit of adding on "pending issues" at the end of Congress agendas, when sometimes there is actually nothing new to be said about them. This seemed to be the case for this and, as I mentioned, there was not much to say.