Recollections, notes, reflections of WSA, 1984-2000

Thanks,Luguis. Remember these are just rough notes that I hope will form something better in the future. Rereading this, I see that some if the historical context of the early to mid 1980s are left out, giving it a sorta rough air about relations and so forth. Basically the point or the take away is many events, factors and personalities go into building an organization And how past or current (real or perceived) tactical or political differences and personal or organizational jealousies
can create a whole host of problems that can be problematic going out of the box. Can these problems be solved with a magic wand, no. Can efforts be made to try and organize around them, seek ways to avoid them, etc , yes.

In terms of IWA back in the USA, there is some current internal discussion about that. And it's best just to leave it at that.

While our affiliation to the IWA was a significant part of most of our history, and certainly one that I was deeply engaged with, there needs to be more to organizational life and practice then international affiliations. Not knocking it, just saying there needs to be a balance. In the past, sometimes there wasn't that balance .

Gots to go

I think I may start a different thread for the above conversation.

Split off: IWA in the USA? http://libcom.org/forums/north-america/iwa-usa-25062015

Given the way this digressed and the way the other convo has gone, I'll eventually draft something and publish elsewhere. Sorry, just seems to go like that here.

And fuck you to the dude who downs nearlly all my postings

Thanks for the words, comrade

I can only say that now given the numbers of "down" here and in another posting it's sorta obvious the popularity of opinion. That said, I can now just figure a number of the downs are prolly coming from many if the same people who have been more then happy to accept help, solidarity, advice etc over the years. It's awright, I get it.

On one level that might be right.

I don't mind a good political discussion
And I don't mind holding a minority point of view, which is obviously the case here
I guess it's this constant cycle over the years of always having to validate your political existence
The same cycle of competition or competitiveness, rather then just letting things be.
it may be, after a while it becomes discouraging in the sense of wanting to share or even be helpful.

I'm setting granite now. I'll come back to Fnordie later. Basically it's not the question

Right quick. I mean folks can debate or discuss the form option. I'm not saying it should go
I just find the lone sniper who seems short of cajones who just snipes at many of my postings
Got an issue with what I'm saying, cool let's deal with it. If your just doing it cause you don't like me, that's just petty and unconstructuve

On the other thread, yeah , well folks are entitled to not like anything I say and I get that
And if the message is your ( mine) views, experiances, suck, cool. Enjoy the monothlic show

Cat... These are just rough notes up to 2000
At some point I jot down some additional notes up to present
I'll post that internally. At some point I hope to do more then rough notes on the overall history. But don't hold ur breath that'd be any time soon

Steven, you can see who actually votes up or down on things?

Thanks for the interest.

syndicalistcat

Steven, to answer your question there isn't anything written unfortunately on the St. Luke's struggle & alas the main organizer later committed suicide & I've lost contact with the Latino man he was working with (who was later working with me in the Mission Antidisplacement Coalition). The informal group at the newspaper is discussed in a piece that's in the libcom library actually, "Small is not beautiful". The abortion stuff is talked about in several articles in ideas & action that still only exist in print form. The interesting work in Hostess is described at length in an essay in ideas & action that also is still only in print form.

Not sure what we may also have in old issues of the internal Discussion Bulletin. I don't recall much. If I come across stuff, I'll let gas know.

That'd be excellent

In doing my notes, I'm trying to figure out how to do the part on intersectionality
Don Gato gave me a tad of insight. But I'd like to see something on that as well
I realize some of the then WSA members writings on this were mainly as individuals, but it'd be good for the record to reflect their positive contributions (aside from
Local Hartford work on gender issues)

Unctrolllable.....saw the email. Way cool. We prolly should get the stuff up on ideas & action webzine. Then share the links to the webzine site

Ja, same ones

Mike has been one of the hardest working WSA members….evha.

“One of my fondest memories of my early days in the WSA was eagerly waiting for the next Discussion Bulletin to arrive in the mail. The DB had reports from comrades around the country on what they were doing, introducing new members, local actions and important news, international reports and letters from the IWA secretariat and other sections.”

Over the period from 1984-1999 approx 80 issues were published. Sometimes it was monthly, sometime not. This was all pre-internet and our principal means for official communications.

Throughout the years Mike can be credited with being the mainstay of the “The Seditionist”, the “Anarchist Labor Bulletin”, “The Office Worker”, “The Education Worker” newsletters. And as in a stint for at least one issue of the print journal of “ideas & action”.

WSA Memories

By Mike Kolhoff

Part of a series commemorating 30 years of WSA

One of my fondest memories of my early days in the WSA was eagerly waiting for the next Discussion Bulletin to arrive in the mail. The DB had reports from comrades around the country on what they were doing, introducing new members, local actions and important news, international reports and letters from the IWA secretariat and other sections. Many phone calls were generated by the DB with questions and congratulations and offers of aid. Really the DB and the phone were the communication system that kept us in touch with the organization.

I miss that, a lot. Our current electronic instantaneous communications seem less substantial sometimes. The immediacy has, for me at least, degraded both the content and tone of our interactions. We have sacrificed thoughtfulness for speed, which isn’t a fair trade.

My other best memory is the national conferences held each year. This was where we were able to meet the people we’d been corresponding with and maybe clarify what needed clarification, and maybe achieve agreement, or not. Anyway, it was always good to see the comrades. My favorites were the conference in Knoxville and the conference in New York. Knoxville was great because they had an active community of supporters to we also met, and just the chance to meet the Knoxville comrades was a pleasure. New York was also a high point, with Pepe Jiminez the IWA secretary attending. I got to wander around Mike Harris’s neighborhood in Bloomfield, New Jersey which was pretty cool. Even ordered a pepper and egg sandwich at some Italian bar. Nice, right? I went out for a beer run while the group of us ate at an Indian restaurant in Manhattan and ended up drunk and lost for a half hour (all of the blocks looked kind of the same, until I found the one with nothing but Indian Restaurants and could see New York Steve through the window.

The conferences were fun, but we also got shit done. When we left we felt like we’d accomplished something, or at least I did. We had a plan for moving forward, and that is always what you need.

Posted: November 5th, 2014

- See more at: http://ideasandaction.info/2014/11/wsa-memories/#comments

DP

Steve has been a steady hand WSA member. Without his invaluable help and assistance, the "ideas & action" webzine would have fallen to the wayside.

Anarcho-syndicalism in America
By Steven Fake

WSA 30 Year Anniversary

Part of a series commemorating 30 years of WSA

I am a relative newcomer to the WSA. I did not join until 2006. I might have joined some years earlier had I only heard of its existence. WSA is not exactly the most visible political organization in the country. This is unsurprising as anarcho-syndicalism is scarcely known as an ideological tendency in modern America. When I did eventually learn of the WSA it was via the byline of a member writing in a leftist internet publication. The sort of media one finds only if looking for it rather than the kind of rag that can be picked up on a whim at the street corner, perhaps while waiting for the bus.

Discovering the WSA was something of a relief for me – proof that there were living members of a tradition which I felt intuitively to be correct, yet had encountered only in history books. If anarcho-syndicalism is, as Noam Chomsky believes, “the proper mode of organization for a highly complex, advanced industrial society”, then what are we to make of the invisibility of the organized tendency in the U.S.?

In part, the marginalized status of the current is simply a reflection of the left. The thirty years of WSA existence have marked perhaps the weakest period of the political left since the 19th century. The relative marginality of the left has had the concomitant effect of shrinking its aspirations. Radicalism is marked simply by a rejection of hopes for salvation through the Democratic Party. The radicals then, while perhaps of not insubstantial numbers, are very rarely organized in any coherent fashion. Debate on issues like the relative merits of worker self-management or workers’ parties therefore is mired in a small, shallow pond with little room for air.
We are very far from the days when Rudolf Rocker advocated for worker’s power within the wide sea of a militant and quite radically-minded labor movement and immigrant communities; or C Wright Mills extolled the virtues of anarcho-syndicalism from within an intellectual ferment that still asked big questions and did not feel itself to be living after the end of history.
Yet the role of organizations like WSA remains vital. As the Occupy wave reminded us, popular struggle can pick up at any time, and necessarily relies heavily upon the institutional memory of pre-existing political groupings to popularize otherwise forgotten traditions that demand a society self-governed by the workers. Otherwise, the lessons of peoples’ history must be relearned forever anew, usually after it is too late. For three decades, in the hostile terrain of the most influential nation on the planet, WSA has kept that black flame of memory alive.

Posted: November 1st, 2014

- See more at: http://ideasandaction.info/2014/11/anarcho-syndicalism-america/#sthash.DXI8fHCj.dpuf

Written by a former Minneapolis member.

“A number of other folks joined right after the [Detroit Class Struggle Anarchist Conference] due to the good rep the WSA attendees built. The credit for that rep is due to an intentional if informal policy to be on our best comradely behavior.”

“An invaluable lesson I inherited from the experience was that individual members are “the face” of an organization. The impression you create personally is reflected onto the organization. However good or bad a group’s politics may be, individuals make or break the group’s outside reputation and internal solidarity.”

Trusting these have been one of the things that current and former members have learned and adhered to over the past 30 years.

Recalling WSA
By Kevsota

Part of a series commemorating 30 years of WSA

I joined the WSA in 2009 after participating in an anarchist reading group set up by two other WSAers. I was excited by what seemed like a density of good, smart people in the organization and because I was attracted to anarcho-syndicalist politics. While I learned the organization was not as clear-cut anarcho-syndicalist as I’d thought, with regard to the people I was not disappointed. I stuck around as an active member for about three years, even I’d become burned out on political organizations, primarily out of a strong sense of loyalty to the good comrades I’d gotten to know.

That personal, comradely element was always the organization’s strongest suit. The downside was many folks passed in and quickly, would make a stir and then dip out, leaving most of the boring nitty gritty workload to a few hard working members. That however was partly due the org’s quick membership growth coming out of the inter-organization sponsored, class struggle anarchist conferences in New York and Detroit. I joined shortly before the Detroit conference and had the pleasure of attending it myself along with a couple other comrades from the Twin Cities.

While I joined somewhat skeptical (and made a bit of an ass of myself on the listserv, with my naive big headed big ideas), the Detroit conference sold me completely at that time. A number of other folks joined right after the conference due to the good rep the WSA attendees built. The credit for that rep is due to an intentional if informal policy to be on our best comradely behavior. An invaluable lesson I inherited from the experience was that individual members are “the face” of an organization. The impression you create personally is reflected onto the organization. However good or bad a group’s politics may be, individuals make or break the group’s outside reputation and internal solidarity.

The influx from the Class Struggle Anarchist Conference’s proved temporary but, in my opinion reflected a well-earned rep which longer term members have built over many long and sometimes painful years long before I joined. I’m no longer involved in WSA so I can’t speak to what it’s doing currently, but I do know some with some good longstanding folks involved and wish them a hearty comradely greetings and congratulations for pulling through 30 years of the struggle with all it’s ups and downs.

Posted: November 4th, 2014 under WSA.

- See more at: http://ideasandaction.info/2014/11/recalling-wsa/#sthash.YTTenlrD.dpuf

Written by a near founding member of the Irish WSM in Cork.

Although we may not always see eye-to-eye, Kevin has always been one of my favorite all time anarchists. It was always a pleasure working with him in New York or on international campaigns.
Comradeship can, at times, transcend differences, as long as though differences are discussed, transmitted and debated in a comradely way. Sometimes, it's better to agree to disagree and move on.

“Firstly, what often struck me about the WSA was that they took their anarchism seriously. They were committed and well able to organise – and they had an important sense of our tradition of ideas and what that involved. The WSA also struck me as being well aware of the steep uphill climb that it had to make.”

Indeed, indeed, comrade. And this is what keeps some of us going 30 years on.

I personally appreciate the kinds words of this special comrade.

Kevin Doyle’s 30th Greetings
From Cork, Ireland:

I first came across future members of the WSA, I guess, long before that particular organisation was formed. This would be in 1982-83.

As a young anarchist from Ireland I was aware of the lack of an indigenous anarchist history; Ireland, due to its history, was even cut off from the anarcho-sydicalist tradition commonplace elsewhere in Europe.

To an extent, via the comrades I met around that early circle of anarchists in New York – Libertarian Book Club – I was able to gain access a part of our radical history and knowledge that I had, until then, only read about. I found many of these individuals who were promoting anarchist ideas at that time to be very honest and thoroughly committed anarchists. I tried to soak up as much as I could in terms of knowledge and reading and I recall one publication, ‘Strike’ – predating the WSA – to be very refreshing. It pushed a type of anarchism that I wanted to orientate myself more to – class struggle anarchism.

In time during various periods spent in the States I attended some WSA protests, meetings and conferences. I’ll confine myself to two main observations:

Firstly, what often struck me about the WSA was that they took their anarchism seriously. They were committed and well able to organise – and they had an important sense of our tradition of ideas and what that involved. The WSA also struck me as being well aware of the steep uphill climb that it had to make. This might have been daunting but it was not off-putting and in that sense they got on with the job of seeking to grow in an often hostile climate – which, as we all know, has deteriorated even more due to the assaults of neo-liberalism.

At one of the conference, I attended, I noted the presence of comrades from many different geographical areas in the States. In itself it was an achievement to overcome and meet in Conference – given the huge distances of separation between branches and individual members. There was always lively debate, a comradely spirit, but also plenty of heated discussions.

The other aspect I want to draw attention to is the WSA’s role in propagating important ideas and offering solidarity abroad. On one level the reporting of disputes and struggles of workers or attempts at unionisation is vital but WSA has also done very valuable work highlight struggles abroad and raising solidarity funds. A particular publication I remember was No Middle Ground * – again predating the WSA I think. But NMG was indicative of an interest and a commitment to opened up a very important debate that pointed out that the options in Latin America were not only between the choice of capitalism and state socialism (say Cuba). Anarchists want to organise but they must also want to put their ideas out there and promote debate – the WSA has done this double act many times over.

Finally, comrades, continued good wishes and solidarity you all.

* We established “NMG” and our Libertarian Aid to Latin American Workers (LALAW) with other anarcho-syndicalists, our friends who published the newspaper "Strike!" as well as various other anarchists and libertarian communists. Several LALAW committees were established and worked on a number of campaigns.

These and several other Latin American and Andean Cone countries were under brutal military or fascist dictatorships at the time.

A couple of NMG articles can be found on-line:

Dictatorship On Shaky Ground by Grupo Pedro Nolasco Arratia
http://www.struggle.ws/anarchism/places/chile/historic/economy1983.html

1952-1973: Radical perspectives in the Caribbean by Fundi
http://libcom.org/library/radical-perspectives-carribean-fundi

NO MIDDLE GROUND, Fall 1983, The Re-emergence of Anarchism in Chile.
Pointblank, Strange Defeat, NO MIDDLE GROUND, Fall 1983. Referred and quoted in: http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/worldwidemovements/chilemovement.html

Ten Years After: The Re-emergence of Anarchism in Chile
http://www.struggle.ws/anarchism/places/chile/historic/10years1983.html

- See more at: http://ideasandaction.info/2014/11/kevin-doyle-30th-greetings/#sthash.64j0Nesx.dpuf

“The WSA is surprisingly long-lived for an anarcho-syndicalist organisation in a country dominated by yellow unionism, but that is a testament to the unwavering character of its militants over the years ”

Trying to build an organization from scratch is with a handful of militants stretched across 3000 miles is never easy. Trying to build one based on the principles of anarcho-syndicalism that much more difficult. Through these years we have struggled, advanced, retreated, fell down, pulled ourselves back up, received, from time to time, praise and got trashed just as much. While we have yet to achieve many of the thing we started out to achieve, the red and black light of WSA’s anarcho-syndicalism will continue to remain on, 30 years on.

1984 WSA: Conference for a new national libertarian workers organization
--- Syndicalist

Conference for a new national libertarian workers organization

Fellow workers:

During the past year or so, there has been talk about creating a new organization in the U.S. which would embrace and further anarcho-syndicalist activity. Accordingly, we, members of the Libertarian Workers Group, ideas & action collective and others, are now calling a conference to be held in New York City over the Thanksgiving weekend, Nov. 23-25 [1984].
It is our intention that this will be the founding conference of a new national organization, which we propose to organize as the U.S. section of the International Workers Association. (See attached copy of the IWA principles).
…
Purpose
We support the development of shopfloor forms of unionism, but the organization that we propose is not intended to be a labor union, but an organization of anarcho-syndicalist militants, which would promote the development of anarcho-syndicalist activity, such as direct workers action and self-managed forms of worker struggle.
We want an organization that is oriented towards activism and which is based in struggles in the USA of today and in support of our fellow workers in other lands. We are not oriented in taking over or building up any existing organization (such as the IWW)*, nor do we envision this new organization as a federation of pre-existing anarchist groups.
We envision an organization based on individual membership, which would include people active in labor struggles, feminism, Latin American and Eastern European solidarity, anti-nuke and anti-militarist activity and other areas. We are hoping that anarcho-syndicalism, as understood and evolved within the framework of the IWA, can serve as a minimum political foundation for our organization, recognizing that each individual or group may vary to some extent from the common basis. It is not our intent to have an organization that would be monolithic or incapable of reaching out to new people.
As an indication of our proposed basis of working together, we are including a draft of a proposed statement of our principles for the new organization. This draft is tentative and is subject to discussion and changes at the conference. [Note: the document adopted became the basis for the WSA’s main “Where We Stand” document.]
In order to ensure that we do not waste time and energy or repeat mistakes of other libertarian organizational efforts of recent times, and to ensure that we create a viable organization that can have an impact, we are asking that people should become activity involved in this organizing process and attend the conference as a voting active member only if they are in substantial agreement with what we are trying to do."
…
[ Rest of call involves conference specifics, call for cash, and names of Organizing Committee ]
* Historical context:
In the period between the 1981 demise of the ACF and the 1984 formation of the WSA, a number of factors lead to what we tried to convey as a position of neutrality. The two main drivers here, was the intense internal IWW factionalism of that period. Reflecting our desire to steer clear of being accused of meddling in the affairs of the IWW we tried to develop a position of neutrality.The second reason was some of our own founding member’s differences with the IWW based on a) either their own recent experiences inside the IWW and b) a principled position that they did not see the IWW as a viable option.
Unlikely this would even be a thought in 2011.
---- END ----

STRIKE!, February 1985, Page 4
“WSA holds founding conference in NYC: The Return of the Anarcho-Syndicalists”

"On the weekend of November 23-25, a conference was held in New York City to form a national libertarian workers organization. Delegates and observers from New York City, San Francisco, West Virginia, Massachusetts, upstate New York and Quebec were in attendance. Interested comrades from Philadelphia, Montana, Alaska and Iowa were unable to attend. Greetings and acknowledgement of invitation were received from the International Workers Association Secretariat in Madrid on behalf of IWA affiliates. In addition, word was received from several IWA affiliates, including the Norwegian Syndicalist Federation, the Regional Organization of Argentine Workers (FOR A), the Dutch Syndicalist Union (OVB), the Rebel Workers Group of Australia and the Italian Syndicalist Union (USI). Acknowledgements were also received from the Portland, Oregon FOCUS and various revolutionary syndicalists from upstate New York. Greetings to the conference came from the Movimiento Libertario Cubano (publishers of “Guangara Libertaria” in Miami, Florida), exiled Argentine workers in Spain (publishers of “La Abeja Obrera”), the Clark Fork Valley IWW branch and the [underground] Emanuel Goldstein Group in [Stalinist] Poland.
Those participating agreed on the need for an organized expression of working class Anarchism. Until nowhere has been no existing national workers organization engaged in explicitly anarcho-syndicalist activity. Furthermore, apart from the New York-area Libertarian Workers Group, there has been no U.S. affiliate to the International Workers Association (IWA). As a result, all of this has changed.

A new organization, the Workers Solidarity Alliance, emerged from the conference with two principle goals. Although it is not itself a union, the primary purpose of the new group will be to promote and contribute to autonomous workers’ struggle founded on the Anarchist principles of direct democracy and direct action. In addition, through affiliation with the IWA, the new organization will work towards solidarity with other sections of the Anarchist workers movement. Workers Solidarity differs from previous attempts at a U.S. libertarian workers’ organization in being a formation in which individuals may belong and participate, rather than a federation of local groups. Given that working class Anarchist militants are numerically few and geographically scattered, it is expected that this new form will help overcome the isolation that has lately characterize our efforts.

The Conference was marked by a rare fusion of realism and enthusiasm. Workshops were held on international solidarity work, cultural activity, workplace experience and the need for a broader, total definition of human liberation within the libertarian workers’ movement. There was debate on the proposed paragraphs dealing with sexual and racial discrimination in the statement of principles. It was decided that the proposed wording was far from adequate, and commission were formed with the tasks of developing alternate statements. In connection with this, a Women’s Commission was initiated, mandated with the responsibility of drafting a substitute statement on sexism and sexual politics.

The conference concurred with the Northern European sections of the International Workers Association in their support for the claims of the CNT/AIT as the legitimate organized expression of anarcho-syndcalism in Spain. This question of CNT patrimony has arisen from a recent attempt, supported by the Spanish social democratic government, to deprive the CNT of its financial restitution, disputing its rights in favor of a marginal accommodationist faction.
The formation of national commission to carry out tasks mandated by Workers Solidarity was implemented at the conference. An area in which these commissions will operate will be that of international solidarity work. A commission for Latin American was the focus of much discussion. Included in the mandate of this commission will be continued support for a journal [“No Middle Ground”] devoted to information on libertarian activism in Latin America and the Caribbean. Commissions dealing with Eastern European and South African workers struggles were also initiated. Other areas for commission work adopted were cultural activity and the unemployment problem. It was determined that “Ideas & Action” will henceforth be the official organ of Workers Solidarity [Alliance]. The network involved in the production and promotion of this journal was instrumental in organizing this founding conference.

The Conference decided to explore possible participation in the call to action for April 29 [1985] designated as “No Business as Usual”. This action is designated to be a concerted protest to the continued momentum towards a global nuclear war on the part of the superpowers. [The US and the former Soviet Union] Tentative plans for the commemoration of the [100th Anniversary of the] Haymarket event and an international revolutionary workers conference to coincide with commemoration set for 1986 were also raised for possible involvement.

Since the primary purpose of the Workers Solidarity [Alliance] is to promote working class Anarchism, it was decided to include within the proposed statement of purpose an analysis of what the present-day working class is. The increasing proletarianization of segments of society and the changing class composition of those who create wealth without controlling it make it necessary to look beyond nineteenth century formulations which ignore a vast array of those who are presently workers in an objective sense. As a section of the International Workers Association, it was agreed that Workers Solidarity [Alliance] should seek and maintain fraternal/sororal relations with those groups who, while not Anarcho-syndicalist, actively work towards the goal of workers autonomy. At the same time, we wish to remain uninvolved in the internal disputes of other [North American, read IWW] organizations.

Concerning the existing trade unions in the United States, our work will always be amongst the rank and file membership and not include attempts to capture leadership or bureaucratic structure of those unions. We will remain always critical of all hierarchal and reformist forms.

The conference ended with a cultural event that was well received and attended. The tone of the conference was encouraging given the recent absence of an explicitly Anarchist workers’ movement. Participants debated vigorously and honestly without forgetting that we are comrades bound by the same ides and vision. The desire to be realistic was not used as an excuse to compromise our libertarian principles. The creation of a national anarcho-syndicalist organization in the United States has long been on the agenda. Now the first step has been taken."
--- Workers Solidarity Alliance

Eventually need to tighten up old stuff, write new stuff.