Jim wrote:
It's fairly clear from the way various posters are talking to each other on this thread that the IWA in its current form is finished. It's a shame to see an organisation which once had hundreds of thousands of workers involved tearing itself apart but I guess the IWA has had much worse thrown at in the past.I never understood this point of view - the big, the glorious... Shouldn't we think about content not the form in the first place?
Well yes, but if we're thinking about content and not form, IWA sections used to organise insurrections, participate in revolutions, were regularly organising strikes and resistance to capital and the state, they were major parts of their respective countries workers movements. Not a lot of that content about these days. Revolutionary unionism is an ever dwindling current in the global workers movement and this needs to be addressed.
I think akai needs to accept some responsibility for this situation. While the tensions between the "unions" and the "initiatives" have existed for some time (as Congress minutes show), the breaking point which has created the current situation was the suspension of the FAU. Had that not happened I do not think the CNT would be calling for the IWA to be re-founded.