A Fellow Worker from the Wales, Ireland,
Scotland, and England Administration on the necessity of class — not
just shopfloor — organization.
Editor’s note: the
following is an opinion piece and does not necessarily reflect the
official views of the IWW or the Industrial Worker Editorial Committee
A fan favourite within the IWW is the illustration of a frazzled and
visibly frustrated worker pointing at a factory yelling “organize!”
while individuals representing different ideological trends stare at the
stars.
The image rightfully points out (literally) the importance of
organizing. But its intention is clear in that it seeks to differentiate
the IWW from other organizations. The illustration will have us believe
that it’s only the IWW that’s focused on organizing the workplace. Of
course, this is not true, and we would be wrong to read too much into
the illustration, a caricature. Unfortunately, we do. The reason that
illustration has become a fan favourite is because it’s believed to
succinctly communicate our strategy and our differentiator. The IWW’s Raison d’etre is to organize the workplace — nothing else.
The limits to workplace organizing
Unfortunately, this dogmatic embrace of a non-truth binds us to
practices that have gotten us no closer to achieving the stated goals of
the IWW. Furthermore, it closes us off from the flexibility our
organization possess and turns a blind eye to the complexity of the
ideological synthesis the IWW emerged out of.
The result of all of this is obvious, taking possession of the means
of production, abolishing the wage system, and living in harmony with
the earth, remain far from hand.
Our emphasis on workplace organizing has consistently been hitting up
against its structural limits. This is not a theoretical statement. The
fatigue, frustration, and burn out of our area organizers is testament
to it. There is no shortage of trained and committed organizers, yet
although our membership is growing (a fact we should celebrate more
often) we do not see a corresponding rise in organized workplaces. Why
is that so?
To begin with, there is a reality that our membership is still
loosely located around our Regional Administration and dispersed within
different industries. We usually have one to two members at a workplace
which makes conversion of shops difficult.
There is also the fact that not all shops are organizable. The IWW
takes pride, as it should, in organizing the ‘unorganizable’. It’s the
marginalized that suffer the most under capitalism. But the most
marginalized are also under the greatest threat of retaliatory measures.
This also leaves out a large portion of workers who we don’t engage
with. Increases in casualisation also means shorter work engagements,
which means less opportunity to map and go through the process of
agitation, education, inoculation, organization, to end with the Union.
Coupled with this is the fact that not everyone wants to or can be an
organizer. I often hear fellow organizers proclaim, full of
frustration, that every member of the union should be organizing in
their workplace! Although this would be ideal, it’s simply unrealistic.
Many cannot be organizers or do not have the personal disposition for
it. Through our dogmatic embrace of workplace organizing, we see these
individuals as dead weight who have only joined the union for
‘political’ reasons. As if that’s a bad thing.
Finally, a focus on workplace organizing turns a blind eye to those
not located in workplaces or those not working. Freelancers, sex
workers, houseworkers, the homeless and unemployed all don’t belong to
workplaces. A focus on workplace organizing leaves the union absent of a
large constituency of workers.
The limits of workplace organizing is one that has been consistently
noted by revolutionaries. Even if a workplace is successfully unionised,
the workplace itself might disappear, restructure, be bought out, or
suffer from high turnover. Capitalist crises wipe out entire
organizations in the blink of an eye. These all present structural
limits to the ability of workplace organizing alone to bring about the
revolutionary change the IWW seeks. So long as we think of the IWW as a
union first we will continue to face an unending uphill battle of
fighting against the effects of capitalism (bad working conditions, low
wages, casualisation etc.) and not capitalism itself.
Organize what?
It’s important to note that I am not dismissing workplace organizing.
The IWW’s focus on workplace organizing offers far more in terms of
tangible and immediate results for workers than anarchist federations
focusing exclusively on building networks of mutual aid or socialists
and communists squabbling over the ‘correctness’ of their political
programs.
In a way, our focus on organizing is the ‘service’ we provide to our
members until we meet our goals. They’re small down payments we make
until the rapture of the capitalist system. Understanding this requires a
shift of frame and an inversion of the way IWW members usually describe
our union as opposed to other ‘service’ unions, when in fact, what we
are is a revolutionary union that provides an organizing service
(prefiguration).
From this perspective it becomes clearer that the illustration is not
a condemnation of anything other than organizing but just that
‘organizing’ is the intermediate location between now and a
revolutionary moment. It is how we “form the structure of the new
society within the shell of the old.”
Another overlooked aspect of that illustration is that the worker is
not pointing to a workplace but a representation of all workplaces that
is marked “industries”, a nod to another differentiator of the IWW, this
time not from other revolutionary ideologies but from unions
themselves. It is industrial organizing and not workplace organizing
that is the vessel through which the workers of the world organize as a
class.
The writers of the Preamble (as well as the illustrator) were no
fools in locating the struggle not within individual workplaces or
certain workers, but across industries and the entirety of the working
class. It is only by doing so that we can ask for the abolition of the
wage system in its entirety.
It is the historic mission of the working class, as a whole, they say, to do away with capitalism.
Organize the class, and the workplace will follow
It’s at this point that the importance of industrial organizing comes
in. The writers of the preamble were conscious that if we focus on
organizing individual workplaces then it’s only natural that we find
ourselves boxed into the structural limits of union organizing.
Industrial organizing, however, will set us free from the atomized
process of workplace organizing. Industrial organizing also provides the
solution to our other issues. Engaging with unpaid labour can only be
done by organizing at an industrial level. Disparate groups of workers
spread geographically and in different workplaces can also be unified,
concentrated, and energized through organizing at an industrial level.
Industrial organizing also means that we can focus on all types of
workers inclusively, not just the most vulnerable. Engaging the varying
strains of the working class can also unlock significant resource
potentials that we are currently missing out on.
There is a misconception in the union that Industrial Unions will
come naturally as workplace organizing grows. But as we have just shown
this is highly unlikely as each workplace continues to fight against the
daily challenges posed by their employers. As atomized units there are
significant barriers to collaboration. Additionally, waiting for this
theoretical maturation means that many of our members will remain on the
fringes with little or no support. Dead potential — not dead weight.
IU organizing also means a more sustainable approach to organizing.
As certain workplaces enter and exit the organizational cycle, IU’s can
represent continuity and act as a repository for union memory.
Finally, IUs will provide a more equitable spread of responsibility
and engagement. As it stands, local branches are playing multiple
functions and none of them well. From training to organizing, a few
individuals in each branch are carrying the burden of the entire union.
IU’s allow for the sharing of organizing responsibility by bridging
various geographic areas together meaning that local groups will only
need to provide support not lead the charge.
IUs solve a lot of the problems we currently face with workplace
organizing, but they are not enough on their own. Even if we’re able to
structurally move away from workplace organizing to IU organizing, we
are still stuck within a limited interpretation of organizing itself.
To truly unlock the potential of the IWW we need to reorient the
entire organization towards the concept of organizing the class,
workplaces are sure to follow.
Fit for Purpose
In addition to the structure of IUs, centralised departments and
local branches themselves need to alter their focus. This would create a
three-pronged structure fit for purpose that would look something like
this.
General Membership Branches: Local branches
represent the widest spectrum of workers in a geographic area. They form
in a way that is akin to federations or councils. It makes little sense
that these groupings of workers from different industries should be
charged with the organizing work itself. As a local grouping of workers,
its focus should be on confronting local community issues. This can be
done by establishing local networks of alliance/partnerships with social
and political groups (tenants associations, rights activists, poverty
reduction initiatives, etc.), organizing neighbourhood defence
committees, or taking the spirit of direct action to confront local
issues.
This does not mean that they should abandon workplace organizing.
Local branches should continue to be a locus of training and support.
More importantly, they will always be the front line of any campaign
work. This makes local branching the ultimate funnel of growth while
also providing a varied number of issues for members to engage with and
remain active.
Departments or National/Regional Bodies: To be
effective in building a class movement, local branches cannot be
completely independent autonomous ‘councils’, they need to be connected.
It is departments that must act as the connective tissue to the various
parts. Departments need to tap into all the branches and understand and
respond to their needs. This can be in developing training material,
financial records, media, or circulate and amplify the work done by one
branch to the rest of the branches. It is both a productive and
supportive element for the entire organization but not a directing one.
Robust departments would also provide greater opportunity for members
to engage who may not be directly interested in or able to organize but
have valuable skills that can be volunteered for the general
administration of things.
It is also the departments that can launch national campaigns such as
the previous 4-hour day, 4-day week IWW campaign that found widespread
appeal. This too, is organizing.
Industrial Unions: IUs are the organizational wing
of the union. All members of the IWW should belong to a local branch and
an IU. There is often various section of workers within an IU. For
example, IU620 (education workers) will most likely consist of students,
schoolteachers, university teachers, and others. These different
workers may find it useful to organize through networks within the IU
but should also organize as an IU within local branches. As such every
local branch can have an IU620 committee, members of this committee will
interact with other members around the Regional Administration that are
part of their network. Committee and network chairs will constitute the
regional IU.
In this way, area organizers and branches can assist IU branch
committees (help form them, provide training, organizing support) while
regional IU committees synchronize activity and provide resources and
support, functioning similarly to departments
The above proposal constitutes an entire shift in the approach of the
IWW. Growing the union no longer hinges on the probability that a
workplace organizer can recruit their colleagues into the union with the
hopes of unionising a shop. Instead, it now becomes a question of
building mass appeal through campaigns at the regional and industrial
level and then channelling a mass membership into organizing. It also
accounts for the variance in personal disposition and provides all
members alternative ways in engaging in meaningful organization outside
of the workplace as well, be it in their communities or within the
union.
Infrastructures of Dissent and Counter Hegemony
Its only through understanding organization on a class level that we
can start making progress. Revolutionary change requires a mass movement
that can further influence society at large while making gains on
terrain that allows to the greatest leverage in meeting our
revolutionary goals — striking. It’s no secret though, that any success
in mobilising on that front will be met with heavy handed suppression.
For this reason, in addition to our focus on community and workplace
organizing, we need to keep in mind ways in which this mass movement can
be sustained beyond legislative or workplace suppression. This can only
be done by combining mass agitation and organization with the
establishment of infrastructures of dissent (coops, credit unions,
housing provisions, union halls, autonomous spaces etc.). It is on this
infrastructure that our voluntary union can pose itself for a prolonged
fight against capitalism and build the physical space in which the
counterculture needed to withstand attacks can flourish. The union needs
to be built metaphorically by showing people that there is a better way
and literally by providing this way.
For now, however, our biggest impediment to growth is not the state
or our lack of infrastructure, but our dogmatic interpretation of
organizing. Only by surmounting this barrier can we start organizing to
win.
I’m sure most people have now seen this New York Times piece “How British feminism became anti-trans.” Personally, I think it should be posted far and wide, but this key bit here is something that resonated with me.
[caption: “middle- and upper-class white feminists have not received the pummelling from black and indigenous feminists that their American counterparts have]
This is so accurate it’s unreal. British feminism is generally 20 years behind, not just on trans rights but on many things. It’s not a coincidence that the “feminists” writing transphobic nonsense in the Guardian and New Statesman have also made sneering comments about intersectional feminism.
There’s a lot of good work done by feminist women of colour in the UK - you can read much of it on Media Diversified or gal-dem. You could also follow Guilaine Kinouani or Judith Wanga or Sara Ahmed on Twitter. But these voices are not the predominant voices in British feminism. They’re not getting regular columns in the Guardian or giving takes on BBC news.
Who gets the columns? Helen Lewis. Caitlin Moran. Julie Bindel. Hadley Freeman. Zoe Williams. This post is already too long, so I won’t get into the history of these women when it comes to writing about race, sexuality, disability and religion. I could list pages and pages of shitty things they’ve said. The point is, these are the women who speak for British feminism. These are the women who get top billing.
It’s not good enough. We deserve better. We deserve more working class voices, more diverse LGBTQ voices, disabled voices and women of colour’s voices. We need to amplify them wherever we can, because these white middle class assholes in our newspapers are trying to claim that they’re doing this bullshit for us.
And not only is that allowing transmisogyny to hurt one of the most marginalised groups in Britain, but it’s opening the door to a raft of toxic bullshit that they’re getting away with in the name of feminism. Fuck knows who they’re gonna target next.
It’s also worth noting that the obsession with supposed “biological realities” of people like Ms. Parker is part of a long tradition of British feminism interacting with colonialism and empire. Imperial Britain imposed policies to enforce heterosexuality and the gender binary, while simultaneously constructing the racial “other” as not only fundamentally different, but freighted with sexual menace; from there, it’s not a big leap to see sexual menace in any sort of “other,” and “biological realities” as essential and immutable. (Significantly, many Irish feminists have rejected Britain’s TERFism, citing their experience of colonialism explicitly as part of the reason.)
