about the I.W.W

[danyboy27]

where i live (quebec), we got strong Union presence, and they are, well kinda bourgeois and use the actual system to stack make million of dollars off the worker themselves.

they dont seem to care about taking control of their workplace, all they want is more money from their member, and fight between eachother to get their part of the cake.


my question: is the I.W.W more democratic than the big multi million dollars bourgeois union powerhouse that i have in my province?

do the I.W.W have a leader? how different their structure is from the current bourgeois union?

thanks!

[Lolshevik]

I like the IWW. I really do. But - are you an anarchist? If so, you should definitely join the IWW unless they simply don't have a presence in Quebec. But if not, then hopefully you'll be convinced when I say that apolitical syndicalism simply does not work. When revolutionaries willfully ignore the revolutionary party, that grouping of the class-conscious minority in society that reaches all the broad layers of the organized working class, they are robbing themselves of one of the most important tools to seize upon a revolutionary situation when it arrives & bring the working class to power.

Btw, are the unions in quebec all with the Parti Quebecois or are there some affiliated with Quebec Solidaire?

[danyboy27]

Btw, are the unions in quebec all with the Parti Quebecois or are there some affiliated with Quebec Solidaire?

mostly with the parti quebecois, who are by the way a bunch of opportunistic nationalist assoles.

for now, the union are affiliated with the parti liberal, their plan: scare him off so he give more million dollars to governemental Union worker, that will end up in the union banking account.

there are no real difference between union bosses and the buisness bosses these day, its all about fucking money, and not about taking over the freaking mean of production.

beside all that, some kind of Union aristocracy emerged, higher up of union living live of kings off the money of workers.

[jake williams]

Dude the labour movement in Quebec (the province) is waaay more advanced than it is in English Canada or probably anywhere in the US. The city is pretty right wing, but even there, what are the big unions? Public sector?

I have seen some folks from the IWW in Montreal handing out pamphlets and such, but it's mostly a pretty small crew who carry anarcho-syndicalist flags at demos, I don't know how much they actually organize unions.

And yes, the FTQ (the main labour federation) is traditionally close to the PQ. QS doesn't have a whole lot of support from unions as such, but it does have a lot of support from some rank and file.e

[genstrike]

There was a drive at a Starbucks recently: http://www.iww.org/en/node/4787

You should probably just contact the Montreal branch if you're interested: http://www.iww.org/branches/Canada

More democratic: probably.

As for having a leader, the IWW has a General Secretary-Treasurer, but that's more of a functionary than a leader.

[danyboy27]

Dude the labour movement in Quebec (the province) is waaay more advanced than it is in English Canada or probably anywhere in the US. The city is pretty right wing, but even there, what are the big unions? Public sector?

I have seen some folks from the IWW in Montreal handing out pamphlets and such, but it's mostly a pretty small crew who carry anarcho-syndicalist flags at demos, I don't know how much they actually organize unions.

And yes, the FTQ (the main labour federation) is traditionally close to the PQ. QS doesn't have a whole lot of support from unions as such, but it does have a lot of support from some rank and file.e
the FTQ, the CSN dosnt want any change in the actual order of things, they are too content on how things are done and for them social democracy is the perfect ideology. has long the governement can keep taxing people to give more money to the union, they dont fucking care about how things are done, they dont care that the minimum wage dosnt match the living standard, or even the poor number of unionised people in the private sector, or even the aburdity of the current economical system.

it may seem progressive beccause its big, is rooted in the public sector, but its not.

those Union could use their million dollars title and obligation to buy big chunk of the private sector and transform them in union based industries without bosses or cadres, improving the lives of thousand of worker, but you will never see them doing that.

they could do reform that make their structure democratic, and they will never do that.

why? beccause, has i mentionned earlier, their rulling elite are too content of the current order of things.

they are now part of the big game, owning stock in the biggest corporations, shaking hands of capitalist on a regular basis.

[jake williams]

The only reason Quebec has or could have public services which are much stronger than in English Canada (CEGEPs and relatively low university tuition, cheap daycare, etc. etc.) because of the political strength of the working class. It doesn't have a benevolent national bourgeoisie. Gains were fought for and won.

[Q]

my question: is the I.W.W more democratic than the big multi million dollars bourgeois union powerhouse that i have in my province?

do the I.W.W have a leader? how different their structure is from the current bourgeois union?

thanks!

I'll just point you to the IWW website, which has a lot of documentation in answering this: http://www.iww.org/

[danyboy27]

The only reason Quebec has or could have public services which are much stronger than in English Canada (CEGEPs and relatively low university tuition, cheap daycare, etc. etc.) because of the political strength of the working class. It doesn't have a benevolent national bourgeoisie. Gains were fought for and won.

well, it used to be that in the 70s, when the quiet revolution begun, but shit changed a lot since then.

our institutions are crumbling, our healthcare system are failing, most of our road look like swiss cheese, i got a good chunk of my paycheck straight to the governement, the world, and my province is going down the drain and there is nothing i can do to stop it.

and its not like i was living in some neo liberal nightmare, billion of dollars are pumped into those institutions, and yet it seem the more we spend the less we have in term of services.

that just one big exemple that social democracy, even pressured by worker movement is doomed to fail, just like other capitalist systems, and nobody seem actually interested into changing that.

next step of this hell will be extreme neo liberal policies, i will have more money on my paycheck has a worker but i will lost most of the most needed service, and the private sector will charge me more for the stuff i need, there will be more criminality and i will probably lost my job beccause those policies will destroy the economy.

and then again, nobody, not even the unions are talking about dismantling the whole system or giving the mean of production back to the worker.

[MarxSchmarx]

What industry are you in? The IWW has had more success in recent years organizing workplaces that are ignored by traditional unions.

Actually this has always been the case. For similar historical reasons the IWW has been quite weak in francophone canada, they were mostly a union of the rural west and diverse immigrants throughout North America IIRC. These regions were notoriously a pain in the ass to organize. Their organizing used to be focused primarily on natural resource industries and mining and forestry in BC in particular, and these were also the sorts of regions that had large immigrant populations relative to Quebec.

That said they have recently begun to improve their prospects in urban areas; I would be very surprised if say Montreal or QC did not have a branch.

[x359594]

I lined up with the IWW in 1974. I've seen the union wax and wane over the years, but in recent years two organizing campaigns have born fruit, the Starbucks campaign and the bicycle messengers organizing drive. Los Angeles has a local for bike messengers that won a ULP complaint for our organizer.

[NoOneIsIllegal]

If I remember correctly, the IWW has been successful in other various campaigns in recent years, such as truckers, food warehouses, and I think a few book stores.

do the I.W.W have a leader?
We are all leaders! :D

[The Ungovernable Farce]

I like the IWW. I really do. But - are you an anarchist? If so, you should definitely join the IWW unless they simply don't have a presence in Quebec. But if not, then hopefully you'll be convinced when I say that apolitical syndicalism simply does not work. When revolutionaries willfully ignore the revolutionary party, that grouping of the class-conscious minority in society that reaches all the broad layers of the organized working class, they are robbing themselves of one of the most important tools to seize upon a revolutionary situation when it arrives & bring the working class to power.
I agree that apolitical syndicalism doesn't work, but "that grouping of the class-conscious minority in society that reaches all the broad layers of the organized working class" does sound like a fairly exact description of the kind of union the IWW wants to build. You can't really say that being against the Leninist party is the same as being against revolutionary organisation.