IWW numbers

[OI OI OI]

Is it true that there are only 2000 people in the IWW only 900 of them in good standing?

I read that on Wikipedia and I was astonished!

These numbers are extremely low...

[GPDP]

Are you really so surprised? The left as a whole is in complete shambles. Even the libertarians are giving us a run for our money!

[OI OI OI]

Well judging from the fact that the IWW has aa long history I couldn't expect that they have only 900 members in good standing and worldwide!

Even the IMT which is a fairly "new" international after the split of the militant (I dont like to compare but I will ) has about 10 000 members worldwide....

[Bilan]

The IWW has been crushed alot of times - as BD mentioned in a discussion in the anarchist group. For example, in Australia, most times its popped up, it's been crushed by the state.

I think also - I could be wrong on this - that the only assassination of a political dissident thats occured in Australia (i.e. of a communist) was infact a member of the IWW.
Could be wrong on that.

[Forward Union]

Is it true that there are only 2000 people in the IWW only 900 of them in good standing?

I read that on Wikipedia and I was astonished!

These numbers are extremely low...

Well. Im not sure if those are the exact numbers. What I can tell you is that the IWW in the UK (the BiRoc, British Isles regional organising comittee) has witnessed a 200% growth rate this year.

It's now one of the fastest growing revolutionary organisations in the country. Whilst most others, particularly unions are in decline. Union density has recently fallen to 28% in the uk. In the 70s it was around 90%...

[La Comédie Noire]

I've heard a lot of the IWW's membership is merely internet based. I attended a meeting in Boston a while back and there didn't seem to be that much life in it.

But things may have changed since then.

[Yehuda Stern]

The IMT, 10,000 members? Best joke I've heard in a while. Even old Woods only had the audacity to claim 4000, which I doubt is a real number too. But 10,000? Do you count the PSUV as part of that?

[Bilan]

Each limb of IMT members is considered an individual member.

[Sam_b]

The IWW is slowly on the ascent again, arguably. It had been in steady decline ever since the teamster's strike in the 30s (though was probably prominant until the 1950s in some factories in Ohio), had lost prominant members like Big Bill Haywood; and bared a lot of the brunt of McCarthyism.

In the UK the wobblies are very much on the ascent (edit), especially in places such as Glasgow, and if my memory serves me correctly, Liverpool.

[Bilan]

Sam B, do you have any evidence to back up that claim that its descending? Are you an active member, or ex-member, or something?
Also, RH, do you have any either? :tt2:

[Sam_b]

Sam B, do you have any evidence to back up that claim that its descending? Are you an active member, or ex-member, or something?

Freudian slip i'm afraid. I meant to say (and I will edit) that in the UK the wobblies are on the rise, especially in the industrial north.

If you look at my first sentence, that "The IWW is slowly on the ascent again, arguably" this would directly contradict my entire post, which was not my intention.

[Bilan]

Ah, thanks.

[Red October]

I think wikipedia's numbers are probably outdated at best, since I've never seen any other sources on the IWW's numbers or an official statement from them. They certainly did go into decline after the 30's, but we're definitely growing again. I'm a new member an don't yet know a whole lot of what's going on, but things look good here.

[OI OI OI]

The IMT, 10,000 members? Best joke I've heard in a while. Even old Woods only had the audacity to claim 4000, which I doubt is a real number too. But 10,000? Do you count the PSUV as part of that?

Well we have 5 000 only in Pakistan. So yeah..;)
good try though

[chicanorojo]

Is it true that there are only 2000 people in the IWW only 900 of them in good standing?

I read that on Wikipedia and I was astonished!

These numbers are extremely low...

Not for the U.S. As a matter, 900 in good standing makes them a decent sized "Left group."

===

OK...I see you didn't quote wiki correctly. "2,000 members worldwide"....I am not sure if that's an accurate #.

[Devrim]

Not for the U.S. As a matter, 900 in good standing makes them a decent sized "Left group."

I think in the US it would make them a reasonably large left group. The fact is though that they don't claim to be a left group they claim to be a (revolutionary) union, which they are obviously not.

Devrim

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Typical left-communist obsession with workplace-based councils, hence the disparaging of the red unions and no emphasis on building mass parties before times of crisis :(

The problem with workplace-based councils is that the elderly and the adult students wouldn't be able to participate. The 1917 soviets, on the other hand, were NOT workplace-based councils like those of 1905, but rather participatory-democratic tools of political parties. The workplace-council role would fall upon the factory committees and congresses of factory committees.

[chicanorojo]

I think in the US it would make them a reasonably large left group. The fact is though that they don't claim to be a left group they claim to be a (revolutionary) union, which they are obviously not.

Devrim

That's why I put the " " between the Left group. But, for all purposes, they are identified as a left group in the US.

[Devrim]

^^^ Typical left-communist obsession with workplace-based councils, hence the disparaging of the red unions and no emphasis on building mass parties before times of crisis :(

You read a lot into things don't you. We don't believe that it is possible to build red unions today, but it has nothing to do with with my point here.

My point here is that the IWW is not effectively a union anywhere apart from a few small shops.

I would add though that where it is it isn't particularly red, doing the things all unions do including signing no-strike deals.

Devrim

[Yehuda Stern]

Well we have 5 000 only in Pakistan

So do I! And 5000 in Nepal, and 5000 in the USA, and 5000 in Algeria, and 1,000,000,000 in Venezeula, not to mention - a billion gazillion members in Israel.

[Red October]

I would add though that where it is it isn't particularly red, doing the things all unions do including signing no-strike deals.

Devrim

Sources on that?

[mikelepore]

How can workers avoid a no-strike deal? What's the difference between the union delegate telling the boss "if you pay us less than X then we will go on strike" and the union delegate telling the boss "if you pay us X or more then we won't go on strike"?

[Yehuda Stern]

Can someone really call himself a Marxist if he believes that the only reason workers should ever strike is to get a wage raise?

[OI OI OI]

So do I! And 5000 in Nepal, and 5000 in the USA, and 5000 in Algeria, and 1,000,000,000 in Venezeula, not to mention - a billion gazillion members in Israel.

Me too I am 5 years old:rolleyes:

[Q]

10 000 in the IMT? You should stop drinking so much.

[OI OI OI]

10 000 in the IMT? You should stop drinking so muchhaha

It is true though man
the IMT has been growing a lot since our intervention in Venezuela and the events in Pakistan:)

[mikelepore]

Can someone really call himself a Marxist if he believes that the only reason workers should ever strike is to get a wage raise?

I provided one example. How many examples do you need to understand a general concept? A strike means conditionally walking out. It implies that there exists a set of conditions in which people won't walk out.

The IWW uses the term "strike" to include seizing the means of productions and ending class divided society, but that use of the word is idiosyncratic.

[Devrim]

Sources on that?


For clarity: The iww has few signed contracts, of which only a small minority contain no-strike clauses. I don't wish to give a different impression.

From a long discussion on Libcom on the IWW and no strike clauses:
http://libcom.org/forums/organise/no-strike-clauses-iww-16122007

Devrim

[Bilan]

^^^ Typical left-communist obsession with workplace-based councils, hence the disparaging of the red unions and no emphasis on building mass parties before times of crisis :(

The ICC position on Unions isn't that bad really. I think there's some validity to it, to some extent.



In the nineteenth century, the period of capitalism’s greatest prosperity, the working class - often through bitter and bloody struggles - built up permanent trade organisations whose role was to defend its economic interests: the trade unions. These organs played an essential role in the struggle for reforms and for the substantial improvements in the workers’ living conditions which the system could then afford.

They also constituted a focus for the regroupment of the class, for the development of its solidarity and consciousness, so that revolutionaries could intervene within them and help make them serve as ‘schools for communism’. Although the existence of these organs was indissolubly linked to the existence of wage labour, and although even in this period they were often substantially bureaucratised, the unions were nevertheless authentic organs of the class to the extent that the abolition of wage labour was not yet on the historical agenda.

As capitalism entered its decadent phase it was no longer able to accord reforms and improvements in living conditions to the working class. Having lost all possibility of fulfilling their initial function of defending working class interests, and confronted with an historic situation in which only the abolition of wage labour and with it, the disappearance of trade unions, was on the agenda, the trade unions became true defenders of capitalism, agencies of the bourgeois state within the working class. This is the only way they could survive in the new period. This evolution was aided by the bureaucratisation of the unions prior to decadence and by the relentless tendency within decadence for the state to absorb all the structures of social life.

The anti-working class role of the unions was decisively demonstrated for the first time during World War I when alongside the Social Democratic parties they helped to mobilise the workers for the imperialist slaughter. In the revolutionary wave which followed the war, the unions did everything in their power to smother the proletariat’s attempts to destroy capitalism. Since then they have been kept alive not by the working class, but the capitalist state for which they fulfil a number of important functions:

actively participating in the efforts of the state to rationalise the economy, regulate the sale of labour power, and intensify exploitation;
sabotaging the class struggle from within either by derailing strikes and revolts into sectional dead-ends, or by confronting autonomous movements with open repression.
(Note: This section does not fairly represent an accurate portrayal of the role of Unions in Australia, but it does some - particularly the SDA - as some still play a role of defending working class interests, and others don't.)*

Because the unions have lost their proletarian character, they cannot be ‘reconquered by the working class’, nor can they constitute a field of activity for revolutionaries. For over half a century the workers have shown less and less interest in participating in the activities of these organs which have become an integral part of the bourgeois state. The workers’ struggles to resist the constant deterioration of their living conditions have tended to take the forms of wildcat strikes outside of and against the unions.

Directed by general assemblies of strikers and, in cases where they generalise, co-ordinated by committees of delegates elected and revocable by these assemblies, these strikes have immediately placed themselves on a political terrain in that they have been forced to confront the state in the form of its representatives inside the factory: the trade unions. Only the generalisation and radicalisation of these struggles can enable the class to move from the defensive terrain to the open and frontal assault on the capitalist state; and the destruction of the bourgeois state power necessarily involves the destruction of the trade unions.

The anti-proletarian character of the old trade unions is not simply a result of the fact they are organised in a particular way (by trade, by industry), or that they had ‘bad leaders’; it is a result of the fact that in the present period the class cannot maintain permanent organisations for the defence of its economic interests. Consequently, the capitalist function of these organs also applies to all those ‘new’ organisations which play a similar role, no matter what their initial intentions. This is the case with the ‘revolutionary unions’ and ‘shop stewards’ as well as those organs (workers’ committees, worker’s commissions…) which stay in existence after a struggle - even in opposition to the unions - and try to set themselves up as ‘authentic’ poles for the defence of the workers’ immediate interests. On this basis, these organisations cannot escape from being integrated into the apparatus of the bourgeois state even in an unofficial or illegal manner.

All political strategies aimed at ‘using’, ‘regenerating’. or ‘reconquering’ trade union type organisations serve only the interests of capitalism, in that they seek to vitalise capitalist institutions which the workers have often already deserted. After more than fifty years of experience of the anti-working class character of these organisations, any position advocating such strategies is fundamentally non-proletarian.


Italics and * are mine.



The problem with workplace-based councils is that the elderly and the adult students wouldn't be able to participate. The 1917 soviets, on the other hand, were NOT workplace-based councils like those of 1905, but rather participatory-democratic tools of political parties. The workplace-council role would fall upon the factory committees and congresses of factory committees.

The Soviets in some cases did not play a revolutionary role, and infact in some cases, play the role of trying to moderate the revolutionary activity of the proletariat, and instutite bourgeois political structures.
See this. (http://www.prole.info/texts/factorycommitteesinrussia.html)

[Yehuda Stern]

I provided one example. How many examples do you need to understand a general concept?

You provided "one example" but that one example should exactly your style of reasoning. You're excusing the unions' signing of no-strike deals by saying that its no different than striking for higher wages. But once one starts to think about political strikes, or even about the fact that under conditions of crisis the capitalists will have to lower wages, your whole argument shatters.

[Forward Union]

My point here is that the IWW is not effectively a union anywhere apart from a few small shops.

That's something that we're trying to rectify.


I would add though that where it is it isn't particularly red, doing the things all unions do including signing no-strike deals.

That was a one off thing, and the actions of individuals in the Union. Not of the leadership (which doesn't exist in that way anyway) I would argue that the no strike deal was unconitutional.

[Devrim]

That's something that we're trying to rectify.

It is really difficult to know what to say to this. It is voluntarism taken to extremes. To make make a very two-dimensional schema, the question is about whether mass economic organisations of the working class develop from struggle, or whether they develop from a few leftists trying to build them.

The motor of class struggle is not the will of a few anarchists.

In countries like ours where they do have mass 'revolutionary syndicalist' unions they developed from mass struggle, not leftist will power.


That was a one off thing,

Well no it wasn't. It happened more than once. Also we could talk about the farce of the first IWW workplace branch in the UK where they had the workers in the same branch as their employer.

Basically to the extent that the IWW can operate as a real union, it will be forced to act just as the yellow unions do.

Devrim

[Oneironaut]

Can someone really call himself a Marxist if he believes that the only reason workers should ever strike is to get a wage raise?

I fail to see where he said that the only reason workers should ever strike is to get a wage raise. You are putting words into mikelepore's mouth and nothing else. To get to the point... relax and don't go name calling! :D

[Yehuda Stern]

Name calling? I didn't call anyone any names. mikelepore never said that workers should only strike for higher wages, but his argument hinted heavily at that. If you had read the rest of the thread, you would've seen that I had already said this (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1245715&postcount=30).

[Oneironaut]

Name calling? I didn't call anyone any names. mikelepore never said that workers should only strike for higher wages, but his argument hinted heavily at that. If you had read the rest of the thread, you would've seen that I had already said this (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1245715&postcount=30).

On the contrary, I did read the rest of the thread and your argument was silly at best. And while you didn't call him a name per se... you did insinuate that he wasn't a Marxist. We are arguing over stupid shit now so for the sake of the more relevant topics discussed, let's let this one roll.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The ICC position on Unions isn't that bad really. I think there's some validity to it, to some extent.

Do you think I should have a special section in the "Miscellaneous Questions" chapter of my current WIP dedicated to extracting minimum demands from union bureaucracies? :confused:


The Soviets in some cases did not play a revolutionary role, and infact in some cases, play the role of trying to moderate the revolutionary activity of the proletariat, and institute bourgeois political structures.

Good point, but also remember my extensive factory committees quote of Peter Rachleff in Chapter 3 of my CSR work. The factory committees, which in fact resembled the soviets of 1905, stirred revolutionary sentiment in terms of workplace activity, but they did NOT stir revolutionary sentiment in terms of any other activity outside. Naive belief that they could do otherwise is broad economism.

The point that CPGB comrade Mike Macnair and I have been trying to make is that, ultimately, only mass parties can pose directly the question of workers' political power.


You're excusing the unions' signing of no-strike deals by saying that its no different than striking for higher wages. But once one starts to think about political strikes, or even about the fact that under conditions of crisis the capitalists will have to lower wages, your whole argument shatters.

Here you have, at long last, betrayed your sense of broad economism.

[Yehuda Stern]

And while you didn't call him a name per se... you did insinuate that he wasn't a Marxist.

I didn't insinuate a damn thing. I only said that it's ridiculous for Marxists to see strikes as just a way to raise wages and nothing more.

And Richter, if you have something you think is very smart to say, you can post it in the thread OR in my public profile. One of them should be enough to satisfy your undeserved sense of superiority.