IWW and Referendums?
Wow. An indirect alliance with the right wing Libertarian Party, on an issue that has little public support in the real world.I can see the employer anti-union literature now...
Yes because clearly, being on the same petition as the LP is the same thing as being in an alliance with them. 
I've signed No2ID stuff before, along with Labur, Tory and Liberal voters. Doesn't mean I agree with them in general or have any particular desire to join them in a grand coalition.
Edit: And if you don't want to stand up for people simply because they're unpopular you're a dick.
sorry, can someone explain what's going on?
The Bay area branch of the IWW endorsed a San Francisco City ballot referendum to decriminalize prostitution. I believe this is the first time in 100 years that the IWW has decided to take a position on an election.
Yes because clearly, being on the same petition as the LP is the same thing as being in an alliance with them. roll eyes I've signed No2ID stuff before, along with Labur, Tory and Liberal voters. Doesn't mean I agree with them in general or have any particular desire to join them in a grand coalition.Edit: And if you don't want to stand up for people simply because they're unpopular you're a dick.
Good post.
I believe that the logic of those who support the endorsement is that de-criminalization will improve the conditions of prostitutes, but also make organizing among prostitutes much easier, and that there will be existing links with prostitutes through this campaign.
Yes because clearly, being on the same petition as the LP is the same thing as being in an alliance with them.
Read your constitution. It doesn't matter whether it is right or wrong, the IWW forbids it.
Edit: And if you don't want to stand up for people simply because they're unpopular you're a dick.
It doesn't matter what I think. I may agree with it. I may agree with legalizing all kinds of other things. But a more radical then thou posture does not mean the employers will not seize upon it when trying to organize the workplace; unless one is more interested in being more radical then thou, as opposed to being effective, in which case, who cares if anyone gets fired and the union has zero credibility to defend them?
Read your constitution. It doesn't matter whether it is right or wrong, the IWW forbids it.
Oh I'm terribly sorry Mr Rulebook, I'll get out my copy immediately. I assume you mean this bit:
the IWW refuses all alliances, direct and indirect, with existing political parties or anti-political sects, and disclaims responsibility for any individual opinion or act which may be at variance with the purposes herein expressed.
Which is the only sentence involving political activity which comes close that I can see. What it clearly doesn't do is ban the signing of pledges supporting individual political causes, which is what signing a petition amounts to. If you have evidence of any kind of collusion between the IWW branch and any of the political parties beyond agreeing with them about something, you should bring it forward. I might add referendums are the resolution of choice for in-house problems, so it would be pretty fucking weird if endorsing similar behaviour outside the union structure was grounds for disciplinary action.
but a more radical then thou posture does not mean the employers will not seize upon it when trying to organize the workplace; unless one is more interested in being more radical then thou, as opposed to being effective
Oh please what do you think is a worse thing for a union to do in the eyes of the average militant, support people employers don't like or let down vulnerable workers? If you fail to extend your solidarity to the people labeled undeserving you may as well pack up and go home, because the list of undeserving will grow by the day once employers know they can get at you.
I'm sure the campaign will be a resounding success! Please keep us all posted.
Damn, I love this because irony is what is needed in this situation.
If it takes getting the state's permission to organize a sector of the working class then you must be one of those believers of mainstream historians who claim that the mass-based radidical strikes and general strikes only happened in the 1930s beause FDR passed the NIRA section 7(a) in 1933, right? Workers can't do anything until the state gives them the green light. In that case, fuck the IWW because they are never gonna get cozy enough with the state apparatus until they start giving the Democrats and the Republicans hundreds of millions of their dues payers money like AFL-CIA unions. Perhaps the Wobs would get more of politicians' ears, to suggest changes in legislation, if they joined Change to Win. Maybe an endorsement of the SF ballot initiative by Andy Stern would help get it passed. Then with the IWW clearly entrenched within Change to Win you can organize an oppositional caucus that could start petitioning nationally for a repeal of Taft-Hartley, but not the Wagner (National Labor Relations) Act because this law also had a section 7(a) that inspired the 1930s organizing, like the sit-down strikes in the late 30s, right? Then with the IWW having won a new "green light" for labor, you can start calling -- legally -- for a general strike with a clear conscience that it isn't violating the law.
I bring this up because I was going home through one of SF's most rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods, Hayes Valley, and saw a street fair with all these crafts booths. Now I never go in for this shit, because all the young fixed gear yuppies are the ones driving out poor blacks from Hayes Valley, but my partner and I decided to see what our class enemies were up to -- especially because our working class neighborhood is 2 districts over and we're concerned about how fast this gentrifying yuppie cancer is spreading. All the crafts were just the bullshit fixed gear yuppies love, banal and cute T-shirts and yuppie kitsch, but whoa and behold but who should be gathering petitions amongst our class enemies but the Bay Area branch secretary of the IWW! I talked to him, asking him why he was doing it there and even though he didn't say it, he seemed to indicate that lots of the sex workers' clients were in the crowd and were enthusiastic supporters -- perhaps the incentive to them is that with decriminalization the state will more rationally regulate the market and prices will come down.
Frankly, as bad as I thought the branch secretary doing this was, I couldn't believe it a week later when the branch communications officer told me that she didn't even think the ballot initiative was going to pass but was just gathering signitures as an organizing tactic. I thought "to organize whom?" A Wobbly-based consumers union of the yuppie clients of sex workers? But at worst a tactic just as duplicitous and manipulative as any Trotskyite group's transitional demands.
I say with all honesty that these so-called Wobblies should be ashamed of themselves for trying to use the state, clearly our class enemy, and its laws in lieu of agitating for working class self-activity. I really don't know whether they're foolish liberal activists or deliberate class traitors.
If you fail to extend your solidarity to the people labeled undeserving you may as well pack up and go home, because the list of undeserving will grow by the day once employers know they can get at you.
I'm thinking that if this situation is studied carefully enough, a more effective(and solidly constitutional) method for extending solidarity to Bay Area prostitutes may be stumbled upon.
The ballot box is the the coffin of class consciousness.
Indeed.
Tyee-tin-tin wrote:
I'm sure the campaign will be a resounding success! Please keep us all posted.Damn, I love this because irony is what is needed in this situation.
If it takes getting the state's permission to organize a sector of the working class then you must be one of those believers of mainstream historians who claim that the mass-based radidical strikes and general strikes only happened in the 1930s beause FDR passed the NIRA section 7(a) in 1933, right? Workers can't do anything until the state gives them the green light. In that case, fuck the IWW because they are never gonna get cozy enough with the state apparatus until they start giving the Democrats and the Republicans hundreds of millions of their dues payers money like AFL-CIA unions. Perhaps the Wobs would get more of politicians' ears, to suggest changes in legislation, if they joined Change to Win. Maybe an endorsement of the SF ballot initiative by Andy Stern would help get it passed. Then with the IWW clearly entrenched within Change to Win you can organize an oppositional caucus that could start petitioning nationally for a repeal of Taft-Hartley, but not the Wagner (National Labor Relations) Act because this law also had a section 7(a) that inspired the 1930s organizing, like the sit-down strikes in the late 30s, right? Then with the IWW having won a new "green light" for labor, you can start calling -- legally -- for a general strike with a clear conscience that it isn't violating the law.
I bring this up because I was going home through one of SF's most rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods, Hayes Valley, and saw a street fair with all these crafts booths. Now I never go in for this shit, because all the young fixed gear yuppies are the ones driving out poor blacks from Hayes Valley, but my partner and I decided to see what our class enemies were up to -- especially because our working class neighborhood is 2 districts over and we're concerned about how fast this gentrifying yuppie cancer is spreading. All the crafts were just the bullshit fixed gear yuppies love, banal and cute T-shirts and yuppie kitsch, but whoa and behold but who should be gathering petitions amongst our class enemies but the Bay Area branch secretary of the IWW! I talked to him, asking him why he was doing it there and even though he didn't say it, he seemed to indicate that lots of the sex workers' clients were in the crowd and were enthusiastic supporters -- perhaps the incentive to them is that with decriminalization the state will more rationally regulate the market and prices will come down.
Frankly, as bad as I thought the branch secretary doing this was, I couldn't believe it a week later when the branch communications officer told me that she didn't even think the ballot initiative was going to pass but was just gathering signitures as an organizing tactic. I thought "to organize whom?" A Wobbly-based consumers union of the yuppie clients of sex workers? But at worst a tactic just as duplicitous and manipulative as any Trotskyite group's transitional demands.
I say with all honesty that these so-called Wobblies should be ashamed of themselves for trying to use the state, clearly our class enemy, and its laws in lieu of agitating for working class self-activity. I really don't know whether they're foolish liberal activists or deliberate class traitors.
I stand behind this 100%
eta: I dont think i'd consider fixed-gear riding yuppies class enemies per-se, but maybe they are a bunch of managers etc. I dont know...
I am not sure how the referendum decriminalizing prostitution is going to aid much in organizing, but if its folks saying they want one less law regulating behavior, I don't think it will cause too much harm. I could say something about the old IWW free speech fights, but I would be bound to get in trouble.
Whether or not endorsing referendums is in the rulebook, this is a pretty big break in the internal culture of the North American IWW over the last 100 years. The only other occurance I know of is the IWW in Australia joining in against the Government's conscription referendum in 1916.
This is a case of opportunism. The Bay area IWW saw a get 'rich' quick opportunity and took it. I don't mean organizing in the sex *trade* is easy, just that dumping principles, history, etc for a campaign that Branch officers cynically believe won't pass is a sell-out on the proportions of the no-strike clauses. It's an outgrowth of the lax and sloppy internal culture of the American IWW, with it's head up it's ass fetish of "local autonomy" which means any branch, group or individual members of the IWW can undermine the rest or the organization if they so feel like it.
Personally, I view elections as similar to labor law, crappy sword, sometimes a useful shield. Bourgeois elections reenforce the legitamacy of the ruling class. I don't see why class conscious working class couldn't/shouldnt destroy that legitimacy with the tool the bourgeoisie provides, provided that other revolutionary social organization are happening at the same time.
Also I disagree with Hieronymous that all yupppies are the class enemy. Most are workers. You can't throw them out of the class because of what bike they ride.
Also I disagree with Hieronymous that all yupppies are the class enemy. Most are workers. You can't throw them out of the class because of what bike they ride.
I stand corrected.
I was trying to be hyperbolic, especially because at the Hayes Valley fair I heard several fixies, who were significantly younger than me, talking about their "investment portfolios" and the flats they'd just purchased after they were converted to condos. I just assumed that given the real estate prices in SF, a twentysomething buying their own house can't be a wage worker. But these young yuppies may have just been the children of the bourgeoisie. I don't know for sure, so I shouldn't assume.
fnbrill wrote:
Also I disagree with Hieronymous that all yupppies are the class enemy. Most are workers. You can't throw them out of the class because of what bike they ride.I stand corrected.
I was trying to be hyperbolic, especially because at the Hayes Valley fair I heard several fixies, who were significantly younger than me, talking about their "investment portfolios" and the flats they'd just purchased after they were converted to condos. I just assumed that given the real estate prices in SF, a twentysomething buying their own house can't be a wage worker. But these young yuppies may have just been the children of the bourgeoisie. I don't know for sure, so I shouldn't assume.
Yeh, you're acting like an ass as well as slandering a member of the IWW. Sounds like you've got a seriously big chip on your shoulder, people who can afford bikes are obviously the CLASS ENEMMYZZ!1
Legalising prostitutio makes life easier for sex workers. Thats why you support it.
Damn, I love this because irony is what is needed in this situation.
You mean sarcasm (assuming it is).
As for the rest of it, sorry but it comes off as a rant more based in your personal beefs than in any realistic assessment of the situation. I really couldn't care less if the local organiser was at a craft fair, let alone about your interpretation of why they were there (in Ipswich, we do petitions down the local market, because it's an easy way to get signatures as there's lots of people strolling around in one place - bit of a no-brainer tbh).
There’s nothing in the slightest bit wrong with campaigning for changes to the law. If the government are deprived of a legal tool to fuck people over this is a manifestly good thing – I have no problem, as an out-and-out anarchist (as opposed to simply being a pointedly ‘non-anarchist’ syndicalist, as the IWW is set up for), supporting the retention of the NHS in public hands, because the alternative will see working class people deprived of decent healthcare. I’ll push for more than that as well, but why should anyone oppose progressive stuff?
Sali,
I think the question for IWWs isn't whether or not a referendum can aid workers, clearly on occasion and in limited manners, it can. The problem is whether this is an appropriate action for a union to take. The IWW's line has been - with one major exception - no, as being involve divides the membership and turns them away from organizing in the shop.
It's an industrial matter, (you can't legally organise sex workers when the practice is illegal for a start), therefore even on the meanest of interpretations it's well within the IWW remit and entirely appropriate. This isn't the Wobblies supporting a political party, its the Wobblies supporting another union's struggle to organise, as they should do.
And yet there've been tons of different proposals from various politicians about ways to give "amnesty" to immigrant workers, which would make them legal to organize, but would also permanently lock them in a secondary citizenship category, with limitations on how long they can stay, etc.
Should we support these, just so we can "organize" them?
Second, it is definitely NOT against the IWW constitution to endorse ballot initiatives. Read the constitution, please. It prohibits the IWW from making alliances with political parties or anti-political sects. The fact that the Bay Area GMB endorsed the petition has absolutely NOTHING to do with endorsing a political party or a candidate for any office.
Yep, you're correct. It's not against the constitution. Neither is knee-capping pimps. Or selling crack to school children to support your Branch.
You are avoiding the issue, that the North american IWW has never used the referendum in 100 years. Perhaps there's good reason. Ever thought about it?
In fact, one of the reasons the WFM sought to create the IWW was because of the failure of it's referendums in Colorado to be enforced by the state.
The second part of the statement says that we cannot make alliances with anti-political sects. In my opinion, we would be an anti-political sect if we rejected all contact with anything remotely related to the government. I find some of the messages in this regard to be quite "anti political" and "sectarian." Think about it. I know some of you all are pretty upset about this, but the IWW is NOT an anarchist union, and never was.
Being patronizing doesn't help win arguments. Of course I know all that, for fuck sakes, I've been getting harrassed by anarchist IWWs for years because I'm a marxist.
This is not about "anti-political" in any crass sense of the term. Hell, the Portland IWW went to the county hearings to get more money for social service agencies, the UK wobs are organizing around DHSS cuts.
But if you do go towards the government, you do it smart. You use labor law as a occasionally useful shield, not as a sword.
Someone on this message board said that it was opportunistic for IWW members to say they endorse a petition. I don't get that. Actually, IWW members have been instrumental in this campaign, as well as generally in organizing the ESPU. I myself have been working on the campaign almost full time for the past three months.
Opportunism means that a group gives up it's principles (eg. not endorsing referendums) for what it sees as a grow quick opportunity (eg organizing prostitutes in one city in the US).
...Many prostitutes work independently by putting ads on craigslist or other escort sites. This has been an excellent way of finding sex workers, and quite a few people have gotten involved as a result of hearing about ESPU through this campaign.
OK, who are the bosses of the independent prostitutes? Do you understand the concept of wage labor? Surplus value? What is you understanding of the meaning of the word independent?
Small business is being squeezed out of the market all the time, are you going to organize them as well?
To be honest, I couldn't imagine a better organizing tool.
I think there are plenty of organizing Tools in the Bay Area IWW.
By organizing prostitutes, we are actually getting back to our roots. The IWW was the first union to organize prostitutes. At the founding convention, Lucy Parsons said she hoped prostitutes would organize under the banner of the IWW. I did a presentation on the subject, which you can see here: http://espu-ca.org/wp/?page_id=39 if you click on "Part #1 of Gregor Gall’s talk at Laney College Jan. 7th 2008"
I'll check it out. Funny, the old-timers I knew and have read about never seemed too keen on organizing prostitutes. They felt that the trade was degrading.
We have talked a lot of times about ESPU affiliating with IWW. Sectarianism does not help us in making the IWW an attractive union for sex workers.
And opportunistic moves doesn't make the IWW attractive to anybody but those you are opportunistic for.
For those who are against ALL political action, I would like to challenge you to find a better way for prostitutes to gain their rights and decriminalize their profession. Do you expect prostitutes to go on strike? (Think about what this means, as this is meant to be ironic)
Like, dude, tautological arguments are totally bogus.
You use labor law as a occasionally useful shield, not as a sword
.
And how do you think that shield gets there in the first place? Magic?
In fact, one of the reasons the WFM sought to create the IWW was because of the failure of it's referendums in Colorado to be enforced by the state.
And? If a tool doesn't work, you replace it with something that does, big deal. To take an industrial parallel, if a media campaign doesn't work you might try a strike - doesn't mean you stop trying media campaigns in future if you reckon they'll have an impact.
a group gives up it's principles (eg. not endorsing referendums)
Sorry where is this principle part of IWW organising? Can you explain to me the historic basis for it? Point to incidents where the principle was established? Genuinely interested, because atm it seems like people having a knee-jerk.
And it's not 'endorsing referendums', it's endorsing the legalisation of prostitution. The referendum is a means to an end, they're not saying in their campaign literature "we think the state system works" are they?
They felt that the trade was degrading.
If they did then it would have been puritanical moralising. Some jobs are pretty shitty, but people have to eat - that's the bottom line. It's not 'opportunism' to defend people in shitty jobs if you're a union founded on defending people in shitty jobs btw.
So what's with the Bay Area IWW is endorsing referendums? Is it true? If so, is the branch campaigning for it? The ESPU is advertising IWW trainings, etc.
http://espu-ca.org/wp/?page_id=193