Hi all,
It's interesting that the IWW has cropped up, as it's been of interest to me ever since I wrote half my PhD thesis on it. They are indeed small (about 5-6,000 members between its sections in the USA, Canada and UK - the latter having about 1,500 I think), and a long way away from being able to exert industrial muscle across such a huge and complex sector as higher education. However they are quite inspiring in a number of ways, and part of a much bigger 'family' of syndicalist and anarcho-syndicalist unions across the globe, although concentrated in Europe where this tradition seems strongest (CNT-F in France, CNT and CGT Spain, SAC in Sweden, FAU in Germany, IP in Poland, COBAS in Italy - to name but a few).
The IWW has, however, been particularly successful in punching above their weight in recent years in low-waged and precarious sectors such as cleaning, cafes, restaurants, bars etc, where creative forms of direct action can be taken at a local level that produces ripples across the sector because of a lack of centralised co-ordination among bosses and formally recognised unions. For example, a few years ago the IWW's Starbucks Workers Union successfully forced Starbucks across the US to give 'time-and-a-half' pay on Martin Luther King Day each year, and forced through a range of other improvements in basic pay, scheduling and health & safety, despite never numbering more than a few hundred and being geographically concentrated in a few cities (NYC, Chicago and Detroit were the main ones I think).
More relevant to educators, there are a lot of IWW members who are also members of other (TUC or AFL-CIO) unions, and they act as a network of grassroots activists both within and between other unions - this is certainly the case in higher education. These people are referred to as 'dual-carders'. They are also distinctive because they do not seek to take over leadership positions (as per 'entryist' approaches) but try to build power from the base among rank-and-file members and shop stewards / reps. Education remains one of their main sectors of membership I think, but in the UK it is a hard environment to operate in as an independent union because of the national-scale agreements that are already in place with UCU, EIS etc. However, they have had an impact here and there, albeit at a localised level.
Perhaps most recently, the IWW's Incarcerated Workers Organising Committee (IWOC) with a few hundred members inside the US prison system was the driving force behind the massive prisoner strikes across the USA in September this year, in which around 24,000 inmates were involved.
They are currently small and have limited power but are growing (unlike many unions in the global north). Beyond this, the broad organising model that they use (of building power from the base through direct action and participative democracy) seems very relevant to union revival in the global north, especially in highly deregulated labour markets with strong anti-union laws.
...Towards "syndicalist geographies"? ;-)
Cheers,
Ant
Anthony Ince
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Anthony Ince
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Cardiff University
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-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for critical and radical geographers [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Judith Watson
Sent: 01 December 2016 15:56
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Our post-truth world or the first step to McCarthyism?
Hi Reed
Thanks very much for this informative reply.
Closed shops are prohibited in the UK too.
That is regarded as quite different from organising. Does the ban on closed shops prevent you organising at all? Are you saying that a K-12 teacher - that's elementary school and high school, isn't it - would be sacked if they even tried to organise a union?
For example, in my own university we have a union membership density of about 50%. (That's UCU (www.ucu.org.uk). Technicians, clerical and manual staff are in another union, UNISON.) UCU and UNISON are recognised trade unions in this university and I believe all universities in England and Wales, so we formally meet the university managers (you would say, administrators), several times a year to negotiate contracts and terms of employment. If we weren't able to do that, I honestly believe that working conditions would be absolutely unbearable. We also represent people individually, say if they were being bullied, or racially harassed, or if reasonable adjustments are not made for their disability. But we still have a fair proportion of free-riders. If they are very new staff who haven't had the benefits of membership explained properly, then that might be excusable. I really don't find it excusable though when established academics who may claim to be radicals, just can't be bothered to join.
One thing about the AFL-CIO, however moribund it is, it is also part of the international labour movement. The IWW on the other hand has a valiant history and wasn't implicated in racism (or the cold war). Can it be grown very quickly into something that can rescue higher education from rampant casualisation and removal of academic freedom?
Regards
Judith
________________________________________
From: A forum for critical and radical geographers [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Reed Underwood [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 01 December 2016 15:29
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Our post-truth world or the first step to McCarthyism?
I can tell you that many states in the U.S. have general right-to-work laws prohibiting closed shops. That's true here in Texas. For K-12 teachers, labor organizing carries the risk of decertification. The trade associations and unions in education, with a few exceptions in larger school districts where locals have a little sway, are pretty toothless. You send in dues and get a newsletter, maybe a voting guide now and then. I believe this is true for higher ed associations here, too.
For American education workers living in right-to-work states, I'd suggest joining the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.). It's a small group, but it has a history of organizing without the help or approval of the state.
-R.
On Thu, Dec 01, 2016 at 03:08:23PM +0000, Judith Watson wrote:
> Yes it is.
>
> I hope people won't mind me saying again that probably the most important ways in which we can defend our academic freedom is through our trade unions. I found http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/14/opinion/sunday/the-decline-of-unions-and-the-rise-of-trump.html this discussion of the Trump rise to be interesting but tending to see white working class men as research subjects rather than fellow citizens. I understand from American friends that at the moment there seems to be nothing that you can wholeheartedly join. AFL-CIO may not have got over its shameful past - couldn't that be rectified though? The Association of American University Professors is more of a professional organisation than a trade union, and its usefulness might be confined to tenured professors. But we have also heard of pop-up unions of casualised staff, showing that there is still a need for organised solidarity.
>
> I would be very interested in hearing from anyone on this list who isn't a member of any such organisation at all and would like to explain why.
>
> Regards
>
> Judith
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: A forum for critical and radical geographers
> [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Andrew Kythreotis
> [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 01 December 2016 14:21
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Our post-truth world or the first step to McCarthyism?
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> Now this is something worth discussing…
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