Saw someone else asking why not organize with the contemporary #IWW in the US instead of some business union.
The answer is simple: the IWW is not an illegalist organization, and anyone doing legal union organizing in the US is going to be in a system where having more resources at the outset matters and in which you have to push for legal outcomes that the IWW does not want to support, like having a contract.
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Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝
In response to this postThe IWW has a theory about unionization in the US that no one else holds. Like the Army's old slogan "An Army of One" that people made fun of, it's basically "A Union of Two." People getting together in the workplace to do anything are considered to be a union, whether they are a majority and/or have recognition or not.
It's a form of unionization that no one really wants and doesn't accomplish anything except continuous struggle, which is deemed to be good.
So eager volunteers from the IWW sometimes succeed in helping a union form, the workers involved generally don't join the IWW, and then the union folds or if it lasts it breaks away.
This really does not matter, functionally, to the IWW. It's full of people who pay dues whether they have a workplace union or not. The IWW gains nothing if a union push succeeds and loses nothing if it fails, because the same money to pay staff is coming in.
by Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝ ;
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