Industrial Workers of the World
Organising Summit Spring 2021
organising [at] iww [dot] org [dot] uk
Each year the department is committed to running an event that help shape the unions future. It brings the members of the IWW Organising Department great joy to announce our Spring 2021 events list. Our last summit that was wonderfully organised by the Reading and London branches in 2019.
Our major obstacles remain the same before and during the pandemic: unions in the UK are borderline illegal. The state comes at us with more and more restrictive laws each year, hampering even the strongest unions in the country in taking meaningful action. Union busting bosses will take any route to delay ‘legitimate’ processes resulting in failed legal recognition drives. So why follow the route unions go to get legal recognition when it can be so restrictive?
This years focus is on grassroots organising, what that means and how we move forward with the IWW as a whole.
Our first even is with Marianne Garneau, writer at organizing.work a blog that talks all things workplace organising:
Marianne Garneau is a New York based labour organiser, publisher and an editor of “Organizing Work” which is “a website about the nuts and bolts of organizing. We first and foremost provide a platform for workers to talk about their workplace campaigns themselves, from their own perspective. In addition, we do investigative reporting and commentary on the challenges workers and unions face today.”
She is a vocal exponent of the IWW Organising method, and its Organising Training as being built up over years of trial and error, focussing on what works best in the workplace, describing it as a “very good, very unique, successful organising programme… to deliver to any worker off the street”
In this session she will discuss organising from within the workplace with reference to previous campaigns.The content will be about building worker power from the ground up. It will cover some of the basics of organising outside of a formal recognition framework.
So please do join us, whether you’re a veteran of the union or just signed up today. The conversations, debate and camaraderie won’t want to be missed!
Sign-ups are available via your email (check your spam if you haven’t received any).
In solidarity and for the One Big Union,
Gemma Rae Moncrieff
Acting West Scotland Area-Organiser
