We have just checked out the IWW website, and we have to say, what a pile of guff !First off, it's written in the same tired old revolutionary language that all manner of Socialist off - shoots use when banging on about their particular slant on industrial relations. This kind of stuff was trotted out by the Workers Revolutionary Party and the Socialist Workers Party in the U.K. 15 years ago, and it's still exactly the same. Talk about the blind leading the blind. If something doesn't appear to be working, isn't it common sense to try a new approach? From what we saw ten years ago it was mainly middle class university students who peddled this guff when they went through that rebellious phase at University, and were faintly embarrassed that Mum and Dad's money (earned by the exploitation of the masses) fed, clothed and kept them in beer and fags.
Secondly, we are really interested to know exactly what IWW would like to replace the wage system with, once it has been abolished. What is wrong with "a fair day's wage for a fair day's work" ??? Perhaps McDonald's should pay us in burgers. Or maybe IWW want us to work for nothing, so we can truly be slaves. That way we'll be justifiably pissed off and take up the revolutionary banner.
"Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth"
This simplstic crap completely undermines your whole organistion. Do you REALLY believe, for one moment, that you have a snowballs chance in hell of achieving this objective ? OK, we realise that you are offering the means for workers of the world to unite, so for the next step - how are they going to take possession of the means of production ? Do the workers have the expertise, once they have overthrown the "employing class" to step into the bosses shoes and do his/her job ? It's not simply a case of tell the capitalist pig who owns the cotton mill to take a hike, and let the workers who operate the machinery continue to do so as an equal group of co-owners/workers. To operate in the industrial climate of today takes, knowledge, experience, expertise. Of course only a few have this expertise. And wherever power is concentrated in the hands of the few there is inequality, that's a fact of life. But exactly HOW does your plan fit into the grand scale of things ? Fine, if all you want to do is grow vegetables on a kibbutz, but modern economic society isn't overnight going to change and become some medieval structure. It's too advanced and complex.
To conclude, the nature of industry HAS changed since Marx's day you know. How can you possibly expect to be able to apply the doctrines he came up with in the mid 1800's to economies and industries in 1998 ? Until you lot step out of the time warp, and stop holding up historical events as an indication of what we should do in the furure, you are on a road to nowhere. If you could come up with some practical solutions for workers in 1998, perhaps they'd sit up and take notice. But when your whole organisation is based on outdated political dogma that has no relevance to the modern day situation you are up against, it will ultimately result in failure - unless you change your outdated approach.
We thought you might be worth listening to until we read the IWW website. Talk about pie in the sky ! Get yourselves a mission statement that bears some relation to the real world - it's 1998, not 1898 !
