Well, some of this is true, the rest is bollocks. I'm a Wob who happens to be a non-syndicalist anarchist. I represent the Zerowork strain of labor organizing. However, I tend to have my feet planted in both worlds. I have anarchist friends who wouldn't be caught dead in any union, accusing them of coopting the anti-work desires of most workers. The there are my anarcho-syndicalist friends who have problems with my zerowork tendencies.
I support the IWW because there are some great people in the organization and because I'd like to see the situation change for working people as soon as possible. Zerowork is my goal, but I'll settle for the IWW's vision in the short term.
BTW, most of today's Wobblies don't fit Ken's dismissal of them as "mostly nostalgic for a syndicalist past that never existed." That may have been true 5-10 years ago, but the IWW has tripled in size over the past 5 years, with lots of new young members. I get the impression that they have little patience for the labor historian contingent in the IWW. The IWW is undergoing a process right now of overhauling our literature and tactics. For example, there was quite a few Wobs who supported street barricades in Seattle. Other Wobs turned Teamsters and sheet metal workers away from the labor march and into the crux of the street protests. And the IWW was one of the few labor contigents with a banner condemning capitalism.
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