There are other unions like ours. Many cities have unions for sex trade workers (as does the IWW itself) or more generalized street unions. I am in infrequent contact with panhandlers’ unions on at least two other continents. The reason you don’t find much with a Google search is the same reason we don’t have a website; an online presence is worthless to the members. We’re not a bunch of outside activists swooping in to save everyone like a bunch of liberal do-gooders, we’re all either on the streets ourselves, or have been in the past (and may well be in the future).
If there are no major group meetings to speak of, what is to prevent an organizer from making up any member poll results she/he wants? It doesn’t look as if your union is equipped to compare notes on any large scale, which would make it damn easy for someone with a singular plan to use said union to her/his own advantage.
Do you know how the organization is viewed by those who do not participate?
ETA: E.g. panhandlers who do not participate.
In an earlier posting, I mentioned our camp on the lawn of city hall. That action was known as the Homeless Action Strike. A strike does not necessarily involve the witholding of labour – although it can. The IWW is an organization of “debaters and dynamiters.” We do whatever is necessary to get the job done, with a 105 year old tradition of direct action.
While we certainly encourage people to be members, no, we don’t force anyone to participate. People on the street are jusfitiably wary of structure, having been victims of it all their lives. The way to get people into the fold is to show them results, and teach them the value of having reliable comrades at their backs when the shit hits the fan. Every time I risk arrest or a beating by standing up to police for one of our members, I gain a little bit more trust. Every time people hear about us winning a lawsuit or forcing the city to sit down at the table with us, they become a little less wary of participating. It takes a long time and hard work to build a true grassroots organization, a lot more than it takes to build a similar top-down organization.
That said, we don’t have a lot of patience or sympathy for snitches and suck-ups, and the street tends to have its own way of dealing with such people quite apart from the OPU.
We do have formal meetings, which means all our decisions are on record in the minutes. Those minutes are available not only to our members, but to the larger local branch of the IWW, the Ottawa-Outaouais GMB (General Members Branch). Our members are entitled to attend GMB meetings, and members of the GMB can attend (and have attended) OPU meetings. Beyond this, the IWW itself has a constitution and reporting structures by which we are forced to abide.
You’re right that it would be possible for a single individual (or a small group of individuals) to hijack the organizing process, but there’s a good reason why this doesn’t happen: in the long run it doesn’t work. I’ve witnessed and even been part of organizations which devolved into a cult of personality orbiting around a single person, and inevitably these organizations crash and burn. For one thing, they’re easy to destroy. Cut off the head and the snake dies. For my own safety as an organizer I have to be very very careful that the OPU is capable of continuing without me, so that the police and the moneyed businesses we oppose are never tempted to have a go at removing the thorn in their side by squashing me like a grape.
Because I am aware of the danger in what you’ve mentioned, I often withdraw from contentious issues so that there is no danger of even accidentally tilting the organization in one direction or another according to my wishes. I restrain myself to building consensus by getting others to express themselves as clearly and respectfully as possible, and teaching people how to come to fair compromises with each other so no one walks away from the table mad.
While this attitude may work amongst the streeters, is this really the face you wish to show the outside world? There are far too many stories out there already about violent street people, and IMHO as a former streeter the image of panhandlers as an organized force ready to “do whatever is necessary to get the job done” can only harm your group in the long run.
Street people are very often rugged individualists with a totally justified mistrust of any kind of structure or organization. In the words of one panhandler who declined to join the OPU, “I paddle my own canoe.”
A lot of folks are nervous about sticking their heads out, which again is totally justified given their experiences. This is why a lot of our members tend to be folks who are naturally pugnacious, and who are generally more stable (and thus less at risk) than the average panhandler. Through our actions, our long-term dedication to the goals of decentralized decision-making and individual autonomy, and our repeated wins through the power of solidarity, we hope to encourage those who are not already members to join.
How much time do you spend trying to change vending laws as opposed to antagonizing the police? Could your organization survive without an enemy to fight against, with only legislation to fight for?
What is your union’s position, and what is your position on squeegee kids?
The IWW is very clear about its goals and intentions. I quote from the Preamble to the Constitution, which is printed on the back of every union card:
*The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.
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.
We find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers.
These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.
Instead of the conservative motto, “A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work,” we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, “Abolition of the wage system.”
It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old. *
We’re an openly revolutionary organization, and certainly unashamed to present this view to the public. Indeed, we shout it from the rooftops at the slightest provocation.
Now, I want to be clear here that when I talk about doing whatever is necessary, I mean using the least necessary force. We start by working politely and within the law. If that fails, we become somewhat less polite, and eventually move into the realm of civil disobedience. I, myself, have gone to jail for justice – proudly – for attempting to cut the lock on the fence over which we filed our million-dollar lawsuit (the intention being to replace the lock with one of our own and give copies of the lock to the police, the city, and throw dozens of copies out into the street so that everyone would have access to this public space). While I’m no pacifist, I deplore violence and, indeed, it is violence against the street we are struggling to prevent. There is a world of difference between a direct action where we cut the lock off a gate on public property and violence against a human being.
Is it worrying to tell the world that we include direct action in our arsenal? Not at all. We want the world to know, and I’m officially on record as stating this in many interviews as spokesperson for the OPU. We will work within the laws where we can, and will break them where necessary to protect the rights, safety, and dignity of our members.
Again, I want to be very clear that we **do not **promote violence. We do support civil disobedience where needful.
Why do you spell Canada with a “K”?
Should all people be able to vend without regard to zoning?
Here in Portland, Oregon(and I suspect in other cities), the panhandlers are already somewhat organized. Would your type of union work in conjunction with, or oppose, groups like this?
“Antagonizing” is a loaded word, and one I reject. Is it “antagonizing” to demand that the police cease breaking their own laws? If so, the real question is why it “antagonizes” them to be forced to abide by the law and the constitution.
Do you personally belive that all wages should be abolished, and if so, how do you propose to feed over thirty-three million Canadians and to provide a social and economic structure that results in better standards of living than we now have?
What is your union’s position and what is your position on the private ownership of land and of chattels?
Are sole proprietors working class or employing class?
When your union states that it will “take possession of the means of production,” precisely what does it intend to take, and specifically from who does it intend to take?
In your union’s opinion and in your opinion, is it necessary to throw out the existing economic structure to stop the police from harassing street people?
Is your union and are you engaged in a class war?