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Core Membership and Perihperal Supporters

By x344543

The IWW is an organization with a history of a high turnover of membership and an almost equally high turnover of IWW Branches. This is due to many factorsn (far too many to discuss here), but the ultimate result is short lived IWW Branches. This guide seeks to help minimize that turnover.

Part of solving the problem of high turnover is recognizing the difference between core and periphery.

The Core - The IWW's core support is its dues paying membership. There are several keys to maintaining a stable core:

(1) Share power and responsibility as much as possible:

  • Elect at least one, preferably several delegates. Delegates can collect membership dues and sign up new members. Delegate Credentials are issued by GHQ. Sometimes it takes time for GHQ to issue credentials. Chartered IWW Branches can --in accordance with the IWW Constitution request that GHQ issue blocks of five prenumbered delegate credentials that IWW Branches can in turn issue to the delegates they elect locally.
  • Share and rotate duties anually as much as possible. If the same members serve in the same positions year-in-year-out, the liklihood is that the branch will stagnate 9and cults of personality could develop.

(2) Report regularly and on time in accordance with the IWW Constitution:

  • Members will cease to receive communication from the IWW's General Administration if they fall out of standing, and other IWW branches and members might assume (wrongly) that your branch has folded.
  • Stay in regular communication with your membership. Periodically email, phone, mail postcards announcing meetings and events to your membership. On some ocassions it's even appropriate to conduct a house visit (but don't invade their privacy either!).

(3) Keep your IWW Branch's activities lively and interesting: - While Organizing at the Point of Production is ideal, it's not always possible all of the time. There are many other activities that your IWW Branch can engage in to keep things lively and generate activity, such as:

  • Periodically host IWW Organizer Trainings - contact the IWW Organizing Department to schedule a tyraining. Be sure to invite members, plus any perspective potential members to these events.
  • Educate and Agitate around relevant class struggle issues, such as living wage laws, bailing out public sector workers, renters' rights, opposing bank foreclosures, etc.
  • Host cultural events that educate workers and potential supporters about class issues and organizing at the point of production.
  • Set up IWW Literature and Merchandise Tables at appropriate events. Use these efforts to network, build a base of support, stay visible, and generate potential organizing leads.
  • Organize social events. Sometimes it's crucial simply to socialize and have fun to build interpersonal relations between your members.
  • Organize mutual aid between your members, such as rent parties, fund raisers for individual members' needs, or other projects. Building ties of personal solidarity lays the groundwork for workplace solidarity when needed down the road.

The Periphery - The IWW's peripheral supporters are one-time dues paying members (sometimes denigrated as "one-month wonders"), sporadic members (who pay dues for severalmonths, drop out, reinitiate and pay a few more months dues, drop out again, and so forth), and fellow travelers (who profess support the IWW, but do not join for various reasons). It is a mistake to ignore these people or dismiss them as useless.

There are many reasons why there are people who do not stay members consistently or don't join the IWW, even though they support the IWW in spirit, and most of these reasons have nothing to do with any fundamental problem with the IWW or its mission. Some of these reasons include:

  • Competition from other organizations;
  • Administrative kimitations of the IWW (that the IWW is always seeking to overcome, but such things take time);
  • Insurmountable conditions, such as distance from delegates and/or your IWW Branch's office (if your branch has one);
  • Heavy time commitments that make regular contact and communication difficult;
  • Changing personal circumstances, such as changes in work situations, school curriculum, family life, etc;

Rather than fret over the much larger proportion of peripheral supporters to core members, it is more advantageous for the IWW and IWW Branches to turn this supposed disadvantage into a potential advantage!

The best solution to keeping the periphery within your IWW Branch's sphere of influence is to establish systems for mainatining contact with them. This can be done using a variety of means, including:

  • Maintain a database of peripheral supporters, including all forms of contact information (such as mailing address, phone number, email addresses, social media information);
  • Use your branch's social media tools to keep these peripheral members in your network;
  • Hold regular, public events (such as those described above) and routinely invite your peripheral supporters to them;

Not only is it essential to keep track of your peripheral supporters, it is also essential to proactively build your base of peripheral supporters! In other words, not only should your branch seek to add new members, your branch should also seek to add new peripheral supporters who don't join right away.

Why recruit peripheral supporters?

  • They can be called upon to offer support in times of need, including fundraising events, email appeals, phone zaps, or even picketlines. It's much easier to mobilize your supporters for an urgent IWW action if you've already created a database (and/or public alerts email list and/or social media network) than it is to scramble to organize such a network after the need arises!

  • An added advantage of actively seeking peripheral supporters is that the effort generates more activity for your IWW Branch's core membership;

  • Another advantage is that those members who drift away don't have to drift completely away. You can keep individuals whose dues lapse (in spire of all of your efforts to keep them current in their dues) in your peripheral network, at least.

  • The opposite side of the coin is that when activity increases, many of the peripheral supporters may quickly join the IWW and your branch. Some of them will stay IWW members indefinitely.

How to utilize your supporters on the periphery of your IWW Branch:

  • Send regular news updates about your IWW Branch, post your IWW Branch Events, and issue appeals for solidarity to a public email list (maintained by your branch). Make sure you routinely invite both your core members and peripheral supporters to subscribe to this list.

  • Follow a similar course using any social media sites (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, UnionBook) maintained by your branch;

  • Encourage your peripheral suppoerters to invite their sympathetic friends, family members, comrades, and coworkers to also become peripheral supporters.

How do you recruit peripheral supporters to your IWW Branch? - Answer: the same way you invite people to join the IWW as members! There is much less commitment in becoming a peripheral supporter, of course. For one thing,no money changes hands; for another, you are not asking them to make as much of a commitment. Ideally, and peripheral supporter will become potentially a full fledged, dues-paying IWW member, but failing that, you can still recruit supporters. Here are some ways to do that:

  • Have a sign-up sheet at all of your IWW Branch events and always prominently feature a sign-up list on your literature tables;

  • Routinesly invite potential supporters to subscribe to a public email list for your branch that you maintain or any social media groups / fanpages you set up. It is very easy to do this, and it is a given that all of your IWW Branch's dues paying IWW members should be invited to these networks as well. Do not subscribe anyone without their consent, of course!

  • Of course, the best way to gain supporters is ask people to become supporters, point-blank, face-to-face!