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Long Term Goals

Organizing an IWW Branch is only the First Step in the struggle to abolish the wage system. Once that is done, there are many further goals you will want to consider:

(1) Publicizing your victory

Once you win a campaign, you will want to let the world know about it. A mistake workers often make is assuming that their workplace and the issues concerning them are isolated from the rest of the world. Not so. Your ability to organize a union at your job will help others organize a union at theirs. The more workers that are organized (especially if the unions they organize are democratic), the greater power workers will have to control their destinies.

(2) Organizing the unorganized in your industry

Once you win your first victory, other unorganized workers that work in your industry may approach you and ask you about organizing. (They'll certainly approach your union). It is in your best interest to help them organize. The workers in your industry are not your competition. The bosses "compete". Workers do not. Bosses pit one set of workers against another in hopes that they can keep wages low, conditions bad, and workers helpless. When all workers in one industry organize into one big union, they have far more power to control their destiny and make conditions better for themselves.

(3) Building Industrial Unions

Workers gain economic power by organizing along industrial lines. Unfortunately the employing class and the business unions keep workers divided, pitted against each other in meaningless squabbles that actually hurt all workers roughly equally (whether or not one workers "wins" a dispute with another). Bosses and Business unions try to keep workers, even organized ones isolated from the other workers in their industry. The IWW will help you fight this tendency by helping you organize a union in your industry, joining with other workers in your industry, and helping rank & file workers in other unions build rank & file opposition to their fat-cat union bosses. This is done by all workers in one industry working together and all workers in all industries cooperating with each other to form one big union. (that's not to say that disputes don't arise, but under One Big Union, they can be worked out democratically).

 (4) Industry Wide Control

When you have achieved large scale industry-wide unionization, even if you haven't organize all workers into your union, it is still possible to organize industry wide control that covers workers in all shops organized into the union, as well as improves working conditions for those not organized into the IWW as well. There are numerous advantages to this strategy, including the ability to negotiate conditions for all workers at once instead of piecemeal. Some industry-wide organization can even stretch across national boundaries.

(5) Hiring Halls

Another benefit of organizing by industry is the ability to establish union hiring halls. Employers post job openings with the union. The union then dispatches workers on a daily basis from the union hall in person or by phone. Workers are hired from a pool of qualified union members or applicants who then are dispatched to a job. This allows workers who cannot get full-time employment in a specific industry to still work regularly in that industry until hired full time. It also allows workers to avoid the bureaucracy of unemployment offices, arbitrary standards for hiring and firing set by employers, and allows for stronger rank & file union control.

(6) Abolition of the Wage System

All of these things help us build towards our final goal of abolishing the wage system and building a new society within the shell of the old. However, these are by no means the only strategies that will be used in this ongoing struggle. The battle for industrial democracy (and true freedom) is multifaceted and complex. There is no one single way to win. Perhaps some of these new tactics will be pioneered by you and your co-workers. Only time will tell.