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ACORN and the IWW

I for one, appreciate the coverage of this issue by Eat the State!. I only speak for myself as an IWW member and not in any sanctioned "official" capacity for the union.

Many are looking at the Seattle ACORN Workers' actions and the support of the IWW in a vacuum. What happened in Seattle was a direct result of the response to the IWW's experience in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia ACORN workers went through these proper channels. They signed authorization cards. They prepared for an election. The ACORN workers, inexperienced at running an election campaign, made the tactical mistake of giving the signed authorization cards to the Philadelphia ACORN manager when they officially asked for voluntary recognition (the union is not legally required to show management the authorization cards in a voluntary recognition campaign. ACORN management, presumably pro-union, didn't tell the Philadelphia ACORN workers that!). ACORN management in Philadelphia resisted when the IWW did things the traditional way, and they fired Gina Giazzoni and didn't give a reason for doing so. The workers in Seattle reacted the way they did out of solidarity for a fired worker, and because they knew that ACORN would resist if they did otherwise. Furthermore, according to ACORN's "People's Platform," workers should "have the right to strike when necessary." What exempts ACORN from its own platform?

The modern-day Wobblies do hold contracts. For example, in Berkeley, CA (the area represented by the East Bay IWW General Membership Branch, of which I am a six-year member), the IWW has had a contract with the Berkeley Ecology Center Curbside Recycling Center for 12 years. We renegotiated it last year and are currently renegotiating it this year. It is a very good contract, and the workers at Curbside convinced the Yard Recyclers at the neighboring Community Conservation Centers to unionize with us. They did. We ran a very successful unionization campaign and won our NLRB election by aunanimous vote! How often does that happen? Currently we are negotiating that shop's first contract. Furthermore, there are a number of youth shelters and non-profits in Philadelphia that have IWW contracts. With all due respect, y'all at ETS! should check your facts a little more carefully before making such broad, sweeping generalizations.

Also, recall recent labor history. Think back to 1997. Remember the picket of the Neptune Jade cargo ship in Oakland? Remember how a coalition of unionists and radicals successfully turned away a ship, owned by Neptune Oriented Lines, loaded by scab dockers in Liverpool? Remember how, after six days of successful pickets and solidarity by the Longshoremen and Teamsters? Remember how it then went to Seattle and, inspired by Oakland, picketers kept the Neptune Jade from unloading? Recall that the same happened in Vancouver and then Japan? Remember how Neptune Oriented Lines had to eventually sell the Neptune Jade for scrap, because no one would unload that ship? Who was it that staffed that very first picketline? Who was on every picketline in Oakland after the first one? You guessed it: Wobblies! In fact, it was I who convinced Robert Irminger (another Wobbly) to go through with the first picket after we learned (from another Wobbly working on an SUP-organized Pilot Boat) that the Neptune Jade was coming in 12 hours early.

Think about that action that was organized by Earth First!, ILWU, and IWW in the port of Tacoma to keep the Sea Diamond (to be loaded with scab Kaiser Steel) in 1998. This is a direct result of the Neptune Jade picket. You need to do some research before you make unsubstantiated claims!

The reason for the IWW's course of action is that the right to organize individual workplaces instead of an entire company nationwide is guaranteed under existing labor law. We Wobs were willing to follow the proper channels in Philadelphia, and the management of ACORN didn't even let us do that. How can we trust them if they don't even follow the labor laws they publicly pledge to improve upon? How can we trust an organization that, in their own platform, denounces existing labor law as dismal and in need of improvement?

If anything ACRON is understaffed. According to some ACORN workers, one of whom worked in the Oakland office and then quit, the plan is to have 10 full-time organizers. Right now there is but one. The average turnover rate for ACORN workers is exceedingly high. The average tenure of most ACORN workers seems to be roughly one week. Furthermore, according to inside sources, ACORN has money earmarked for the creation of new ACORN offices in communities where no ACORN office currently exists (for example, San Francisco). Why is ACORN earmarking money for new ACORN offices when they cannot even manage to keep staff around for more than one week? I think the answer is obvious. ACORN management accepts high turnover as a given.

It was Doug Bloch who said, publicly, that he would be willing to burn down the village in order to save it, not the IWW. But the point you raise about ACORN not being some capitalist widgit maker is precisely the point. The fact that ACORN is acting like any union-busting company says to me that ACORN is far worse than the capitalist bastards, because they ought to know better!

Nobody in the IWW wants to see ACORN destroyed. And people of color and the poor were organizing long before ACORN came along; and even after ACORN did originate, many of the gains made since then cannot be solely attributed to ACORN.

In Solidarity,

--Steve Ongerth, IWW, via e-mail

Contrary to some of those letters, I had spoken to ACORN strikers before last issue, and the criticisms of IWW we relayed came not from ACORN's supporters but primarily from pro-labor people appalled by ACORN but also concerned about the IWW's tactics. That's something the IWW needs to address without vitriol. Meanwhile, it was even more telling that neither IWW's critics nor ACORN's supporters or management chose to respond at all.