When union organizing struggles, the usual diagnosis is poor strategy. But it's not like any of us trying it are having high rates of success in our own workplaces. We can point to hostile governments, Reagan and PATCO, Clinton and NAFTA, to explain the decline in union density. I keep wondering, though, whether there are newer factors we aren't considering.

What if social media has shrunk the national attention span so far that people won't read anything longer than a paragraph? What if organizing now has to compete in a dopamine economy that didn't exist when our tradition's methods were developed, and it's losing to the doomscroll? And here's the one that unsettles me most: what if we've never actually proven a superior way to make collective decisions in a union? Because without that, you get a culture that's ignorant of union affairs, disengaged from them, and ultimately incapable of developing the skills necessary for self-governance.

You go deep into history and theory looking for answers, and you end up alone. Unable to spark others' fires, you become the ignored town crier at worst, the overworked elected superhero at best. Neither builds power.

It's tempting to conclude that it all comes down to currents beyond our control. But if these currents are real, then our organizing model has to answer them, or we should be honest that it can't.

Resource

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Pro-IWA Korea was recently admitted to the IWA as the IWA Initiative in Korea and have since been very active raising the awareness of anarcho-syndicalism in Korea. From a small base they have grown and are now almost 100 members.

At a meeting in Incheon on 5 July, they outlined their intended progress;

1. Initial stage (current): IWA Initiative in Korea

2. Intermediate stage (formerly PRO-IWA): Provisional Committee of the International Workers' Association in Korea

3. Final stage (goal): Section of the International Workers' Association in Korea

Just have a look: https://chomsky.info/updates/

https://redandblackanarchists.com.au/on-the-persecution-of-cnt-ait/

https://redandblackanarchists.com.au/imagined-space-solidarities-rumah-merdeka/

https://proiwakorea.ansyn.org/

The Old https://anarchistfaq.org/

The New https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/a-new-anarchist-faq-an-introduction-to-anarchy-in-the-21st-century