The WISERA of the IWW rescinds statement

On 25 November 2024, the Wales, Ireland, Scotland and England Regional Administration (WISERA) of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) issued the following statement:

"We, the Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and England Regional Administration (WISE-RA) of the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.), are aware of an ongoing situation between the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo – Confederación Internacional del Trabajo (CNT-CIT – “National Confederation of Labour – International Confederation of Labour”) and Confederación Nacional del Trabajo– Asociación International de los Trabajadores (CNT-AIT – “National Confederation of Labour – International Workers’ Association). This situation has developed into a legal case which could result in fellow syndicalists receiving incredibly heavy fines or jail time.

As a member of the ICL-CIT, (International Confederation of Labour – Confederación Internacional del Trabajo) we are incredibly concerned about these potential punishments. As a revolutionary syndicalist union, we abhor state violence, especially when this state violence threatens those who are trying to build a better world.

We have previously shown solidarity towards the Suiza Six, and the jail time that they faced. It would be hypocritical if we didn’t show the same solidarity towards those in the CNT-AIT who are being threatened with jail time.

We would hope that the CNT-CIT and CNT-AIT would be able to settle their differences through mediation, rather than resorting to state violence. Our aim is to build the new world within the shell of the old; we cannot as a movement, build a world free from state repression by wielding that repression against fellow workers. Therefore, WISE-RA calls on CNT-CIT and CNT-AIT to use a transformative justice framework of conflict resolution, to avoid resolving these issues through state violence.

Nothing will prevent our expressions and acts of solidarity with revolutionary syndicalists and workers in struggle with the capitalist system everywhere. However, solidarity should not and does not mean that we don’t hold to account our comrades when they misstep and go against the important principles of our movement. In this instance we feel compelled to call out this use of state violence against workers."

Last week, after receiving a complaint from the executive of the Spanish affiliate of ICL (CIT), the statement was rescinded by order of the executive of the WISERA of the IWW.

What follows here are observations made by Ann Kij, a member of ZSP Warsaw.

I don't have the exact info but I know a few things. I know that the CNT wrote an official letter to them in which they spun the facts, painting it simply as an issue of a bunch of people withdrawing from CNT to form a new organization. They asked for the statement to be withdrawn and blamed it on a "disinformation campaign" made by the CNT-AIT. As you can understand, IWW is not an anarcho-syndicalist organization, so probably is ideologically inclined to automatically assume the IWA is wrong, at fault, etc., thus they don't have any real desire to examine the facts of how their cronies inorganically expelled some organizations. These expulsions, importantly, started when a couple of unions proved that some unions in Andalucia were breaking CNT statutes (which an organization-wide investigation proved), but those who pointed this out and tried to hold these people accountable were actually expelled. It is obvious for me that the IWW doesn't care about this stuff or don't want to know about it, because it does not fit their prejudices. These prejudices have been long in the making and have been inherited over decades.

They repeat over and over again a fictitious account of the attempted eviction of certain unions from the space in Tirso de Molina in 2018. (I saw much of this live-streamed, so I have no doubt what happened.) It was on that date that they called a meeting in another space in Madrid to expel the Local Federation of Madrid from CNT. Before a vote was even taken, several members of the executive of CNT went to Tirso, when two female comrades were inside and assaulted them in an attempt to take over the premises. Of course, they tell the story that they were attacked but actually this was just comrades who came back to prevent the eviction./ The people in IWW seem to be very dimwitted about concepts of private property and use and have no orientation at all what the history of the different premises that CNT-AIT or CNT-CIT have. Each space has its own history but CITers are just claiming that all property "belongs to them". This does not correspond to historic facts of how and by whom the properties were obtained and maintained. It seems that they are defending capitalist notions of private property that have nothing to do with either anarchist or anarcho-communist notions. The people in IWW who accept these false narratives are exposing themselves as having no interest in certain basic anarchist ideas. / There is one Spanish guy apparently living in the UK that feeds them with astounding bullshit that most of them don't question. Again, this is probably because it fits their pre-conceived prejudices.

As far as I know, some people in the IWW got very angry about the statement, preferring to be on the side of the CIT. The statement was actually not very strong, but of course it was not the correct political line for the IWW. Some officer or something like that resigned because of the statement./ I think that the Spanish CIT also may have claimed that the CNT-AIT took some legal action against them first, which is false.

As far as I heard, some cronies also worried that this might impact the IWW's ability to affiliate with CIT or maintain affiliations. Maybe some were worried about retribution of some kind.

As far as I have heard, the CNT is claiming that the CNT-AIT, when affiliated together with them, were engaged in making "fake unions" to have votes", which is a completely fabricated story they have invented to hoodwink those people.

That's pretty much what I know about it, so my conclusion is that a few people had some conscience and saw this as problematic, but others were more concerned with having good relations in CIT and took everything that they said at face value, without of course contacting the other parties involved (ie. CNT-AIT or IWA) for any comment. That's OK - we can comment on it publically and those people can go on pretending this is just "sectarianism", when in fact, I think it exposes one of the major problems of the IWW, which is that it was a project where socialists with less radical politics drew in anarchists but have always moved to moderate anarchist voices or even more radical voices in the organization.