Welcome to the website for Organise! friends of the International Worker’s Association, we were accepted as affiliates as a ‘friends of’ section to the IWA at its historic centenary Congress in Alcoi, Spain on Friday 9th December 2022.
You can check out our ongoing activity at our campaigns page.
You can also check out our new southern bulletin Class War and our northern bulletin Black Star, the latest copy of The Leveller which we are relaunching as a magazine will be available soon.
Get Involved and help Build an Anarcho-Syndicalist Alternative.
Organise! IWA is growing. We are an anarcho-syndicalist Union initiative which organises across Ireland – north and south. We have Local groups in Belfast and South Ulster, a Local in formation in Dublin, and a growing membership across Ireland. Workers in the piercing industry have recently set up an Organise! IWA Piercing Industry Union and we are involved in an ongoing dispute in Belfast.
We take inspiration from the self directed struggles of working-class people, particularly the history and tradition of struggle epitomised by the IWA – the anarcho-syndicalist international. Our history goes back to the original formation of Organise! by the Ballymena and Antrim Anarchist Groups in 1986 (the Ballymena Anarchist Group dates back to 1981). On the 9th of December 2022 we were unanimously admitted as a ‘friends of’ section of the anarcho-syndicalist International Workers Association at its historic centenary Congress in Alcoi, Spain.
We are a growing Union made up of ordinary working class people who are fed up with being fucked about by the profit system, fed up with seeing our communities torn apart by racism, patriarchy, nationalism and sectarianism, and sick of a greedy few getting rich off everyone else’s backs.
We are actively working to promote solidarity in opposition to capitalism, the state, imperialism and war, patriarchy and all other forms of oppression and hierarchy. The way we organise reflects the free society we want to create: one based on voluntary association, democratic participation and self-management.
Our members are workers, claimants, students, migrants, unemployed and other working-class people committed to building a libertarian communist Union movement actively opposed to all forms of oppression and exploitation.
We want to improve everyday conditions for ourselves and other working class people, but we also struggle towards the revolutionary transformation that can create a free and equal society, one based on mutual aid and co-operation.
The current system isn’t working – ill-health, stress and overwork affect more and more people while others are flung on the dole; for increasing amounts of workers it is precarity, zero hours contracts and the stress of being unable to plan or budget our lives; we live in a world of plentiful resources yet millions starve; some people make vast fortunes just because they own companies, land, property or natural resources, but those of us who create the wealth, work the land and build the properties are left struggling to survive; politicians tell us there’s no money – not for wages, benefits or local amenities, but there’s always plenty for war; both locally and globally the gap between the richest and the poorest sections of society has never been so great; instead of tackling poverty we have a war on ‘benefit fraud’; militarism and imperialism are intrinsic to capitalism, nation states and shifting power blocks and alliances and are currently dragging the entire world to war; the same institutions that create war, poverty and environmental destruction stigmatise, imprison and deport the resultant refugees; transmisogyny, patriarchy and gender based violence and murder are fostered and encouraged by systemic violence which is intrinsic to capitalism.
Capitalism is an economic system defined by wage slavery and the accumulation of profit out of other peoples’ (our) work. We support all workers against their bosses in demanding higher wages and better conditions. We try to intervene practically to support workers engaged in disputes and are also active in our own workplaces and communities. Not only against exploitation but against the multiple oppressions faced by members of the working class in all our diversity.
We look to a future where workers control production and society in their own interests. And unlike some people who claim to oppose capitalism, we don’t want to be a new set of leaders and we refuse to be led by anyone else. We advocate direct democracy in the workplace and through the commune in our communities – working in federation to ensure that the needs of all are met and that no-one is ever again in a position to oppress or exploit another human being.
If you are interested in these ideas, we’d encourage you to explore the website and consider getting involved.
We currently have members in Belfast, Cavan, Cork, Derry, Dublin, Lisburn, Monaghan, Newry, Newtownabbey and Portadown and are building the organisation on the basis of active involvement and participation. We aren’t interested in meaningless ‘paper’ membership so you can’t join by filling in an online form and bunging us a few quid.
To talk to us about joining get the ball rolling by sending an email to:
organiseasi@gmail.com
Locals and Locals in Formation
The Local is the basic unit of organisation for Organise! Friends of the IWA. Locals bring together members in a particular area in solidarity, mutual aid and to practice direct action and build the struggle against the bosses and the state. Members of the Local are working class people from all industries, occupations and none. Members in other areas are working to create new Locals and Locals in formation day by day. Contact us to be put in contact with your nearest Local today. If there isn’t one yet contact us and we can put in in touch with other comrades to create one.
Current Locals:
- Belfast Local
- South Ulster Local
- Dublin Local (in formation)
Unions:
- Piercing Industry Union