We are the Merseyside members of the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) – the union for all workers!
Why the IWW?
We are a grassroots and democratic union helping to organise all workers in all workplaces. The IWW differs from traditional trade unions. We believe that workers have greater voice if we are organised within our own industries. For example, teachers, cleaners and secretaries who work in a school should be classed as education workers and all be in the same union. Furthermore, unions in one industry are far stronger if they are in the same organisation as all other industrial unions. Our aim is to see society re-organised to meet the interests of all people, and not just shareholders and corporations.
We are NOT:
Full of stifling bureaucracy or linked to any political party or group.
Led by fat cat salary earners who carry out deals with bosses behind your back.
Going to sell you services, life insurance or credit cards.
We ARE:
Led by membership. We make all decisions and we all have the final say.
For uniting all workers across trades, industries and countries.
Able to offer practical support for members in their workplace.
Flexible so you are still a member even when you change job or contract.
Who is the IWW for?
We are for ALL workers who do not have the power to hire or fire. This also includes workers who are retired, students, unemployed, part-time, temporary or those working at home. Workers who are members of other unions are also welcome.
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Preamble to the IWW Constitution
The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.
Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth.
We find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers.
These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.
Instead of the conservative motto, “A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work,” we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, “Abolition of the wage system.”
It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.
Email: liverpool [at] iww [dot] org [dot] uk