I think your right, but I feel we need some plan for retention, In my opinion it would be great if the places we organized would build up our membership and through this way we would be able to keep dues low but still be financialy stable.

Mike

I like the way the OPEIU does its dues system.  Their dues are based on your hourly wage.  So if you make $8 an hour, your dues are $8 per month.  If you make $12/ hour, the dues are $12/ month.   If we did that, we would only need one dues stamp (i.e. no sub-min, min, etc.).  It would also sort of serve as a dues increase without actually excluding anyone.  Plus it would never have to be readjusted with inflation, regional economic differences, etc.  what do you all think?

Pat,

Chicago

Pat,

Great idea but my dues would go down.  I make $9.50 and work 47 hours a week. That's just over $300 a week which means $1200 a month.  This puts me in the $12 a month regular dues category. So I would drop down in dues. Also some folks work as nannies or carpenters and what have you at $20 an hour but only sporadically so it may not be equal across the board.  I would like to see if that structure would mean a dues increase for the union.  I like the idea a lot. 

(Incidentally, what did y'all think about the split dues idea where members send a per capita straight to GHQ and branches would set their own local assessments? eg: Everyone sends $5 to GHQ and if you're a member of the Bay Area branch you pay $8 or in Santa Cruz you pay $5 or if you don't have a branch you just pay the GHQ $5, that's it.)

J. Pierce

If the union is running a negative budget then a dues increase would not be unreasonable yet if we were to really work on gaining new members and not losing members this would go along way to taking care of the money issue.  Frankly, I like keeping most of the money where you live and sending the "5" dollars to GHQ.

Andrew Skaggs

I also think that the idea of a "per head" to GHQ with the rest determined locally is an idea worth thinking about.  it would also make it easy (in my imagination) for GHQ to determine how much they ought to be giving back to the locals for online dues because it would just be a matter of subtraction.

 I haven't done a detailed read of Madison's new system in the GOB i got today, but it seems like they have an interesting payment system.  Some kind of bank account direct-deduction thing, I guess.  I'm still pretty much at the paying cash stage myself, not always enough padding in the bank account for automatic monthly deductions, though.  I'm not that paranoid that I'm really worried about a paper trail of my dues payment but that could always be an issue for some. 

anyhow, we should keep talking about it.  or typing.

greg

chicago GMB 

~the labrat~~~

FWs,

I think that if workers can't pay the dues when they want to join then there are probably some hardship questions that need to get solved.  Most branches have provisions to allow participation of non-members with branch approval as well as provisions to pay for a worker's dues to see them through hardship.  Other than that I think people ought to wait to join until they are ready to make it a priority and that means supporting the work we do physically and financially.  The organization is only as strong as the support that we give it.  Travel expenses, Hall and office rent, organizing expenses, computer expenses, the list goes on.  The IWW is growing and those who believe in building this organization into a fighting class struggle union know: "you can't overthrow capitalism on the cheap."

J. Pierce

So maybe we could do twice our hourly rate.  Surely that would be a dues increase.  i'm just tossing ideas out here.

Pat,

Chicago