I'm in the Toronto GMB so I'll be there. I think a discussion on contracts in general would be worthwhile as there's a lot of things to cover besides not agreeing to no-strikes clauses.

As far as the dual-card strategy goes, it could be a good topic of conversation but I'm not sure if it would fall under the Organizing summit's mandate.

There was a very rough outline of a possible meeting agenda posted to the IWW list by a member of the Organizing Department, but I see that this thread is public so I won't post it here unless you edit the topic to only be read by "All Members" which you should be able to do to make it so only registered IWW members can see it.

Well there was a discussion on dual carding at the Austin summit two years back, although I think you make a decent point about it not neccessarily fitting under the mandate. What other ideas do you have for contract discussions? It's definitely an important issue.

I would like to discuss coordinating salting as a strategy for getting activists into workplace organizing campaigns. To build a worker-run union, we must develop activists, then place them where they can provide leadership and share skills. We need to recruit young people and encourage them to choose union organizing as a way of life.

I'd like to break into groups by industry at some point to share stories and ideas. Workers from each industry should discuss strategies for building membership and power.

Although the question varies from state to state, I'd like to address the question of how organizers should relate to the law. I've seen many workers over-estimate the power of the law as a tool for addressing their problems. At the same time, workers are often paralyzed into inaction for fear of legal consequences. In both cases, lawyers tend to exacerbate the problem (and thus concentrate power in their own hands). We need to develop, and learn how to advocate, our own approach to using - or evading - the law.

I would like to debate the pro's and con's of having a master contract. Is it worth having long drawn out negotiations? Is it worthwhile for a union not driven by a staff? Can we avoid no-strike clauses and more bureaucratic procedures? What kinds of income inequality can we tolerate? What are the essentials that we would want to include in a contract? And like everything, how do we make the arguments to regular workers?

These are just a few suggestions from off the top of my head.

I think it would be great to have several panels, where organizers share their experience around different campaigns and topics. Potential topics could be: organizing in shop under IWW contract, how to deal with stress and prevent burnout as an organizer, presentations giving an overview of campaigns such as SBX, NYC 460/640, Bay Area recycling, CCU from how it started to where its at, Stockton truckers. -Adam W. of the Bay Area GMB

People have really good ideas, and I'm so glad to get the feedback. A number of people have suggested contracts and dual carding. I like the idea of panel discussions on these issues. Media and community alliances is another idea that has been raised. IU break outs will happen, but I'd like to press us to get lists of our fwers in our industries and try to mobilize active organizers to come with goals for those break outs and agendas for the discussions.

I think a session on salting is a good idea too, though not because I'm for it. I've got big reservations about it, so I'd like to see a place to discuss it. I'd also like to see something on organizer training - how to build a local ongoing training curriculum, and maybe also a session for people who've been to a training or a training for trainers about developing more curriculum.

I'm a big nerd so I want to find out how different communications tools are current being use in the OD as well as within campaigns. I would like to build web tools that are useful to this so I want to know what's working so far and what's lacking. I don't know if the best structure for that is on the agenda or whether I should just walk around and solicit individual opinions or what. In the event that iww.ca is functional enough to make it worthwhile I might like to show off the features it has and describe other tools could be implemented. I have found showing people stuff like this is way more effective than just sending out emails and hoping they are read. What do folk think of that?

Well for the Canadian Wobs especially I think showing off the new iww.ca as a tool would be really good. The Canadians should also try and make sure we have some time to sit down and chat and see how much progress we've made on the things we aimed for after the meeting last spring.

Nate, building an ongoing training curriculum is a big part of what our branch is trying to do this year, so that session would help a lot.

What's the "new" iww.ca? http://www.iww.ca looks the same as it's been for years and it says it was last updated on Feburary 2006.