Workers Solidarity Movement

This position paper was modified October 2014 - read the current version at http://www.wsm.ie/c/wsm-membership-engagement-policy

This position paper outlines the two forms of WSM membership and how we engage with people interested in the WSM

1. We recognize that different people with different life circumstances will have different amounts of time and other resources they can dedicate to the WSM.

2. We recognize that the successful building of a revolutionary organization with a mass outreach requires a significant number of members with a very high level of dedication to that collective project - this is people willing to dedicate significant amounts of their time and other resources.

3. WSM membership should require some minimum level of commitment, membership is not the equivalent of signing up to a Facebook group. But that level cannot be so high as to de facto exclude a large section of the working class. Therefore we offer a range of ways for people to engage with the WSM and to become members of the WSM that seek to balance our need for a core of very dedicated members with the requirement that involvement with the organisations at some level be possible for just about everyone.

Contacts & supporters

4) The WSM implements an ongoing Engagement Process aimed to ensuring we have an agreed collective approach towards discussions with people who are interested in us. The exact details of this process are found in our internal Engagement Pyramid document which is updated and maintained by Delegate Council, the outline is below. The aim of this process is both to encourage people towards becoming WSM members and to ensure a good working relationship with those who are not (yet) interested in membership.

4. Followers are people who have made an effort to maintain regular contact with the WSM. We aim to identify these people and encourage them into a closer and long lasting relationship up to and including becoming members.

5. Contacts are people who have been asked to give us their direct contact details in the form of a phone number or email on the understanding that we will be informing them of events, sending them regular news updates and talking to them about our activity.

6. Supporters are people who have agreed to make regular donations to the WSM, agreed to be contacted about helping with our work in areas that they are interested in, receive free copies of WSM publications, have access to some internal WSM discussion and can ask to be given observer rights at internal WSM meetings. We seek to utilize supporters knowledge, experience and skills on an ongoing basis and involve them in discussion with WSM members and contacts. This will include a regular internal WSM meeting open to all supporters.

7. Collectively Agreed Activity: There is a wide range of activity and tasks that a revolutionary organisation needs to undertake, these require a wide variation of skills & experiences. The list that follows is not exhaustive but gives a sense of what what sort of activity and tasks the WSM often requires. In general we will always try and match the interests, experiences & training wishes of individual members to the work required in order for the WSM to function: attend organising meetings, union meetings, activist meetings, working groups and editorial committees: write articles, layout papers, design posters and fliers, conduct interviews for our publications or for pod-casts, write public speeches, prepare internal educational, put up posters, distribute leaflets and papers, organise fundraisers, meetings & conferences, maintain our web-pages, provide support for meetings through childminding, food preparation or facilitation, attend marches, pickets, demos, produce radio shows, run bookstalls, and much much more.

Members

8. WSM activists are people who agree with the basic politics of the WSM as outlined in the join document, and donate 2% of their income to the WSM and make 8 hours a month available to the WSM to carry out collectively agreed activity.

9. WSM organizers are people who have been activists for six months, have completed the members training module, donate 4% of their income to the organisation, make 16 hours a month available to carry out collectively agreed activity and most importantly take on the role of being an organizer for both specific internal and external WSM activity as part of that work.

10. Organisers can choose to move to activist or supporter if they think they will no longer by able to fulfill the requirements for a while. Likewise activists can move to supporter. 

Developing an engagement model

11. The engagement committee will investigate and test an appropriate database management solution with the goal of providing a report that outlines the merits and potential advantages of said administration solution and how it may be integrated with various levels of engagement. 

As agreed at national conference October 2011

This position paper was modified October 2014 - read the current version at http://www.wsm.ie/c/wsm-membership-engagement-policy