IWA/AIT

International Workers' Association
Asociación Internacional de los Trabajadores
Founded	1922
Country	International
Affiliation	anarcho-syndicalism
Key people	Ratibor Trivunac (General Secretary)
Office location	TBA Belgrade, Serbia
Website	www.iwa-ait.org

The International Workers' Association (IWA) (Spanish: AIT - Asociación Internacional de los Trabajadores, and in German: IAA-Internationale ArbeiterInnen Assoziation) is an international anarcho-syndicalist federation of various labour unions from different countries. It was founded as the International Workingmen's Association in 1922, at a Berlin congress of anarcho-syndicalist labor unions. Image File history File links AIT_Logo. ... Year 1922 (MCMXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar). ... Anarcho-syndicalism is a branch of anarchism which focuses on the labour movement. ... Location of Belgrade within Serbia Coordinates: Country Serbia District City of Belgrade Municipalities 17 Government  - Mayor Nenad Bogdanović (DS) (since 2004)  - Ruling parties DS/DSS/G17+ Area  - City 3,222. ... Anthem Serbia() on the European continent() Capital (and largest city) Belgrade Official languages Serbian 1 Recognised regional languages Hungarian, Croatian, Slovak, Romanian, Rusyn 2 Albanian 3 Government Semi-presidential republic  -  President Boris Tadić  -  Prime Minister Vojislav KoÅ¡tunica Establishment  -  Formation 9th century   -  First unified state c. ... Anarcho-syndicalism is a branch of anarchism which focuses on the labour movement. ... A trade union or labour union is a continuous association of wage-earners for the purpose of maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment. ... The International Workingmens Association (IWA), sometimes called the First International, was an international socialist organization which aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing political groups and trade union organizations that were based on the working class and class struggle. ... Year 1922 (MCMXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar). ... This article is about the capital of Germany. ...

History

Previously, the same name was used to refer to the unitary socialist international organisation founded in 1864. But this first International was not able to withstand the differences between anarchist and Marxist currents, being dissolved some time later. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Socialism is a social and economic system (or the political philosophy advocating such a system) in which the economic means of production are owned and controlled collectively by the people. ... The International Workingmens Association (IWA), sometimes called the First International, was an international socialist organization which aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing political groups and trade union organizations that were based on the working class and class struggle. ... 1864 (MDCCCLXIV) was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a leap year starting on Sunday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar. ... “Anarchist” redirects here. ... Marxism takes its name from the praxis (the synthesis of philosophy and political action) of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...

Signatories to the founding statement of the 1922 IWA included groups from Argentina, Chile, Germany, Holland, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Portugal and Sweden. The single largest anarcho-syndicalist union at the time, the CNT in Spain, were unable to attend when their delegates were arrested on the way to the conference. Despite the CNT's absence, the international represented millions of workers in its inaugural year. The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (National Confederation of Labour or CNT), founded in Barcelona, Spain, in 1910, was at one time that countrys largest labour union. ...

According to UK IWA affiliate Solidarity Federation: "Centralism, political parties, parliamentarism and the state, including the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat, were all emphatically rejected. The congress also rejected the Marxist concept that liberation would come about; 'by virtue of some inevitable fatalism of rigid natural laws which admit no deviation; it's realisation will depend above all on the conscious will and the use of revolutionary action of the workers and will be determined by them.'" ^{(SelfEd Pages 188-189)}. Formed in 1994, the Solidarity Federation (SolFed) is a federation of class struggle anarchists active in Britain. ... Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ...

The IWA programme envisaged a system of economic communes and administrative groups, based within a system of federated free councils at local, regional, national and global levels forming the basis of a self-managed society based on pre-planning and mutual aid.

Following the first congress, other groups affiliated from France, Austria, Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Poland and Romania. Later, a bloc of unions in the USA, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, Cuba, Costa Rica and El Salvador also shared the IWA's statutes.

Many of the largest members of the IWA were subsequently broken, driven underground or wiped out as Fascists came to power in states across Europe. Italian IWA union the USI had a membership of up to 600,000 people ^{(SelfEd Page 189)} but was destroyed after Mussolini came to power, while the German union FAU was destroyed by the Nazis. The CNT, which had millions of members in Spain, was driven underground by a victorious Francisco Franco. Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler Fascism (in Italian, fascismo), capitalized, refers to the right-wing authoritarian political movement which ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. ... The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (National Confederation of Labour or CNT), founded in Barcelona, Spain, in 1910, was at one time that countrys largest labour union. ... General Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco Bahamonde (4 December 1892–20 November[1] 1975), commonly abbreviated to Francisco Franco (pron. ...

The sixth IWA congress took place in 1936, shortly after the Spanish Revolution had begun, but it was not to meet again until after the war had finished, in 1951. During the war, only one member of the IWA had been able to continue to function as a revolutionary union, the SAC in Sweden. Afterwards, much of the Spanish CNT's active membership were split, some in exile in France and Britain, the rest driven underground, and in Italy previously active members of the USI had to start over. At the seventh congress, the IWA was relaunched, though it would not be until the eighth congress in 1953 that the CNT was accepted as a member again. In Spanish history, there have been several revolutions. ...

The IWA fell into decline again in the 1960s, following the withdrawal at the tenth congress in 1958 of the SAC after its failure to amend the international's statutes to allow it to stand in municipal elections.^[1] This left the IWA with no functioning unions.

In 1976, at the 15th congress, the IWA was not functioning as an international union, with only five member groups, two of which (the Spanish and Bulgarian members) were operating in exile ^{(SelfEd Page 306)}. But the 1980 congress showed much improvement, with ten sections and huge growth in the CNT, which was able to send delegates from Spain (as opposed to exiles) for the first time following the death of Franco. The reorganised USI and Norwegian sections, along with others from the UK, US, Germany and Australia, also joined.

The IWA grew throughout the 1980s and saw two new groups join from Japan and Brazil, and further growth was recorded in the 1990s, though splits and expulsions occurred in Spain and France, and the USA section also split.

IWA Today

Part of the Politics series on Anarchism The Politics series Politics Portal This box:      Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions. ... “Anarchist” redirects here. ...
Schools of thought
Capitalist • Christian Collectivist • Communist Feminist • Green Individualist • Mutualist Philosophical • Primitivist Social • Syndicalist Without adjectives Image File history File links Anarchy-symbol. ... Anarcho-capitalism refers to an anti-statist philosophy that embraces capitalism as one of its foundational principles. ... Christian anarchism is a synthesis of anarchist theory with Christian theology. ... Left Anarchism is a term used almost exclusively by opponents of traditional anarchism to denominate philosophies that oppose private ownership of the means of production (or capitalism). ... Anarchist communism is a form of anarchism that advocates the abolition of the State and capitalism in favor of a horizontal network of voluntary associations through which everyone will be free to satisfy his or her needs. ... Anarcha-feminism combines anarchism with feminism. ... Green anarchism is a set of related political theories that is derived from philosophical and social movements such as social ecologists, feminism, egoism, situationism, surrealism, the Luddites, Anarcho-primitivism, post- and anti-leftists, indigenous, anti-industrialism, and pre-civilized people. ... Individualist Anarchism is an anarchist philosophical tradition that has a strong emphasis on sovereignty of the individual[1] and is generally opposed to collectivism[2]. The tradition appears most often in the United States, most notably in regard to its advocacy of private property. ... Mutualism is an economic theory or system, largely associated with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, based on a labor theory of value which holds that in extreme laissez-faire, market competition will cause the market values (prices) of commodities and services to align with the amount of labor embodied in those things. ... Philosophical anarchism is a type of anarchism that sees the state as lacking moral legitimacy but does not recommend any immediate revolutionary action for its elimination. ... Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization. ... Social anarchism is a term self-applied by many anarchists of the libertarian socialist thread of anarchism. ... Anarcho-syndicalism is a branch of anarchism which focuses on the labour movement. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...
Anarchist theory
History • Economics Co-operatives Mutual aid Symbolism • Post-left Especifismo • Platformism Direct democracy Direct action Self-ownership Social ecology Spontaneous order Workers' self-management Anarcho-primitivists assert that, for the longest period before recorded history, human society was organized on anarchist principles. ... Anarchist economics entails theory and practice relating to economic activity within the philosophical outlines of anarchism. ... A cooperative (also co-operative or co-op) is an association of persons who join together to carry on an economic activity of mutual benefit, in an egalitarian fashion. ... Mutual aid is a term in political economy used to signify the economic concept of voluntary reciprocal exchange of resources and services for mutual benefit. ... Post-left anarchy is a recent current in anarchist thought that promotes a critique of anarchisms relationship to traditional leftism. ... Especifismo is an anarchist praxis which originates in South America. ... Platformism is a tendency within the wider anarchist movement which shares an affinity with organising in the tradition of Nestor Makhnos Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists. ... Direct democracy, classically termed pure democracy,[1] comprises a form of democracy and theory of civics wherein sovereignty is lodged in the assembly of all citizens who choose to participate. ... Direct action is a form of political activism which seeks immediate remedy for perceived ills, as opposed to indirect actions such as electing representatives who promise to provide remedy at some later date. ... Self-ownership or sovereignty of the individual or individual sovereignty is the condition where an individual has the exclusive moral right to control his or her own body and life. ... Social ecology is, in the words of its leading exponents, a coherent radical critique of current social, political, and anti-ecological trends as well as a reconstructive, ecological, communitarian, and ethical approach to society. Social Ecology is a radical view of ecology and of social/political systems. ... Spontaneous order (sometimes called self-organization) is a phenomenon that happens when individuals each follow a set of self-interest-based rules without a central authority designing a plan for everyone. ... Worker Self-Management is a form of workplace decision-making in which the employees themselves agree on choices (for issues like customer care, general production methods, scheduling, division of labour etc. ...
Anarchism in culture
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Organizations of the IWA are:

Western Europe

• AIT-Portugal
• Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT-E, Spain)
• Confédération nationale du travail (CNT-AIT, France)
• Freie Arbeiterinnen- und Arbeiter-Union (FAU, Germany)
• Norsk Syndikalistik Forbund - Internasjonale Arbeider Assosiasjon (NSF-IAA, Norway)
• Solidarity Federation (SolFed, United Kingdom)
• Unione Sindacale Italiana (USI or USI-AIT, Italy)

The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (National Confederation of Labour or CNT), founded in Barcelona, Spain, in 1910, was at one time that countrys largest labour union. ... The CNT-F (Confédération nationale du travail) or National Confederation of Labour is a French anarcho-syndicalist union. ... Demonstration in Hamburg attended by members of the FAU The Free Workers Union (German: Freie Arbeiterinnen- und Arbeiter-Union[1]; abbreviated FAU) is an anarcho-syndicalist labor union initiative in Germany. ... Formed in 1994, the Solidarity Federation (SolFed) is a federation of class struggle anarchists active in Britain. ... Unione Sindacale Italiana (USI; Italian Syndicalist Union or Italian Workers Union) is an Italian trade union. ...

Eastern Europe

• Anarho-sindikalisticka inicijativa (ASI-MUR, Serbia)
• Konfederatsiya Revolyutsionnikh Anarkho-Sindikalistov (KRAS, Russia)
• Federace anarchistických skupin (FSA, Czech republic)
• Priama Akcia (Slovakia)

Anthem Serbia() on the European continent() Capital (and largest city) Belgrade Official languages Serbian 1 Recognised regional languages Hungarian, Croatian, Slovak, Romanian, Rusyn 2 Albanian 3 Government Semi-presidential republic  -  President Boris Tadić  -  Prime Minister Vojislav KoÅ¡tunica Establishment  -  Formation 9th century   -  First unified state c. ...

South America

• Brazilian Working Confederation (FORGS-COB, Brazil)
• Federacion Obrera Regional Argentina (FORA, Argentina)
• Amigos de la AIT (Colombia) - Friend of the IWA
• Germinal (Chile) - Friend of the IWA

Africa

• Awareness League - IWA (Nigeria)

The Awareness League (AL) was a Nigerian anarchist organisation active since the 1990s, estimated to have had several thousand members at one time in its history. ...

Australia

• Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation (Australia) - Friend of the IWA

The XXIII annual congress of the IWA was held in Manchester, UK from 8th-10th December 2006, and saw 14 members, Friends of the IWA and other guest associations from around the world send delegates. The 2008 Congress will be held in Brazil. Manchester shown within England Coordinates: , Sovereign state United Kingdom Constituent country England Region North West England Ceremonial county Greater Manchester Admin HQ Manchester City Centre Founded 13th Century City Status 1853 Government  - Type Metropolitan borough, City  - Governing body Manchester City Council Area  - Borough & City 115. ...

Other anarchist internationals

• International of Anarchist Federations (1968 - )
• Anarchist St. Imier International (1872 - 1877)
• Black Bridge International (2001 - 2004 )
• International Libertarian Solidarity (2001 - 2005)

The International of Anarchist Federations (IAF or IFA) was founded during an international anarchist conference in Carrara in 1968 by the three existing european federations of France, Italy and Spain as well as the Bulgarian federation in french exile. ... Year 1968 (MCMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar) of the 1968 Gregorian calendar. ... The Anarchist St. ... Year 1872 (MDCCCLXXII) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... 1877 (MDCCCLXXVII) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... Black Bridge International is a decentralized anarchist mutual aid network set up to facilitate the sharing of resources and information. ... Year 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 2001 Gregorian calendar). ... shelby was here 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... International Libertarian Solidarity is an international anarchist network with over 20 participating organizations from North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. ... Year 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 2001 Gregorian calendar). ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

See also

Organized Labour Portal

• List of trade unions

Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... This is a list of trade unions and union federations by country. ...

External links

• International Workers' Association
• Statutes of the IWA
• A history of the IWA from 1922 to today on libcom.org.
• Notes on the 2006 congress of the IWA

Libcom is a small collective of libertarian communists based in and around London, UK, who maintain the website libcom. ...

References