[Sdalliance] Structure Commitee Proposal: Liberal Participation in Open Committees

Wed Feb 22 13:09:26 PST 2017

Bo, your new proposal would of course have to be approved by the general assembly and is of course contrary to the last GA's instructions to the committee.It also begs a question which is nowhere spelled out as a decided matter: how many organizations have to ratify the Structure Proposal in order for it to take effect? My earlier remark about possibly sending any amendments to the Structure Proposal to ONLY those orgs that have ratified the original proposal is relevant only if we have enough orgs already on board. If not, and if we do not make this new ratification process the first activation of the Structure process, then it will certainly mean more delay in activating the Structure. I also think that the proposal you are making about the committees is still a Structure proposal amendment, and does not resolve the problems with amendments that you describe.

---------- Original Message ----------
From: Bo Elder <belder76 at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2017 16:36:34 -0800
Subject: Re: [Sdalliance] Structure Commitee Proposal: Liberal Participation
 in Open Committees

Dear comrades, I appreciate everyone's work, and all of the concerns raised and suggestions made are valid.  However, I must say I do not think we should make any changes to the Structure at this time, or additional requirements (other than suggestions) for affiliated organizations and committees.  Like the Points of Unity, the Structure document is already being circulated and has already been ratified by 2 organizations: Industrial Workers of the World and Redneck Revolt.  Moreover, every person/organization I have reached out to has expressed that they feel the Structure is already very complicated and demanding.

I believe most of the issues and needs we are raising can be address at least partially by voting to charter (or not charter) committees on Sunday.  I propose that we charter the following committees: 1. Committee for Rapid Response 2. Committee for Internal Communications 3. Committee for External Communications 4. Committee for Fundraising 5. Committee for Legal Aid 6. Committee for Women and Femmes and/or Gender and Sexuality Issues
I hope we can finalize our Mission Statement, confirm affiliated organizations, charter Committees, and be ready to move to a delegate council format by the end of Sunday's meeting.  People and organizations will join us, but we must show them that we are committed to not overly draining their member resources and that we are committed to planning and taking actions.

in solidarity,

Bo 

On Tue, Feb 21, 2017 at 12:07 PM, justin hewgill <jhewgill at gmail.com> wrote:
Monty,

A, On the delegation from the member orgs, I hear you, and we could make the gender and identity balance of the two delegates be a suggested rule, such that if an organization cannot conform to it they are not excluded.

B, Regarding committees, 1) I think if we cannot staff a two person co-chair for the committee then perhaps we are overreaching. Having this structured will function to limit the number of committees. I personally think that is a good thing. In these types of coalitions it often happens that we have a proliferation of activities without enough human power behind each activity. We should limit ourselves to activities where there is enough interest from members (i.e. members of member orgs and individual radicals who assent to the points of unity and want to work with us) to provide basic leadership.
 2) If people feel that the gender and identity rules could be cumbersome here too, they could be a suggestion for campaign chairs and delegates as well. Although, I hope we are diverse enough to pull this off at the campaign committee level.  
C, On the issue of process, 1) as you probably noticed, I have been a big advocate of moving into the council structure. However, the body seemed to have a majority opinion in the last meeting that the issue of liberal or non-member participation in campaign committees should be resolved in GA before going to council. 

2) The structure committee figured if we were going to amend the structure document to accomplish this we could also simultaneously deal with the issue of delegates which you and also Raf and a few others had raised.That way we could have those two issues worked out for our big mass meeting where we would be inviting more orgs and individuals to hopefully join - i.e. having dual delegates for the sake of more participation and for creating a device of ensuring gender and identity representation.  

3) However if there is a lot of controversy on the delegate issue at the meeting we could move that question to the delegate process. 
 Justin 
On Mon, Feb 20, 2017 at 9:01 PM, Monty Kroopkin <mkroopkin at juno.com> wrote:Fellow Workers, This proposal is getting there, and is better than the way it currently reads, but This proposal is much too rigid on delegation selection by autonomous member organizations (and likely to prevent some orgs from even being members of CRSD if they are unable to contort themselves into these requirements for delegates). It would be more beneficial for diversity, and more practical for member orgs to implement, if we keep one delegate vote per org but allow each org to send a 'delegation' of more than one person to the council. Additional members of a 'delegation' could be stated as appropriate solely for the purpose of gender balance and overall diversity issues. The requirements for CRSD selection of committee co-chairs and committee delegates are also too 'cookie cutter'. Although it may be more possible for CRSD to 'staff' these committee positions the way the proposal is written, it would clearly mean that some of the committees we may all want to have could be impossible to start if we do not have enough volunteers who meet the required criteria for co-chair and delegate positions. Gender balance and diversity goals should be goals, not rigid requirements, especially while our initial numbers of members remains small. Having the open committees elect from within to fill any vacancy in the co-chair or delegate positions would help sustain continuity of that committee's representation on the council. However, it would become an obstacle if there are not enough (or not any) members of that committee who are both members of CRSD AND willing to serve as a replacement co-chair or delegate. We should anticipate and avoid that roadblock by having it be "....or, in the absence of a qualified and willing candidate within the committee, then CRSD will select the replacement." Also, although I certainly hope the next general assembly can vote to approve some version of an amendment of the structure proposal to resolve the open committees question, I wonder if the ratification process will be/should be the same as for the structure proposal itself. If a 'critical mass' of founding orgs have already ratified the structure proposal before the next general assembly, then should we limit the ratification voting to those orgs? Should this be the first decision that follows the process of the Structure Proposal? (or should we ask all the founding orgs to approve the amended Structure Proposal?) IWW San Diego General Membership Branch just voted yesterday to approve the Structure Proposal and the Points of Unity. It will be another month before the branch could decide on any amendment. mk mk 

---------- Original Message ----------

Hello All: Please find below the link to Structure Committee's proposal to address Liberal Participation in Open Committees, for review. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TkphHBRrZXU175hgNMosVSVr50U851aDJ3IvMhsMyfs/edit?usp=sharing Best, 
Yesenia Padilla

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