IWOC Preamble
Prisoners are on the front lines of wage slavery and forced slave labor where refusal to work while in prison results in inhumane retaliation and participating in slave labor contributes to the mechanisms of exploitation. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) has consciously grasped the importance of organizing prisoners so that prisoners can directly challenge prison slavery, work conditions, and the system itself: break cycles of criminalization, exploitation, and the state sponsored divisions of our working class. At the same time, the prison environment and culture is a melting pot of capitalistic and exploitative tactics and all forms of oppression. These poisons must be challenged in prisons, institutions, and in all of us, through organized working class solidarity.
Members of IWW have created IWOC, the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, which functions as a liaison for prisoners to organize each other, unionize, and build solid bridges between prisoners on the inside and fellow workers on the outside. Prison is a setup, a big business, there to make money off the People. Neither the setup, nor the slavery inside of prisons can be combated without the conscious participation of prisoners and the working class on the outside through mutual aid, solidarity, and the building of working relationships that transcend prison walls and the politics of mass incarceration. IWOC has been actively reaching out to prisoners while at the same time prisoners have been reaching out to IWW for representation and assistance in building a prisoners union. IWOC has taken up the cause and is helping prisoners in every facility organize and build a union branch for themselves, which will together form a powerful IWW Industrial Union.
To achieve this cage slave/wage slave alliance IWOC is accepting IWW membership applications from prisoners who agree with IWW Constitution and believe that to truly change prison conditions prisoners must be organized and working towards such goals with the help and support of the working class on the outside. Prisoners will be full fledged members of IWW with their own local prison branch to maintain and develop and will have the same rights and responsibilities as members on the outside. However, due the exploitative nature of the prison system, prisoners are granted free IWW membership, and will not be required to pay dues while in prison. Outside members of IWOC will be in direct communication with prisoners and provide organizing training, support and guidance in union building, solidarity, and collaborative actions.
We have a world to win and nothing to lose but our chains. In every ghetto, barrio, trailer park, and prison cell, working class solidarity will prevail!
STOP INCARCERATION NOW!!
Members of Kansas City IWOC are building a coordinated mass movement inside of prisons and on the outside too. The core of the inside work is accomplished through letter writing and the core of the outside work is through community organizing. There are many tasks within each of these approaches. Anyone of any skill level can start helping to build a support network for your friends, family, and loved ones on the inside!
Tasks can be things that are as simple as making a phone call to the state or as complex as building up a segment of our world-wide network to efficiently and inexpensively get news to large numbers of people in prison!
* Add people in prison to our mailing list
* Write letters to people in prison
* Make phone calls to state officials
* Typing and transcription
* Research various items for people in prison
* Donate money and or writing supplies (stamps/envelopes/etc)
* Reach out to other organizations and ask them to get involved
* Make phone calls to friends and family of people in prison
* Be a personal advocate for an individual person in prison
* Collect art, pictures from magazines, etc for letter writing groups
* Write letters to state officials
* Research various aspects of the prison industrial complex
* Read letters and identify certain data for letter writing groups
* Ask your friends and neighbors to get involved
* Let us know your ideas!!