A call to form a federation of tech worker coops
(23 March 2004)

THE INSPIRATION

"But I really saw it in action during last year's Direct Action to Stop the War organizing process in San Francisco. (This will not be a new idea to anyone familiar with direct action organizing.) Protesters organized themselves into affinity groups (usually 5-20 people) which were totally autonomous. Some affinity groups further organized themselves into clusters (usually 4-6 groups). Then all the affinity groups and clusters sent a representative (a 'spoke') to the spokescouncil that constituted the entire organization. Some activities were coordinated at the level of the affinity group, some at the level of the cluster, and some by the spokescouncil. At every level, organizing yourself (or your group) into a larger group made for a stronger system that could accomplish more. Whether or not we agree with the goals or the methods of that March 20 protest, it must be agreed that this model was hugely successful in achieving its goals."

Using this organizing metaphor, many of our affinity groups have already been formed. Clusters spring up now and then, as collaborative projects and chance meetings warrant. We think it's time to form the spokescouncil: a central hub that can help us organize to take on the larger projects that we (as individuals and small organizations) do not have the influence or resources to attempt on our own.

WHY FEDERATE?

When we federate, we build a referral and collaboration network, we support each other, and we create a strong foundation for issue advocacy. When we join together, we are much stronger than any one part alone.

Referrals: We can refer projects to each other based on our capacities, skills, interests, and geographies.

Collaboration: In the same way that individuals work together in our groups and thereby increase their power to tackle large projects to that of a small consulting firm, several or many small groups could work together on even larger projects, increasing our project-tackling power to rival that of a small corporation.

Mutual knowledge support: We can share technical knowledge and custom software solutions that help us better serve our clients.

Mutual technical support: We can provide services for each other.

Mutual organizational support: We can share information about our groups and how they're structured, to help make our groups more successful.

Advocacy: More and more legislative and corporate policy issues are intersecting with our areas of competence and interest (open-source in government, digital rights management, other intellectual property issues, security issues). We can take passive (writing, endorsing) or active (creating solutions, working with government) advocacy positions, but as individuals, we're unlikely to be able to do substantial work. In our coops, we have a better chance to produce quality work that is harder to ignore. As a large international federation, we could have far more power to create thoughtfully, incorporate multiple perspectives and command far more attention.

CHALLENGE: HOW STRUCTURED?

CHALLENGE: WHO PARTICIPATES?

Formal Cooperatives
Partnerships
Loose affiliations of individuals with democratic operating principles
Democratic nonprofits
Individual non-profit tech workers looking to form collectives

nonprofits
activists
coops
unions
artists
political parties/campaigns

web design
web development
database development
network/system administration/technical support
hosting

NEXT STEPS

CONTACT:

	tech underground federation@techunderground.org
	Electric Embers federation@electricembers.net