There’s a development in the labour movement and if it is not new, it certainly passed me by when it happened and maybe you missed it, too.

The Industrial Workers of the World are in town; they have done some organizing among the front-line harm reduction workers and ... hang on.

The Wobblies?

You know them by way of Joe Hill; “I never died,” said he. Or you know them through the poets, Rexroth and Snyder; or the Eugenes, O’Neill and V. Debs; you may even have heard those rumours about Honus Wagner, the greatest shortstop of all time.

My friend Peter Leslie is a Wobbly now.

Peter is one among a loose-knit group of men and women, harm reduction workers, who have been working at needle exchanges, doing street outreach, handing out safe crack use kits, and so on and so forth.

Until recently, they have been working without representation. But last year there was an organizing meeting at which some 100 of these workers showed up; more than half of them joined the union.

This is not an easy subject for some people.

I mean that those who do the hard work on the front lines of harm reduction tend to be the peers of those they help — some of them are homeless or poorly housed; some are drug users themselves; all of which means they have credibility, which is why they get hired in the first place.

Most are hired on a short-term basis, whenever the various health agencies manage to get grants; thing is, wages are not standardized, nor are hours of work.

Peter has some hard experience trying to organize his fellows. “Four years ago I tried to put together an association to unite the harm reduction workers and peer workers, so that we could get standardized wages and training; after a year and a half of trying, it withered.”

Enter the Wobblies.

Jordan said, “We’ve established that there is a need for some unity, some representation; it’s a disparate group, and this is new work.” And so we welcome Local 610 of the International Workers of the World.

What about dues?

Jordan said, “Dues are $9 a month for some workers, and $5 a month for others.” The scale depends on income.

Peter said, “Wages are anywhere between $10 to $20 an hour, but $20 is rare; kit makers get $5 and two transit tokens for two hours’ work.”

What do members get for their dues?

The union may bring pressure to bear if there are issues in the workplace concerning wages or scheduling or training; or the union may initiate discussion between the worker and the employer over a specific issue.

Oh, look. This is not quite like my union; mine is big and it is certified and our grievance procedures are rigorous and, as much as possible in this changing world, my union does the hard work of ensuring my wages, my benefits and my working conditions, and I have union brothers and sisters in shops around the city and the country.

This is not like that.

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Jordan said, “We don’t have strike funds or professional staff; the work of the union is done by the membership.”

And if this is new ground, it is because the big players in the union movement haven’t had the time or the imagination or the commitment to do this sort of work.

Peter said, “Some employers can’t get their heads around the fact that we’re valuable.” And of course you know that any work which has value ought to be properly compensated.

Jordan said, “There are also issues of equality and dignity; people with lived experience are sometimes discriminated against, based on the qualities they were hired for.”

Is it dangerous work?

Peter said, “I’ve been spit at and pushed doing outreach, and at the needle exchanges; there’s also harassment.” He also said, “Nobody’s supposed to work alone; it’s always supposed to be two people doing outreach. But two women going out, there’s potential risk. Yes, there’s training in how to avoid conflict, but not everyone gets training.”

And not everyone gets help dealing with the trauma associated with the discovery of men and women, clients and friends, dead on the street from overdoses.

Here’s hoping things change.

Because it’s the union makes us strong.

Correction - January 12, 2015: This article was edited from a previous version that misstated the name of the Industrial Workers of the World union.