The Forgotten History of when Portland IWW was Infiltrated by Pedophile Supporters
Every political movement faces tough questions about how to reject reactionary entryism from fascists and pedophiles. What matters is how a community or organization responds. As radical leftists and antifascists we believe in drawing hard lines and exposing monsters. As one IWW member put it, “The state didn’t invent the idea that there are consequences to our actions.“ For real consequences institutional memory must be preserved.
In 2014 it was revealed that an IWW member, Tomas Bernal, had committed an act of sexual violence while travelling in Mexico against a person who was 12. This was revealed when Tomas sent a confession email to the IWW listserv. There was never a question about whether he had committed the act or not. He had been in a relationship with another IWW member who said they felt unsafe and had experienced interpersonal violence from Tomas. They will be referred to here as the PDX Survivor.
As a result of his confession, which many found to be very self centering and deflecting of blame, a number of members immediately asked for his expulsion from the IWW.
Over the proceeding months a small group of members of which Ashley Jackson, Jessica Harris, and Adam Nee were a prominent part, created an intense environment of confusion, intimidation, and harassment for people demanding his permanent expulsion and for his PDX Survivor and allies. Some of the tactics they employed included:
creating procedural blocks and criticizing the process
blaming the PDX survivor for creating an “unsafe space” and endangering people, in addition to framing the ask for expulsion as some kind of revenge plot
saying that people discussing the community safety risk were breaking security culture
claiming that people wanting to exclude Tomas were engaged in a secret cabal in violation of IWW process
claiming that their voices (Ash and Jess) as survivors (in a general sense) were being sidelined and silenced through listening to the PDX survivor and other survivors of childhood sexual assault and IPV
trying to force their way into meetings for survivors directly processing the trauma around their and Tomas’ actions
When the final PDX IWW vote was taken to exclude Tomas, 28 voted for permanent expulsion….and 9 voted for no expulsion.
This harassment campaign persisted for months upon months and generated a mass exodus from the PDX IWW from people who fundamentally could not put up with the endless discussion around whether you could expel a member for an act of sexual violence against a minor.
This created intense and deep divisions within the community, and to this day many people choose to avoid organizing spaces as they fear seeing Adam, Jess, & Ash. After the exodus, Adam, Jess, & Ash, and others were still in positions of leadership and started to rewrite history within the wobs. New and incoming members were told a MUCH different story. In 2016/17 it started to become clear to some active wobs that the IWWPDX had an official relationship with Class Struggle Workers (Adam, Jess, & Ash’s most public group) and The Internationalist Group (which they are also in). Some workers knew that these groups have a history of endorsing and defending NAMBLA. From the Internationalists Group website: http://www.internationalist.org/lficonferencedocument1712.html "We have already had a taste of witch-hunting by red-baiting reformist leftists and feminists intent on provoking retaliation for our principled defense of gay and lesbian rights and our opposition to anti-gay repression of unpopular groups such as NAMBLA." When this was brought up in a meeting, Adam, Jess, & Ash did their normal routine of harassment, deflection, derailing of process, and intimidation of workers. They claimed that people were being homophobic and oppressive for having critiques of NAMBLA. They shortly left the wobs after this to focus solely on Class Struggle Workers (which is a front group for the Internationalist Group). Meeting notes from that IWW meeting can be found here: https://libcom.org/forums/north-america/portland-wobblies-31082016?fbclid=IwAR23Wu1x3kKusDAd95nd5ecCa9KrpThkmapQar74vZsutDapya9OYbEtZeo “When the motion came under discussion, the 3 CSWP members immediately formed a bloc, roundly condemning the motion with a flurry of accusations: calling it slander, a witch-hunt, anticommunist, patriarchal, racist, and homophobic. One member recounted a personal anecdote in an attempt to justify the notion that very underage people should be able to enter into sexual relationships with adults, and claimed that my opposition to this was a patriarchal attempt to tell young women/underage children what to do with their bodies. Furthermore, they claimed that I made them feel unsafe and said that by talking publicly about these issues with the IG that I was calling for what they said amounted to the “murder” of IG members. They then called into question my emotional and mental stability, as they claimed that I was “mentally disturbed” to think that the IG supported pedophilia, and that I and the motion itself violated the safer space rule.” Throughout the years people have directly questioned them about their ties to NAMBLA. They alternate between obfuscation, lying, harassment, and intimidation. Here are some of their own words from their newsletter about where they stand on NAMBLA https://www.icl-fi.org/english/wv/1099/salt.html "Foaming with rage at our opposition to reactionary “age of consent” laws and our forthright defense of NAMBLA (the North American Man/Boy Love Association) against state repression, they slanderously raved about predator “pedophiles” and “child rape.”" "Groups like NAMBLA who are slandered, framed up and witchhunted by the capitalist state must be defended! Only a party that actively champions the rights of all the oppressed can lead the struggle for proletarian socialist revolution." Considering their past defense of a person who molested a 12 year old while visiting Mexico as a tourist…….it is hard to see their support for NAMBLA as anything but part of a long history of supporting and propping up pedophiles and childhood sexual violence. Most recently, their group Class Struggle Workers came out to a proposed Klan Rally and flew their banner, while Adam, Jess, & Ash also repped the Internationalist Group.
To this day, Adam Nee, Jessica Harris, & Ashley Jackson have never admitted to any wrong-doing, and continue to stand by the totality of their actions.
Fascist and fascist-friendly reactionary groups like Patriot Prayer have a long history of welcoming with open arms pedophiles like Bob West and Deme Cooper. As antifascists our struggle is to hold the radical left to a higher standard.
These are all their OWN publicity photos: