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= Industrial_Workers_of_the_World =
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Introduction
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The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), whose members are nicknamed
"Wobblies", is an international labor union founded in Chicago, United
States in 1905. The nickname's origin is uncertain. Its ideology
combines general unionism with industrial unionism, as it is a general
union, subdivided between the various industries which employ its
members. The philosophy and tactics of the IWW are described as
"revolutionary industrial unionism", with ties to socialist,
syndicalist, and anarchist labor movements.
In the 1910s and early 1920s, the IWW achieved many of its short-term
goals, particularly in the American West, and cut across traditional
guild and union lines to organize workers in a variety of trades and
industries. At their peak in August 1917, IWW membership was
estimated at more than 150,000, with active wings in the United
States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
However, the extremely high rate of IWW membership turnover during
this era (estimated at 133% between 1905 and 1915) makes it difficult
for historians to state membership totals with any certainty, as
workers tended to join the IWW in large numbers for relatively short
periods ('e.g.', during labor strikes and periods of generalized
economic distress).
Membership declined dramatically in the late 1910s and 1920s. There
were conflicts with other labor groups, particularly the American
Federation of Labor (AFL), which regarded the IWW as too radical,
while the IWW regarded the AFL as too conservative and opposed their
decision to divide workers on the basis of their trades. Membership
also declined due to government crackdowns on radical, anarchist, and
socialist groups during the First Red Scare after World War I. In
Canada, the IWW was outlawed by the federal government by an Order in
Council on September 24, 1918.
Likely the most decisive factor in the decline in IWW membership and
influence was a 1924 schism in the organization, from which the IWW
never fully recovered. During the 1950s, the IWW faced near-extinction
due to persecution under the Second Red Scare, although the union
would later experience a resurgence in the context of the New Left in
the 1960s and 1970s.
The IWW promotes the concept of "One Big Union", and contends that all
workers should be united as a social class to supplant capitalism and
wage labor with industrial democracy. It is known for the Wobbly Shop
model of workplace democracy, through which workers elect their own
managers and other forms of grassroots democracy (self-management) are
implemented. The IWW does not require its members to work in a
represented workplace, nor does it exclude membership in another labor
union.
Foundation
============
The first meeting to plan the IWW was held in Chicago in 1904. The
seven attendees were Clarence Smith and Thomas J. Hagerty of the
American Labor Union, George Estes and W. L. Hall of the United
Brotherhood of Railway Employees, Isaac Cowan of the U.S. branch of
the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, William E. Trautmann of the
United Brewery Workmen and Julian E. Bagley WW1 veteran and author.
Eugene Debs, formerly of the American Railway Union, and Charles O.
Sherman of the United Metal Workers were involved but did not attend
the meeting.
The IWW was officially founded in Chicago, Illinois in June 1905. A
convention was held of 200 socialists, anarchists, Marxists (primarily
members of the Socialist Party of America and Socialist Labor Party of
America), and radical trade unionists from all over the United States
(mainly the Western Federation of Miners) who strongly opposed the
policies of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The IWW opposed
the AFL's acceptance of capitalism and its refusal to include
unskilled workers in craft unions.
The convention had taken place on June 27, 1905, and was referred to
as the "Industrial Congress" or the "Industrial Union Convention". It
was later known as the First Annual Convention of the IWW.
The IWW's founders included William D. ("Big Bill") Haywood, James
Connolly, Daniel De Leon, Eugene V. Debs, Thomas Hagerty, Lucy
Parsons, Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, Frank Bohn, William Trautmann,
Vincent Saint John, Ralph Chaplin, and many others.
The IWW aimed to promote worker solidarity in the revolutionary
struggle to overthrow the employing class; its motto was "an injury to
one is an injury to all". They saw this as an improvement upon the
Knights of Labor's creed, "an injury to one is the concern of all"
which the Knights had spoken out in the 1880s. In particular, the IWW
was organized because of the belief among many unionists, socialists,
anarchists, Marxists, and radicals that the AFL not only had failed to
effectively organize the U.S. working class, but it was causing
separation rather than unity within groups of workers by organizing
according to narrow craft principles. The Wobblies believed that all
workers should organize as a class, a philosophy that is still
reflected in the Preamble to the current IWW Constitution:
The working class and the employing class have nothing in common.
There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among
millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing
class, have all the good things of life.
Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of
the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of
production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the
Earth.
We find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer
and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever
growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state
of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against
another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat
one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing
class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class
have interests in common with their employers.
These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class
upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its
members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, cease
work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof,
thus making an injury to one an injury to all.
Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair day's wage for a fair day's
work," we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword,
"Abolition of the wage system."
It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with
capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for
everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production
when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially
we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of
the old.
One of the IWW's most important contributions to the labor movement
and broader push of social justice was that, when founded, it was the
only American union to welcome all workers, including women,
immigrants, African Americans and Asians, into the same organization.
Many of its early members were immigrants, and some, such as Carlo
Tresca, Joe Hill and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, rose to prominence in the
leadership. Finns formed a sizable portion of the immigrant IWW
membership. "Conceivably, the number of Finns belonging to the I.W.W.
was somewhere between five and ten thousand." The Finnish-language
newspaper of the IWW, 'Industrialisti', published in Duluth,
Minnesota, a center of the mining industry, was the union's only daily
paper. At its peak, it ran 10,000 copies per issue. Another
Finnish-language Wobbly publication was the monthly 'Tie Vapauteen'
("Road to Freedom"). Also of note was the Finnish IWW educational
institute, the Work People's College in Duluth, and the Finnish Labour
Temple in Port Arthur, Ontario, Canada, which served as the IWW
Canadian administration for several years. Further, many Swedish
immigrants, particularly those blacklisted after the 1909 Swedish
General Strike, joined the IWW and set up similar cultural
institutions around the Scandinavian Socialist Clubs. This in turn
exerted a political influence on the Swedish labor movement's left,
that in 1910 formed the Syndicalist union SAC which soon contained a
minority seeking to mimick the tactics and strategies of the IWW.
Organization
==============
The IWW first attracted attention in Goldfield, Nevada, in 1906 and
during the Pressed Steel Car Strike of 1909.
By 1912, the organization had around 25,000 members.
Geography
===========
In its first decades, the IWW created more than 900 unions located in
more than 350 cities and towns in 38 states and territories of the
United States and five Canadian provinces. Throughout the country,
there were 90 newspapers and periodicals affiliated with the IWW,
published in 19 different languages. Cartoons were a major part of
IWW publications. Produced by unpaid rank and file members they
satirised the union's opponents and helped spread its messages in
various forms, including 'stickerettes'. The most well-known IWW
cartoon character, Mr Block, was created by Ernest Riebe and was made
the subject of a Joe Hill song. Members of the IWW were active
throughout the country and were involved in the Seattle General Strike
of 1919, were arrested or killed in the Everett Massacre, organized
among Mexican workers in the Southwest, and became a large and
powerful longshoremen's union in Philadelphia.
IWW versus AFL Carpenters, Goldfield, Nevada, 1906-1907
=========================================================
Resisting IWW domination in the gold mining boom town of Goldfield,
Nevada was the AFL-affiliated Carpenters Union. In March 1907, the IWW
demanded that the mines deny employment to AFL Carpenters, which led
mine owners to challenge the IWW. The mine owners banded together and
pledged not to employ any IWW members. The mine and business owners of
Goldfield staged a lockout, vowing to remain shut until they had
broken the power of the IWW. The lockout prompted a split within the
Goldfield workforce, between conservative and radical union members.
Haywood trial and Western Federation of Miners exit
=====================================================
Leaders of the Western Federation of Miners such as Bill Haywood and
Vincent St. John were instrumental in forming the IWW, and the WFM
affiliated with the new union organization shortly after the IWW was
formed. The WFM became the IWW's "mining section". Many in the rank
and file of the WFM were uncomfortable with the open radicalism of the
IWW and wanted the WFM to maintain its independence. Schisms between
the WFM and IWW had emerged at the annual IWW convention in 1906, when
a majority of WFM delegates walked out.
When WFM executives Bill Haywood, George Pettibone, and Charles Moyer
were accused of complicity in the murder of former Idaho governor
Frank Steunenberg, the IWW used the case to raise funds and support
and paid for the legal defense. Even the not guilty verdicts worked
against the IWW, because the IWW was deprived of martyrs, and at the
same time, a large portion of the public remained convinced of the
guilt of the accused.
Bill Haywood for a time remained a member of both organizations. His
murder trial had made Haywood a celebrity, and he was in demand as a
speaker for the WFM. His increasingly radical speeches became more at
odds with the WFM, and in April 1908, the WFM announced that the union
had ended Haywood's role as a union representative. Haywood left the
WFM and devoted all his time to organizing for the IWW.
Historian Vernon H. Jensen has asserted that the IWW had a "rule or
ruin" policy, under which it attempted to wreck local unions which it
could not control. From 1908 to 1921, Jensen and others have written,
the IWW attempted to win power in WFM locals which had once formed the
federation's backbone. When it could not do so, IWW agitators
undermined WFM locals, which caused the national union to shed nearly
half its membership.
IWW versus the Western Federation of Miners
=============================================
The Western Federation of Miners left the IWW in 1907, but the IWW
wanted the WFM back. The WFM had made up about a third of the IWW
membership, and the western miners were tough union men, and good
allies in a labor dispute. In 1908, Vincent St. John tried to organize
a stealth takeover of the WFM. He wrote to WFM organizer Albert Ryan,
encouraging him to find reliable IWW sympathizers at each WFM local,
and have them appointed delegates to the annual convention by
pretending to share whatever opinions of that local needed to become a
delegate. Once at the convention, they could vote in a pro-IWW slate.
St. Vincent promised: "once we can control the officers of the WFM for
the IWW, the big bulk of the membership will go with them." But the
takeover did not succeed.
According to several historians, the 1913 El Paso smelters' strike
marked one of the first instances of direct competition between the
IWW and the WFM, as the two unions competed to organize workers on
strike against the American Smelting and Refining Company's local
smelter. In 1914, Butte, Montana, erupted into a series of riots as
miners dissatisfied with the Western Federation of Miners local at
Butte formed a new union, and demanded that all miners join the new
union, or be subject to beatings or worse. Although the new rival
union had no affiliation with the IWW, it was widely seen as
IWW-inspired. The leadership of the new union contained many who were
members of the IWW or agreed with the IWW's methods and objectives.
The new union failed to supplant the WFM, and the ongoing fight
between the two resulted in the copper mines of Butte, longtime union
strongholds for the WFM, becoming open shops, and the mine owners
recognized no union from 1914 until 1934.
Versus United Mine Workers, Scranton, Pennsylvania, 1916
==========================================================
The IWW clashed with the United Mine Workers union in April 1916, when
the IWW picketed the anthracite mines around Scranton, Pennsylvania,
intending, by persuasion or force, to keep UMWA members from going to
work. The IWW considered the UMWA too reactionary, because the United
Mine Workers negotiated contracts with the mine owners for fixed time
periods; the IWW considered that contracts hindered their
revolutionary goals. In what a contemporary writer pointed out was a
complete reversal of their usual policy, UMWA officials called for
police to protect United Mine Workers members who wished to cross the
picket lines. The Pennsylvania State Police arrived in force,
prevented picket line violence, and allowed the UMWA members to
peacefully pass through the IWW picket lines.
Bisbee Deportation
====================
In November 1916, the 10th convention of the IWW authorized an
organizing drive in the Arizona copper mines. Copper was a vital war
commodity, so mines were working day and night. During the first
months of 1917, thousands joined the Metal Mine Workers' Union #800.
The focus of the organizing drive was Bisbee, Arizona, a small town
near the Mexican border. Nearly 5000 miners worked in Bisbee's mines.
On June 27, 1917, Bisbee's miners went on strike. The strike was
effective and non-violent. Demands included the doubling of pay for
surface workers, most of them recent immigrants from Mexico, as well
as changes in working conditions to make the mines safer. The six-hour
day was raised agitationally but held in abeyance. In the early hours
of July 12, hundreds of armed vigilantes rounded up nearly two
thousand strikers, of whom 1186 were deported in cattle cars and
dumped in the desert of New Mexico. In the following days, hundreds
more were ordered to leave. The strike was broken at gunpoint.
Other organizing drives
=========================
Between 1915 and 1917, the IWW's Agricultural Workers Organization
(AWO) organized more than a hundred thousand migratory farm workers
throughout the Midwest and western United States.
Building on the success of the AWO, the IWW's Lumber Workers
Industrial Union (LWIU) used similar tactics to organize lumberjacks
and other timber workers, both in the deep South and the Pacific
Northwest of the United States and Canada, between 1917 and 1924. The
IWW lumber strike of 1917 led to the eight-hour day and vastly
improved working conditions in the Pacific Northwest. Though
mid-century historians credited the US Government and "forward
thinking lumber magnates" for agreeing to such reforms, an IWW strike
forced these concessions.
Where the IWW did win strikes, such as in Lawrence, they often found
it hard to hold onto their gains. The IWW of 1912 disdained collective
bargaining agreements and preached instead the need for constant
struggle against the boss on the shop floor. It proved difficult to
maintain that sort of revolutionary enthusiasm against employers. In
Lawrence, the IWW lost nearly all of its membership in the years after
the strike, as the employers wore down their employees' resistance and
eliminated many of the strongest union supporters. In 1938, the IWW
voted to allow contracts with employers.
Government suppression
========================
The IWW's efforts were met with "unparalleled" resistance from
Federal, state and local governments in America; from company
management and labor spies, and from groups of citizens functioning as
vigilantes. In 1914, Wobbly Joe Hill (born Joel Hägglund) was accused
of murder in Utah and, on what many regarded as limited and
insufficient evidence, was executed in 1915. On November 5, 1916, at
Everett, Washington, a group of deputized businessmen led by Sheriff
Donald McRae attacked Wobblies on the steamer 'Verona', killing at
least five union members (six more were never accounted for and
probably were lost in Puget Sound). Two members of the police
force--one a regular officer and another a deputized citizen from the
National Guard Reserve--were killed, probably by "friendly fire". At
least five Everett civilians were wounded.
Many IWW members opposed United States participation in World War I.
The organization passed a resolution against the war at its convention
in November 1916. This echoed the view, expressed at the IWW's
founding convention, that war represents struggles among capitalists
in which the rich become richer, and the working poor all too often
die at the hands of other workers.
An IWW newspaper, the 'Industrial Worker', wrote just before the U.S.
declaration of war: "Capitalists of America, we will fight against
you, not for you! There is not a power in the world that can make the
working class fight if they refuse." Yet when a declaration of war was
passed by the U.S. Congress in April 1917, the IWW's general
secretary-treasurer Bill Haywood became determined that the
organization should adopt a low profile in order to avoid perceived
threats to its existence. The printing of anti-war stickers was
discontinued, stockpiles of existing anti-war documents were put into
storage, and anti-war propagandizing ceased as official union policy.
After much debate on the General Executive Board, with Haywood
advocating a low profile and GEB member Frank Little championing
continued agitation, Ralph Chaplin brokered a compromise agreement. A
statement was issued that denounced the war, but IWW members were
advised to channel their opposition through the legal mechanisms of
conscription. They were advised to register for the draft, marking
their claims for exemption "IWW, opposed to war."
During World War I, the U.S. government moved strongly against the
IWW. On September 5, 1917, U.S. Department of Justice agents made
simultaneous raids on dozens of IWW meeting halls across the country.
Minutes books, correspondence, mailing lists, and publications were
seized, with the U.S. Department of Justice removing five tons of
material from the IWW's General Office in Chicago alone.
Based in large measure on the documents seized September 5, one
hundred and sixty-six IWW leaders were indicted by a Federal Grand
Jury in Chicago for conspiring to hinder the draft, encourage
desertion, and intimidate others in connection with labor disputes,
under the new Espionage Act. One hundred and one went on trial en
masse before Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis in 1918. Their lawyer was
George Vanderveer of Seattle.
In 1917, during an incident known as the Tulsa Outrage, a group of
black-robed Knights of Liberty tarred and feathered seventeen members
of the IWW in Oklahoma. The attack was cited as revenge for the Green
Corn Rebellion, a preemptive attack caused by fear of an impending
attack on the oil fields and as punishment for not supporting the war
effort. The IWW members had been turned over to the Knights of Liberty
by local authorities after they were beaten, arrested at their
headquarters and convicted of the crime of vagrancy. Five other men
who testified in defense of the Wobblies were also fined by the court
and subjected to the same torture and humiliations at the hands of the
Knights of Liberty.
In 1919, an Armistice Day parade by the American Legion in Centralia,
Washington, turned into a fight between legionnaires and IWW members
in which four legionnaires were shot. Which side initiated the
violence of the Centralia massacre is disputed, though there had been
previous attacks on the IWW hall and businessmen's association had
made threats against union members. A number of IWWs were arrested,
one of whom, Wesley Everest, was lynched by a mob that night.
A bronze plaque honoring the IWW members imprisoned and lynched
following the Centralia Tragedy was dedicated in the city's George
Washington Park on November 11, 2023. A request was delivered to
Washington Governor Inslee requesting posthumous pardons for the eight
IWW members who were convicted. A rededication was held in June 2024
after the plaque was installed on a 7,500 lb granite block base. The
color and carved style was an intentional match of the base of the
American Legion memorial, The Sentinel. The $20,000 funding for the
overall project, and the labor involved, was done mostly by union
organizations or workers.
Organizational schism and aftermath
=====================================
IWW quickly recovered from the setbacks of 1919 and 1920, with
membership peaking in 1923 (58,300 estimated by dues paid per capita,
though membership was likely somewhat higher as the union tolerated
delinquent members). But recurring internal debates, especially
between those who sought either to centralize or decentralize the
organization, ultimately brought about the IWW's 1924 schism.
The twenties witnessed the defection of hundreds of Wobbly leaders
(including Harrison George, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, John Reed, George
Hardy, Charles Ashleigh, Earl Browder and, in his Soviet exile, Bill
Haywood) and, following a path recounted by Fred Beal, thousands of
Wobbly rank-and-filers to the Communists and Communist organizations.
At the beginning of the 1949 Smith Act trials, FBI director J. Edgar
Hoover was disappointed when prosecutors indicted fewer CPUSA members
than he had hoped, and--recalling the arrests and convictions of over
one hundred IWW leaders in 1917--complained to the Justice Department,
stating, "the IWW as a subversive menace was crushed and has never
revived. Similar action at this time would have been as effective
against the Communist Party and its subsidiary organizations."
Taft–Hartley Act
==================
After the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1946 by Congress, which
called for the removal of Communist union leadership, the IWW
experienced a loss of membership as differences of opinion occurred
over how to respond to the challenge. In 1949, US Attorney General Tom
C. Clark placed the IWW on the Attorney General's List of Subversive
Organizations in the category of "organizations seeking to change the
government by unconstitutional means" under Executive Order 9835,
which offered no means of appeal, and which excluded all IWW members
from Federal employment and federally subsidized housing programs
(this order was revoked by Executive Order 10450 in 1953).
At this time, the Cleveland local of the Metal and Machinery Workers
Industrial Union (MMWIU) was the strongest IWW branch in the United
States. Leading figures such as Frank Cedervall, who had helped build
the branch up for over ten years, were concerned about the possibility
of raiding from AFL-CIO unions if the IWW had its legal status as a
union revoked. In 1950, Cedervall led the 1500-member MMWIU national
organization to split from the IWW, as the Lumber Workers Industrial
Union had almost 30 years earlier. This act did not save the MMWIU.
Despite its brief affiliation with the Congress of Industrial
Organizations, it was raided by the AFL and CIO and defunct by the
late 1950s, less than ten years after separating from the IWW.
The loss of the MMWIU, at the time the IWW's largest industrial union,
was almost a deathblow to the IWW. The union's membership fell to its
lowest level in the 1950s during the Second Red Scare, and by 1955,
the union's fiftieth anniversary, it was near extinction, though it
still appeared on government lists of Communist-led groups.
1960s rejuvenation
====================
The 1960s civil rights movement, anti-war protests, and various
university student movements brought new life to the IWW, albeit with
many fewer new members than the great organizing drives of the early
part of the 20th century.
The first signs of new life for the IWW in the 1960s were organizing
efforts among students in San Francisco and Berkeley, which were
hotbeds of student radicalism at the time. This targeting of students
resulted in a Bay Area branch of the union with over a hundred members
in 1964, almost as many as the union's total membership in 1961.
Wobblies old and new united for one more "free speech fight":
Berkeley's Free Speech Movement. Riding on this high, the decision in
1967 to allow college and university students to join the Education
Workers Industrial Union (IU 620) as full members spurred campaigns in
1968 at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, the University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The
IWW sent representatives to Students for a Democratic Society
conventions in 1967, 1968, and 1969, and as the SDS collapsed into
infighting, the IWW gained members fleeing this discord. These changes
had a profound effect on the union, which by 1972 had 67% of members
under the age of 30, with a total of nearly 500 members.
The IWW's links to the 1960s counterculture led to organizing
campaigns at counterculture businesses, as well as a wave of over two
dozen co-ops affiliating with the IWW under its Wobbly Shop model in
the 1960s to 1980s. These businesses were primarily in printing,
publishing, and food distribution, from underground newspapers and
radical print shops to community co-op grocery stores. Some of the
printing and publishing industry co-ops and job shops included Black
& Red (Detroit), Glad Day Press (New York), RPM Press (Michigan),
New Media Graphics (Ohio), Babylon Print (Wisconsin), Hill Press
(Illinois), Lakeside (Madison, Wisconsin), Harbinger (Columbia, South
Carolina), Eastown Printing in Grand Rapids, Michigan (where the IWW
negotiated a contract in 1978), and (Montreal). This close
affiliation with radical publishers and printing houses sometimes led
to legal difficulties for the union, such as when was shut down in
1970 by provincial police for publishing pro-FLQ materials, which were
banned at the time under an official censorship law. Also in 1970, the
San Diego, California, "street journal" became an official IWW shop.
In 1971 its office was attacked by an organization calling itself the
Minutemen, and IWW member Ricardo Gonzalves was indicted for criminal
syndicalism along with two members of the Brown Berets.
Return to workplace campaigns
===============================
Invigorated by the arrival of enthusiastic new members, the IWW began
a wave of organizing drives. These largely took a regional form and
they, as well as the union's overall membership, concentrated in
Portland, Chicago, Ann Arbor, and throughout the state of California,
which when combined accounted for over half of union drives from 1970
to 1979. In Portland, Oregon, the IWW led campaigns at Winter Products
(a brass plating plant) in 1972, at a local Winchell's Donuts (where a
strike was waged and lost), at the Albina Day Care (where key union
demands were won, including the firing of the director of the day
care), of healthcare workers at West Side School and the Portland
Medical Center, and of agricultural workers in 1974. The latter effort
led to the opening of an IWW union hall in Portland to compete with
extortionate hiring halls and day labor agencies. Organizing efforts
led to a growth in membership, but repeated loss of strikes and
organizing campaigns anticipated the decline of the Portland branch
after the mid-1970s, a stagnancy period lasting until the 1990s.
In California, union activities were based in Santa Cruz, where in
1977 the IWW engaged in one of its most ambitious campaigns of the
1970s: an attempt in 1977 to organize 3,000 workers hired under the
Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) in Santa Cruz County.
The campaign led to pay raises, the implementation of a grievance
procedure, and medical and dental coverage, but the union failed to
maintain its foothold, and in 1982 the CETA program was replaced by
the Job Training Partnership Act. The IWW won some lasting victories
in Santa Cruz, such as campaigns at the Janus Alcohol Recovery Center,
the Santa Cruz Law Center, Project Hope, and the Santa Cruz Community
Switchboard.
Elsewhere in California, the IWW was active in Long Beach in 1972,
where it organized workers at International Wood Products and Park
International Corporation (a manufacturer of plastic swimming pool
filters) and went on strike after the firing of one worker for
union-related activities. Finally, in San Francisco, the IWW ran
campaigns for radio station and food service workers.
In Chicago, the IWW was an early opponent of so-called urban renewal
programs and supported the creation of the "Chicago People's Park" in
1969. The Chicago branch also ran citywide campaigns for healthcare,
food service, entertainment, construction, and metal workers, and its
success with the latter led to an attempt to revive the national Metal
and Machinery Workers Industrial Union, which twenty years earlier had
been a major component of the union. Metalworker organizing mostly
ended in 1978 after a failed strike at Mid-American Metal in Virden,
Illinois. The IWW also became one of the first unions to try to
organize fast food workers, with an organizing campaign at a local
McDonald's in 1973.
The IWW also built on its existing presence in Ann Arbor, which had
existed since student organizing began at the University of Michigan,
to launch an organizing campaign at the University Cellar, a college
bookstore. The union won National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
certification there in 1979 following a strike, and the store became a
strong job shop for the union until it was closed in 1986. The union
launched a similar campaign at another local bookstore, Charing Cross
Books, but was unable to maintain its foothold there despite reaching
a settlement with management.
In the late 1970s, the IWW came to regional prominence in
entertainment industry organizing, with an Entertainment Workers
Organizing Committee being founded in Chicago in 1976, followed by
campaigns organizing musicians in Cleveland in 1977 and Ann Arbor in
1978. The Chicago committee published a model contract which was
distributed to musicians in the hopes of raising industry standards,
as well as maintaining an active phone line for booking information.
IWW musicians such as Utah Phillips, Faith Petric, Bob Bovee, and Jim
Ringer also toured and promoted the union, and in 1987 an anthology
album, 'Rebel Voices', was released.
Other IWW organizing campaigns of the 1970s included a ShopRite
supermarket in Milwaukee, at Coronet Foods in Wheeling, West Virginia,
chemical and fast food workers (including KFC and Roy Rogers) in State
College, Pennsylvania, and hospital workers in Boston, all in 1973;
shipyards in Houston, Texas, and restaurant workers in Pittsburgh in
1974; unsuccessful campaigns at the Prospect Nursing Home in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a Pizza Hut in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, in
1975; and a construction workers organizing drive in Albuquerque, New
Mexico, in 1978.
1990s
=======
In 1996, the IWW launched an organizing drive against Borders Books in
Philadelphia. In March, the union lost an NLRB certification vote by a
narrow margin but continued to organize. In June, IWW member Miriam
Fried was fired on trumped-up charges and a national boycott of
Borders was launched in response. IWW members picketed at Borders
stores nationwide, including Ann Arbor, Michigan; Washington, D.C.;
San Francisco, California; Miami, Florida; Chicago, Illinois; Palo
Alto, California; Portland, Oregon; Portland, Maine; Boston,
Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Albany, New York; Richmond,
Virginia; St. Louis, Missouri; Los Angeles, California; and other
cities. This was followed up with a National Day of Action in 1997,
where Borders stores were again picketed nationwide, and a second
organizing campaign in London, England.
Also in 1996, the IWW began organizing at Wherehouse Music in El
Cerrito, California. The campaign continued until 1997, when
management fired two organizers and laid off over half the employees,
as well as reducing the hours of known union members. This directly
affected the NLRB certification vote which followed, where the IWW
lost over 2:1.
In 1998, the IWW chartered a San Francisco branch of the Marine
Transport Workers Industrial Union (MTWIU), which trained hundreds of
waterfront workers in health and safety techniques and attempted to
institutionalize these safety practices on the San Francisco
waterfront.
2000–present
==============
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In 2004, an IWW union was organized in a New York City Starbucks. In
2006, the IWW continued efforts at Starbucks by organizing several
Chicago area shops.
In New York City, the IWW has organized immigrant foodstuffs workers
since 2005. That summer, workers from Handyfat Trading joined the IWW,
and were soon followed by workers from four more warehouses.
In May 2007, the NYC warehouse workers came together with the
Starbucks Workers Union to form The Food and Allied Workers Union IU
460/640. In the summer of 2007, the IWW organized workers at two new
warehouses: Flaum Appetizing, a Kosher food distributor, and Wild
Edibles, a seafood company. Over the course of 2007-08, workers at
both shops were illegally terminated for their union activity. In
2008, the workers at Wild Edibles actively fought to get their jobs
back and to secure overtime pay owed to them by the boss. In a
workplace justice campaign called Focus on the Food Chain, carried out
jointly with Brandworkers International, the IWW workers won
settlements against employers including Pur Pac, Flaum Appetizing and
Wild Edibles.
The Portland, Oregon General Membership Branch is one of the largest
and most active branches of the IWW. The branch holds three contracts
currently, two with Janus Youth Programs and one with Portland Women's
Crisis Line. There has been some debate within the branch about
whether or not union contracts such as this are desirable in the long
run, with some members favoring solidarity unionism as opposed to
contract unionism and some members believing there is room for both
strategies for organizing. The branch has successfully supported
workers wrongfully fired from several different workplaces in the last
two years. Due to picketing by Wobblies, these workers have received
significant compensation from their former employers. Branch
membership has been increasing, as has shop organizing. As of 2005,
the 100th anniversary of its founding, the IWW had around 5,000
members, compared to 13 million members in the AFL-CIO.
2011 Wisconsin general strike
===============================
In early 2011, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker announced a budget bill
which the IWW held would effectively outlaw unions for state or
municipal workers. In response, there was an emergency meeting of the
Midwestern IWW member organizations. IWW members presented a proposal
at a meeting of South-Central Federation of Labor (SCFL) which
endorsed a general strike and create an ad hoc Committee to instruct
affiliated locals in preparations for the general strike. The IWW
proposal passed nearly unanimously. The Madison branch made an
international appeal translating various materials concerning the
strike into Arabic, French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. An appeal
was made to European unions (CNT - Spain, CGT - Spain and CGT -
France) to send organizers to Madison who could present their
experience of general strikes at union meetings and help organize the
strike in other ways. The CNT (France) sent letters of solidarity to
the IWW. This was considered the largest and most successful
intervention in a working-class struggle that the IWW has undertaken
since the 1930s. In the aftermath, the strike was said by some to be
"the general strike that didn't happen" because eventually ongoing
efforts at industrial action were "completely overwhelmed by the
recall effort" against the governor during the crisis.
Late 2010s
============
In the mid-2010s, Wobblies in the United States were focused on
campaigns to organize the multinational coffeehouse chain Starbucks,
the franchised sandwich fast food restaurant chain Jimmy John's, and
the multinational supermarket chain Whole Foods Market. The union had
about 3,000 members. The IWW moved its headquarters to 2036 West
Montrose, Chicago, in 2012.
The IWW waged an organizing campaign at Chicago-Lake Liquors in
Minneapolis, Minnesota in 2013. The store, which advertises itself as
the highest-volume liquor store in Minnesota, had a wage cap of $10.50
per hour, but in the face of IWW demands for the wage cap to be
lifted, store management fired five organizers. On April 6, the Twin
Cities branch of the union responded with a picket around the store
informing customers of the situation. This was followed by a second
picket on May 4, a day which customarily had heavy business at the
store. The union claimed to have made "what should have been an
extremely busy Saturday into a quiet afternoon inside the store".
After several months, the National Labor Relations Board announced
that it found merit in the union's unfair dismissal complaint. As a
result, the union and store management agreed to a $32,000 settlement
as a form of compensation to the fired workers and the campaign
officially ended.
Workers at the Paulo Freire Social Justice Charter School in Holyoke,
Massachusetts were organized with the IWW in 2015, hoping to address
the "authoritarian leadership" of the school administration and
perceived racial bias in hiring.
On September 14, 2015, after a year-long organizing campaign, workers
at Sound Stage Production in North Haven Connecticut declared their
membership in the IWW.
The IWW announced the Burgerville Workers Union (BVWU) in April 2016,
which focuses on workers at the Oregon regional fast food chain,
Burgerville. A subsidiary of the IWW, the BVWU went public on April 26
at a rally of workers and supporters outside a Portland, Oregon
Burgerville location. Upon going public, the BVWU was endorsed by a
number of local Oregon community organizations, including union
locals, the Portland Solidarity Network, and food and racial justice
organizations. It was also endorsed by then-Democratic presidential
candidate Senator Bernie Sanders. The union received pushback with a
letter from Burgerville's CEO, Jeff Harvey, being distributed to
workers discouraging them from joining the union. In June 2017,
Burgerville paid a settlement of $10,000 after an investigation by the
Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, which found that the company
had violated state-mandated break periods for workers. In April and
May 2018 the IWW won NLRB elections in 2 Burgerville Locations.
In August 2016, workers at Ellen's Stardust Diner in Manhattan formed
Stardust Family United (SFU) under the IWW, driven by the firing of
thirty employees, as well as an unpopular new scheduling system. After
going public, the union accused Stardust management of retaliatory
firings and posting anti-union materials in the restaurant.
On September 9, 2016, the 45th anniversary of the Attica Prison Riots,
900 incarcerated workers organized by the IWW and many other prisoners
participated in the 9/9 National Prison Strike declared by the IWW's
Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee. Supported by a number of
anti-incarceration and prisoners' organizations such as the Free
Alabama Movement, the strike focused on the poor conditions in many
American prisons and the low rates of prisoner pay for maintaining
prisons and engaging in commercial production of goods for third-party
companies. The strike affected an estimated twenty prisons in eleven
states and was strongest at the William C. Holman Correctional
Facility in Alabama. Estimates of the number of inmates affected range
from 20,000, to 50,000, to as high as 72,000, with David Fathi of the
ACLU National Prison Project judging it to be the "largest prisoner
strike in recent memory". Initial media coverage was slow, with strike
organizers complaining of a "mainstream-media blackout", which could
be attributed to the difficulty in communicating with prisoners, as
many prisons went on lockdown either in response to prisoner strike
activity or in anticipation of it.
COVID-19 pandemic
===================
The IWW also organized workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in the
United States. In May 2020 the IWW established the Voodoo Doughnut
Workers Union (DWU) in Portland. The newly formed union delivered a
letter to management announcing the formation of a union and demanding
higher wages, safety improvements and severance packages for employees
laid off because of the coronavirus and Oregon's ongoing
"shelter-in-place" order. In February 2021, after months of
organizing, DWU workers officially filed for a union certification
election with the National Labor Relations Board.
The IWW also publicly announced the Second Staff (2S) workers' union
in May 2020 at the Faison school, a private school serving students on
the autism spectrum in Richmond, Virginia, in response to what the
union called a "reckless endangerment of staff and students" in trying
to force the school to open too soon. March 2021 saw a rash of
organizing with the IWW. On March 9, workers at Moe's Books, an
independent used bookstore in Berkeley, California, announced that
they received voluntary recognition from Moe's Books management,
officially unionizing with the IWW.
Shortly after, on March 13, the IWW announced that it was organizing
workers at the Socialist Rifle Association (SRA). The union was
voluntarily recognized by the SRA the following day. Two days later,
on March 16, staff at the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OVEC)
announced their intent to unionize with the IWW, and requested
voluntary recognition from management. In organizing, the OVEC workers
seek to gain "a standardized pay scale, an equitable discipline
policy, and the right to union representation at any meeting wherein
matters affecting staff pay, hours, benefits, advancement, or layoffs
may be discussed or voted on".
The IWW is the first union in the United States to ratify a union
contract for fast food workers. Five Oregon locations of Burgerville
are unionized, as well as one location of Voodoo Doughnut in downtown
Portland.
Australia
======================================================================
Australia encountered the IWW tradition early. In part, this was due
to the local De Leonist Socialist Labor Party following the industrial
turn of the US SLP. The SLP formed an IWW Club in Sydney in October
1907. Members of other socialist groups also joined it, and the
relationship with the SLP soon proved to be a problem. The 1908 split
between the Chicago and Detroit factions in the United States was
echoed by internal unrest in the Australian IWW from late 1908,
resulting in the formation of a pro-Chicago local in Adelaide in May
1911 and another in Sydney six months later. By mid-1913 the "Chicago"
IWW was flourishing and the SLP-associated pro-Detroit IWW Club in
decline. In 1916 the "Detroit" IWW in Australia followed the lead of
the US body and renamed itself the Workers' International Industrial
Union.
The IWW opposed the First World War from 1914 onward and in many ways
fought against Australian conscription. A narrow majority of
Australians voted against conscription in a very bitter hard-fought
referendum in October 1916, and then again in December 1917, Australia
being the only belligerent in World War One without conscription. In
very significant part this was due to the agitation of the IWW, a
group which never had as many as 500 members in Australia at its peak.
The IWW founded the Anti-Conscription League (ACL) in which members
worked with the broader labor and peace movement, and also carried on
an aggressive propaganda campaign in its own name; leading to the
imprisonment of Tom Barker (1887-1970) the editor of the IWW paper
'Direct Action', sentenced to twelve months in March 1916. A series of
arson attacks on commercial properties in Sydney was widely attributed
to the IWW campaign to have Tom Barker released. He was released in
August 1916, but twelve mostly prominent IWW activists, the so-called
Sydney Twelve were arrested in NSW in September 1916 for arson and
other offenses. Their trial and eventual imprisonment became a 'cause
célèbre' of the Australian labor movement, which saw no convincing
evidence of their involvement. A number of other scandals were
associated with the IWW; a five-pound note forgery scandal, the
so-called Tottenham tragedy in which the murder of a police officer
was blamed on the IWW, and above all it was blamed for the defeat of
the October 1916 conscription referendum. In December 1916, the
Commonwealth government led by Labour Party renegade Billy Hughes
declared the IWW an illegal organization under the Unlawful
Associations Act. Eighty six members immediately defied the law and
were sentenced to six months imprisonment. 'Direct Action' was
suppressed, its circulation was at its peak of something over 12,000.
During the war over 100 members Australia-wide were sentenced to
imprisonment on political charges, including the veteran activist
Monty Miller.
By the early 1930s, most Australian IWW branches had dispersed as the
Communist Party grew in influence.
The Australian IWW has grown since the 1940s, but have been
unsuccessful in securing union representation. As an extreme example
of the integration of ex-IWW militants into the mainstream labor
movement one might instance the career of Donald Grant, one of the
Sydney Twelve sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment for conspiracy
to commit arson and other crimes. Released from prison in August 1920,
he soon broke with the IWW over its antipolitical stand, standing for
the NSW Parliament for the Industrial Socialist Labour Party
unsuccessfully in 1922 and then in 1925 for the mainstream Australian
Labor Party (ALP) also unsuccessfully. This reconciliation with the
ALP and the electoral system did not prevent him being imprisoned
again in 1927 for street demonstrations supporting Sacco and Vanzetti.
He eventually represented the ALP in the NSW Legislative Council in
1931-1940 and the Australian Senate 1943-1956.
"Bump Me Into Parliament" is the most notable Australian IWW song, and
is still current. It was written by ship's fireman William "Bill"
Casey, later Secretary of the Seaman's Union in Queensland.
New Zealand
======================================================================
Australian influence was strong in early 20th century left-wing
groups, and several founders of the New Zealand Labour Party (e.g. Bob
Semple) were from Australia. The trans-Tasman interchange was two-way,
particularly for miners. Several Tasmanian Labour "groupings" in the
1890s cited their earlier New Zealand experience of activism e.g.
later premier Robert Cosgrove, and also Chris Watson from New South
Wales.
"Wobbly" activists in New Zealand pre-WWI were John Benjamin King and
H. M. Fitzgerald (an adherent of the De Leon school) from Canada.
Another was Robert Rivers La Monte from America, who was (briefly) an
organizer for the New Zealand Socialist Party (as was Fitzgerald). IWW
strongholds were Auckland "a city with the demographic characteristics
of a frontier town"; Wellington where a branch survived briefly and in
mining towns, on the wharves and among laborers.
Canada
======================================================================
The IWW was active in Canada from a very early point in the
organization's history, especially in Western Canada, primarily in
British Columbia. The union was active in organizing large swaths of
the lumber and mining industry along the coast, in the Interior of
British Columbia, and Vancouver Island. Joe Hill wrote the song "Where
the Fraser River Flows" during this period when the IWW was organizing
in British Columbia. Some members of the IWW had relatively close
links with the Socialist Party of Canada. Canadians who went to
Australia and New Zealand before WWI included John Benjamin King and
H. M. Fitzgerald (an adherent of the De Leon school).
Despite the IWW being banned as a subversive organization in Canada
during the First World War, the organization rebounded swiftly after
being unbanned after the war, reaching a post-WWI high of 5600
Canadian members in 1923. The union entered a short "golden age" in
Canada with an official Canadian Administration located at the Finnish
Labour Temple in Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay, Ontario) and a strong
base among immigrant laborers in Northern Ontario and Manitoba,
especially Finns, which included harvest workers, lumberjacks, and
miners. During this period, the IWW competed for members with a number
of other radical and socialist organizations such as the Finnish
Organization of Canada (FOC), with the IWW's 'Industrialisti'
newspaper competing with the FOC's 'Vapaus' for attention and
readership. During this period. Membership slowly decreased during the
1920s and 30s despite continued organizing and strike activity as the
IWW lost ground to the One Big Union and Communist Party-controlled
organizations such as the Workers' Unity League (WUL). Despite this
competition, the IWW and WUL cooperated during strikes, such as at the
Abitibi Pulp & Paper Company near Sault Ste. Marie in 1933, where
the Finnish workers in the IWW and WUL faced discrimination and
violence from the Anglo citizens of the town. The IWW also
successfully unionized Ritchie's Dairy in Toronto and formed a fishery
workers' branch in MacDiarmid (now Greenstone, Ontario).
In 1936, the IWW in Canada supported the Spanish Revolution and began
to recruit for the militia of the anarcho-syndicalist (CNT), in
direct conflict with Communist Party recruiters for the
Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, a conflict which resulted in a number of
violent clashes at recruitment rallies in Northern Ontario. Several
Canadian IWW members were killed in the Spanish Civil War and the
CNT's ensuing defeat at the hands of both Fascist and Republican
forces.
In 2009, after Starbucks established policies that meant demotions and
loss of salary for some workers, the Quebec branches of Montreal and
Sherbrooke helped found the Starbucks Workers' Union (STTS) which made
a breakthrough in Quebec City at an establishment in Sainte-Foy.
Leaders Simon Gosselin, Dominic Dupont and Andrew Fletcher were
harassed in the months following unionization, and union efforts were
defeated by law firm Heenan Blaike in the series of hearings before
Quebec Labor Relations Board.
Today the IWW remains active in the country with branches in
Vancouver, Vancouver Island, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Ottawa/Outaouais,
Toronto, Windsor, Sherbrooke, Québec City and Montréal. In August
2009, Canadian members voted to ratify the constitution of the
Canadian Regional Organizing Committee (CanROC) to improve
inter-branch coordination and communication. Affiliated branches are
Winnipeg, Ottawa-Outaouais, Toronto, Windsor, Sherbrooke, Montréal,
and Québec City. Each branch elects a representative to make decisions
on the Canadian board. There were originally three officers, the
Secretary-Treasurer, Organizing Department Liaison, and Editor of the
Canadian Organizing Bulletin. In 2016, CanROC members voted to split
the Secretary-Treasurer role into separate Regional Secretary and
Regional Treasurer positions.
There are currently five job shops in Canada: Libra Knowledge and
Information Services Co-op in Toronto, ParIT Workers Cooperative in
Winnipeg, the Windsor Button Collective, the Ottawa Panhandlers'
Union, and the Street Labourers of Windsor (SLOW). The Ottawa
Panhandlers' Union continues a tradition in the IWW of expanding the
definition of worker. The union members include anyone who makes their
living in the street, including buskers, street vendors, the homeless,
scrappers, and panhandlers. In the summer of 2004, the Union led a
strike by the homeless (the Homeless Action Strike) in Ottawa. The
strike resulted in the city agreeing to fund a newspaper created and
sold by the homeless on the street. On May 1, 2006, the Union took
over the Elgin Street Police Station for a day. A similar IWW
organization, the Street Labourers of Windsor (SLOW), has garnered
local, provincial, and national news coverage for its organizing
efforts in 2015.
Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Austria
===========================================
The IWW started to organize in Germany following the First World War.
Fritz Wolffheim played a significant role in establishing the IWW in
Hamburg. A German Language Membership Regional Organizing Committee
(GLAMROC) was founded in December 2006 in Cologne. It encompasses the
German-language area of Germany, Luxembourg, Austria, and Switzerland
with branches or contacts in 16 cities.
Great Britain and Ireland
===========================
The regional body of the union in the United Kingdom and Ireland is
the Wales, Ireland, Scotland, England Regional Administration
(WISERA). Formerly known as the Britain and Ireland Regional
Administration (BIRA), its name was changed as a result of a
referendum vote by WISERA members.
The IWW was present, to varying extents, in many of the struggles of
the early decades of the 20th century, including the UK general strike
of 1926 and the dockers' strike of 1947. During the Spanish Civil War,
a Wobbly from Neath, who had been active in Mexico, trained volunteers
in preparation for the journey to Spain, where they joined the
International Brigades to fight against Franco.
Overall, membership has increased rapidly; in 2014, the union reported
a total UK membership of 750, which increased to 1000 by April 2015.
Also in 2007, IWW branches in Glasgow and Dumfries were a key driving
force in a successful campaign to prevent the closure of one of
Glasgow University's campuses (The Crichton) in Dumfries.
The Edinburgh General Membership Branch of the IWW along with other
branches of the IWW's Scottish section voted in 2014 to become a
signatory to the "From Yes to Action Statement" produced by the
Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh. In 2015, along with similar groups
such as the Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty and Edinburgh
Anarchist Federation, they joined the Scottish Action Against
Austerity network.
In 2016, WISERA promoted a campaign targeting couriers working for
companies such as Deliveroo.
Iceland and Greece
====================
An Iceland Regional Organizing Committee (IceROC) was chartered in
2015. The union has become a trailblazer in supporting sex workers in
Iceland, who lack access to services which do not automatically treat
them as victims of abuse.
Also in 2015, a Greek Regional Organizing Committee (GreROC) was
chartered. In July of that year, it released a statement condemning
the Greek government's response to the results of the 2015 Greek
bailout referendum, saying that "despite the Left tone of dignity that
the Left governmental administrators use, this is a one-way blackmail.
We need a radical change of shift, not in words but in action."
Folk music and protest songs
======================================================================
One Wobbly characteristic since their inception has been a penchant
for song. To counteract management sending in the Salvation Army band
to cover up the Wobbly speakers, Joe Hill wrote parodies of Christian
hymns so that union members could sing along with the Salvation Army
band, but with their own purposes. For example, "In the Sweet By and
By" became "There'll Be Pie in the Sky When You Die (That's a Lie)".
From that start in exigency, Wobbly song writing became common because
they "articulated the frustrations, hostilities, and humor of the
homeless and the dispossessed."
Literature
======================================================================
Karl Marlantes's 2019 novel 'Deep River' explores labor issues in the
early 1900s in the US and the consequences for an immigrant Finnish
family. The book focuses on a female family member who becomes an
organizer for the IWW in the dangerous logging industry. Both pro-
and anti-labor viewpoints are examined, with special attention given
to IWW strikes and the backlash against the labor movement during
World War I.
Lingo
======================================================================
Wobbly lingo is a collection of technical language, jargon, and
historic slang used by the Wobblies, for more than a century. Many
Wobbly terms derive from or are coextensive with hobo expressions used
through the 1940s. The origin of the name "Wobbly" itself is
uncertain. For several decades, many hobos in the United States were
members of, or were sympathetic to, the IWW. Because of this, some of
the terms describe the life of a hobo such as "riding the rails",
living in "jungles", dodging the "bulls". The IWW's efforts to
organize all trades allowed the lingo to expand to include terms
relating to mining camps, timber work, and farming.
Some words and phrases believed to have originated within Wobbly lingo
have gained cultural significance outside of the IWW. For example,
from Joe Hill's song "The Preacher and the Slave", the expression pie
in the sky has passed into common usage, referring to a
"preposterously optimistic goal".
Notable members
======================================================================
Former lieutenant governor of Colorado David C. Coates was a labor
militant, and was present at the founding convention, although it is
unknown if he became a member. It has long been rumored, but not
proven, that baseball legend Honus Wagner was also a Wobbly. Senator
Joseph McCarthy accused Edward R. Murrow of having been an IWW member,
which Murrow denied.
See also
======================================================================
* 1933 Yakima Valley strike
* 'Bérmunkás'
* Centralia massacre
* Eugene V. Debs
* History of the Industrial Workers of the World
* Industrial democracy
* Industrial Revolution
* Industrial Workers of the World (Chile)
* Industrial Workers of the World (South Africa)
* Industrial Workers of the World philosophy and tactics
* Kuzbass Autonomous Industrial Colony
* Labor disputes led by the Industrial Workers of the World
* Labor federation competition in the United States
* List of Industrial Workers of the World unions
* Mechanization
* One Big Union (concept)
* Redwood Summer
* San Diego free speech fight
* Seattle General Strike
* Silent agitators
* Solidarity unionism
* Syndicalism
* Women in labor unions
Archives
==========
* [
https://reuther.wayne.edu/node/3156 Industrial Workers of the World
Archives]. Archives contain over 40 archival collections spanning
1903-1996, containing the records of the International Union, several
local branches, and numerous personal papers including those of Joe
Hill, William Trautmann, and Matilda Robbins. Located at the
[
https://reuther.wayne.edu/ Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and
Urban Affairs].
* [
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/unions/iww/ Documents, Essays
and Analysis for a History of the Industrial Workers of the World].
Online archive at the Marxists Internet Archive. Retrieved April 16,
2005.
* [
https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv96456 Industrial
Workers of the World Records], 1906-1972, undated. Approximately 0.19
cubic feet of textual materials, 1 microfilm cassette (negative). At
the
[
https://www.lib.washington.edu/specialcollections/laws/labor-archives-of-washington-state
Labor Archives of Washington State, University of Washington Libraries
Special Collections].
** [
https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv46710
Industrial Workers of the World Photograph Collection]. Circa
1910s-1940s. 122 Photographs (2 boxes); varying sizes.
** [
https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv75308 John
Leonard Miller Papers]. 1923-1986. circa 4.11 cubic feet plus 2 sound
cassettes.
** [
https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv69979 Eugene
Barnett Oral History Collection.] 1940-1961. 0.21 cubic feet (1 box),
3 sound cassettes (154 min.), 1 transcript (24 pages).
** [
https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:80444/xv33273 Pacific
Northwest Labor History Association Records.] 1971-1995. 1.83 cubic
feet (3 boxes).
* [
https://archives.newberry.org/repositories/2/resources/1234 IWW
Publications and Ephemera] at Newberry Library
* [
https://mms.newberry.org/repositories/2/resources/1214 Fred
Thompson Papers] at [
https://www.newberry.org Newberry Library]
Official documents
====================
*
* [
https://archive.org/details/06Proceedings2ndConvIWW 'Proceedings of
the Second Annual Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World,
Held at Chicago, Illinois, September 17 to October 3, 1906']. Chicago:
Industrial Workers of the World, 1906.
* [
https://archive.org/details/16Proceedings10thConvIWW 'Proceedings
of the Tenth Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World, Held
at Chicago, Illinois, Nov. 20 to Dec. 1, 1916']. Chicago: Industrial
Workers of the World, 1917.
* [
https://archive.org/details/19IwwWithdropsofbloodLeaflet 'With
Drops of Blood the History of the Industrial Workers of the World Has
Been Written']. n.c. [Chicago]: Industrial Workers of the World, n.d.
[1919].
* [
https://archive.org/details/19IwwRaidsraidsraidsLeaflet 'Raids!
Raids!! Raids!!!'] n.c. [Chicago]: Industrial Workers of the World,
n.d. [Dec. 1919].
Books
=======
*
*
*
*
* Dubofsky, Melvyn. 'We Shall Be All: A History of the Industrial
Workers of the World.' [1969] First paperbound edition. New York:
Quadrangle/New York Times Books, 1973.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Periodicals
=============
* 'The One Big Union Monthly', launched 1919
Documentary films
===================
* 'The Wobblies'. Directed by Stewart Bird, Deborah Shaffer, 1979. DVD
2006 NTSC English 90 minutes. (Includes interviews with 19 elderly
Wobblies.)
* 'An Injury to One'. A film by Travis Wilkerson, 2003 First Run
Icarus Films. English 53 minutes. Chronicles the 1917 unsolved murder
of Wobbly organizer Frank Little in Butte, Montana, during a strike by
16,000 miners against the Anaconda Copper Company. The film connects
"corporate domination to government repression, local repression to
national repression, labor history to environmental history, popular
culture to the history of class struggle", according to
[
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/rachleff010805.html a review] in
'Monthly Review'.
External links
======================================================================
*
* [
https://depts.washington.edu/iww/ IWW History Project], including
timeline and maps, from the University of Washington
* [
https://archive.org/details/industrialworker 'The Industrial
Worker' archives] at the Internet Archive
* IWW Songs: [
https://archive.org/details/SongsOfTheWobblies audio]
and
[
https://archive.org/details/SongsOfTheWorkersToFanTheFlamesOfDiscontent/
songbook]
* [
http://archives.wayne.edu/repositories/2/resources/1387 Industrial
Workers of the World Records] at Wayne State University Walter P.
Reuther Library
License
=========
All content on Gopherpedia comes from Wikipedia, and is licensed under CC-BY-SA
License URL:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_World
