The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), whose members are nicknamed "Wobblies", is an international labor union founded in Chicago 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.
Industrial unionism is a trade union organising method through which all workers in the same industry are organized into the same union, regardless of skill or trade, thus giving workers in one industry, or in all industries, more leverage in bargaining and in strike situations.
William Dudley "Big Bill" Haywood was an American labor organizer and founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and a member of the executive committee of the Socialist Party of America. During the first two decades of the 20th century, Haywood was involved in several important labor battles, including the Colorado Labor Wars, the Lawrence Textile Strike, and other textile strikes in Massachusetts and New Jersey.
The Columbine Mine massacre occurred in 1927, in the town of Serene, Colorado. In the midst of the 1927–1928 Colorado Coal Strike across the state, workers had been picketing one of the few remaining operating mines, in Serene. A fight broke out between Colorado state militia and a group of striking coal miners, during which the unarmed miners were attacked with firearms. The miners testified that machine guns were fired at them, which the state police disputed. Six strikers were killed, and dozens were injured.
Franklin Henry Little, commonly known as Frank Little, was an American labor leader who was murdered in Butte, Montana. No one was apprehended or prosecuted for Little's murder. He joined the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905, organizing miners, lumberjacks, and oil field workers. He was a member of the union's Executive Board when he was brutally murdered.
The Industrial Worker, "the voice of revolutionary industrial unionism", is the magazine of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). It is currently released quarterly. The publication is printed and edited by union labor, and is frequently distributed at radical bookstores, demonstrations, strikes and labor rallies. It covers industrial conditions, strikes, workplace organizing experiences, and features on labor history. It used to be released as a newspaper.
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was an American labor leader, activist, and feminist who played a leading role in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Flynn was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union and a visible proponent of women's rights, birth control, and women's suffrage. She joined the Communist Party USA in 1936 and late in life, in 1961, became its chairwoman. She died during a visit to the Soviet Union, where she was accorded a state funeral with processions in Red Square attended by over 25,000 people.
Amelia "Mildred" Milka Sablich also known as Flaming Milka, was 19 years old when she became a leader in the 1927 coal strike in that state. Her family emigrated to Trinidad from Volosko, Croatia, in 1907. Her father, Anton Sablich, worked as a coal miner in Colorado.
Arthur Herbert "Slim" Evans was a leader in the industrial labor union movement in Canada and the United States. He is most known for leading the On To Ottawa Trek. Evans was involved in the Industrial Workers of the World, the One Big Union, and the Worker's Unity League. He was a member of the Communist Party of Canada.
Labor federation competition in the United States is a history of the labor movement, considering U.S. labor organizations and federations that have been regional, national, or international in scope, and that have united organizations of disparate groups of workers. Union philosophy and ideology changed from one period to another, conflicting at times. Government actions have controlled, or legislated against particular industrial actions or labor entities, resulting in the diminishing of one labor federation entity or the advance of another.
Wobbly lingo is a collection of technical language, jargon, and historic slang used by the Industrial Workers of the World, known as the Wobblies, for more than a century. Many Wobbly terms derive from or are coextensive with hobo expressions used through the 1940s.
Anna LoPizzo was an Italian immigrant striker killed during the Lawrence Textile Strike, considered one of the most significant struggles in U.S. labor history.
Orrin N. Hilton was a Denver judge and attorney who participated for the defense in several famous court cases. Judge Hilton successfully defended George Pettibone of the Western Federation of Miners when Pinkerton detective James McParland accused him of conspiracy to murder former Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg.
Labor spying in the United States had involved people recruited or employed for the purpose of gathering intelligence, committing sabotage, sowing dissent, or engaging in other similar activities, in the context of an employer/labor organization relationship. Spying by companies on union activities has been illegal in the United States since the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. However, non-union monitoring of employee activities while at work is perfectly legal and, according to the American Management Association, nearly 80% of major US companies actively monitor their employees.
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) is a union of wage workers which was formed in Chicago in 1905 by militant unionists and their supporters due to anger over the conservatism, philosophy, and craft-based structure of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Throughout the early part of the 20th century, the philosophy and tactics of the IWW were frequently in direct conflict with those of the AFL concerning the best ways to organize workers, and how to best improve the society in which they toiled. The AFL had one guiding principle—"pure and simple trade unionism", often summarized with the slogan "a fair day's pay for a fair day's work." The IWW embraced two guiding principles, fighting like the AFL for better wages, hours, and conditions, but also promoting an eventual, permanent solution to the problems of strikes, injunctions, bull pens, and union scabbing.
The Agricultural Workers Organization (AWO), later known as the Agricultural Workers Industrial Union, was an organization of farm workers throughout the United States and Canada formed on April 15, 1915, in Kansas City. It was supported by, and a subsidiary organization of, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Although the IWW had advocated the abolition of the wage system as an ultimate goal since its own formation ten years earlier, the AWO's founding convention sought rather to address immediate needs, and championed a ten-hour work day, premium pay for overtime, a minimum wage, good food and bedding for workers. In 1917 the organization changed names to the Agricultural Workers Industrial Union (AWIU) as part of a broader reorganization of IWW industrial unions.
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) is a union of wage workers which was formed in Chicago in 1905. The IWW experienced a number of divisions and splits during its early history.
Caroline A. Lowe (1874–1933), generally known as Caroline Lowe, was a 20th-Century Canadian-American labor and civil liberties lawyer and Socialist activist for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
The 1927–1928 Colorado Coal Strike was a spreading strike, spearheaded by the Industrial Workers of the World. The exact number of workers involved is unclear due to the nature of the strike. However, it shutdown nearly all of Colorado's coal mines.
