Syndicalism is a current in the labor movement to establish local, worker-based organizations and advance the demands and rights of workers through strikes. Most active in the early 20th century, syndicalism was predominant in the revolutionary left in the decade which preceded the outbreak of World War I because orthodox Marxism was mostly reformist at that time, according to the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm.
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in 1905 in Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. The union 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.
William Ernst Trautmann was founding general-secretary of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and one of 69 people who initially laid plans for the organization in 1904.
William Dudley "Big Bill" Haywood was a 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.
Anarchism in South Africa dates to the 1880s, and played a major role in the labour and socialist movements from the turn of the twentieth century through to the 1920s. The early South African anarchist movement was strongly syndicalist. The ascendance of Marxism–Leninism following the Russian Revolution, along with state repression, resulted in most of the movement going over to the Comintern line, with the remainder consigned to irrelevance. There were slight traces of anarchist or revolutionary syndicalist influence in some of the independent left-wing groups which resisted the apartheid government from the 1970s onward, but anarchism and revolutionary syndicalism as a distinct movement only began re-emerging in South Africa in the early 1990s. It remains a minority current in South African politics.
Joseph James "Smiling Joe" Ettor (1885–1948) was an Italian-American trade union organizer who, in the middle-1910s, was one of the leading public faces of the Industrial Workers of the World. Ettor is best remembered as a defendant in a controversial trial related to a killing in the seminal Lawrence Textile Strike of 1912, in which he was acquitted of charges of having been an accessory.
Home is a census-designated place in Pierce County, Washington, United States. The 2010 Census placed the population at 1,377. The community lies on the Key Peninsula and borders the waters of Carr Inlet, an extension of Puget Sound. Home is now primarily a town of beach homes, although around the turn of the twentieth century, it was considered a model, utopian community of anarchists.
Anarchism in Australia arrived within a few years of anarchism developing as a distinct tendency in the wake of the 1871 Paris Commune. Although a minor school of thought and politics, composed primarily of campaigners and intellectuals, Australian anarchism has formed a significant current throughout the history and literature of the colonies and nation. Anarchism's influence has been industrial and cultural, though its influence has waned from its high point in the early 20th century where anarchist techniques and ideas deeply influenced the official Australian union movement. In the mid 20th century anarchism's influence was primarily restricted to urban bohemian cultural movements. In the late 20th century and early 21st century Australian anarchism has been an element in Australia's social justice and protest movements.
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.
Frank Bohn was an advocate of industrial unionism who was a founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World. From 1906 to 1908 he was the National Secretary of the Socialist Labor Party of America, before leaving to join forces with the rival Socialist Party of America. After World War I his politics became increasingly nationalistic and he left the labor movement altogether.
Hermon Franklin Titus (1852–1931) was an American socialist activist and newspaper publisher. Originally a Baptist minister before becoming a medical doctor, Titus is best remembered as a factional leader of the Washington state affiliate of the Socialist Party of America (SPA) during the first decade of the 20th century and as editor of The Socialist, one of the most-widely circulated radical newspapers of that period. Titus led a party split from the Socialist Party of Washington in 1909 and helped found a short-lived organization called the Wage Workers Party. His paper failed with that organization and he died in self-chosen obscurity in New York City, a medical doctor working in a low paying service job.
Erwin Bratton "Harry" Ault (1883–1961) was an American socialist and trade union activist. He is best remembered as the editor of the Seattle Union Record, the long-running labor weekly published from 1912 to 1928. After termination of the Union Record, Ault worked as a commercial printer for a number of years, before being appointed a deputy U.S. Marshal for Tacoma, Washington, a position which he retained for 15 years.
The Syndicalist League of North America was an organization led by William Z. Foster that aimed to "bore from within" the American Federation of Labor to win that trade union center over to the ideals of Revolutionary syndicalism.
Jay Fox was an American journalist, trade unionist, and political activist. The political trajectory of his life ran through anarchism, syndicalism, and communism, and he played a significant role in each of these political movements.
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.
Samuel Tellefson "Sam" Hammersmark was an American book publisher, trade union organizer, political activist, and Communist Party functionary. Hammersmark is best remembered as a political lieutenant of William Z. Foster in the Chicago anarcho-syndicalist and communist movements of the 1910s through the 1930s and as a candidate of the Communist Party for public office.
The Labor Press Project: Pacific Northwest Labor and Radical Newspapers is a multimedia website housing thousands of digitized articles and editions from the late 19th century to the present. Newspapers and newsletters from unions, early socialist groupings, anarchist communes, ethnic community groups and radical organization are presented on the site with accompanying research articles on their context and evolution. Many of the digitized materials were previously unavailable except as archival material. The extensive resource is one of Pacific Northwest Labor and Civil Rights History Projects developed by the University of Washington.
Bérmunkás was a Hungarian language newspaper published in the United States by the radical syndicalist trade union Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The paper was launched as a bi-weekly in November 1912. During the years of World War I American government repression of the IWW and its press forced the publication to make a series of name changes in an attempt to keep ahead of postal authorities. The original name was restored in 1923 and Bérmunkás continued until its eventual termination in 1953.
The Industrial Workers of the World or IWW (SA) had a brief but notable history in the 1910s-20s, and is particularly noted for its influence on the syndicalist movement in southern Africa through its promotion of the IWW's principles of industrial unionism, solidarity, and direct action, as well as its role in the creation of organizations such as the Industrial Workers of Africa and the Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union.
