List of labor slogans

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This is a list of slogans used by organized labor, or by workers who are attempting to organize.

Glossary of labor slogans

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Syndicalism</span> Form of revolutionary organisation

Syndicalism is a revolutionary current within the labor movement that seeks to unionize workers according to industry and advance their demands through strikes with the eventual goal of gaining control over the means of production and the economy at large. Developed in French labor unions during the late 19th century, syndicalist movements were most predominant amongst the socialist movement during the interwar period which preceded the outbreak of World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Industrial Workers of the World</span> International labor union

The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William E. Trautmann</span>

William Ernst Trautmann was founding general-secretary of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and one of six people who initially laid plans for the organization in 1904.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas J. Hagerty</span> American priest and trade union activist

Thomas Joseph Hagerty was an American Roman Catholic priest and trade union activist. Hagerty is remembered as one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), as author of the influential Preamble to the Constitution of the IWW, and as the creator of "Hagerty's Wheel", a frequently reproduced illustration depicting the interrelation of the IWW's constituent industrial unions.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill Haywood</span> Labor organizer

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solidarity Forever</span> Trade union anthem written in 1915

"Solidarity Forever", written by Ralph Chaplin in 1915, is a popular trade union anthem. It is sung to the tune of "John Brown's Body" and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". Although it was written as a song for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), other union movements, such as the AFL–CIO, have adopted the song as their own. The song has been performed by musicians such as Utah Phillips, and Pete Seeger. It was redone by Emcee Lynx and The Nightwatchman. It is still commonly sung at union meetings and rallies in the United States, Australia and Canada, and has also been sung at conferences of the Australian Labor Party and the Canadian New Democratic Party. This may have also inspired the hymn of the consumer cooperative movement, "The Battle Hymn of Cooperation", which is sung to the same tune.

Labor aristocracy or labour aristocracy has at least four meanings: (1) as a term with Marxist theoretical underpinnings; (2) as a specific type of trade unionism; (3) as a shorthand description by revolutionary industrial unions for the bureaucracy of craft-based business unionism; and (4) in the 19th and early 20th centuries was also a phrase used to define better-off members of the working class.

<i>Industrial Worker</i> Magazine of the Industrial Workers of the World

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Moyer</span>

Charles H. Moyer was an American labor leader and president of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) from 1902 to 1926. He led the union through the Colorado Labor Wars, was accused of murdering an ex-governor of the state of Idaho, and was shot in the back during a bitter copper mine strike. He also was a leading force in founding the Industrial Workers of the World, although he later denounced the organization.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Industrial Workers of the World philosophy and tactics</span>

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.

<i>The Industrial Pioneer</i> Trade publication of the Industrial Workers of the World

The Industrial Pioneer was a monthly publication of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) from 1921 to 1926. It was published in Chicago by the general executive board of the IWW, under various editors. The precursor of the Industrial Pioneer was the The One Big Union Monthly.

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.

Solidarity was a newspaper published by the Industrial Workers of the World from 1909 to 1917. It was the official periodical of the organization in its early years. It was born as part of the McKees Rocks strike in 1909, initially by the IWW's Pittsburgh-New Castle Industrial Council. During the IWW's involvement in the local steel industry in New Castle and in Butler, Pennsylvania, the entire editorial and production staff of Solidarity was jailed.

James H. Walsh was an American labor organizer and a prominent Wobbly.

<i>The American Way</i> (novel) 2009 book by Paddy Kelly

The American Way is the second in a four novel series entitled Building of Empire, Crime and Politics; the Cornerstone of America by author Paddy Kelly. The American Way relates the events leading up to and through the Great Woolen Strike of 1912 in Lawrence, Massachusetts when approximately 40,000 immigrants from nearly every country in Europe, sharing 30 religions and 127 ethnic back grounds organized a seven-week strike against the richest man in the world. This despite the fact that only ten percent of them spoke English. Released in 2011 the title of this historical fiction is originally taken from the opening lines of the 1950s Superman television program Adventures of Superman (1952–1958) ".. . truth, justice and the American way!" However the catch phrase is meant as an entendre in that the American Way, usually perceived as the right and good way, is also in reality a two edged sword of unprecedented levels of corruption found at all levels of industry and government at the time the story is set.

George Francis Vanderveer was an American lawyer who defended Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) members during the union's years of "deepest trouble."

References

  1. The Autobiography of Big Bill Haywood, 1929, pp. 186 ppbk.
  2. Paul Frederick Briskness, The I.W.W. A Study of American Syndicalism, Columbia University, 1919, pages 297-303
  3. Solidarity Forever, An Oral History of the IWW, Stewart Bird, Dan Georgakas, Deborah Shaffer, 1985, pp. 57.
  4. Roughneck: The Life and Times of Big Bill Haywood, Peter Carlson, 1983, pp. 235.
  5. A Pictorial History of American Labor, William Cahn, 1972, page 139.
  6. Melvyn Dubofsky, We Shall Be All: A History of the Industrial Workers of the World, University of Illinois Press Abridged, 2000, page 89
  7. Paul Frederick Brissenden, The I.W.W. A Study of American Syndicalism, Columbia University, 1919, page 297
  8. A Pictorial History of American Labor, William Cahn, 1972, page 203.
  9. 1 2 Melvyn Dubofsky, We Shall Be All, A History of the Industrial Workers of the World, University of Illinois Press Abridged, 2000, page 90
  10. Melvyn Dubofsky, We Shall Be All, A History of the Industrial Workers of the World, University of Illinois Press Abridged, 2000, page 89-90