The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW 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.
Ralph Hosea Chaplin (1887–1961) was an American writer, artist and labor activist. At the age of seven, he saw a worker shot dead during the Pullman Strike in Chicago, Illinois. He had moved with his family from Ames, Kansas to Chicago in 1893. During a time in Mexico he was influenced by hearing of the execution squads established by Porfirio Díaz, and became a supporter of Emiliano Zapata. On his return, he began work in various union positions, most of which were poorly paid. Some of Chaplin's early artwork was done for the International Socialist Review and other Charles H. Kerr publications.
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.
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.
The One Big Union was an idea in the late 19th and early 20th centuries amongst trade unionists to unite the interests of workers and offer solutions to all labour problems.
"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, Pete Seeger, Leonard Cohen, and Seth Staton Watkins. 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.
Since the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), songs have played a large part in spreading the message of the One Big Union. The songs are preserved in the Little Red Songbook.
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.
Benjamin Harrison Fletcher was an early 20th-century African-American labor leader and public speaker. He was a prominent member of the Industrial Workers of the World, a left-wing trade union which was influential during his time. In an era when few African Americans were permitted in American unions and fewer still belonged to more left-wing organizations, Fletcher was nationally known. Fletcher co-founded and helped lead the interracial Local 8 branch of the IWW’s Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union.
Free speech fights are struggles over free speech, and especially those struggles which involved the Industrial Workers of the World and their attempts to gain awareness for labor issues by organizing workers and urging them to use their collective voice. During the World War I period in the United States, the IWW members, engaged in free speech fights over labor issues which were closely connected to the developing industrial world as well as the Socialist Party. The Wobblies, along with other radical groups, were often met with opposition from local governments and especially business leaders, in their free speech fights.
The American Labor Union (ALU) was a radical labor organization launched as the Western Labor Union (WLU) in 1898. The organization was established by the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) in an effort to build a federation of trade unions in the aftermath of the failed Leadville Miners' Strike of 1896. The group changed its name from WLU to the more familiar ALU moniker in 1902 at its fifth annual convention. The group had a peak membership of about 43,000 — of which 27,000 were members of the WFM. The ALU was a precursor to the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), established in 1905, which effectively terminated it.
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.
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 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.
The Industrial Union Bulletin was a newspaper published by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a labor union.
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 (South Africa) 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.
