Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)
Movement | Active
1905 CE to 2265 CE
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that is 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.
In the 1910s and early 1920s, the IWW achieved many of their short-term goals, particularly in the American West, and cute across traditional guild and union lines to organize workers in a variety of trades and industries.
At their peak in August 1917, IWW membership is estimated at more than 150,000, with active wings in the United States, Canada, and Australia.
The extremely high rate of IWW membership turnover during this era (estimated at 133% per decade) makes it difficult for historians to state membership totals with any certainty, as workers tend to join the IWW in large numbers for relatively short periods (e.g., during labor strikes and periods of generalized economic distress).
Membership declines dramatically in the late 1910s and 1920s.
There are conflicts with other labor groups, particularly the American Federation of Labor (AFL), which regards the IWW as too radical, while the IWW regards the AFL as too conservative and opposed their decision to divide workers on the basis of their crafts.
Membership also decline due to government crackdowns on radical, anarchist and socialist groups during the First Red Scare after the First World War.
In Canada, the IWW is outlawed by the federal government by an Order in Council on September 24, 1918.
Probably the most decisive factor in the decline in IWW membership and influence is a 1924 schism in the organization, from which the IWW never fully recovers.
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, in 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, neither does it exclude membership in another labor union.
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The participants of these strikes are largely immigrant factory workers from southern and eastern Europe.
Class division, race, gender, and manufacturing expertise all cause internal dissension among the striking parties and this leads many reformist intellectuals in the Northeast to question their effectiveness.
A major turning point for these labor movements had occurred in 1912 during the Lawrence Textile Strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, where laborers were able to successfully pressure mill owners to raise wages, later galvanizing support from left-leaning intellectual groups.
The successful strike had helped attract interest from intellectual circles in Paterson’s labor movements, and has given union organizers confidence in also achieving improved working conditions and wages for Paterson’s silk weavers.
The IWW manages to help the hungry strikers children into foster homes to ease their way of life and provide food and aid while their parents and workers are striking.
Although they had shut down Paterson and beaten off an attempt by the AFL (American Federation of Labor) to undercut the strike, they were unable to extend the strike to the annexes of the Paterson mills in Pennsylvania.
Paterson manufacturers, victorious but frightened, will hold back for another decade.
Strike supporters were torn apart as a result of the defeat, and the IWW will never fully recover in Eastern America.