The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was a union movement that surfaced in the first decade of the 20th century as a more radical alternative to the American Federation OF Labor (AFL). Also known as the Wobblies, the IWW emerged in response to changing social, economic, and political circumstances. The post-Civil War industrial revolution and the growth of trusts and giant national corporations resulted in tremendous social inequality. The new industrial working class that emerged in these years was much more ethnically and racially diverse than ever before, as millions of eastern and southern European immigrants entered the country and found employment in urban factories.
The industrial working class was expanding at the same time that the nature of work was changing. Building on the principles of scientific management introduced by Frederick Winslow Taylor and others, corporations began to break down the production process into specialized tasks. Each separate motion was studied and analyzed, so it could be performed with maximum speed and minimum training. The new machine operators were not the kind of workers that the AFL had helped organize in the past. Between 1880 and 1900, the labor federation had been successful in organizing white craft workers. Because they often shared similar ethnic and regional backgrounds and, moreover, had specialized knowledge that employers could not easily replace, skilled workers were easier to organize. The decision of employers to de-skill and diversify the industrial workforce was directed at undermining the power of skilled workers and preventing them from forming unions.
Under the leadership of Samuel Gompers, the AFL had built a solid base of support among skilled white workers. Adhering to “pure and simple” unionism, the AFL avoided mass organizing tactics and did not seek control over employers’ profits. Between 1880 and 1900, the labor federation did little to oppose these efforts in mass production industry. In exchange, the AFL often secured guaranteed contracts, pay increases, and shorter workdays for its trade union members. This cautious strategy led to important gains for skilled white workers, but it did little for dislocated farm laborers and unskilled African-American and foreign-born workingmen and women.
The IWW attempted to fill the void left by the AFL. Officially organized in 1905, it traced its origins to the labor organizations of silver, copper, and gold miners in the West. By 1890, mine workers were engaging in frequent conflicts with mine owners determined to maximize their profits. Disgruntled and militant miners formed the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) in 1892 and began demanding better pay and working conditions. Between 1894 and 1905, conflicts between the WFM and mine owners grew increasingly common and violent. Often strikes were defeated when mining companies convinced state and federal officials to use military troops to arrest strikers and keep the mines open. When the state militia brutally put down a 1904 strike in Cripple Creek, Colorado, leaders of the WFM concluded that a national movement of industrial workers, miners, and migratory farm laborers was necessary to challenge the dominance of antiunion employers, state legislators, and federal officials.
Cartoon lampooning the Industrial Workers of the World
(Library of Congress)
In 1905, the WFM joined with over 40 labor organizations to form the IWW. Some of its leaders included William “Big Bill” Haywood, Eugene V. Debs, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, Joe Hill, William Z. Foster, Lucy Parsons, and Daniel De Leon. Highly critical of the conservative AFL, the IWW committed itself to organizing semiskilled and unskilled workers, regardless of their race, ethnicity, or gender. In contrast to the AFL’s cooperative approach, the IWW advocated socialism and syndicalism. Reluctant to sign union contracts, it preferred to pursue goals through work stoppages, general strikes, boycotts, strikes and other forms of direct action.
Championing the slogan “One Big Union,” the Wob-blies had limited success organizing western miners, semiskilled and unskilled factory workers, lumber workers, farmers, and western shipyard workers between 1905 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Internally, the IWW was racked by conflicting ideological viewpoints. One faction, led by De Leon and Debs, advocated political action and close ties with the Socialist Party of America. Led by Big Bill Haywood, the rival faction championed syndicalism, or the theory of industrial organization. As syndicalists, they advocated the use of strikes, boycotts, general strikes, and even industrial sabotage to improve workers’ conditions. These internal divisions came to a head in 1908 when the more radical syndicalists gained control of the IWW, and Debs, De Leon, and other socialists left the organization.
Under Haywood’s leadership, the IWW aggressively pursued direct action against antiunion employers. In 1912, textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the majority of whom were women and underaged children, walked off the job when managers at the American Woolen Company announced a plan to reduce wages. Company officials had intentionally hired an ethnically diverse workforce, believing that ethnic animosity would prevent workers from forming a union or conducting an effective strike. The IWW’s commitment to organizing all workers bridged the ethnic divide in the workforce and created a unified front. Several striking workers were killed before public pressure persuaded the company to agree to the IWW’s demands. A year later, the IWW backed a strike by silk workers in Paterson, New Jersey. Almost immediately, the strike turned violent. Private security forces hired by the company killed several strikers, and local police arrested over 3,000 workers. The Paterson strike ended in defeat when the union was unable to provide pay or food for striking workers.
The IWW was most successful in organizing miners and migrant farm and timber workers in the West and Northwest, many of them through the Agricultural Workers Organization. Although the organization never achieved the level of success of the AFL or seriously challenged corporate power, the IWW remained an anathema to many employers and politicians. With the outbreak of World War I, the IWW came into greater national prominence when it publicly opposed American entry into the war. Many Wob-blies were jailed under state criminal syndicalism laws. Haywood and 165 other IWW leaders were arrested and convicted under the Espionage Act of 1917 for hindering the war effort. Haywood received the harshest sentence, a 20-year prison term. He fled the country when released pending an appeal of the sentence. Between 1917 and 1920, the IWW was the target of coordinated attacks led by the federal government. In May 1918, IWW offices in Centralia, Washington, were raided by a local mob led by prominent political and business leaders. In November of the following year, a mob once again attempted to raid the IWW’s offices in Centralia only to be met by armed resistance. When the fighting was over, five people had been killed, including the IWW’s Wesley Everest, who had been castrated and lynched by the mob. Similar repression took place throughout the Northwest where the IWW had been strongest. By the end of the year, the union was in total disarray, and it ceased to be an effective force in the labor movement. As an organization committed to organizing workers regardless of their skill level, gender, race, or ethnicity, the IWW represented a radical alternative to the conservative trade unionism of the AFL.
See also labor and labor movement; New Unionism; socialism.
Further reading: Melvin Dubofsky, We Shall Be All: A History of the Indus-trial Workers of the World (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1969); Howard Kimeldorf, Battling for American Labor: Wobblies, Craft Workers, and the Making of the Union Movement (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).
—Robert Gordon
World History
