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, also known as Wobblyism, were frequently in direct conflict with those of the AFL (forerunner of the AFL–CIO) 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 AFL and the IWW (whose members are referred to as Wobblies) had very different ideas about the ideal union structure. While the AFL primarily organized workers into their respective crafts, the IWW was created as an industrial union, placing all workers in a factory, mine, mill, or other place of business into the same industrial organization. The IWW also promotes the class-based concept of One Big Union.
The IWW was formed by militant unionists, socialists, anarchists, and other labor radicals who believed that the great mass of workers are exploited by, and are in an economic struggle with, an employing class. The IWW employed a great diversity of tactics aimed at organizing all workers as a class, seeking greater economic justice on the job and, ultimately, the overthrow of the wage system which they believe is most responsible for keeping workers in subjugation. Such tactics are generally described as direct action, which is distinguished from other types of reform efforts such as electoral politics. IWW members believe that change accomplished via politics depends upon appeal to members of a ruling class who derive benefit from the subservient quiescence of the working class.
While other unions (such as the CIO) adopted form and tactics—notably, industrial unionism and the sit down strike—which were developed or pioneered by the IWW, labor laws passed by legislatures have sought to steadily erode the range and diversity of methods employed by all labor organizations. Confronted with such obstacles, militant IWW members tend to believe in a return to a union philosophy that was common a century ago, in which unjust labor laws are challenged directly by union actions, rather than accepted as a framework within which the union must operate.
Wobbly understanding of the world
By 1912, after a number of defections and splits, the IWW numbered some twenty-five thousand, much smaller than many of its rival unions. But the IWW's influence was already outsized. The Congressional Commission on Industrial Relations noted in 1916 that "as a 'spirit and vocabulary' [the IWW] permeates to a large extent enormous masses of workers..." Wobbly activists were those workers who not only reacted to economic forces, but who spent a considerable amount of time thinking, debating, and educating their co-workers about the impact of such forces upon society. John Reed observed, "Wherever, in the West, there is an IWW local, you will find an intellectual center ... a place where men read philosophy, economics, the latest plays, novels; where art and poetry are discussed, and international politics."
The IWW printed hundreds of thousands of leaflets, promoted Industrial Education Clubs, and organized Propaganda Leagues. Stickered slogans, referred to as "silent agitators", were printed by the million, and made available by the thousand. IWW libraries in union halls made available to any worker not only the organization's publications, but also practical topics about machinery and production, as well as classic works of scientists, theoreticians, and philosophers. Knowledge and experience were likewise shared—new members were sometimes invited to chair meetings, not just to share the experience, but to initiate them into the community.
Wobblies believed not only that it took a working person to understand the needs of the workers, but in order to lead, that person must also be an educated worker. IWW publications seemed to enjoy reporting on "the amazement shown by college professors who heard Wobbly speakers deliver talks upon a wide variety of subjects and reveal a remarkable understanding of complex economic and social questions." By the time of the organization's founding in 1905, inquisitive workers already had a wide variety of union experiences and traditions to consider. In coming together as an organization, then, it is perhaps not surprising that the clash of ideas among IWW members resulted in passionate debate and an eventual winnowing of philosophies over several decades of evolution.
Inspiration Where did initial inspirations for the Wobbly philosophy come from? Historian Melvyn Dubofsky is worth quoting at length:
Wobblies ... took their basic concepts from others: from Marx the concepts of labor value, commodity value, surplus value, and class struggle; from Darwin the idea of organic evolution and the struggle for survival as a paradigm for social evolution and the survival of the fittest class; from Bakunin and the anarchists the "propaganda of the deed"* and the idea of direct action; and from Sorel the notion of the "militant minority." Hence, IWW beliefs became a peculiar amalgam of Marxism and Darwinism, anarchism and syndicalism—all overlaid with a singularly American patina.
However, Dubofsky also identifies American traditions "dating back to the era of Jefferson and Jackson" from which the Wobblies derived inspiration, particularly the concepts of a society divided into "producers and nonproducers, productive classes and parasites." Paul Brissenden likewise stated that, "[t]he main ideas of I.W.W.-ism—certainly of the I.W.W.-ism of the first few years after 1905—were of American origin, not French, as is commonly supposed.
Wobblies sought to familiarize theoretical terminology for a worker audience of varied educative experience. A proletarian became a prole, and a plutocrat was a plute. Bill Haywood, in particular, had the ability to translate complex economic theories into simple ideas that resonated with working people. He would frequently preface his speeches with the statement, "Tonight I am going to speak on the class struggle and I am going to make it so plain that even a lawyer can understand it." The Marxian concept of surplus value, Haywood conveyed simply as "unpaid labor." He distilled the voluminous work of Karl Marx into a simple observation, "If one man has a dollar he didn't work for, some other man worked for a dollar he didn't get."
Philip S. Foner disagreed with Dubofsky on this one point, stating, "[t]he I.W.W. did not, as did many, if not all, anarchists, advocate 'propaganda of the deed'." Taft and Ross likewise appear to disagree with Dubofsky, stating in more general terms, "violence in labor disputes was seldom inspired by the doctrine of 'propaganda by the deed,' whose self-defeating nature convinced many of its exponents of its fallacy."Philip Taft and Philip Ross, "American Labor Violence: Its Causes, Character, and Outcome," The History of Violence in America: A Report to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, ed. Hugh Davis Graham and Ted Robert Gurr, 1969. The difference may depend upon how 'propaganda of the deed' is defined.
Question of political action By the time of the 1905 founding of the Industrial Workers of the World, the question of whether unionized workers could secure significant change by political actions of their unions had been in contention for some decades. The question had split the National Labor Union in 1872. It created divisions between the membership and the leadership of the Knights of Labor, with the leaders favoring various political agendas including Greenbackism, socialism, and land reform. Labor historian Joseph Rayback believed that significant losses for organized labor in the 1890s pointed the way toward either socialism, or industrial unionism in order to maintain organized labor's momentum.
Yet Samuel Gompers, leader of the American Federation of Labor, opposed both courses of action. He and John Mitchell, head of the United Mine Workers, joined an alliance of conservative union leaders and liberal business men in forming the National Civic Federation (NCF). That organization's critics on the left believed that its goals were to suppress sympathy strikes, and to replace traditional expressions of working class solidarity with binding national trade agreements and arbitration of disputes.
By 1905, the NLU was history, and the Knights of Labor mostly a memory. Mitchell and Gompers of the AFL were beginning to build an alliance with the Democratic Party. While the focus upon political alliance by the AFL (at the perceived cost of class solidarity) was just one aspect of the differing union philosophies, it was a significant one. The formation of the Industrial Workers of the World was in many ways a direct response to the conservatism of the AFL, and its perceived failure to respond to the needs of western miners, lumbermen, and others. However, the political question would likewise play a central role in the internal disputes, and in the eventual evolution of the IWW itself.
Early philosophy a compromise At its opening convention, the Industrial Workers of the World exhibited a "spirit of unity." Although nearly all of the delegates were committed to some form of Socialist politics, there were some significant philosophical differences just under the surface. Western Federation of Miners members and other union veterans wanted the participation of the two Socialist parties, the Socialist Labor Party (SLP) and the Socialist Party, in spite of longstanding animosity between these two political organizations. However, the veteran labor activists did not wish to commit to any particular political party. Nonetheless, some of the Socialists in both camps assumed that an endorsement would be forthcoming.
The IWW Constitution and Preamble resulting from the 1905 convention were essentially a compromise which papered over these, and other differences. Furthermore, while the SLP viewed organized labor as a mere adjunct to Socialist Labor Party politics, the Socialist Party was divided over whether the AFL, or the new IWW should be the proper vehicle to carry the labor banner of socialism. As a result, many Socialists actually opposed the IWW from the outset.
The early IWW experienced numerous divisions and splits during the period from 1905 to approximately 1930. It also suffered repression by business and government entities during this period. These experiences had a profound effect on the philosophy and tactics of the organization that survived.
IWW vs. the AFL
In spite of the varied philosophies of the participants at the first IWW convention, there were a few compelling concerns which united all. Nearly all who attended acknowledged an "irrepressible conflict" between capital and labor. Nearly all could be described as adherents of industrial unionism, as opposed to the craft unionism of the American Federation of Labor. Acknowledging the common practice of AFL craft unions crossing each other's picket lines, the IWW adopted the WFM's description of the AFL as the "American Separation of Labor." In addition to the limitations of organizing by craft, the IWW criticized the AFL for emphasizing common interests between labor and capital, and for organizing only elite workers rather than acknowledging the needs of the entire working class.