SUMMER 2017 #1780 VOLUME 114 NO. 3 $4 (U.S. IWW members) / $6 (U.S. non-members) / $7 (International)

Bisbee Deportation: Miners detained in baseball park, July 12, 1917 in Bisbee, Arizona. Photographer unknown. Preamble medallion by artist Laurie McKenna. 2 Industrial Worker • Summer 2017 IWW DIRECTORY IWW Contract Shops Queensland Northern Regional Organiser: Sam Switzerland: [email protected] Iowa New York City GMB: 45-02 23rd Brisbane GMB: P.O. Box 5842, West Frowien, [email protected] Greece Eastern Iowa IWW: 319-333-2476. Street, Suite #2, Long Island California [email protected] City,11101. [email protected]. End, Qld 4101. Asger, del., hap- Organising Department: Chair - Greece IWW: [email protected] San Francisco Bay Area GMB: [email protected]. Tawanda Nyabango, organising@ Kansas www.wobblycity.org P.O. Box 11412, Berkeley, 94712. iww.org.uk Iceland: Heimssamband Syracuse IWW: [email protected] 510-845-0540. [email protected]. Victoria Verkafólks / IWW Iceland, Reykja- Wichita: Richard Stephenson, Contact for: Berkeley Ecology Center Melbourne GMB: P.O. Box 145, Research and Survey Department: víkurakademíunni 516, Hringbraut del., 620-481-1442. barfolumu@ Upstate NY GMB: P.O. Box 77, Moreland, VIC 3058. melbourne- [email protected] gmail.com Altamont, 12009. 518-861-5627. (Curbside) Recycling - IU 670 IWW 121,107 Reykjavík [email protected] Shop; Community Conservation [email protected]. Secretary: Dave Pike, secretary@ Kentucky iww.org.uk Lithuania: lithuania.iww@gmail. Utica IWW: Brendan Maslauskas Centers (Buyback) Recycling – IU Canada com Kentucky GMB: Mick Parsons, Dunn, del., 315-240-3149. 670 – IWW Shop; Stone Mountain IWW Canadian Regional Organizing Southern England Organiser: Nikki Netherlands: [email protected] Secretary Treasurer, papamick.iww@ & Daughters fabrics - IU 410 IWW Dancey, [email protected] gmail.com. 502-658-0299 Ohio Committee (CANROC): c/o Toronto Norway IWW: 004793656014. Shop; Embarcadero Center Cinemas GMB, P.O. Box 45 Toronto P, Toronto Tech Committee: [email protected] [email protected]. http://www. Louisiana Northeast Ohio GMB: P.O. Box 1096, - IU 630 IWW Shop ON, M5S 2S6. [email protected] Training Department: Chair - Chris iwwnorge.org, www.facebook.com/ Louisiana IWW: John Mark Crowder, Cleveland, 44114. 440-941-0999 Oregon Alberta Wellbrook, [email protected] iwwnorge. Twitter: @IWWnorge del, [email protected]. https:// Ohio Valley GMB: P.O. Box 6042, Portland GMB: 2249 E Burnside St., Edmonton GMB: P.O. Box 4197, Treasurer: Jed Forward, treasurer@ United States www.facebook.com/groups/iwwof- Cincinnati 45206, 513- 510-1486, 97214. 503-893-2382, portland. T6E 4T2. [email protected], iww.org.uk nwlouisiana/ [email protected] [email protected], portlandiww.org. edmonton.iww.ca. Alabama Maine Sweet Patches Screenprinting: West of Scotland Organiser: Rona Mobile: Jimmy Broadhead, del., P.O. [email protected] Contact for: Janus Youth Shelters. British Columbia McAlpine, westscotland@iww. Box 160073, 36616. [email protected] Maine IWW: 207-619-0842. maine@ Washington Vancouver GMB: IWW Vancouver, org.uk iww.org, www.southernmaineiww. Oklahoma Tuscaloosa: Gerald Lunn. 205-245- org Seattle GMB: 1122 E. Pike #1142 c/o Spartacus Books, 3378 Findlay Women’s Officer: Jen Fox, women@ 4622. [email protected] Oklahoma IWW: 539-664-6769. Street, V5N 4E7. contact@vancou- iww.org.uk [email protected] Seattle, WA 98122-3934. 206-429- Alaska Maryland 5285. [email protected]. veriww.com. www.vancouveriww. ERA Branches Oregon com Fairbanks GMB: P. O. Box 80101, Baltimore GMB: P.O. Box 33350, Contact for: Central Co-op Clydeside GMB: clydeside@iww. 99708. Chris White, del., 907- 21218. [email protected] Lane GMB: Ed Gunderson, del., 541- Vancouver Island GMB: Box 297 St. org.uk 743-5681. [email protected], www. A, Nanaimo BC, V9R 5K9. iwwvi@ 457-2543, [email protected]. Massachusetts iwwlane.org IWW Shop Cards telus.net. Cymru/Wales GMB: caerdydd@ Facebook: IWW Fairbanks Boston Area GMB: P.O. Box 391724, iww.org.uk Portland GMB: 2249 E Burnside St., Anarpsy-Mental Health Services – Manitoba Arkansas Cambridge, 02139. 617-863-7920, 97214. 503-231-5488, portland. Piraeus, Greece: [email protected] Edinburgh GMB: edinburgh@iww. Northwest Arkansas IWW: P.O. Box [email protected], www. [email protected], portlandiww.org Winnipeg GMB: IWW, c/o WORC, org.uk IWWBoston.org Baltimore Bicycle Works: 1813 Falls P.O. Box 1, R3C 2G1. 204-299-5042, 4062, Fayetteville, 72702-4062.iww. Pennsylvania Road. Baltimore, MD 21201. www. [email protected] Tyne & Wear GMB: tyneandwear@ [email protected] Western Mass. Public Service IU baltimorebicycleworks.com/about iww.org.uk 650 Branch: IWW, P.O. Box 1581, Pittsburgh GMB: P.O. Box Ontario California Northampton, 01061 5912,15210. 412-438-3499, bst@ Daniel J. Fornika Scientific Consult- Ottawa-Outaouais GMB & GDC Local Bradford GMB: [email protected] Los Angeles GMB: P.O. Box 74344, pghiww.org ing: [email protected] 6: 1106 Wellington St., P.O. Box Leeds GMB: IWW, Ebor Court, Cooper 90004. 323-374-3499. iwwgmbla@ Michigan Rhode Island Evergreen Printing: 2412 Palmetto 36042, Ottawa, K1Y 4V3. ott-out@ Gate, Leeds. [email protected] gmail.com Detroit GMB: P.O. Box 32236, 48232. 313-437-3404, [email protected]. Providence GMB: P.O. Box 23067, Street, Oakland, CA. 510-482-4547, iww.org, [email protected] Manchester GMB: manchester@ Sacramento IWW: 916-672-8881, 02903. 401-484-8523. providence@ [email protected] Ottawa Panhandlers Union: iww.org.uk [email protected] Grand Rapids GMB: P.O. Box 6629, iww.org 49516. 616-881-5263. griww@ Lakeside Printing Cooperative: 1334 Raymond Loomer, interim delegate, Sheffield GMB: IWW Office, SYAC, San Diego GMB: 619-630-5537, P. O. Tennessee Williamson Street, Madison WI. 608- [email protected] 120 Wicker, Sheffield S3 8JD (0114 Box 882226, San Diego, CA 92168- iww.org 255-1800, www.lakesidepress.org Peterborough: c/o PCAP, 393 Water 223 2100). [email protected] 2226, [email protected] Central Michigan: 5007 W. Columbia Clarksville: Jonathan Beasley, del., Rd., Mason 48854. 517-676-9446, 218 S 3rd St. Apt. 7-6, 37040. 931- MoonDog’s Edibles: 54 East 200 St. #17, K9H 3L7, 705-749-9694. Norwich Bar and Hospitality Workers San Francisco Bay Area GMB: P.O. Box 220-9665. North, Salt Lake City, UT Sean Carleton, del., 705-775-0663, IUB 640: [email protected] 11412, Berkeley, 94712. 510-845- [email protected] [email protected] Trenton: Jeremy Butler, del., 221 North Country Food Alliance: 770 Nottingham GMB: [email protected] 0540. [email protected] Minnesota Toronto GMB: P.O. Box 45, Toronto P, Milan Hwy, 38382. 731-613-3067, Hamline Ave. N., St. Paul, MN. West Midlands GMB: IWW, Bike San Jose: SouthBayIWW@gmail. Duluth IWW: P.O. Box 3232, 55803. [email protected] 612-568-4585. northcountryfoodal- M5S 2S6. 647-741-4998. toronto@ com, www.facebook.com/SJSV.IWW [email protected] iww.org. www.torontoiww.org Foundry, 1539 Pershore Rd, Birming- Texas liance.org ham B30 2JH (0121 459 7276). Colorado Twin Cities GMB: 2 E. Franklin P & L Printing: 2727 W. 27th Ave., Windsor GMB: c/o WWAC, 328 Pelis- [email protected] Ave Suite. 1, Minneapolis, 55406. Houston: Gus Breslauer, del., Denver, CO. [email protected] sier St., N9A 4K7. 519-564-8036. Denver GMB: IWW, P.O. Box 12451, [email protected]. Facebook: Bristol GMB: [email protected] Denver, 80212. 814-758-7761. [email protected] Houston IWW Paper Crane Press: 2 New Rd, Aston, [email protected]. http:// [email protected] windsoriww.wordpress.com Reading GMB: [email protected] Missouri Rio Grande Valley, South Texas IWW: PA. 610-358-9496, papercrane- Connecticut [email protected]. www. Québec London GMB: [email protected] Greater Kansas City IWW: P.O. P.O. Box 5456 McAllen, Texas 78502. papercranepress.com Connecticut: John W., del., 914-258- Box 414304, Kansas City 64141. Greg, del., 956-278-5235 or Marco, Montreal GMB: 5323 rue Brébeuf, Belgium 0941. [email protected] 816-866-3808. greaterkciww@ del., 979-436-3719. iwwrgv@riseup. Pedal Power Press: P.O. Box 3232 Montréal, QC, Canada, H2J-3L8, P.O. Belgium IWW: [email protected] gmail.com net. www.facebook.com/IWWRGV Duluth, MN 55802. www.pedal- Box: 60124 CSP Saint-Denis, Mon- DC powerpress.com treal, QC, H2J 4E1, 438-345-5046, German Language Area Washington DC GMB: P.O. Box 1303, St. Louis IWW: P.O. Box 63142, Utah [email protected], https:// IWW German Language Area 20013. 202-630-9620. dc.iww. 63163. Secretary: stl.iww.secre- Salt Lake City: Michael Garcia, del., Phoenix Health PLC: FW Jeffrey Shea sitt.wordpress.com/ Regional Organizing Committee [email protected]. Treasurer: stl.iww. Jones #102- 3237 Hennepin Ave. S, [email protected]. www.dciww.org, [email protected] 801-891-5706, iwwmoondog@ Quebec GMB: iww_solidarite.qc@ (GLAMROC): [email protected]. www.facebook.com/dciww gmail.com. [email protected] Minneapolis, MN. 612-501-6897 www.wobblies.org Montana Primal Screens Screen Printing: riseup.net, https://www.facebook. Florida Vermont 1127 SE 10th Ave. #160, Portland, com/iwwqc, https://sitt.wordpress. Austria (Vienna): iwwaustria@ Gainesville GMB: c/o Civic Media Construction Workers IU 330: Burlington: John MacLean, del., com/ gmail.com, wien@wobblies. Center, 433 S. Main St., 32601. Dennis Georg, del., 406-490-3869, 802-540-2561 OR. 503-267-1372, primalscreens@ at. http://wobblies.org. www. [email protected] gmail.com Sherbrooke GMB: 819-349-9914, [email protected], www. Virginia https://www.facebook.com/ facebook.com/pages/IWW- gainesvilleiww.org Missoula IWW: Charles Profession Roofcare: 708 13th Bell- Wien/381153168710911 Richmond IWW: P.O. Box ingham, WA 98225. 360-734-974, IWWsherbrooke, https://sitt. Hobe Sound: P. Shultz, 8274 SE Pine Copeland,del., 406-529-6404. wordpress.com/ Berlin: Offenes Treffen jeden 2.Mon- [email protected]. 7055, 23221. 804-496-1568. [email protected]. Circle, 33455-6608. 772-545-9591, [email protected], www. Europe tag im Monat im Cafe Commune, [email protected] Two Rivers IWW: Jim Del Duca, del., Red Emma’s Bookstore Co-op: 30 W. Reichenberger Str.157, 10999 Berlin, richmondiww.org North Avenue, Baltimore, MD. 410- European Regional Administration Orlando: Joey Leach, del., 978-424- 106 Paisley Court, Apt. I, Bozeman 18 Uhr. (U-Bahnhof Kottbusser 59715. 406-599-2463. delducja@ Washington 230-0450, [email protected] (ERA): P.O. Box 7593, Glasgow, Tor). Postadresse: IWW Berlin, c/o 8758. [email protected]. G42 2EX. www.iww.org.uk. 0800 Facebook: OrlandoIWW gmail.com Bremerton: Gordon Glick, del., Red Lion Press - British Columbia, Rotes Antiquariat, Rungestr. 20, [email protected] Canada: [email protected] 998 9149 10179 Berlin, Germany. berlin@ South Florida GMB: P.O. Box 370457, Nebraska ERA Organisation Contacts wobblies.org 33137. 305-894-6515. miami@iww. Nebraska GMB: P.O. Box 27811, Olympia: [email protected]. Sweet Patches Screenprinting: org, http://iwwmiami.wordpress. Dylan Brooks, del., x37pegasus@ [email protected] Access Facilitator: Sue Fortune, Bremen: [email protected]. Ralston, 68127. nebraskagmb@iww. riseup.net [email protected] com. Facebook: Miami IWW org. www.nebraskaiww.org Worth’s Lawn Care and More: 2 www.iww-bremen.org Seattle GMB: 1122 E. Pike #1142 Central England Organiser: Russ Tallahassee: www.facebook.com/ Nevada Sandalwood Dr., Davenport, FL. Cologne/Koeln GMB: c/o IwwTallahassee 98122-3934. 206-429-5285. [email protected] Spring, [email protected] Allerweltshaus, Koernerstr. 77-79, Reno GMB: P.O. Box 12173, 89510. [email protected]. Jess Grant, Communications Department, 50823 Koeln, Germany. cologne1@ Georgia Paul Lenart, del., 775-513-7523, del., [email protected] IWW Branches & Chair - Xav Bear, communications@ wobblies.org. www.iwwcologne. Atlanta GMB: P.O. Box 5390, 31107. [email protected] Spokane: P.O. Box 30222, 99223. iww.org.uk wordpress.com 678-964-5169, [email protected], IU 520 Railroad Workers: Ron [email protected] Local/Regional Contacts www.atliww.org Cymru/Wales Organiser: Peter Frankfurt a.M. GMB: Frankfurt@ Kaminkow, del., P.O. Box 2131, Whatcom-Skagit GMB: skagitiww@ Asia Davies, [email protected] wobblies.org. http://Frankfurt. Idaho Reno, 89505. 608-358-5771. gmail.com, IWWBellingham@gmail. Taiwan East of Scotland Organiser: Carol Wobblies.org Boise: Ritchie Eppink, del., P.O. Box [email protected] com. www.bellinghamiww.com. Taiwan IWW: c/o David Temple, Ince, [email protected] Hamburg-Waterkant: hamburg@ 453, 83701. 208-371-9752, eppink@ New Jersey Facebook: Whatcom-Skagit IWW. 4 Floor, No. 3, Ln. 67, Shujing St., Legal Officer: Guy Mitchel, Legal@ wobblies.org gmail.com Central New Jersey GMB: P.O. Box Wisconsin Beitun Dist., Taichung City 40641 iww.org.uk Kassel: Rothe Ecke, Naumburger Str. Illinois 10021, New Brunswick, 08906. 732- Madison GMB: P.O. Box 2442, 53701- Taiwan. 098-937-7029. taIW- London Regional Organiser: Tawa- 20a, 34127 Kassel. kontakt@wobblies- Chicago: Christopher Preciado, 692-3491. [email protected]. 2442. www.madison.iww.org [email protected] nda Nyabango kassel.de. www.wobblies-kassel.de del., 470-326-6531. X363823@ Bob Ratynski, del., 908-285-5426. www.newjerseyiww.org Madison Infoshop (I.U. 620): c/o Australia Membership Administrator: Philip Leipzig: [email protected] gmail.com Rainbow Bookstore, 426 W. Gilman, New South Wales LeMarque, [email protected] Munich: [email protected] Indiana New Mexico 53703. 608-260-0900. madinfos- Sydney GMB: IWW-Sydney-gmb@ Merchandise Committee: merchan- Rostock: iww-rostock@systemausfall. Michiana GMB: Brad Laird, del., 574- Albuquerque GMB: [email protected] hop.wordpress.com/ iww.org.au. [email protected] org. iwwrostock.blogsport.eu 245-0605, [email protected] New York Milwaukee GMB: P.O. Box 342294,

3 IWW DIRECTORY Contents One Hundred Years Readers’ Soapbox, an NLRB win for Grassroots Campaign Inc. in Ann Arbor, and RWU remembers the Lac- 4–5 Megantic disaster four years ago

Western Regional Organizing Assem- bly, community and workplace orga- nizing, General Defense Committee, 6–9 and a tactical choice for the IWW

It’s one hundred years since over a thousand men were rounded up and transported away from their jobs and 10–13 homes in Bisbee, Arizona

Changes and developments in IWW’s political culture in its first 20 years, examined and discussed by a Madrid 16–17 University student

The Voice of Revolutionary Industrial Worker Editor & Designer: ISSN 0019-8870 Roberta McNair [email protected] Periodicals postage paid Chicago, IL. Editorial Assistance: Gordon Glick Postmaster: Send address changes to IW, P.O. Box 180195, Chicago, IL 60618 USA Cover Photo: Photograph scan created by Arizona Historical Society. Striking miners Subscriptions and others rounded up by the armed posse on Electronic subscription for IWW members: Free July 12, 1917, sit in the bleachers in Warren Official periodical of the Annual print subscription rate: Ballpark. Armed members of the posse patrol • U.S. IWW Members: $16 USD Industrial Workers of the World the infield. Post Office Box 180195 • Regular U.S. Subscriptions: $20 USD • ALL International Subscriptions: $28 USD Chicago, IL 60618 USA Printer: (773) 728-0996 • [email protected] Sommers and Fahrenbach, Inc. Annual bundle subscription of 5 copies (20 total): www.iww.org Chicago, IL • U.S. Subscriptions: $60 USD • International Subscriptions: $80 USD IWW General Secretary-Treasurer: Next Submission Deadline: September 20, 2017 Arella Vargas Published quarterly in the winter, spring, summer, and fall. U.S. IW Mailing Address: IWW General Executive Board: Industrial Worker Articles not so designated do not reflect the IWW’s Michael MoonDog Garcia, Anthony Post Office Box 180195, official position. Kaled, Marianne LeNabat, Brandon S. Chicago, IL 60618 Press Date: July 25, 2017

Industrial Worker • Summer 2017 4 Industrial Worker • Summer 2017 less of the validity of the protest. enough, but that is too vague for the purposes for the works of worker actions and for IWW specifically. DJ Alperovitz With IWW membership growing so rapidly, I think it is important for IWW publications to I was really confounded by the ‘Coat- use consistent messaging and to be thoroughly Hanger Direct Action’ article in the last versed in IWW practice and policy, so that’s IW. That was not direct action, no matter why I’m writing. Wobblies should know what how described by the well-meaning author. they mean when they say ‘direct action’. Please It was a political protest. Yes, it did help be more careful with how terms are used. Regarding the article on Direct Action get results but they were legislative, not Actions speak louder than words, but words in the [May Day] issue of the Industrial economic. In IWW we use ‘direct action’ also speak, particularly when we control our Worker I would like to take exception to the to refer to actions taken directly against own press. author’s definition. the boss to assert worker control in the For the OBU, Direct action as seen by [our] union workplace and gain improved conditions x331980 can be defined as the use of any tool, tactic on the job. We should never use the term or strategy that workers can control them- to refer to political protest directed at Dear Fellow Workers: selves. It means using tactics which directly legislation; that only waters down our mes- President Harry S. Truman proposed address the issue. It is straight forward and sage and our own usage. IWW produces National Health Insurance in 1945, plus giv- simple. It succeeds or fails according to how a pamphlet called “Direct Action” and it ing adequate medical facilities throughout the good the idea is, how forcefully it is applied, makes no reference to political protests, country, including rural areas and so-called and how appropriate it is to the situation. only to work-to-rule, slowdowns, quickie disadvantaged areas in our cities. Addition- Voting for candidates who promise to strikes, sick-ins, etc. Our ally he wrote about “Safe water systems, fix problems is not direct action. To strike, booklet discusses Direct Action specifically sewage disposal plants and sanitary facili- to slow down, to sit down on the job are as economic. I have never heard the term ties” throughout the nation. Not only do we direct actions. To walk the picket line with used in any IWW publication to refer to not have that, but Flint, Michigan has had a a fellow worker from a different trade, from anything else. Others may use the term in crisis of unsafe and unhealthy water due to a a different shop, from a different nation is different ways to include marches, hanging terrible “Emergency Manager” law and false direct action. To symbolically protest by signs on fences, or political occupations. economy. And the nation has put up [with it] hanging signs on coat-hangers on a fence in Martin Luther King famously used it to for a long time. hopes that it will build support or sympathy refer to a situation where a crisis was cre- In solidarity, for a cause is in no way direct action regard- ated in order to demand a response. Fair Raymond S. Solomon IW GCI NLRB win June 4, 2017 Fellow Workers, On behalf of the Ypsilanti GMB, I am proud to announce the NLRB election win that they are enjoying as of Friday against Grassroots Campaigns Inc. (GCI). Their election victory today means that the IWW now has another federally recognized union shop! I wish to wholeheartedly congratulate the fellow workers at GCI and in Ypsilanti on their stunning success! Their victory is representative of what we can do when we stand in solidarity with one an- other. For the Growth and Prosperity of the One Big Union, Derek Milbocker Branch Secretary-Treasurer IWW Detroit GMB

5 An open letter to our allies in the fight for safe rails and a sus- tainable environment July 6th marked four years since a run- is still not the case. Railroad policymakers in Quebec. away train carrying volatile Bakken crude are still cutting corners and government Whether your main issue is the envi- crashed and burned in the small town of regulators are still looking the other way. ronment, community safety, rail safety, Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, kill- or workers’ rights, it comes down to ing 47 and destroying half the stronger government regulations and town. It’s time to recommit to stronger railroad safety policies, with making sure tragedies like this real community and labor enforce- don’t happen again. It’s also the ment. The two railroad workers were right time to speak up against not the cause of the Lac-Mégantic the criminal trial beginning in crash or any of the runaway trains early September this year, that since then. They are not the ones unfairly and inaccurately hangs still running trains right through the Lac-Mégantic crash on two the town of Lac-Mégantic, ignor- railroad workers. ing the demands of the survivors Some of us focus on how for a simple rail bypass. The people dangerous this kind of cargo is. in Lac-Mégantic know that sending Trains carrying volatile crude Harding and Labrie to prison won’t are called “bomb trains” for a address any of their problems with reason. Some of us focus more the railroad. But if that happens, you on rail safety, no matter what can bet the government will close or who is on the train. We push the book as the official verdict on for safer work schedules and big Lac-Mégantic and railroad manage- enough train crews to handle an ment will be standing there with unusual situation or an emer- them. gency. Railroad managers push Railroad Workers United marked hard to squeeze every dollar the Lac-Mégantic anniversary wher- they can out of every train run. ever we were. We stood in solidarity The Lac-Mégantic train had a with the people of Lac-Mégantic like dangerous cargo, a single crew- we have for four years, and talked member, and work rules that about rail safety. That’s who we are. cut the margin of safety down And we made sure to point out that to just about zero. The result was a disaster They want people to believe that the big scapegoating two railroad workers for this that still impacts the Lac-Mégantic com- safety problem is a few careless railroad tragedy will make railroads and communi- munity. workers. ties across the continent less safe. You’d expect railroaders to point the Even after all the reports and exposes, We hope that when you held public finger at management. But we’re not the the Canadian and Quebec governments commemorations this year, you made only ones. Multiple government safety are still not going after the railroad policy this point your way. Blaming Harding investigations and independent journalists makers and their unsafe policies. In- and Labrie for the Lac-Mégantic tragedy looked at what happened in Lac-Mégantic stead railroad workers Tom Harding and weakens all of us and all our causes. So all and came to the same conclusion. Rail- Richard Labrie will be on trial this fall of us have to speak up. road management policies made this kind in Quebec. The managers who made the Justice for Lac-Mégantic requires of runaway train crash likely to happen critical policies will not even get a slap on dropping the charges against Harding and sooner or later. Lax government oversight the wrist. That’s just wrong, and it guaran- Labrie. looked the other way until it did. tees that the danger continues. Every year Railroad Workers United You would think that four years later since the crash, the number of reported Solidarity | Unity | Democracy there would be stronger safety regulations runaway trains in Canada has increased. The Rank & File in Action! on every railroad, with extra layers of That’s a sign of a reckless culture, not the railroadworkersunited.org protection for dangerous cargo. Sadly, this actions of two railroad workers one night [email protected] IW

Industrial Worker • Summer 2017 6 Industrial Worker • Summer 2017 Western Wobs gather for Regional Organizing Assembly By x331980 paigns, such as United Campaign Workers OT instructors in the region. FWs Dylan Nearly thirty IWW members met in and others in the region. The talk included and Tuck shared brief histories of the ori- Olympia Washington over the Memo- a workshop based on details of actual hot gin and activities of fast-growing branches rial Day weekend for the biannual West shop calls received by Portland IWW; we in Olympia and Whatcom-Skagit. They Coast Regional Organizing Assembly all role-played responses to such out-of- described what has worked—and not (ROA). Members came from branches the-blue calls for assistance. Fellow Work- worked—to build better General Member- at Vancouver Island, Whatcom-Skagit, ers Ash and Alex told us of work by Port- ship Branches, gain members, and initiate Seattle, Olympia, Portland, and Las Vegas land IWW’s on behalf of the Incarcerated campaigns there. for presentations and discussion on IWW Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC). Fellowship and solidarity were a big organizing campaigns. The presentation A very knowledgeable and thoughtful talk part of the assembly. There was plenty of by young women workers from IWW’s on the “sword” vs. “shield” aspects of US time for IWWs to meet members from Burgerville Workers Union inspired all and labor law by FW Luis was among the high other places and make connections for the applause was long and loud. We posed points of the weekend. coordinated organizing and outreach proj- for a solidarity photo to encourage the We heard an orientation to the IWW’s ects, or to just get acquainted. The revolu- BVWU campaign. Organizer Training 101 from FW Greg tion is personal, and such contacts make Another enlightening presentation told and learned that several IWWs are attend- IWW’s member democracy much stronger. of lessons learned from hot shop cam- ing Training for Trainers in the Twin Cities The next West Coast ROA will be in later this summer, swelling the number of 2019. IW

Wobblies at the Regional Organizing Assembly in Olympia, WA Community organizing versus workplace organizing By Austin Biddle nity solidarity that we can influence local conditions in which community organiz- There seems to be a dispute aris- politics and create a more working class- ing will be easy or even possible. There- ing about exactly how the IWW should friendly community. This will undoubtedly fore in situations like this it may be more organize, either community organizing or have a positive impact on local workplaces logical to focus on organizing workplaces workplace organizing. I do not think these as the solidarity will spill over into the of the local people. This will have the same two things are mutually exclusive; I think workplace. If it is not a union shop, it effect as community organizing in that the one can be done without compromising will be much easier to then organize that solidarity of the workers will spill out into the other. For instance, my hometown of workplace, as the foundation of solidarity the community, and then it will be much about 5,000 people is an economically is already engrained within the people. easier to organize that community. The depressed town where there is an opiod, This approach may not suit all com- foundation of solidarity has already been epidemic and crime is on the rise. The munities, however. More affluent com- built in the workplace. conditions are such that I can organize the munities where the economy is good and Currently I am organizing my old community and build up enough commu- generally things are good overall are not Continued on page 9

7 One organizer’s perspective on what drew them to the General Defense Committee By x382089 amazing work. and show that divisive attacks on working The election of Donald Trump was a I came to appreciate what the GDC people can lead to a common catastrophe shock for me. I had visions of state power was doing more over time. The barrier that that only a united front across the working accelerating its assault against immigrants, confronts the working class isn’t simply class can counter. of police violence escalating, and of an capitalism; it is a white-supremacist, Assaults on working people are already emboldened far right attacking people on imperialist, hetero-normative, patriarchal escalating. In Olympia, Washington, where the streets. capitalism. It confronts us in the work- I live, we recently have seen Nazi skinhead I have been organizing with the IWW place, but also on the streets of our towns organizing, vicious attacks on trans people, for some time. I was drawn to the union and cities, in prisons, and in cultural and a racially motivated knife attack against because of its long history and its ap- political institutions. The working class an interracial couple, an attempt to run proach to class struggle. The militant isn’t a unitary identity: It is divided by fis- over two black youths, the shooting of labor-based radicalism appealed to me. two young black men by police over an I liked that the union was nonsectarian, attempt to steal a 12-pack of beer, and and it had a historic affinity with anti- multiple demonstrations organized by authoritarianism, anti-oppression, direct the far right and attended by right-wing action, and direct democracy. I also felt militia members, white supremacists, and that the left needed structured, dues-and- bikers. On Inauguration Day in nearby membership-based organizations in order Seattle, we saw the shooting of an IWW to develop and maintain its members’ and GDC member by a Trump supporter. skills and build power from one fight to We can’t depend on the police or the legal the next. system to defend us; the state is not neu- After the election I wanted to pre- tral. The only sane response is to organize pare for a right-wing onslaught. I’d been for the defense of the working class. thinking about the need for community The GDC approach to the rising tide defense-based organizations for a while, of right-wing violence and fascism has but suddenly it seemed urgent. I wanted been mass-oriented anti-fascism. This to work towards building a group that doesn’t mean dressing like a ninja and could help our region be prepared for punching Nazis (though most of us in the what I feared was coming. I wanted that GDC appreciate and approve of a good group to be situated within the IWW to Nazi-punching). The GDC as an orga- build on the strengths that drew me to nization doesn’t take that approach. We the union. Fortunately, the model to do also think there are limits to what can be that already existed. achieved by an elite vanguard carrying out At convention in 2016 I had been technical operations against their coun- impressed with the report of the General terparts on the other side. Those fights Defense Committee (GDC). Fellow work- sures that the ruling class has always used are often vital, but we believe that major ers, starting in the Twin Cities, had been to divide us. The IWW has always under- victories depend on working people find- building the sort of organization I wanted stood this, shown by the union’s historic ing their own power en masse and begin- to see in the Pacific Northwest: A diverse efforts to organize the working class and its ning to build a new world in the shell of group of people—members of the Incar- insistence that this include women, people the old. We organize, we work in solidarity cerated Workers’ Organizing Committee, of color, immigrants, and all other workers with the goals of oppressed people, we the African People’s Caucus, and veterans together right from the outset. build capacity to help provide security for of Anti-Racist Action—was taking the We can’t stand aside in the face of targeted communities, we gather intelli- IWW’s working-class organizing outside the worst attacks on the most vulnerable gence, and we work to share the skills and the shop. People of color and white radicals members of the working class because they lessons we have learned widely. were coming together in one group, united are perpetrated on the streets or in bars and What I would most like to see my fel- by common politics. They were taking a alleys instead of on the job. For an orga- low workers take away is the value of the holistic approach to resisting the spectrum nization as heterogeneous as the IWW to work the GDC is doing for the work- of oppression that the owning class brings have credibility among all working people, ing class and the union. I encourage you to bear on the rest of us, not only with we have to be involved in struggles that strongly to support the GDC. Become a anti-fascist and anti-police violence orga- inordinately impact the most marginalized member. Form a local, if you don’t already nizing, but also with harm reduction-based workers. If we show up for these fights, we have one where you are. Then organize and drug-user support and sexual violence-sur- earn respect and our strengths are given an fight back! IW vivor solidarity. They were organized, they opportunity to shine. It allows us to high- were growing rapidly, and they were doing light how far-right agendas are dangerous

Industrial Worker • Summer 2017 8 Industrial Worker • Summer 2017 Revolutionary unionism or white workerism: The choice facing the IWW By Brandon S. and Natalia R. color to describe the ways that the “offi- Without an Immigrant,” which brought One hundred years ago, on August 1, cial” feminist movement focuses primarily May Day back to the US, and which most 1917, was lynched while orga- on the needs of straight, cis, upper-class business unions eventually joined. Very nizing copper miners in Butte, Montana. women, to the exclusion of other women.) recently, we saw it with the reaction to Just one week earlier, at a General Execu- We say that our mission is to build a revo- the racist murders in Portland, with the tive Board meeting in Chicago, he was the lutionary movement of the entire working transit drivers’ union explicitly opposing lone voice calling for the IWW to oppose class. We can’t do that if we fail on race, the mayor’s call to increase police presence conscription for World War I, in line with gender, or other oppressions that involve on the trains. It is impossible to imagine the 1916 Convention’s anti-war resolu- non-workplace struggles. This is an urgent, any union taking such a powerful anti-cop tion. The rest of the Board refused out of life-or-death situation for the union. line before the Ferguson rebellion. (When fear of repression, and saying that they It is crucial for us to link together Oscar Grant and Philando Castile were should keep focusing on workplace activ- struggles against racism, sexism, and class murdered, neither of their unions did any- ity. Frank’s last letter before his murder was exploitation and oppression. It’s not about thing, because they have entirely limited to “Big” , the GEB Chair, figuring out how to “add” anti-racism and their scope of action to the workplace.) urging him to have the GEB come out anti-sexism to an otherwise awesome pro- The Twin Cities IWW and General against conscription. As Frank predicted, gram that is totally focused on the work- Defense Committee (GDC) in recent years the repression came anyways, and Big Bill place. It’s about figuring out how to find have built a powerful living example of died in exile in Russia. the intersections of those struggles from holistic revolutionary unionism. Their par- We are seeing history repeat itself in the start. (I will come back to this point.) ticipation in Occupy attracted many folks bizarre, pathetic miniature. As a union, This isn’t just about a few individu- who wanted to organize at work. Some of we haven’t adequately acknowledged the als. This is about an overall culture within them got jobs at UPS and tried to agitate reality of increasing state repression and the union that often elevates a “worker- around “traditional” workplace issues a growing, violent far-right. We haven’t ist” identity politics, and a narrow focus like poverty wages, abusive managers, or acknowledged the growing possibilities on “pure” workplace organizing, over a dangerous working conditions. Their co- for the IWW to expand as people are at- coherent, holistic revolutionary union- workers basically ignored them. In 2014, tracted to our model: The recent spike in ist program. We won’t solve this just by when the struggle exploded in Ferguson, membership is dismissively referred to as dealing with a few individuals and going they discussed stopping police shipments a “Trump bump.” We barely responded back to “how it was.” We need to examine to Ferguson, and this immediately gener- to the attempted political murder of one where this economism comes from, and ated a ton of excitement, leading to the of our members in Seattle, or to the mass then develop a revolutionary program that infamous “Hands Up, Don’t Ship” action. arrest and felony charges of many of our will make us relevant to the entire working As they said, “We want to put forward members at the protest of Donald Trump’s class. a simple idea: We shouldn’t be forced to inauguration. More recently, we had noth- CLR James has a great perspective on contribute to racism, brutality, or murder ing to say or do after the racist murders in the way that independent struggles can in order to pay our rent.” This created a Portland, despite the Ferguson solidarity and do reinforce each other. To paraphrase positive feedback loop, where they success- motion from our 2014 Convention that him, the independent black movement has fully fought several firings, created more commits us to organizing against white its own validity and vitality, it has deep his- high-paid jobs in their building than came supremacy. The IWW has an incredible toric roots in the US, it can intervene with from the ‘97 strike, and confronted sexism, opportunity to grow and to make itself rel- terrific force on the nation without need- homophobia, and transphobia among their evant in this moment, but we are stuck at ing to be led by the labor movement, it can co-workers (which they wrote about in You an impasse and seem paralyzed. How did exercise a powerful influence on the wider better work: Queer/trans*/feminist worker we get here, and how can we get beyond it? working class, and it is in itself a con- stories.) The same tension between narrow stituent part of the struggle for socialism. “Hands Up, Don’t Ship” contributed economism and revolutionary unionism Describing a 1943 rebellion in Detroit, to the formation of the African People’s that we faced in 1917 is still with us, and he writes: “the struggle which began by Caucus (APC) in the Twin Cities branch. in many respects our vision of “the work- Negro militants in the Negro community When Jamar Clark was murdered by Min- ing class” hasn’t changed since then. Many fighting purely for Negro rights ... resulted neapolis police in 2015, and an occupation working class people don’t see a relevance ultimately in—let us put it mildly—the began in front of the police station, the in our model, and that fault lies with us, beginnings of an alliance, a political alli- Twin Cities IWW, GDC, and APC par- not with them. Specifically, we fail to ance between the Negro community and ticipated very heavily. Their commitment engage with struggles related to race and the organized labor movement in Detroit.” during this occupation seems to have been gender, especially when they happen out- According to James, the independent a watershed moment for the branch. The side the workplace. The tension between black struggle at the time brought the labor branch had begun to make itself relevant revolutionary unionism and economism is movement along behind it. These struggles to the struggles and oppressions that many really a tension between a holistic revo- intersected and mutually reinforced each working class people of color experience lutionary unionism and white worker- other, and it wasn’t just a case of “the outside of the workplace. Recently, the ism. (I am adapting the concept of white class struggle” coming first. We’ve seen APC, GDC, and the IWW’s education feminism, a term often used by women of this more recently with the 2005 “Day workers committee (Social Justice Educa-

9 tion Movement or SJEM) successfully in North America that teaches workers basing themselves on holistic revolution- worked together to prevent construction of how to fight at work without relying on a ary unionism have seen a surge of new a youth prison. SJEM has also recently suc- reformist business union. That is incredibly workplace campaigns. We saw in the Twin cessfully reversed racist firings in schools important, but it can’t be everything. Our Cities that the experience with workplace through mass action involving education implicit idea of the “average” worker is pickets and at UPS prepared the branch workers as well as the community. wrong and exclusionary. It envisions some- to engage with movement against police Instead of learning from the Twin Cit- one without any struggles outside of their terrorism, and that years of radical organiz- ies, a vocal group of members have tried workplace, nor having to deal with sexism, ing among education workers prepared to minimize this development, arguing racism, homophobia, or ableism in their them to organize against the construction that anything being done outside of strict workplace. In short, we have assumed the of the youth prison, both of which then workplace organizing is a “distraction,” or “average” worker to be a white, able-bodied reinforced possibilities for workplace orga- that “it’s not IWW work.” This has become straight male US citizen with a job and no nizing. The workplace and non-workplace especially common since Trump’s election, kids. We’ll only move past this by recogniz- organizing are both independently im- as many branches and GDC locals have ing and confronting it. portant, but together they have mutually found new relevance in the Twin Cities Ironically, white workerism has hit a reinforced each other and led to a wider model. wall in its ability to find relevance for the and wider arena for struggle in the Twin The IWW is the only organization IWW model at work, while the branches Cities. This has also begun to happen in Raleigh-Durham and other cities. This is an exciting thing for all of us to see and support. One of this article’s au- thors was skeptical about the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC) and the GDC until eight months ago but realized they were wrong. The explosive growth that they are enabling as they make the IWW relevant to very different groups of workers from the ones we have appealed to in the past deserves to be recognized, celebrated, and encouraged. There are two choices facing us right now: We can continue to cling to a narrow vision, close our eyes to what is happen- ing around us, and languish in obscurity, as any future working-class rebellions leave us in the dust. Or, we can embrace a holistic revolutionary unionism, and form a meaningful part of a creative, militant, and rebellious class-wide movement that simultaneously challenges all oppressions and prepares for a post-capitalist society. Photo by Daniel Hosterman Daniel by Photo If we’re serious about growing and be- June 10, 2017, Raleigh, NC, United Against Islamaphobia and Racism Rally. Organized by coming relevant to the entire working class, Movement to End Racism and Islamophobia, NC Asian Americans Together, and Muslims for it’s way past time to confront, cast out, and Social Justice, who asked IWW and Redneck Revolt to help organize/lead the mass demo. finally abandon white workerism. IW

Continued from page 6 conditions that make organizing a possibil- because they have a need for it. The IWW hometown, which is a far different place ity, then the organizer should focus on the can fulfill this need. than when I lived there as a child. I am workplace, which almost always meets the Essentially we should be doing both organizing workplaces there and in my conditions required for organization. but be doing them in a productive man- current city of Toledo. I plan on organiz- I would likely never go into an afflu- ner and not spending time exclusively on ing both the workplace and my commu- ent community and try to convince them one or the other. Let your organizing never nity and am working with others in this that they need organizing or to join the cease; no matter where you go you should process. I think it is a bit short sighted to IWW. What need do they have to orga- be organizing and educating people. But focus on one or the other, as both can be nize if they are well off? What need can be cautious in that you could be spending done simultaneously. Sure, it requires a the IWW fulfill if they already have good time on something that will never come lot of work, but that is our job as organiz- paying jobs and the community is working to fruition. There are people, for instance, ers. While we may work tirelessly, at the well for them? In that case, I would focus that choose to be willfully ignorant and same time we must be wise in our work on workplaces first before approaching the no matter what you say they will not hear so we aren’t wasting valuable time. If the community. When the community is in you. IW intended community does not meet the bad condition, it is far easier to organize

Industrial Worker • Summer 2017 10 Industrial Worker • Summer 2017 The of undesirables included political radicals, ing the week of July 12, 2017, in Bisbee, The Undesirables anarchists, paupers, and contract laborers. Arizona, in the gallery of Central School What beliefs about the Wobblies and their Project. I am doing rubbings of a 1917 In the dawn hours of July 12, 1917 in social and political views made it possible penny 1,196 times—one for each man de- Bisbee, Arizona, two major mining com- for a group of citizens to disregard consti- ported—now each with their own square panies and the Sheriff armed roughly tutional law and act on the and named. This action is referencing the a thousand citizens known copper industry’s rubbings of gravestones as a commemora- as the Loyalty League. behalf to tive act. Most of the deported moved on They rounded up remove to find work elsewhere. This is my labori- 1,196 striking “unde- ous memorial to them. All will be part of miners at sir- the installation. The event will include the gunpoint, presentation of a fabricated penny smasher marched machine, the exhibition of my artwork, them to printed matter, and a performance that the town includes projections and sound art.” baseball The penny machine is the mechani- park four cal and conceptual heart of the project. miles away, ables” These vending machines known as penny loaded them from presses are located at the sites of tourist onto cattle cars, their attractions (there are two in Bisbee). They and banished them homes? flatten pennies and imprint them with im- to the desert of New Conceptual ages commemorating historical moments, Mexico. They were accused of and performance artist industries, or locations. being subversive, anti-American Industrial Laurie McKenna’s interpretation of the “I am appropriating this machine to Workers of the World (IWW) or Wob- historic event known as the Bisbee Depor- subvert its mainstream intentions,” said blies. Possible motivation seems to hinge tation, which was a criminal act against McKenna. “It will on the climate of fear WWI was creating workers and citizens by copper vend four and corporate concerns companies, local law, and a distinct surrounding strikes, group of men known as em- production, and the Loyalty League, labor. asks, “Where are The use of we politi- the term “de- cally and portation” socially, creates the 100 impres- years sion later?” that this “The was an Unde- immi- sirables” is gration McKenna’s event, creative inter- boss- but the pretation of the ments of Federal Bisbee deportation. She my design. Most Govern- has studied and considered: machines create a souvenir that carries ment Wobblies, corporate power, little meaning. I am creating designs that had xenophobia, propaganda, labor, are counter to bland memorialization.” nothing fear mongering, and the sup- The exhibition includes penny rub- to do with pression of leftist political parties. bings of a 1917 penny for each deported this ac- The work-in-progress art installa- man and a custom-built penny press tion. People tion is guided by the IWW slogan vending machine that has four designs were not THINK IT OVER. This art project commemorating the deported: the Un- removed from commenced in April 2015, with a desirables themselves, radical labor lead- the country; they research-phase drawing and guerilla art- ers the Magón brothers; Rosa McKay, a were removed and flyer posting. left-wing state legislator of Arizona; and banished from their McKenna explained, “In early 2016, I the IWW’s Preamble. Also included is her homes in Bisbee, Arizona. The Federal Im- did an art action of rubbing a 1917 penny curated series of pamphlets, sound art, and migration Act of 1917 broadened immi- in a gallery setting. The penny rubbing is text-based artwork. “The Undesirables” gration restrictions against certain groups the endurance part of this project, and the includes a gallery talk, which McKenna that were deemed “undesirable.” The list results will be part of my installation dur- has named the Gallery Rally. IW

11 Thursday July 12, 1917 use of the public, was closed to the strik- had no instructions other than those his Article written for ers. There were many among them that own free conscience gave. So he said the Appeal to Reason had contributed. That being the only night previous to a friend, when he learned (Girard, Kansas) place where they could hold their public of the raid that was to take place, that “if meetings, it hurt, of course, but they took they came after him they would have to By Mrs. Rosa McKay, Member Ari- it calmly and good naturedly and many take him dead,” for he had committed no zona House of Representatives remarked that perhaps it was for the best. crime, violated no laws and he did not care Published by Julius A. Wayland, Sat., Aug. On the following morning a posse to be disturbed. He must have meant what 18, 1917 organized by the sheriff Harry Wheeler he said, for that fatal morning, when the For fourteen years I have claimed of Cochise County, and composed of in deputy walked up to the steps of his door Bisbee as my home. But after Thursday the the neighborhood of a thousand men, and knocked, he asked who was there. He twelfth of July, I hang my head in shame the majority of the business men of the was told it was an officer of the law, who and sorrow for the sights I have witnessed district and the “Workmen’s Loyalty wanted him. He asked if he had a war- here. When the full truth about Bisbee League” which comprised all the men that rant and what the charge was. He was told reaches the outside world, it will be looked remained loyal to the companies, invaded there was no warrant and that none was upon with deserved aversion. the entire district, armed with guns of all necessary, and if he did not come right out In this article I shall give an honest sizes and descriptions. Some had clubs. Ev- he would be dragged out. His reply was a and unbiased statement, from the fair and ery man who was known to be, or who de- bullet in the officer’s face. As he stepped impartial standpoint, of the labor situa- clared himself to be a striker or strike sym- out on the porch to see who the man was tion in Bisbee today. I belong to no labor pathizer, was taken peaceably or by force, that was intruding upon his rights, another organization or mining corporation. I am and marched down, at the deputy stood in the yard nearby and shot merely an onlooker and a spectator, and a point of a gun, to him through the heart, thereby doubling firm believer in the constitutional rights of Warren, where the tragedy. ... all American citizens, whether by birth or they were For the first time in my residence in naturalization, the rights that our forefa- in- terned Arizona I was insulted by some of those thers fought, bled and died for. at the ball- gunmen, I also saw a man wearing a star On June 27 of this year the Industrial park and a strike a woman in the chest, and there were Workers of the World declared a strike little later other such cases, from all I can learn. here, and the majority of the workers of load- ed On visiting Columbus, New Mexico, the district responded. It is claimed by the in box where the deported men were in camp, union officials that eighty percent answered cars like a week later, I called on one of the mili- the call, while the companies, through the cat- tle, tary officers in charge and asked him if press, conceded thirty percent. However, and sent he would give me some information that that matters but little; the fact is that the out to I was looking for. The information that I companies were crippled, one shutting Co- lum- was seeking was to find out definitely the down entirely, and the production of the bus, New correct and exact number of married men, copper was curtailed to a great extent. Mexico. etc., and he furnished me with the follow- It was admitted by hundreds of men Two lives ing: that I talked to personally, that the de- were sacrificed. Married Men ______433 mands off the strikers were very reason- One of the men killed Men with Children ______309 able, and that the men asked for nothing was a company employee, and Registered for the Draft ______472 that they were not entitled to, being the a member of the sheriff’s posse. The other Paid up Liberty Bonds ______205 abolishment of the sliding scale, the medi- man who forfeited his life was a peaceful Membership for the Red Cross _____ 520 cal examination, and a flat daily wage of law-abiding citizen, of an excellent char- Property Owners ______266 six dollars for eight hours. There were a acter and reputation. He was not member Naturalized Citizens ______468 few other demands of less importance, all of the I.W.W. but had come out on strike, Is the American government, that we for the betterment of conditions of all the because he believed that the demands the have loved and upheld since our birth, underground workers. boys were making were fair and reason- going to stand for such lawlessness and During the two weeks that elapsed able, and if he could not help their cause deportation? between the calling of the strike and the he would not deter it. Many other good, Will Uncle Sam investigate this mat- deportation, to my own knowledge and loyal American citizens, good workers, old ter and bring those responsible for these observation there were no acts of violence timers, property owners, taxpayers took the detestable and shameful acts to account? committed, and the law was abided by and same stand. Had this man belonged to the All these facts, upon investigation, can obeyed to the very utmost. The men all Industrial Workers of the World, this sad be substantiated by eyewitnesses; A federal seemed patient and cool and at all times tragedy would no doubt have been averted, investigation is surely in order. conducted themselves in a gentlemanly for their policy was law and order, and Appeal to Reason was a weekly left-wing news- manner. each member was instructed to offer no paper published in Girard, Kansas, from 1895 On the eleventh day of July, the city resistance, resort to no violence, no matter until 1922. From 1901 onwards, it was con- park, that was built with money contrib- what took place. sidered the bastion publication of the Socialist uted by the public and dedicated to the This man had not been counseled, he Party. IW

Industrial Worker • Summer 2017 12 Industrial Worker • Summer 2017 The brothers were harassed by private the request: Los Hermanos detectives in the pay of Mexican authori- The undersigned Deputies, animated ties and by U.S. officials; they and their by the desire of rendering posthumous Flores Magón associates endured deportation, extradi- homage to the grand Mexican revolu- Brothers Ricardo and Enrique Flores tion, and incarceration; and Regeneración tionary, Ricardo Flores Magón, martyr Magón were born in Oaxaca and educated was shut down again and again. In 1918, and apostle of libertarian ideas, who has in Mexico City, where they founded the Ricardo was tried and convicted for sedi- just died poor and blind in the cell of a newspaper Regeneración and the Mexican tion, sentenced to 20 years in Leavenworth Yankee prison, propose that this honor- Liberal Party (PLM) to agitate for the able Assembly pass the following reso- overthrow of President Porfirio Díaz. lution: That there be brought to rest Díaz, who ruled Mexico with an iron in the soil of his native land, at the fist from 1884 to 1911, had opened the expense of the Mexican Government, country to massive foreign investments, the mortal remains of Ricardo Flores particularly in mining and railroads. He Magón. We request that this be acted was called “the mother of foreigners and upon immediately without reference the stepmother of Mexicans.” Ricardo to committee. Flores Magón began as a reformer intent (Signed) Julian S. Gonzalez, Antonio on overthrowing the dictatorship, but G. Rivera, E. Baron Obregon, J. M. by 1910, when the Revolution began, he Alvarez Del Castillo, A. Diaz Sóro Y declared himself an anarchist—against Gama, and others. the state, the church, wage slavery, and Hall of the Mexican Congress, Mexico, property rights. D.F., November 22, 1922 The Flores Magón brothers were im- In 1945, Ricardo’s remains were prisoned in Mexico, then forced into ex- taken from his grave in Los Angeles ile in the U.S. in 1904, where they formed Penitentiary, Kansas, and died four years and repatriated. Lauded as a precursor of alliances with socialists and anarchists and later. Though the Mexican Chamber of the Revolution of 1910, his coffin was met resumed publication of Regeneración. Ri- Deputies adopted a resolution requesting at the border and escorted to Mexico City cardo became an organizer with the IWW. Ricardo’s corpse, U.S. authorities denied where he was given a state funeral. IW

went on strike. lantes even if they were not striking work- Mexicans and the Mexican miners on both sides of the ers. Later investigators gathering testimony Bisbee Deportation border raised the same demands: equality about the deportation failed to interview with non-Mexican workers, higher pay, any Mexicans. By Beth Henson and better conditions. Regeneración circu- When prospectors hit pay dirt in south- lated widely among these militant work- Bibliography: ern Arizona during the 1870s, Mexicans ers and many were members of the PLM, The Bisbee Deportation of 1917: A University had been doing hard-rock mining since the whose agents moved continually among of Arizona Web Exhibit (2005), at http://www. sixteenth century. Mexican miners crossed Arizona–Sonoran mining camps, including library.arizona.edu/exhibits/bisbee/history/ the border both ways in search of work. those in Bisbee. overview.html. Radical and anarchist ideas circulated easily U.S. labor unions excluded Mexican Rodolpho Acuña. Corridors of Migration: The as well, through the Mexican Liberal Party workers, weakening their own cause. Bis- Odyssey of Mexican Laborers, 1600–1933. Tuc- (PLM) led by the Flores Magón brothers bee was a “white man’s camp,” where Mexi- son: University of Arizona, 2007. and their newspaper, Regeneración. Doug- cans were kept from doing skilled under- Ward S. Albro. Always a Rebel: Ricardo Flores las, Arizona, was an important magonista ground work, no matter how experienced Magón and the Mexican Revolution. Fort Worth: center, with 300 members in its club “Lib- they were. Phelps Dodge & Co. practiced Texas Christian University Press, 1992. ertad.” The magonistas were anarchists and a dual-wage system, with a different hourly Katherine Benton-Cohen. Borderline Ameri- ignored the border—they recognized no rate for Mexicans and non-Mexicans, even cans: Racial Division and Labor in the Arizona government or national boundaries. for the same jobs. Living conditions were Borderlands. Cambridge: Harvard, 2009. Numerous incidents preceded the IWW also discriminatory. James W. Byrkit. Forging the Copper Collar: Ari- Deportation in Bisbee. In 1903, Mexican Unlike other unions, the Wobblies zona’s Labor Management War of 1901–1921. miners struck at the Clifton–Morenci mine championed the “unskilled” worker and Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1982. and were defeated by a torrential flood. In were truly internationalist. They had exten- John M. Hart. Anarchism and the Mexican Cananea in 1906, they struck for equality sive ties with the magonistas and engaged Working Class, 1860–1931. Austin: University with U.S. workers. That strike was sup- the first Mexican organizers in Bisbee. of Texas Press, 1978. pressed when the Sonoran governor called Many Bisbee Mexicans were veterans of Colin MacLachlan. Anarchism and the Mexican for help from U.S. volunteers, many of the 1906 strike in Cananea. One strike Revolution. Berkeley: University of California, them Arizona Rangers. In 1915, a seventy- demand was that above-ground wages be 1991. five percent Mexican workforce struck at doubled while underground rates be raised W. Dirk Raat. Revoltosos: Mexico’s Rebels in the the Clifton–Morenci Metcalf mine again, only 5%, abolishing the dual-wage system. United States, 1903–1923. College Station: this time winning substantial improve- But the strike was defeated. Even though Texas A&M, 1981. ments. In April 1917, labor resistance at only 13% of the deportees were Mexican Samuel Truett. Fugitive Landscapes: The Forgot- the Nacozari mine closed it temporarily. In workers, more than double that number of ten History of the U.S.–Mexico Borderlands. New June, workers at the nearby El Tigre mine Mexicans were deported, targeted by vigi- Haven: Yale University Press, 2006. IW

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answers the greeting. The apostle does not who, being among human swine, would The Apostle give up, and again says: keep himself very high, very pure, very By Ricardo Flores Magón “Comrades, the propagandist contin- white. Crossing fields, crossing highways, step- ues, the tyranny is swaying; strong men Bugs, buzzing, in and out of the mouth ping over the thorns, walking between the have taken arms to demolish it, and only of a sleeping old man. Men, visibly wor- rocky highlands, consumed by the raven- we hope that all of us, without exception, ried, were leaving, one by one; the women ously thirsty dryness in his mouth—that help in any manner we can those who fight had all left. Finally, the Delegate is left is how the Revolutionary Delegate goes on for freedom and justice.” alone with the old man who is sleeping his intended undertaking of persuading— The women away his drunkenness and a dog that furi- under the avenging sun, it seemed, dar- ously bites the flies that suck his coat. Not ingly hurling him with its fierce flames; but even a penny had come out from those sor- the Delegate does not stop; he does not did pockets, not even glass of water had want to waste a minute. From some been offered to that answering man, shacks come out rotten mean dogs, who, casting a compassionate look to chase him, as hostile as the mis- to that egoistic and stupid den, erable dwellers of those shacks, started to walk toward another laughing stupidly, ignoring the shack. When he passed in apostle, who brings them the front of a tavern, he could see good news. those miserable men he had The Delegate moves spoken to, drinking huge forward; he wants to get glasses of wine, giving the to that group of nice little bourgeoisie what they did houses close to the bottom of not give to the Revolution, the high mountain, where he clinching the chains of their has been told there are some children, with their indiffer- comrades. The heat of the sun ence and selfishness. is unbearable; hunger and thirst The news of the coming of debilitate him as much as the tir- the apostle had extended around ing walk; but his lucid mind has the the whole town, and, the alerted fresh idea as clear as the water from the dwellers closed their doors when the mountain, beautiful as a flower, where Delegate would approach. there is no place for the threat of the ty- Meanwhile, a man, who appeared to be rant. So is the idea: immune to oppression. a worker, came heaving towards the police The Delegate walks, walks. The -de yawn; the office. serted fields oppress his heart. How many men scratch their heads; a hen crosses be- “Sir,” said the man to the police officer, families could live in abundance if all this tween the group, followed by a rooster. “how much do you pay for handing over a land would not be controlled by a few “Friends”—continues the indefatigable revolutionary?” ambitious people! The Delegate follows his propagandist of the good news—“liberty “Twenty reales,” said the officer. way; a snake rattles under the dusty bush; requires sacrifices; your life is hard; you The dealing was done; Judas had low- the crickets fill the noisy rumor of the hot have no satisfaction; the future of your ered the tariff. Moments later, the man, ambient; a cow moos from afar. children is uncertain. Why are you indiffer- tied elbow to elbow, was pushed to jail. Finally, the Delegate arrives at the vil- ent before the abnegation of the ones who He fell, and as he kicked out, was lifted lage, where—he has been told—there are have thrown themselves into the struggle by the executioner, amongst the laughing, comrades. The dogs, alarmed, bark. From on behalf of your happiness, to free you, so drunken slaves. Some kids were enjoying the doors of the small houses, indifferent your little children would be happier than throwing handfuls of dirt into the eyes faces lean out. There is a group of men you? Help, help however you can, give part of the martyr, who was no other than the and women under a porch. The apostle of your salaries to promote the Revolu- apostle, the one that had crossed fields, approaches; the men see him and contract tion, or bear arms if you so prefer; but do traveled highways, over hawthorn, pebbly their eyebrows; the women see him with something for the cause, at least propagate land, dried, thirsty mouth devouring him, distrust. the ideals of the insurrection.” but with a lucid, clear mind, carrying with “Good afternoon, comrades,” says the The Delegate pauses. An eagle passes, him the idea of regeneration for the human Delegate. swaying in the clear sky, as if it could have race, by way of comfort and freedom. IW The group looks at each other. Nobody been a symbol of the thought of that man (From Regeneración, no. 19, January 7, 1911.)

Industrial Worker • Summer 2017 14 Industrial Worker • Summer 2017 Frank Little and the IWW: The Blood That Stained an American Family Franklin Henry Little (1878–1917), of Miners and the Industrial Workers of Botkin shows, Little and the IWW leader- an organizer for the Western Federation the World (IWW), fought in some of the ship faced their strongest opponent yet early twentieth century’s most as powerful copper magnates countered contentious labor and free speech union efforts with deep-laid networks of struggles. Following his lynch- spies and gunmen, an antilabor press, and ing in Butte, Montana, his life local vigilantes. and legacy became shrouded in For a time, Frank Little’s murder tragedy and family secrets. In became a rallying cry for the IWW. But Frank Little and the IWW, author after the United States entered the Great Jane Little Botkin chronicles her War and Congress passed the Sedition Act great-granduncle’s fascinating life (1918) to ensure support for the war effort, and reveals its connections to the many politicians and corporations used history of American labor and the act to target labor “radicals,” squelch the first Red Scare. dissent, and inspire vigilantism. Like other Beginning with Little’s child- wage-working families smeared with the hood in Missouri and territorial traitor label, the Little family endured Oklahoma, Botkin recounts his raids, arrests, and indictments in IWW evolution as a renowned orga- trials. nizer and agitator on behalf of Having scoured the West for firsthand workers in corporate agricul- sources in family, library, and museum ture, oil, logging, and mining. collections, Botkin melds the personal nar- Frank Little traveled the West rative of an American family with the story and Midwest to gather workers of labor movements that once shook the beneath the banner of the Wob- nation to the core. In doing so, she throws blies, making soapbox speeches into sharp relief the lingering consequences on city street corners, organizing of political repression. IW strikes, and writing polemics against unfair labor practices. Retired from a thirty-year teaching His brother and sister-in-law career in Texas public schools, Jane Little also joined the fight for labor, Botkin is an independent historian. but it was Frank who led the Frank Little and the IWW by Jane Little charge—and who was regularly Botkin is available from online booksell- threatened, incarcerated, and as- ers, in bookstores, and directly from the saulted for his efforts. In his final University of Oklahoma Press: 1 800 627 battles in Arizona and Montana, 7377 or www.oupress.com.

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15 Revolutionaries on Revolution By Raymond S. Solomon Part of the answer can be found in Republic, 1931–1939, when freedom of Three visionaries who tried to radically George Orwell’s writings, especially religion was finally restored, after centuries change the world—who aimed at end- Homage to Catalonia. In late 1936 and of inquisitional rule. Van Paassen pointed ing starvation, poverty, exploitation, and early 1937, in Red Barcelona, Orwell was out that many people in the heavily atheist war—were John Reed, George Orwell, enchanted by a society where “the work- province of Catalonia started to send their and Pierre van Paassen. Reed’s vision was ing class was in the saddle,” the factories children to the Calvinist schools. This new rooted in the Industrial Workers of the were taken over by workers, and militia Spanish Calvinist movement was noted in World, the Mexican revolution, the IWW- members and peasants on the Aragon the U.S. magazine Presbyterian Times. Van led strike in Patterson, New Jersey, and the front lived on the basis of equality. But the Paassen reported that as Franco’s fascist hopes of Russia’s revolutionary workers. only meaningful quantity of arms that the forces gained ground, many Protestants George Orwell had seen the beginnings of Spanish Loyalists had was from Soviet Rus- were executed. That is why van Paassen’s socialism in the Anarcho-Syndicalist revo- sia. And in stages, the revolutionary nature chapter on Spain is titled “L’Infame”— lution in Spain, and he wrote about far- of Spanish Loyalist society was curtailed, translated as “The Betrayal.” Christians reaching reforms needed in Britain and the because of the Communist demands to killing Christians was a betrayal. need for world-wide efforts to bring the postpone the revolution. Finally, in June Van Paassen, in this autobiography, standard of living of the world whose title Days of Our up to that of Britain. Pierre van Years (published in 1939) Paassen’s socialist vision was was taken from Psalm rooted in his Calvinist faith. 90 and elsewhere, wrote John Reed believed in the about the African slave IWW, as I wrote about in a trade, current during the previous article.1 This was 1930s; Mussolini’s brutal Reed’s predisposition when he war against Ethiopia and went to Revolutionary Russia Ethiopian Emperor Haile during the time of the provi- Selassie’s heroism in resist- sional governments in 1917, ing this outrage; the physi- after the abdication of the Czar cal beating of Leon Blum, in March 1917. In Ten Days France’s Popular Front That Shook the World, Reed Prime Minister, by Fascists; conveyed the hope, solidarity, and Hitler’s threat to the and the support of different very existence of Europe’s political parties that accompanied the Bol- of 1937, the POUM (Workers’ Party of Jews. Van Paassen felt this threat, because shevik revolution in November 1917. Ten Marxist Unification) was suppressed and in an early interview, he had looked into Days was read by many people who could its members were executed and jailed. Or- Hitler’s eyes, when the “evil one” was rant- feel what Reed observed. These people in- well, who was in the POUM militia, and ing against the Jews. He remembered the cluded Wobbly organizer Elizabeth Gurley his wife had to flee Spain. What happened Russian pogroms, all the Jewish refugees Flynn, Anarchists Emma Goldman and to POUM members was part of the purge in Holland from these pogroms during Alexander Berkman, and Lenin himself. campaign that was also happening in Rus- his youth, and the prayers of Holland’s But Russia today has hardly fulfilled sia. Great revolutionaries gave false confes- Kleine luyden (little people), “Calvinist John Reed’s hope. Under the Soviet gov- sions to collaborating with the Nazis. In shopkeepers and farmers,” on behalf of the ernment Russia had made great strides. 1961, the Soviet Union’s Communist Party dispersed and persecuted Jews, and praying The number of doctors was dramatically Chairman Nikita Khrushchev publically for their restoration to the Holy Land. Van increased, illiteracy was wiped out, the acknowledged that these were false confes- Paassen wrote about the coming Sec- USSR led in the space-race, many scien- sions. ond World War. He firmly believed that tists and engineers were educated, and Pierre van Paassen was also spellbound Britain’s policy of appeasing Hitler, under there was a large degree of industrializa- by Loyalist Spain. He had interviewed Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain tion. In contrast, there were mass deporta- Anarcho-Syndicalist leader and Loyalist was done in the hope that Nazi Germany tions under Stalin, there was an imposed general Buenaventura Durruti, whom he would attack the Soviet Union. famine in Ukraine during the 1930s, was especially impressed with, as he was All three authors believed in worldwide purges took place in which hundreds of with the resistance to the July 1936 at- labor solidarity as a means to build a better thousands of people were shot, and the ex- tempted fascist coup. Two elements about world. ecutions included among its victims many the Spanish Civil War that van Paassen 1. Solomon, Raymond S. “John Reed’s First Labor Russian Communist Party members. And covered that were missing from Orwell’s Love: The IWW.” Industrial Worker ,September 2014 in post-Soviet Union Russia, the proverbial experience are that the Catholic Basques Books reviewed: baby was thrown out, but the proverbial were integral to the defense of Loyal- Orwell, George. (1938) Homage to Catalonia. bath water was kept. One example is that ist Spain: Priests in the Basque had for London: Seeker and Warburg. many seniors live in dire poverty because years been organizing labor unions, and Reed, John. (1919) Ten Days That Shook the they have lost their pensions. Russia has Basque Catholics fought heroically for the World. New York: Boni & Liveright. a cruel capitalistic economy. What went Loyalists; and the Calvinist movement in Van Paassen, Pierre. (1939) Days of Our Years. wrong? Spain was active during the years of the New York: Hillman-Curl, Inc. IW

Industrial Worker • Summer 2017 16 Industrial Worker • Summer 2017 The political culture of the IWW during its first 20 years By Jaime Caro-Morente, Universidad private armies (like Pinkerton Agency) that union have strong links with a socialist Autónoma de Madrid nearly destroyed them. In my opinion, the party in a socialist strike, such as the 1912 The union Industrial Workers of the most important thing in this union is their Lawrence strike? Why were they part of the World (IWW), launched in 1905, is a rara unique political culture, which gave them Second International debating with Lenin avis within the American labor movement. their success and made their existence or Rosa Luxemburg? How is possible that Although the American labor movement possible in its actual context without deep an anarchist union decided to join the was very strong, its trade unions were the changes. Communist International for two years? most conservative among the international Historians have been unclear on how to There were two historians who re- labor move- opened the ment. However, debate about the IWW was the political an American culture of the union that was IWW: Melvyn “radical”— Dubofsky and working to solve Paul Buhle. In problems by their studies, getting to the both historians bottom of them. reached the If we get an un- conclusion that derstanding of the current why the IWW theoretical was born and its framework political culture, was useless, we will be able and a new one to understand was needed. the transforma- Buhle was the tion within historian who the American managed to society in the study the IWW last years of the with an open 19th century. mind to create a Some histori- new framework: ans have set The IWWs two different were socialists; phases for the they read Marx evolution of the but they did American labor not agree on movement. In everything with the first phase, him. They used that covers most anarcho-syn- of the 19th cen- dicalist tactics; tury, the labor they did not movement was want to con- led by immigrant workers. During the sec- classify IWW’s ideology, as either social- quer the State; and, the most importantly ond phase, the labor movement was led by ist or anarchist, because they have in their of all, they were American born within an the home-grown American workers. These rank and file leaders of both labor political American history with their own experi- phases can be extrapolated to the political cultures, which have always been assumed ences in the labor movement. field: We have the Socialist Labor Party to be enemies. From the first historian who I would like to begin the analysis of whose leader was an immigrant, Daniel researched them, Paul Brissenden, up until their political culture, an “American social- de Leon, in the first phase; while in the the 1970s, a status quo was set in the stud- ist,” with the picture of the labor leader second phase we have the Socialist Party ies about them: They were socialist in their “Big” Bill Haywood proclaiming on the of America of the well-known Eugene V. first years, and when the schism within 27th June of 1905: Fellow Workers! This Debs. the Socialist Labor Party occurred and the is the Continental Congress of the working The Industrial Workers of the World political clause took effect, anarchists. This class. We are here to confederate the workers has a “preferred seat” in the pantheon of is a simple assumption that requires us of this country into a working class movement the radical unions of the United States due to make a deeper study of their political that shall have its purpose the emancipation to their early success and the repression culture and otherwise makes their history of the working class from the slave bondage they suffered on hands of the State and the unintelligible to us: Why does an anarchist of capitalism. In this proclamation, our

17 main hypothesis is condensed: that the son’s dream—where this was only in this second aim behind, and tried to educate IWW’s ideology comes from the United way can democracy exist, but based on the their members. We must not forget the States Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson ideas of Madison, the new concept of the significant educational and propagandistic and James Madison, and that the social- Industrial Democracy. This was their main machinery of the IWW in its first years. ist political culture of the IWW is a labor idea, but they needed further political ideas The confluence of different political reformulation of the previous one, with the to articulate a cogent discourse, so they cultures and ideologies was what provided help of the Marxism. brought in ideas from early Marxism and them with strength and success until the Jefferson and Madison created the the Anarchists. Third International. It was an American ideological corpus of the new republic The Founding Convention of 1905 has union, but it was radical in trying to link influenced by the philosopher Thomas often been studied by historians as if there Marxism and anarchism. The label “One Hobbes and his book Leviathan. When were a tacit agreement in between the three Big Union” was a reality, not a dream. The the war for independence was won by “souls” within the IWW: the Syndical- IWW accomplished being one of the big- the rebels, Jefferson and Madison started ists, the Marxists, and the Debs socialists. gest unions in the United States and the focusing on individual liberties, thinking However, there was no such agreement: most powerful, including the American that the new State created was going to There was a reformulation among the three Federation of Labor. be a major threat to them. If they did not ideologies to create a new political culture I would highlight three milestones protect individual liberties, the State could acccessible to all of them instead, with the and successes of the IWW within the take them away from their citizens and presence of anarchists like , global history of the labor movement. First enslave them. We all know the Jeffersonian Carlo Tresca, and Emma Goldman. This the representatives of the IWW, Social- dream of the agrarian republic in which process of political reformulation was ist Party of America, and Socialist Labor every citizen has their own land to ensure led by the syndicalists, Father Thomas Party passed a resolution at the Second their economic independence. We also Hagerty, “Big” Bill Haywood, and William International in Stuttgart (1907). In this know Madison’s main ideas through the Trautmann. Congress the IWW debated as equals— Federalist Papers, where he links the idea The IWW built itself based on “aims”: within Marxian theory—about the labor of democracy with the Jeffersonian dream: A large number of ideologies were rep- movement nature and the relationship If the people do not have their own land resented at the convention, and some of between its two “agents”: the Union and and property, the democracy is impossible. them in direct opposition. Therefore, the the Party. The “big leaders” in Marxism— In other words, liberty and democracy are most logical way to build itself was to set the European Marxists, including Lenin, only assured if the people have economic two types of aims: short term and long Kautsky, and Luxemburg—thought that independence and are the owners of the term. The IWW was created with pragma- the Party was always more important than means of production. Madison went fur- tism, yet it set some lofty aims that went the union, and the Party, as proletarian ther than this, stating that people cannot further than any of the ideologies that vanguard, must lead the labor move- wield democracy and liberty if they do not influenced its creation. A new hegemony ment as well as the unions. IWW passed a have economic independence, so, anyone within the labor movement had been resolution on the equality between the two who wants to live in a democracy must formed, and it belonged to the IWW. agents: Party and union had equal impor- have property. Once the common postures about the tance within the labor movement. The tremendous industrialization in the aims were established, they were defined: The second milestone was the internal United States towards the end of the 19th In the short term, improvement of the debate within the IWW regarding their century, was a shock for the population: conditions of life for all workers. In the participation in the Third International. The “new progress” and modernity were long-path, the abolishment of the capitalist This debate was divisive, but ultimately, condemning a major part of the people system, and the establishment of worker- because of the Soviet position, the IWW to inequity and misery. Some people controlled industry in one big union, the decided not to join the Third Interna- developed new ideologies in an attempt IWW. tional, to stay true to their political culture: to respond to and remedy this misery, The first aim was to protect and -im Seize the means of production without the but these ideologies were brought in by prove the conditions of life of all workers. need to conquer the State. immigrants—such as Marxism or anar- The second in recognition of socialists, This second milestone links with the chism. The American people still believed Marxists, and anarchists: to abolish capital- third: By staying within their ideology, in the dreams promised by the new young ism. And the third was in recognition of they had remained alive up to that point, Republic. The first American union that syndicalism: Through the IWW, the work- so they could take advantage of the par- sought to resolve the misery within Ameri- ers would control the means of production ticular state of affairs in capitalism at that can society was the Knights of Labor, but and distribution in the new system. Once time. that ended in failure following the Great the wage system was abolished, work- Today it is a reality that American Capi- Southwest railroad strike of 1886. Howev- ers would realize the Jeffersonian dream. talism and its values, the American “way of er, in 1905, the IWW was launched being Despite the fact that for both Marxism life,” have become dominant in the world. able to articulate a new discourse within and anarchism, the workers must seize However, a union that stems from social- the American political culture and bring the means of production when capital- ist and anarcho-syndicalist values and is as hope to the people. ism is abolished, the syndicalists wanted international as the IWW can take advan- In 1905, many leaders of the American to seize the factories as collective property tage of this conjuncture in order to expand labor movement met in Chicago. This reflecting their American socialist political their own revolution and unionism. We meeting’s aim was to find an ultimate culture. must not forget that philosophers such as solution to the industrial conflict and the The IWW has dedicated the major part Noam Chomsky, a Wobbly, have drawn class struggle. The final proposition was of its existence to their first aim, organizing from the IWW’s key concept of Industrial clear: The workers had to seize the means strikes and protesting in the “freedom of Democracy the basis to frame the debate of of production, to be owners like in Jeffer- speech phase,” but they did not leave their “democracy against Capitalism.” IW

Industrial Worker • Summer 2017 18 Industrial Worker • Summer 2017 Dem. N.C. governor signs anti-farmworker union bill, opening door to more attacks By Mike Elk, Payday Report, 7/13/17 power were “racial Earlier today, North Carolina Governor gerrymanders in Roy Cooper, a Democrat, signed the state’s violation of the Farm Act, which prohibits farmworkers’ Equal Protec- unions from collecting union dues directly tion Clause,” and from workers’ paychecks. ordered the maps Labor activists say that the provision be redrawn and in the bill, SB 615, was aimed at the Farm special elections Labor Organizing Committee, which called in 2017. represents 10,000 farmworkers in North Last month, Carolina. Earlier this year, FLOC was able the Supreme to force a major settlement from North Court agreed that Carolina State Brent Jackson. the districts were “This attack on farm workers’ rights racially gerryman- dered, but vacated is most likely in retaliation for a series of and the Future Figures Facts credit: Photo lawsuits brought by farm workers and their the order for new union (Farm Labor Organizing Commit- special elections, meaning that North the lowest membership rates in the coun- tee) over wage theft and mistreatment on Carolina voters will very likely have to wait try. several farms in Eastern NC — including until at least 2018 to vote for legislators “They always try to attack the most one owned by Sen. Brent Jackson, who whose seats haven’t been ruled to be in vulnerable first. They try to attack Mus- sponsored this bill and chaired the Senate direct violation of the Constitution. lims, they try to attack Latinos, they try to conference committee” said North Caro- Considering the legislature’s very public isolate them. However, the general popula- lina AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer MaryBe hatred for him, however, Cooper could tion isn’t isolated,” says Strobinho. “They McMillian. “It is a clear conflict of interest have vetoed the bill as a protest against the start these attacks to create wedges. They and blatant abuse of power for legislators anti-union provisions of the bill. He did are trying to start an avalanche to attack all who are also growers to push policies that not. And after Cooper signed the bill, the workers and eliminate payroll deduction allow them to gain more and more profit outrage from organized labor in the state for public employees.” on the backs of their workers.” was near unanimous. FLOC also vows to challenge the mea- Organized labor had hoped that Demo- “We are deeply disappointed that sure in court. They say that the measure cratic Governor Roy Cooper would veto Gov. Cooper plans to sign the Farm Bill violates their right to assembly and the the bill, meeting with him twice to lobby (S615),” said N.C. AFL-CIO Secretary- constitutional rights of farmworkers by against it. Yesterday, however, they received Treasurer MaryBe McMillian. “This eliminated dues check off just for farm- word that the Governor intended to sign legislation singles out farm workers and workers and not other organizations such it. undermines their freedom of association as charities like the United Way and other “We got a call from his office yesterday and ability to collectively negotiate for bet- unions. evening and were told that it was the fact ter wages and working conditions.” “This type of abandonment of im- that they don’t have the votes to stop an Labor groups in the state, including migrant workers is nothing new from the override, and that the Democrats in the FLOC, the North Carolina AFL-CIO, and Democratic or Republican parties. We’ve North Carolina General Assembly were UE Local 150 plan to hold a rally at the been excluded from every labor law reform not all on the same page [on the bill],” Governor’s office next Tuesday to protest since the racist-exclusion of farmworkers says FLOC Vice President Justin Flores. the Governor’s decision, as many fear that from the National Labor Relations Act “However, both of those were not neces- the governor’s failure to veto the bill will in 1935,” says FLOC President Baldemar sarily true, so we really don’t know the true lead to even more attacks against unions by Velasquez. “We plan to challenge this bill motivation. This is an embarrassing show the legislature. in the courts, as a violation of farmworkers for a Democratic governor and the reason “It’s a warning sign for people in our rights to freedom of assembly and speech Democrats keep losing.” movement that we need to remain vigi- and continue our fight for better wages for Republicans hold supermajorities in lant,” says North Carolina Public Service immigrant families in the state.” both the state House and Senate, enabling Workers Union UE Local 150 organizer Mike Elk is a member of the Washington- them to overturn Cooper’s veto as long Dante Strobinho. Baltimore NewsGuild and is the senior labor as the caucus sticks together. In 2016, a Another anti-labor bill, SB 375, would reporter at Payday Report. three-judge panel on the U.S. District eliminate dues check off for public em- Payday Report is a community supported labor- Court for the Middle District of North ployees; that bill passed the Senate in April. reporting project. We depend on our readers Carolina found that twenty-eight of the Strobinho fears that Cooper signing SB to be able to tell the stories of workers in the state’s 170 legislative districts that were 615 opens the door to even more attacks South. To donate, go to http://paydayreport.com/ drawn in 2011 when the Republicans took on unions in a state that already has one of support-our-work/. IW

19 Pay equity: Back-to-back wins for women athletes By Muffy Sunde and insurance with male players, a fight for equal wages in the modern era. Freedom Socialist newspaper, Vol. 38, commitment to develop young players and Billie Jean King threatened to boycott No. 3, June–July 2017 greater promotion of the women’s game. the 1973 U.S. Open Tennis Tournament, www.socialism.com Winning is contagious forcing equal pay from an unwilling Ice hockey’s U.S. Women’s National One week after the victory in hockey, management. It took until 2007 and Venus Team (USWNT) beat their governing the U.S. women’s soccer team won a new Williams’ demand for equal pay to force body, USA Hockey, in March and took contract with USA Soccer. The settlement the Wimbledon tournament to equalize women’s fight for living wages a huge step followed a rancorous year-long battle in the purse. Now, although tennis is the forward. Long notoriously underpaid, which the union filed sex discrimination most lucrative sport for women, outside hockey’s women players were expected charges against management with of the four major tournaments, women’s to keep winning world medals while the Equal Employment Opportunity purses average 80 percent of that paid to working for about $1,000 per month, for Commission, and USA Soccer bosses sued men. six months, only in Olympic years, and on the union for less than half the food allowance of male demanding a players. new contract. The team definitely earned the right to The agreement a raise. It holds six world championship provides wages of trophies and silver in successive Olympics. up to $300,000, Their demands were minimal by sports parental leave, standards: decent pay, benefits, investment and player input in youth programs and an end to practices on longstanding like being forced to fly coach while the grievances men’s team flies business class. Bosses regarding stonewalled until the women announced working a boycott of the upcoming world conditions, championship. Management then tried travel, and to recruit scabs. The response from other accommo-

professional players, high schoolers as dations. Variety.com Photo credit: young as 16, and tavern teams was to tell Far from over Athlete and tennis great Billie Jean King USA Hockey to get lost. Female Solidarity wins a round athletes have On the eve of the world championships, fought sex and race discrimination for The victories in hockey and soccer unions representing players for the decades—for the right to compete at all, show that solidarity can win, and that National Football League, the National for the right to get paid, and for the right the public and other athletes will support Basketball Association, the Women’s to equal pay. Women’s pay has always been those who stand and fight. Players in the National Basketball Association, and a fraction of that paid to male athletes, Women’s National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, all announced regardless of how much revenue the sport whose league has a maximum pay that is support for the USWNT. When men’s makes. Lower pay for women means lower than the minimum pay of its male team players started saying they would also higher profits for team owners. counterparts, are way overdue for a raise. refuse to play in the world championships, The modern women’s movement If women athletes can take on management folded. While USNWT won the 1972 Title IX amendment to management and win, with a union- didn’t win pay equity with male players, the Higher Education Act that banned busting misogynist in the White House, their victory is impressive. They went from discrimination in any school receiving all of organized labor should take note and an every four years pittance to a guaranteed federal assistance. Women’s college sports use the same game plan. $70,000 per year, chances for bonuses, grew swiftly, growth that led to more Send feedback to [email protected] IW equal meal money, travel accommodations professional women’s sports and to the

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Application for IWW Membership Preamble to the IWW Answers to questions with asterisks * are required. I affirm that I am a worker and not an employer:* ___ Yes Constitution I agree to abide by the IWW Constitution and regulations of this The working class and the employing class have nothing in com- organization:* ___ Yes mon. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found I agree to study the IWW’s principles and make myself acquainted with its among millions of the working people, and the few, who make up purpose:* ___ Yes the employing class, have all the good things of life. First Name:* ______Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the work- ers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of Last Name:* ______production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Current Mailing Address:* ______Earth. We find that the centering of the management of industries into City or Town:* ______fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with State or Province:* ______the ever-growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs that allows one set of workers to be pitted Postal Code:* ______Country:* ______against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the Phone Number:* ______employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the work- Can you receive text messages at this number?* ___ Yes ___ No ing class has interests in common with their employers. Email Address:* ______These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its Employer: ______members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, cease Job Description:* ______work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all. Industrial Union:* ______I have been an IWW member in the past:* ___ Yes ___ No Instead of the conservative motto, “A fair day’s wage for a fair Would you like information about the IWW’s General Defense Committee?* day’s work,” we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary ___ Yes ___ No watchword, “Abolition of the wage system.” Would you like to subscribe to the IWW’s members-only email list It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with [email protected]?*___ Yes ___ No capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for Would you like to subscribe to the IWW’s public alerts email list everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production [email protected]?* ___ Yes ___ No when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industri- Please cut out and mail this form to: Industrial Workers of the World General Headquarters ally we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell PO Box 180195, Chicago, IL 60618, USA of the old.