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“Virile Syndicalism” in Comparative Perspective: a Gender Analysis of the IWW in the United States and Australia1

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“Virile Syndicalism” in Comparative Perspective: a Gender Analysis of the IWW in the United States and Australia1 “Virile Syndicalism” in Comparative Perspective: A Gender Analysis of the IWW in the United States and Australia1 Francis Shor Wayne State University Introduction It is no coincidence that syndicalism emerges in a historical period when indus- trial discipline, economic efficiency, and social regularization are the guiding im- peratives in the reconstruction of power and authority in the workplace. The syndicalist tendencies that mark the working-class response to this early twenti- eth-century effort at reconstituting workplace rules and regulations not only arise to combat capitalism but also to contest the respectable reformism of craft- based labor unions. “Syndicalism,” as Wayne Thorpe argues, “was simultane- ously a contributing cause, a symptom, and a beneficiary of dissatisfaction with the dominant labor strategies of the period.”2 Furthermore, as David Mont- gomery contends: “Revolutionary syndicalism extracted from the solidarities and ethical code of workers’ daily lives a merciless critique of the existing struc- tures of exploitation, power, and authority. It did not spare the institutions that workers had created for themselves.”3 The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or “Wobblies”), which origi- nated in the United States in 1905 but spread throughout the industrialized world soon thereafter, grew out of these syndicalist currents. As the 1905 call to the founding convention opined: Universal economic evils afflicting the working class can be eradicated only by a universal working class movement. Such a movement is impossible while sep- arate craft and wage agreements are made favoring the employer against other crafts in the same industry, and while energies are wasted in fruitless jurisdiction- al struggles which serve only to further the personal aggrandizement of union of- ficials. A movement to fulfill these conditions must consist of one great industrial union embracing all industries. It must be founded on the class struggle, and its general administration must be conducted in harmony with the recognition of the irrepressible conflict between the capitalist class and the working class.4 These syndicalist currents that course through the IWW not only propel the Wobblies into an obsession with direct action and sabotage but also conjure up a vestigial gendered form of protest. As Peter Stearns suggests: “For many in the International Labor and Working-Class History No. 56, Fall 1999, pp. 65–77 © 1999 International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 66 ILWCH, 56, Fall 1999 working class, uncertain about their manly status in the workplace, periodic protest, shared among brothers, was a vital way to claim their masculinity, a re- ward in itself.”5 Such a gendered form of protest, an enactment of what I will call “virile” syndicalism, is reflected in the following lyrics written by the Swedish immigrant and Wobbly balladeer and martyr, Joe Hill: Would you have freedom from wage slavery, Then join in the grand Industrial band; Would you from mis’ry and hunger be free, Then come, do your share, like a man. (Chorus): There is pow’r, there is pow’r In a band of workingmen, When they stand hand in hand That’s a pow’r, that’s a pow’r That must rule in every land— One Industrial Union Grand.6 In order to elaborate what is meant by “virile” syndicalism, we must look at how power and authority are constituted in early twentieth-century industrial soci- eties. While both class and gender analyses recognize changing historical condi- tions, interpretations of power and authority must be reconceptualized beyond productivist models. To understand fully the implications of the struggle over gender identity represented by the virile syndicalism of the IWW in their dis- course and campaigns, I want to propose adopting some of the heuristic insights of Michel Foucault. In particular, Foucault’s insistence on seeing power as a shifting strategic force field helps to apprehend how gender and class become part of the microphysics of struggle. Moreover, Foucault’s approach to how au- thority is internalized through “individualizing techniques of power” con- tributes immensely to discerning the ways in which masculine identity can be- come, especially during crisis periods such as that around World War One, a battleground over differing versions of manhood.7 In light of the above, the Wobblies’ insistence on direct action and sabotage should be viewed as central both to their contesting power and authority and to their projection of a “virile” syndicalism. While more often a rhetorical rather than fully developed strategy, IWW discussion of sabotage illuminated its strug- gle against industrial discipline and “speed-ups.” From Arturo Giovannitti’s metaphoric and more aggressive definition of sabotage as “the chloroforming of the organism of production” to Elizabeth Gurley Flynn’s more prosaic and pas- sive definition as “the withdrawal of efficiency,” IWW organizers pushed sabo- tage even after it unleashed a torrent of criticism from within labor and social- ist circles.8 I would suggest that the vehemence of the criticism of IWW strategy and tactics from reformist and even socialist labor leaders is in part a question of contending definitions of what it means to be a man inside and outside the workplace. For the Wobblies, the fight against efficiency and discipline meant, at least at the discursive level, a total rejection of bourgeois standards of order, “Virile Syndicalism” in Comparative Perspective 67 bearing, and self-development, all intimately connected with gender identity. The will-to-power of “virile” syndicalism preached by the IWW in their advo- cacy of sabotage not only riled capitalist bosses and labor bureaucrats but also was intended, in the words of Wobbly propagandist Walker Smith, “to show that the workers should rid their minds of the last remnant of bourgeois cant and hypocrisy and by its use [i.e., sabotage] develop courage and individual initia- tive.”9 While I am prepared to argue that the IWW promotion of sabotage repre- sents a kind of masculine posturing which directly challenged the individualiz- ing techniques of power mobilized by industrial capitalism, it would be particu- larly undialectical to suggest that only men fought and fretted over industrial discipline or that industrial discipline was isolated from the general social insti- tutionalization of discipline that was part of the modern world.10 Certainly, the IWW experience, more especially in the United States than anywhere else, grew out of preexisting ethnic and gender networks that empowered members of the working class at particular historical moments of social protest.11 However, Wobbly references, usually by IWW men, to Paul Lafarge’s pamphlet, The Right to Be Lazy, and to the refrain, “Hallelujah, I’m a Bum,” from the song of the same name, reflect a transvalued gendered response to the preeminent mascu- line ideal of hard work and self-discipline. Thus, the discourse and dramatic ac- tivities of the IWW not only illustrate the struggle over defending and extend- ing working-class rights and privileges but also manifest a fight over what it means to be a working-class man in a particular historical situation. In attempting to define the gender identity that circumscribed the “virile” syndicalism of the IWW, there are several fundamental points about gender and masculinity that must be emphasized. First of all, gender, like class, is never fixed for all time; rather, it remains both dynamic and problematic. Moreover, while a particular version of masculinity may be hegemonic in any society, that hege- mony is not without its internal contradictions, complexities, and even chal- lenges at certain historical moments.12 In fact, I will argue that the contested ter- rain upon which a variety of definitions of masculinity contended during the early twentieth-century industrial world helps to explain both the attraction of the IWW to certain categories of men and the revulsion and near hysteria of oth- ers to the IWW. Thus, the IWW’s masculine identity incorporated features of working-class solidarity and protest that resonated both in Joe Hill’s lyrics and the community of discourse that enveloped the Wobblies’ commitment to a form of oppositional masculinism through “virile” syndicalism. The IWW in Comparative Perspective Comparative history, particularly at crucial moments of world-historical change, offers the possibility of identifying underlying connections and opening up more inclusive perspectives on continuity, crisis, and change. As James T. Kloppen- berg argues in his comparative study of social democracy and progressivism in European and American thought between 1870 and 1920: “Although the paral- 68 ILWCH, 56, Fall 1999 lels will never be exact because of individual idiosyncrasies, distinctive cultural traditions, and the inevitable complications arising from problems of translation, comparative analysis can kindle new insights from ideas grown stale in conven- tional classifications.”13 In locating the contours of Australian and US comparative history, numer- ous commentators have acknowledged the similarities underlying both societies as white settler democracies with continental frontiers and mass immigration. Critical differences that influenced the history of labor in both countries were connected to a less interventionist state in the United States, especially when it came to mitigating economic and social inequities, and a more active state in Australia, especially in the institutionalization of mediation and arbitration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Finally, a more organized la- bor movement and the rise of the Labor party in Australia in the late nineteenth century and its electoral successes at state and federal levels in the early twenti- eth century provided a vehicle for working-class aspirations, albeit flawed, as will be discussed below.14 In order to explore the comparative nature of oppositional masculinism and virile syndicalism, I want to examine the role of the IWW in the United States and Australia in the period 1914–1917, a period when the IWW achieved influence as a consequence of contesting power at the point of production and beyond.
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