Copyright is owned by the Author of the thesis. Permission is given for a copy to be downloaded by an individual for the purpose of research and private study only. The thesis may not be reproduced elsewhere without the permission of the Author. A World To Win, A Hell To Lose The Industrial Workers of the World In Early Twentieth Century New Zealand A thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Politics at Massey University New Zealand Stuart Moriarty-Patten 2012 Abstract In the early twentieth century the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) were influential in a series of disputes between labour and employers in New Zealand, culminating in what has become to be known as the Great strike of 1913. Although influential, little has been written about the ideology of the IWW in New Zealand and how it was adapted for New Zealand. An appraisal of their organisation, and the impact they had on their members and followers, and other organisations has also not been explored greatly in existing research. This research begins with a brief illustration of the rise of IWW ideas in New Zealand, the formation of a number of branches of the IWW, and the groupʼs relationship with the existing organisations in the New Zealand labour movement at the time. The next section discusses the use of existing social movement theories to study an organisation such as the IWW, and highlights the need to use a specially devised framework, such as that drawn up by Fitzgerald and Rodgers (2000), to analyse a Radical Social Movement Organisation. Using the Radical Social Movement Organisation framework devised by Fitzgerald and Rodgers, this research aims to gain an understanding of the organisation, ideology, tactics, and methods of communication of the IWW, and how they differed from the contemporaneous bodies of the New Zealand labour movement. In the final section, different ideas of what constitutes success in terms of the aims of a social movement are examined, and used to assess the impact and influence of the organisation in New Zealand. i Acknowledgements Many thanks are given to Dr Kerry Taylor, Head of the School of History at Massey University, for his expert guidance and instruction during the supervision of this research. Also my gratitude goes out to Mark Derby and Jared Davidson for their invaluable advice and direction to sources, particularly Jared who also generously gave up his free time to read through my work. Last, but not least, many thanks to my wife Rhonda for her unstinting support and encouragement. ii CONTENTS Page List of Illustrations………………………………………………………………...... iv Abbreviations Used………………………………………………………………….vi Introduction…………………………………………………………………………… 1 Background and Context………………………………………………………...... 4 A Land Without Strikes? The rise of industrial militancy……………………...... 5 Methodology………………………………………………………………………....29 Studying the IWW as a social movement organisation…………………….…..30 Data Collection and Analysis…………………………………………………….. 34 The Industrial Workers of the World in New Zealand..……………………… 38 Organisation – “Hail The Rank and File”…………………………………….….. 39 Ideology – “The World For The Workers”…………………………………...….. 58 Tactics – “Wear your wooden shoes”………………………………………….... 77 Communication – “Mental Dynamite”…………………………………………… 94 Assessment – Success or Failure?.............................................................. 112 Conclusion – A World to Win, A Hell to Lose…………………………………. 134 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………….. 138 iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page Figure 1: Strikes recorded in New Zealand 1894-1913…………………………… 6 Figure 2: Advertisement for the first meeting of the IWW in Wellington……….... 8 Figure 3:An Advertisement For An Oration By H.M. Fitzgerald………………….. 9 Figure 4: A memoriam to Fred Evans………………………………………………20 Figure 5: Ideal type characteristics of moderate and radical social movement organisations…………………………………………………………….. 33 Figure 6: Advertisement for the New Zealand published pamphlet Industrial Unionism……………………………………………………………………..40 Figure 7: Structure of the IWW……………………………………………………... 43 Figure 8: Hanlon's wheel..………………………………………………………….. 44 Figure 9: Address to the members……………………………………………........47 Figure 10: Application form for membership of the IWW…………………………50 Figure 11: Ki nga Kaimahi Maori (to Maori working men)………………………..51 Figure 12: "Chinamen in Auckland"……………………………………………….. 52 Figure 13: Meeting for women……………………………………………………… 55 Figure 14: The IWW Preamble…………………………………………………...... 60 Figure 15: Workers in the craft organisations, unTIE!........................................ 67 Figure 16: Sabotage…isʼnt (sic) respectable……………………………………... 83 Figure 17: Study Sabotage…………………………………………………………. 85 iv Figure 18: The Boycott……………………………………………………………... 87 Figure 19: “The most Revolutionary Paper South of the Line”…………………. 97 Figure 20: “if the boss should happen to read down this column”……………… 98 Figure 21: Chunks of I.W.W.ism………………………………………………….. 101 Figure 22: Literature for Rebels…………………………………………...……… 102 Figure 23: Auckland Midwives will do it for nothing…………………………….. 116 Figure 24: The I.W.W. or "The I Won't Workers”……………………………….. 122 Figure 25: how Long……………………………………………………………….. 124 Figure 26: To Arms!......................................................................................... 129 Figure 27: The Popular Scapegoat……………………………………………..... 131 v ABBREVIATIONS USED IWW – The Industrial Workers of the World NZFL – New Zealand Federation of Labor NZSP – New Zealand Socialist Party PRU – Passive Resistersʼ Union RSMO – Radical Social Movement Organisation SDP – Social Democratic Party SLP – Socialist Labor Party of America SMO – Social Movement Organisation TLC – Trades and Labour Council UFL – United Federation of Labour USSCo – United Steamship Company vi INTRODUCTION Speaking in 1919, the MP, William Downie Stewart, noted how the terms “class instinct, class-consciousness, class conflict, and the class war” had all become common parlance in New Zealand over the last two decades.1 In contrast, a visiting French writer, Andre Siegfried had reported in 1904 that he had found very little evidence of class-consciousness among the workers of New Zealand. In his work entitled the Democracy of New Zealand (Siegfried, 1914), the English version of which Stewart prefaced, he wrote of the New Zealand worker that they showed scarcely any, or no class hatred, that they are not revolutionary, and only vaguely socialistic, adding that they have an innate admiration for money, and for the man who lives in a grand style. The New Zealand workersʼ ambition, he found was to be only like the middle-class and imitate those who are more fortunate. Fifteen years later, when he re-visited New Zealand he asked Stewart for an explanation for the change that he found. "He was anxious to know where these revolutionaries ideas had come from, who had imported them, and how far they had taken hold”,2 Stewart related. It is these questions that this research, with a particular focus upon the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), tries to answer. The labour history of New Zealand in the early twentieth century has already been fairly extensively covered, notably in Red Feds (Olssen,1988) and Revolution (Nolan, 2005). However, apart from a chapter in Revolution (Derby, 2005), which focuses upon the influence of William E Trautmann, the first general secretary of the IWW, and work by Francis Shor (1992; 2002; 2005), the IWW in New Zealand receives scant attention, except as part of the wider events, or coverage of the leading individuals in the movement and their interaction with the more moderate elements of the labour movement. 1 Wanganui Chronicle, 8/8/19, p.8 2 ibid 1 No in depth analysis of the IWW specifically has been carried out, although its influence is acknowledged. For example, Olssen has written “it is clear that the IWW became much more powerful in 1911-13 than historians have [previously] realised” (1988, p. 211). Little has been written about how they differed in their organisation to other bodies in the labour movement, and how their adoption of a non-hierarchical form was designed to empower and raise the consciousness of the working class through participation and direct action. Francis Shor briefly touched on the subject in writing about how “revolutionary syndicalism promoted a proletarian public sphere… in competition with bourgeois and respectable plebeian norms” (2002, p. 60), although few details are given on how the norms of the bourgeoisie were challenged. Making use of the existing literature and original sources such as the IWWs newspaper the Industrial Unionist and other contemporary journals, it is the intention of this research to attempt to address these issues. The first section will place the IWW in the context of an increase in working class militancy experienced in New Zealand at the beginning of the twentieth century by giving a brief history of the labour movement up to 1913, culminating in a series of strikes that rocked New Zealand and collectively became known as The Great Strike. The methodology section that follows examines Fitzgerald and Rodgers (2000) contention that existing social method theories are inadequate as a framework to examine a radical social movement organisation (RSMO) and demonstrates their alternative framework. The second part of this section examines the problems and solutions faced when carrying out the historical research for this project. The findings section has been presented in five sections,