Wobblies launch new branch in Montana
Submitted on Mon, 03/03/2008 - 1:30pm
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By John Grant Emeigh - Montana Standard, March 2, 2008
BUTTE - With an old, worn broom, Dennis Georg swept off nearly a foot
of February snow that had accumulated on the grave of Frank Little.
It was just a small favor from one Wobbly to another Wobbly: Solidarity to the end.
Georg,
as was Little, is a card-carrying member of a small but controversial
union known as the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). It was
started in Chicago by a group of socialists and anarchists who wanted
to unite all the workers of the world. They were reviled by many as
subversives and Communists.
"It was once very dangerous to carry an IWW card," Georg said recently while in Butte.
The evidence of that danger was at Georg's feet in Little's final
resting place at Mountain View Cemetery. Little came to Butte in 1917
to recruit miners to join the IWW. For his efforts, Little was
kidnapped by masked men, beaten, dragged out of town and hung by the
neck from a railroad trestle.
Little's
grave is somewhat sacred ground for Wobblies. This is why the grave is
one of the stops over the weekend for a gathering being held in Butte
to celebrate the recent formation of an IWW chapter in Missoula.
"They want to come here because of all the labor history in Butte," he said.
Georg, 60, works as an electrician and has been a Wobbly for 17 years.
Kevin
Curtis, 37, of Butte, who works in TV production and freelance movie
filming, is one of six members of the IWW in Butte. He said the IWW
requires at least 15 members in one city before headquarters will allow
a local chapter. Curtis estimates that there are about 2,300 Wobblies
worldwide.
He said membership tends to fluctuate. "The IWW's numbers seem to go up when the middle class is under attack," Curtis said.
Curtis
and Georg say they would like to get enough local workers to join the
IWW, so Butte can have its own chapter like Missoula. Curtis believes
workers in a blue-collar town like Butte would benefit from the IWW's
support.
"Like our motto says, 'An injury to one is an injury to all,' and we want to give workers a voice in the workplace," he said.
The
IWW always has been known for its hard-line stand on worker solidarity.
Members believe that all laborers should be united and that the real
power should be in the hands of the worker.
Georg was wearing an
IWW T-shirt that stated the union's uncompromising stance in plain
English: "The working class and the employing class have nothing in
common."
The early Butte Wobblies used to be the victims of
violence in the early days of the movement, according to Georg. He said
they had to be secretive about getting a copy of the IWW's newspaper,
the Industrial Worker.
Georg said the carriers would keep a copy of the IWW newspaper folded in a copy of the Butte Miner.
"If
a guy wanted the Industrial Worker, he would tell the paperboy, 'Paper,
paper,' and he knew he wanted a copy of the Industrial Worker," Georg
said.
Georg and Curtis still hand out fliers and try to interest
people in joining the IWW. They say they are glad Missoula was able to
organize a local chapter.
However, they would like to see the
IWW allow them to form a regional chapter in Western Montana. Curtis
said that because Montana isn't as populated as other states it is
difficult to set up a local IWW charter.
"Montana is so sparse it (a statewide chapter) would be better for us," he said.