Industrial Workers of the World - Industrial Worker

Summer 2018 Industrial Worker

x361145 — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 01:39:10 +0000

The Summer 2018 Industrial Worker is finally out. It looks back at some pivotal events for the IWW and workers that have shaped the direction of the union, its members, its detractors, and its beneficiaries. The issue also examines current events that affect workers across the United States in both negative and positive ways.

In 1917, copper-mine workers organizing for parity in wages with the IWW’s help endured the Bisbee Deportation (see Industrial Worker Summer 2017, #1780). One hundred and one years later comes the powerful film Bisbee ’17, about 2017 Bisbee, Ariz., in which the community reenacts the atrocity and faces up to a very dark time in the city’s history. The Summer 2018 issue of IW has a review of the film.

Writer Andy Piascik revisits the Lawrence textile strike of 1912, emphasizing that its success was due to two major factors: It was led primarily by women, who insisted that the strikers remain peaceful, without retaliating against massive military and police opposition; and IWW representatives went to Lawrence, Mass.—at the strikers’ request—but rather than taking over the strike, as so many union leaders do, they advised the strikers in tactics but trusted them to follow their instincts.

It’s 100 years since Eugene V. Debs was tried and imprisoned for treason and sedition for his speech in Canton, Ohio. And at least 100 Wobblies were rounded up and tried for treason and sedition, as well. Their “crime” was not supporting U.S. involvement in World War I—the Great War—and arguing against participation in it because it was a war between rulers vying for power and had nothing to do with workers and the people. Two short articles express sentiments that still apply today.

The Janus decision by the Supreme Court struck a blow to public-sector unions when it ruled that paying dues to the unions is no longer mandatory. However, there are two edges to the Janus sword. As a dual-cardholding Wobbly writes: “[W]ith the West Virginia Teachers Strike . . . the teachers were through with bosses and took up the model of solidarity. They used the power of the worker united.”

Finally, an article full of facts and figures provides a stark picture of why teachers in the U.S. have fallen so far behind in their pay and benefits, making public education suffer from a shortage of good teachers: “Teachers and parents are protesting cutbacks in education spending and a squeeze on teacher pay that persist well into the economic recovery from the Great Recession. These spending cuts are not the result of weak state economies. Rather, state legislatures have enacted them to finance tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.” It’s a bleak picture that can be improved only by forcing the powers that be into enacting legislation for the people and not the rich.

Download a free PDF of this issue.

Spring 2018 (May Day) Industrial Worker

IWW.org Editor — Mon, 30 Apr 2018 18:24:26 +0000

May Day!

Long a celebration of renewal, as Spring shows its stuff with abundance in Nature, May 1 was the perfect day for workers to come out in their numbers, celebrating their unity and strength in demanding the eight-hour workday and safe working conditions. It took anarchists and socialists to stand up to the money men and demand what simply should have been a right of Nature, which knows how to take a good rest to gear up for astonishing productivity.

There's a third meaning to "Mayday," but it's just as appropriate to our movement as the connection to Nature is to dignity for all workers. We've heard it in countless war movies: "Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!" It has to be said three times to work, just like Dorothy's clicking her heels to "There's no place like home!" and "Oyez, oyez, oyez!" (Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye!) to call a court to order.

"M'aidez, m'aidez, m'aidez!" It means "Help me." That's what Wobblies do. It's solidarity, Fellow Workers!

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Industrial Worker: 2018: No 1782

x344543 — Fri, 02 Feb 2018 01:41:14 +0000

By editor - Industrial Worker, February 1, 2018

The brightly colored art on the cover of IW is one of a large series of paintings and drawings of working men, women, and children by Mexican artist Alfredo Ramos Martinez. Fifteen years older than his more well-known compatriot Diego Rivera, Ramos Martinez blazed the path for the Mexican Modernist movement in his paintings and murals. While Ramos Martinez's works did not romanticize, they offered serene depictions of Mexicans at work and at home in rural and small-town settings. The art that Rivera would create—especially his fresco murals—would be full of machinery, toil, action, bosses, and class-conscious workers.

This quarter's theme is "Wobblies and Workers in the Arts." An article by FW Raymond Solomon looks at TV sitcom depictions of working people starting in the 1940s (radio and a film, first) and 1950s and jumping to the 1970s and 1980s. Few sitcoms are solely comedic, and it's when looking at jobs, pay, and the need for both that situations get serious. Another piece, by a lover of film who has run movie theaters, taught film programs to children and high school students, and currently books films for several "arthouses" across the U.S., chooses six films that show work and working people living lives their jobs affect immeasurably.

Wobblies John Kaniecki and Craig Bledsoe look at two different kinds of art: Kaniecki is a writer and poet, and he describes what and who inspire and "move" him to create art in words. Bledsoe chooses the Industrial Revolution as the point at which to start his analysis of visual arts and the movements that developed out of social and political changes and the philosophies that defined them. And I asked a friend whom I've seen grow up over the last 14 years to watch Cradle Will Rock, Tim Robbins' 1999 film, with me and then write about it. She may not have realized it, but her take on the movie—which is about the heady period in the 1930s where unemployment and poverty were devastating but art was allowed to flourish through the WPA, the Roosevelt Administration's program that employed artists and writers of all kinds to create and teach art to a dispirited population—is very much one of a young woman who is looking ahead at most of her life, while she does everything she can to maintain her optimism in the face of a daunting present.

Industrial Worker: Fall 2017 #1781 Vol. 114 No. 4

IWW.org Editor — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 23:49:55 +0000

By IWW.ORG Staff - November 2017

The theme for the Fall 2017 Industrial Worker is "In November We Remember." For this issue, a number of Wobblies sent in their remembrances of those long gone but not forgotten and those dear and only recently taken away from all of us. August 1 was the 100th anniversary of the murder of the early Wobbly organizer Frank Little. Butte, Montana was where he was brutally killed, but Butte was also the place that celebrated Frank Little's life and work, with a gathering of far-flung Wobblies as well as his great-grandniece Jane Little Botkin, who wrote Frank Little and the IWW: The Blood That Stained an American Family.

The issue's cover is a collection of photos, drawings, paintings, posters, and even a sculpture of people whose lives were devoted to making the world a place where workers were recognized for their contributions to society. In their work in organizing, ministry, public service, writing, poetry, songs, films, and art, each of the people commemorated on the cover—from an 18th-century female scientist to an androgynous pop icon and social critic we lost only last year—saw the ills of class warfare and capitalistic dominance and acted to improve the lives of those around them and around the world. If some of the choices I made come as a surprise, look them up and learn about their contributions.

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Industrial Worker—Summer 2017 no1780 vol 114, No. 3

IWW.org Editor — Fri, 11 Aug 2017 01:40:27 +0000

One hundred years ago—the summer of 1917—two events shaped the future of the IWW.

On July 12, 1917, 1,196 striking copper miners in Bisbee, Arizona, were loaded into cattle cars on a train that dropped them in the New Mexico desert. The IWW had been organizing the workers, many of whom were Mexican and could not join the miners' union white men belonged to. On June 27, 1917, the IWW called a strike for flat daily wages of comparable amounts for both under- and above-ground miners, as well as other reasonable demands. Enough workers went out on strike that mining operations were crippled. Therefore, enlisting the aid of Bisbee's Sheriff and around 1,000 men known as the Loyalty League, the mining companies hatched and implemented the plan that resulted in what came to be known as the Bisbee Deportation.

Frank Little was one of the IWW miners' organizers in Arizona and Montana, facing the powerful and ruthless copper-mine owners, who backed up their anti-union aims with a purchased press as well as gunmen, spies, and vigilantes. Fellow Worker Little was lynched by a mob in Butte, Montana, on August 1, 1917.

This issue of Industrial Worker looks at the historical work of agitating and organizing as well as the modern actions IWW members take to advocate for and organize workers marginalized by corporations, law enforcement, and society through actions on the street and in the workplace.

Download a free PDF of this issue.

Industrial Worker—Spring 2017 #1779 Vol. 114, No. 2

x344543 — Sat, 29 Apr 2017 04:25:53 +0000

Organize and Mobilize!

In this issue:

May Day mass action—'Strike from Below': Service workers in the U.S. South united in a general strike for the rights of workers, immigrants, Black Lives, Muslims, and all the other targets of the Trump Administration.
Look to the past to escape Trump's present: 1946 was the last year of the great general strikes. Trump plans to undo every workers' gain since the 19th century. We need to look back to the lessons from Oakland.
Coat-hanger direct action: The best action is direct action. Sometimes keeping things simple works best in a complicated society.
Momentum builds for May Day strikes: All around the U.S., workers are responding to assaults on rights—not from the bosses but from the government.

. . . and more!

Industrial Worker—Winter 2017 #1778 Vol. 114, No. 1

IWW.org Editor — Wed, 26 Apr 2017 01:58:26 +0000

Solidarity in Adversity

In this issue:

Stardust Family United: End-of-the-year setbacks and successes buoy workers at Ellen's Stardust Diner
Solidarity in Adversity: For unions in the Trump era, workers and communities must work together
In November We Remembered: Wobblies commemorate the 1916 Everett Massacre, honoring the slain on the land and sea
Jewish Faces in the IWW: From lumberjacks to baristas, Jewish Wobblies have organized workers for over 100 years

. . . and more!

Download a free PDF of this issue here.

Industrial Worker - Fall 2016 #1779

IWW.org Editor — Thu, 10 Nov 2016 03:52:15 +0000

In November We Remember!

In this issue:

Nationwide Prison Strike: Incarcerated workers strike across the United States on September 9th
Workplace Organizing: Restaurant workers at Ellen’s Stardust Diner organize with the IWW in New York City
Which Side Are you on?: Why labor must stand united against construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline

....and more!

Download a Free PDF of this issue here.

Industrial Worker - Summer 2016

x344543 — Wed, 03 Aug 2016 02:33:10 +0000

In this issue:

BLACK LIVES MATTER: Protests erupt worldwide in response to racist police shootings
WORKPLACE ORGANIZING: Workers at Portland fast food chain Burgerville unionize with the IWW
SOCIAL WAR IN FRANCE: CNT-F reports on the wave of popular protests sweeping the country

....and more!

Download a Free PDF of this issue.

Industrial Worker - Spring 2016

IWW.org Editor — Wed, 11 May 2016 22:30:36 +0000

PRISONERS ORGANIZE: Free Alabama Movement spreads to Virginia as prisoners take up IWW banner
TEACHERS FIGHT BACK: Teachers, students, parents and others fight austerity across the United States
HOUSING STRUGGLES: Portland Tenants United organize against eviction and displacement
....and more!

See attached, or view & share the issue online!