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115-728: The Western Labor Union ( WLU ) was a labor federation created by the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) after the disastrous Leadville strike of 1896-97. The WLU was conceived in November, 1897 in a proclamation of the State Trades and Labor Council of Montana , and gained support from the WFM's executive board in December 1897. The WLU was formed in 1898 at a convention in Salt Lake City which

230-540: A 2 + 1 ⁄ 2 -ton granite monument when completed in 2024. A pardon request had been delivered to Washington Governor Inslee requesting posthumous pardons for the eight IWW members who were convicted. IWW quickly recovered from the setbacks of 1919 and 1920, with membership peaking in 1923 (58,300 estimated by dues paid per capita, though membership was likely somewhat higher as the union tolerated delinquent members). But recurring internal debates, especially between those who sought either to centralize or decentralize

345-482: A Mine Owners' Association with a secret anti-union agreement, locked out another 1,332 mine workers. The owners hired labor spies to spy on the union, and additional spies to report on replacement workers. Just days after union leaders publicly warned against violence, a violent incident occurred at the Coronado Mine. At least four union miners and one fireman were killed. Colorado Governor McIntire sent

460-587: A national union federation , the Industrial Workers of the World , in 1905. The WFM had adopted a socialist program in 1901. "Big Bill" Haywood , who joined the union as a silver miner in Idaho , put the union's anti-capitalist stance in the simplest terms: he took the side of workers against the mine owners who "did not find the gold, they did not mine the gold, they did not mill the gold, but by some weird alchemy all

575-475: A state militia was called out to protect striking miners from an armed group supporting mine owners. Further violence was averted by the owners' agreement to return to the eight-hour day and improve miners' pay to three dollars a day – the standard that the union fought for across the west from that point forward. That success enabled the WFM to expand dramatically over the next decade, to the point where it had over two hundred locals in thirteen states. However,

690-667: A struggle against mine owners in Leadville served to radicalize WFM leadership. Representatives of the Cloud City Miners' Union (CCMU), Local 33 of the Western Federation of Miners, asked for a wage increase of fifty cents per day for all mine workers not already making three dollars per day. The union felt justified, for fifty cents a day had been cut from the miners' wages during the depression of 1893. Negotiations broke down and 968 miners walked out. Mine owners, who had formed

805-514: A WFM stronghold, the mine owners did not recognize any miners union from 1914 until 1934. The WFM's defeat led it to look for allies in the battle with employers in the Rockies, a struggle the union didn't want to concede. The Western Labor Union had renamed itself the American Labor Union in 1902. The WFM now sought to join with other advocates of industrial unionism and socialism to found

920-611: A celebrity, and he was in demand as a speaker for the WFM. His increasingly radical speeches became more at odds with the WFM, and in April 1908, the WFM announced that the union had ended Haywood's role as a union representative. Haywood left the WFM and devoted all his time to organizing for the IWW. Historian Vernon H. Jensen has asserted that the IWW had a "rule or ruin" policy, under which it attempted to wreck local unions which it could not control. From 1908 to 1921, Jensen and others have written,

1035-714: A delegation from the American Federation of Labor "to plead for a reunited labor movement," the WLU changed its name to the American Labor Union. While at one time the American Labor Union claimed 135,000 members, a more sanguine estimate pegs the group's membership strength at 43,000 in 1905, which included 27,000 members of the WFM. When the AFL excluded unskilled workers, the ALU accused that federation of exercising policies that divided

1150-449: A high barbed-wire fence." Some of the miners, never having been charged with any crime, were eventually allowed to go free, while others were prosecuted. Hundreds more remained in the makeshift prison without charges. The Coeur d'Alene mine owners developed a permit-based hiring system to exclude union miners. At their 1901 convention the WFM miners agreed to the proclamation that a "complete revolution of social and economic conditions"

1265-445: A labor dispute. In 1908, Vincent St. John tried to organize a stealth takeover of the WFM. He wrote to WFM organizer Albert Ryan, encouraging him to find reliable IWW sympathizers at each WFM local, and have them appointed delegates to the annual convention by pretending to share whatever opinions of that local needed to become a delegate. Once at the convention, they could vote in a pro-IWW slate. St. Vincent promised: "once we can control

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1380-401: A lawyer for the union sought to free the prisoners on a writ of habeas corpus, Bell responded, " Habeas corpus , be damned! We'll give 'em post mortems !" The violence intensified. After a mine explosion on November 21, 1903 killed a superintendent and foreman, Bell announced a vagrancy order that required all strikers to return to work or be deported from the district. When a bomb exploded at

1495-470: A lockout, vowing to remain shut until they had broken the power of the IWW. The lockout prompted a split within the Goldfield workforce, between conservative and radical union members. Leaders of the Western Federation of Miners such as Bill Haywood and Vincent St. John were instrumental in forming the IWW, and the WFM affiliated with the new union organization shortly after the IWW was formed. The WFM became

1610-400: A low profile and GEB member Frank Little championing continued agitation, Ralph Chaplin brokered a compromise agreement. A statement was issued that denounced the war, but IWW members were advised to channel their opposition through the legal mechanisms of conscription. They were advised to register for the draft, marking their claims for exemption "IWW, opposed to war." During World War I,

1725-440: A means to bolster solidarity when the need arose. Eugene V. Debs assisted with the formation of the WLU. The federation initially comprised 14,000 miners and 400 individuals from other trades. Among the other trades were Colorado coal miners' locals, Colorado railway workers, western hotel and restaurant workers, carpenters, typographers, grocery clerks, laundry workers, cooks and waiters, hack drivers, and mattress makers. After

1840-458: A particularly stern rebuke to Idaho Governor Frank Gooding , describing such a state of affairs as the "grossest impropriety": If the Governor or the other officials of Idaho accept a cent from the operators or from any other capitalist with any reference, direct or indirect, to this prosecution, they would forfeit the respect of every good citizen and I should personally feel that they had committed

1955-590: A political influence on the Swedish labor movement's left, that in 1910 formed the Syndicalist union SAC which soon contained a minority seeking to mimick the tactics and strategies of the IWW. The few own the many because they possess the means of livelihood of all ... The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor. The majority of mankind are working people. So long as their fair demands –

2070-505: A public meeting in a vacant lot across from the Western Federation of Miners union hall in Victor. Speeches against the union gave way to arguments, followed by fist fights and shooting. Two non-union men were killed and five others on both sides were wounded in the melee. WFM members took refuge in their hall, but Company L of the National Guard surrounded the hall and laid siege, firing into

2185-633: A real crime. Roosevelt's strong words came in spite of the fact that he had already concluded the WFM leaders were guilty. Governor Gooding's response to the President provided a severely distorted account of the financial arrangements for the trial, and a promise to return money contributed by the mine owners. Gooding then: ...kept the narrowest construction of his promise to the president... [He then proclaimed publicly and often that] no dollar has been or will be supplied from any private source or organization whatsoever, [and then] went right on taking money from

2300-596: A represented workplace, nor does it exclude membership in another labor union. The first meeting to plan the IWW was held in Chicago in 1904. The seven attendees were Clarence Smith and Thomas J. Hagerty of the American Labor Union , George Estes and W. L. Hall of the United Brotherhood of Railway Employees , Isaac Cowan of the U.S. branch of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers , William E. Trautmann of

2415-473: A reputation for militancy in the mines of the western United States and British Columbia . Its efforts to organize both hard rock miners and smelter workers brought it into sharp conflicts – and often pitched battles – with both employers and governmental authorities. One of the most dramatic of these struggles occurred in the Cripple Creek district of Colorado in 1903–1904; the conflicts were thus dubbed

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2530-528: A response to the violence. A short time later Sheriff Robertson, whom the Mine Owner's Association deemed too tolerant of the union, was confronted and ordered to resign immediately or be lynched. Robertson was replaced with Edward Bell, a member of both the Mine Owner's Association and the Citizens' Alliance. In a hostile environment ripe for provocation, the Mine Owner's Association and the Citizens' Alliance called

2645-629: A separate prosecution, Orchard was convicted and sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted, and he spent the rest of his life in an Idaho prison. Orchard died in prison in 1954. The failure of later strikes and the depression of 1914 brought about a sharp decline in the WFM's membership. In 1916 the union changed its name to the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers . The union had become largely ineffective, riddled with members who passed information on to their employers, and unable to win substantial gains for its members for most of

2760-456: A series of riots as miners dissatisfied with the Western Federation of Miners local at Butte formed a new union, and demanded that all miners join the new union, or be subject to beatings or worse. Although the new rival union had no affiliation with the IWW, it was widely seen as IWW-inspired. The leadership of the new union contained many who were members of the IWW or agreed with the IWW's methods and objectives. The new union failed to supplant

2875-550: A serious fight, since the Cripple Creek miners were striking in sympathy with their demands. However, when one of the smelter operators refused to accept the deal brokered by the Governor of Colorado, James Hamilton Peabody , the Governor called in federal troops. Peabody was a fierce opponent of unions and of any social legislation that limited businesses' right to run their own affairs as they saw fit. The crucial issue in Colorado

2990-594: The American Smelting and Refining Company 's copper smelter in El Paso, Texas . During the strike, WFM officials competed with IWW officials to organize the workers with their respective unions. The WFM established a local union in El Paso and signed over 400 workers, though neither union was ever in control of the strike. While the strike ended in failure several weeks later, the WFM local remained. In July 1913, locals of

3105-514: The Colorado Labor Wars . The WFM also played a key role in the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905 but left that organization several years later. The WFM changed its name to the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers (more familiarly referred to as Mine Mill) in 1916. After a period of decline it revived in the early days of the New Deal and helped found

3220-614: The Colorado National Guard to Leadville. The WFM affiliated with the American Federation of Labor in 1896, but WFM delegates came away from the AFL convention in Cincinnati , ...not only disappointed with the refusal to aid their big fight in Leadville , but with a feeling that they had not been associating with union men, or with men possessing the moral or intellectual fibre ever to become good union men. The WFM withdrew from

3335-749: The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1935. The Mine Mill union was expelled from the CIO in 1950 during the post-war red scare for refusing to shed its Communist leadership. After spending years fighting off efforts by the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) to raid its membership, Mine Mill and the Canadian Auto Workers merged in 1967 and were able to retain the name Mine Mill Local 598 . After hard rock miners made sporadic and often unsuccessful efforts to organize during previous decades ,

3450-587: The First Red Scare after World War I . In Canada, the IWW was outlawed by the federal government by an Order in Council on September 24, 1918. Likely the most decisive factor in the decline in IWW membership and influence was a 1924 schism in the organization, from which the IWW never fully recovered. During the 1950s, the IWW faced near-extinction due to persecution under the Second Red Scare , although

3565-517: The Italian Hall Disaster . Shortly after the disaster, WFM president Charles Moyer was shot and then forcibly placed on a train headed for Chicago . The strikers held out until April 1914, but then gave up the strike. The WFM was left with almost no funds to run its operations or future strikes. In 1914, the copper miners at Butte, Montana, split between those loyal to the WFM, and those supporting more militancy, many of whom sympathized with

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3680-521: The Socialist Party in 1902, as did "all the major Colorado labor organizations." The ALU moved its headquarters from Butte to Chicago. It was in decline and on the verge of dissolution when it found new life in merging with other organizations into the IWW. The American Labor Union employed the rhetoric of political socialism, although it focused primarily on economic action by workers. Such economic action would later be referred to as direct action by

3795-694: The Tulsa Outrage , a group of black-robed Knights of Liberty tarred and feathered seventeen members of the IWW in Oklahoma. The attack was cited as revenge for the Green Corn Rebellion , a preemptive attack caused by fear of an impending attack on the oil fields and as punishment for not supporting the war effort. The IWW members had been turned over to the Knights of Liberty by local authorities after they were beaten, arrested at their headquarters and convicted of

3910-745: The United Brewery Workmen and Julian E. Bagley WW1 veteran and author. Eugene Debs , formerly of the American Railway Union , and Charles O. Sherman of the United Metal Workers were involved but did not attend the meeting. The IWW was officially founded in Chicago, Illinois in June 1905. A convention was held of 200 socialists , anarchists , Marxists (primarily members of the Socialist Party of America and Socialist Labor Party of America ), and radical trade unionists from all over

4025-472: The 1960s were organizing efforts among students in San Francisco and Berkeley, which were hotbeds of student radicalism at the time. This targeting of students resulted in a Bay Area branch of the union with over a hundred members in 1964, almost as many as the union's total membership in 1961. Wobblies old and new united for one more " free speech fight ": Berkeley's Free Speech Movement . Riding on this high,

4140-576: The AFL the following year. With the support of other organizations, including the State Trades and Labor Council of Montana, which issued a proposition to organize a new federation , the WFM created its own alternative to the AFL, the Western Labor Union (WLU). The WLU was formed in 1898 at a convention in Salt Lake City . Its goal was organizing all workers in the West. Another confrontation in Coeur d'Alene

4255-595: The Communist Party and its subsidiary organizations." After the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1946 by Congress, which called for the removal of Communist union leadership, the IWW experienced a loss of membership as differences of opinion occurred over how to respond to the challenge. In 1949, US Attorney General Tom C. Clark placed the IWW on the Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations in

4370-469: The First Annual Convention of the IWW. The IWW's founders included William D. ("Big Bill") Haywood , James Connolly , Daniel De Leon , Eugene V. Debs , Thomas Hagerty , Lucy Parsons , Mary Harris "Mother" Jones , Frank Bohn , William Trautmann , Vincent Saint John , Ralph Chaplin , and many others. The IWW aimed to promote worker solidarity in the revolutionary struggle to overthrow

4485-450: The Globe and Grant smelters ... [ but the WLU ] represented a diverse array of urban workers—many, though not all, of them unskilled—organized mainly in industrial organizations. One Denver WLU affiliate was the powerful Butchers Protective Union, with nearly fifteen hundred members in 1902. It included skilled butchers and unskilled meatpackers. In 1902, as a response to a visit of

4600-511: The IWW are described as "revolutionary industrial unionism", with ties to socialist , syndicalist , and anarchist labor movements. In the 1910s and early 1920s, the IWW achieved many of its short-term goals, particularly in the American West , and cut across traditional guild and union lines to organize workers in a variety of trades and industries. At their peak in August 1917, IWW membership

4715-438: The IWW attempted to win power in WFM locals which had once formed the federation's backbone. When it could not do so, IWW agitators undermined WFM locals, which caused the national union to shed nearly half its membership. The Western Federation of Miners left the IWW in 1907, but the IWW wanted the WFM back. The WFM had made up about a third of the IWW membership, and the western miners were tough union men, and good allies in

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4830-402: The IWW's "mining section". Many in the rank and file of the WFM were uncomfortable with the open radicalism of the IWW and wanted the WFM to maintain its independence. Schisms between the WFM and IWW had emerged at the annual IWW convention in 1906, when a majority of WFM delegates walked out. When WFM executives Bill Haywood, George Pettibone , and Charles Moyer were accused of complicity in

4945-489: The IWW's general secretary-treasurer Bill Haywood became determined that the organization should adopt a low profile in order to avoid perceived threats to its existence. The printing of anti-war stickers was discontinued, stockpiles of existing anti-war documents were put into storage, and anti-war propagandizing ceased as official union policy. After much debate on the General Executive Board, with Haywood advocating

5060-621: The Independence Depot near Victor, Colorado on June 6, 1904, killing thirteen strikebreakers, Sheriff H.M. Robertson went to investigate. The situation became very volatile, with throngs of angry men gathered in the streets. The Cripple Creek Mine Owners' Association and an anti-union vigilante organization, the Cripple Creek District Citizens' Alliance , called a meeting at the Victor Military Club to formulate

5175-575: The Industrial Workers of the World. The officers consisted of a President, Vice-President, Secretary-Treasurer, and an Executive Board of nine members, which included the President and Vice-president. The officers were elected biennially by a referendum vote of the general membership. The government was more centralized than the typical federation of trade unions of the time. For example, the executive board could depose any general officer, and affiliated organizations were not permitted to strike without

5290-515: The MMWIU. Despite its brief affiliation with the Congress of Industrial Organizations, it was raided by the AFL and CIO and defunct by the late 1950s, less than ten years after separating from the IWW. The loss of the MMWIU, at the time the IWW's largest industrial union, was almost a deathblow to the IWW. The union's membership fell to its lowest level in the 1950s during the Second Red Scare , and by 1955,

5405-644: The Mexican border. Nearly 5000 miners worked in Bisbee's mines. On June 27, 1917, Bisbee's miners went on strike. The strike was effective and non-violent. Demands included the doubling of pay for surface workers, most of them recent immigrants from Mexico, as well as changes in working conditions to make the mines safer. The six-hour day was raised agitationally but held in abeyance. In the early hours of July 12, hundreds of armed vigilantes rounded up nearly two thousand strikers, of whom 1186 were deported in cattle cars and dumped in

5520-637: The Southwest, and became a large and powerful longshoremen's union in Philadelphia. Resisting IWW domination in the gold mining boom town of Goldfield, Nevada was the AFL-affiliated Carpenters Union. In March 1907, the IWW demanded that the mines deny employment to AFL Carpenters, which led mine owners to challenge the IWW. The mine owners banded together and pledged not to employ any IWW members. The mine and business owners of Goldfield staged

5635-500: The U.S. working class , but it was causing separation rather than unity within groups of workers by organizing according to narrow craft principles. The Wobblies believed that all workers should organize as a class, a philosophy that is still reflected in the Preamble to the current IWW Constitution: The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of

5750-409: The U.S. government moved strongly against the IWW. On September 5, 1917, U.S. Department of Justice agents made simultaneous raids on dozens of IWW meeting halls across the country. Minutes books, correspondence, mailing lists, and publications were seized, with the U.S. Department of Justice removing five tons of material from the IWW's General Office in Chicago alone. Based in large measure on

5865-568: The UMWA members to peacefully pass through the IWW picket lines. In November 1916, the 10th convention of the IWW authorized an organizing drive in the Arizona copper mines. Copper was a vital war commodity, so mines were working day and night. During the first months of 1917, thousands joined the Metal Mine Workers' Union #800. The focus of the organizing drive was Bisbee, Arizona , a small town near

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5980-546: The UMWA too reactionary, because the United Mine Workers negotiated contracts with the mine owners for fixed time periods; the IWW considered that contracts hindered their revolutionary goals. In what a contemporary writer pointed out was a complete reversal of their usual policy, UMWA officials called for police to protect United Mine Workers members who wished to cross the picket lines. The Pennsylvania State Police arrived in force, prevented picket line violence, and allowed

6095-472: The United States (mainly the Western Federation of Miners ) who strongly opposed the policies of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The IWW opposed the AFL's acceptance of capitalism and its refusal to include unskilled workers in craft unions. The convention had taken place on June 27, 1905, and was referred to as the "Industrial Congress" or the "Industrial Union Convention". It was later known as

6210-438: The WFM to work for the IWW. The WFM rejoined the AFL in 1911. When Frank Steunenberg , a former governor of Idaho , was murdered on December 30, 1905, the authorities arrested Charles Moyer , president of the union, Bill Haywood , its secretary, and George Pettibone , a former member, in Colorado and put them on trial for Steunenberg's murder. The prosecution relied heavily on the testimony of Harry Orchard , who claimed that

6325-509: The WFM, and the ongoing fight between the two resulted in the copper mines of Butte, longtime union strongholds for the WFM, becoming open shops, and the mine owners recognized no union from 1914 until 1934. The IWW clashed with the United Mine Workers union in April 1916, when the IWW picketed the anthracite mines around Scranton, Pennsylvania, intending, by persuasion or force, to keep UMWA members from going to work. The IWW considered

6440-526: The WFM. Although the courts eventually acquitted all union members charged with the bombing of the railroad station during the 1903–04 strike and awarded damages to those who had been deported, the strike and the union were broken in Cripple Creek; similar measures were resorted to in Telluride, Colorado . The actions effectively drove the WFM out of many of the mining camps in Colorado. On 18 September 1912, about 4,800 miners struck Utah Copper Company "and all

6555-537: The Western Federation of Miners called a general strike against all mines in the Michigan Copper Country . The strike was called without approval by the national WFM, which was extremely low on funds after the recent strikes in the west. The union supported the strike, but faced great difficulties providing pay and supplies to the strikers. Hundreds of strikers surrounded the mine shafts to prevent others from reporting to work. Almost all mines shut down, although

6670-455: The Western Federation of Miners was established on May 15, 1893. The federation was formed through the merger of several miners' unions representing copper miners from Butte, Montana , silver and lead miners from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho , gold miners from Colorado and hard rock miners from South Dakota , and Utah at a five-day convention held in Butte, Montana . First president of the organization

6785-421: The Western Federation of Miners, which sought to organize miners throughout the West. Violence occurred in later strikes as well. At Cripple Creek, Colorado , after mine owners increased the working day from eight hours to ten, miners dynamited mine buildings and equipment. The county sheriff hired thousands of armed deputies, and then lost control of them. This 1894 struggle was one of the few strikes in which

6900-415: The approval of the executive board. The official organ of the American Labor Union were the weekly American Labor Union Journal. Price of the publication was 50 cents per year. Three years after its founding the ALU took part in the creation of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Western Federation of Miners The Western Federation of Miners ( WFM ) was a labor union that gained

7015-480: The beginning of the 1949 Smith Act trials , FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was disappointed when prosecutors indicted fewer CPUSA members than he had hoped, and—recalling the arrests and convictions of over one hundred IWW leaders in 1917—complained to the Justice Department, stating, "the IWW as a subversive menace was crushed and has never revived. Similar action at this time would have been as effective against

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7130-476: The building from nearby rooftops. Forty union members eventually surrendered, with four of them sporting fresh wounds. The Citizen's Alliance entered the building and trashed it. Vigilantes subsequently destroyed every union hall in the area, while General Bell used the National Guard to deport hundreds of strikers. General Bell closed the Portland Mine, owned by James Burns, because it had come to an agreement with

7245-513: The category of "organizations seeking to change the government by unconstitutional means" under Executive Order 9835 , which offered no means of appeal, and which excluded all IWW members from Federal employment and federally subsidized housing programs (this order was revoked by Executive Order 10450 in 1953). At this time, the Cleveland local of the Metal and Machinery Workers Industrial Union (MMWIU)

7360-411: The confrontation, the Coeur d'Alene miners received considerable assistance from the Butte Miners' Union in Butte, Montana , who mortgaged their buildings to send aid. There was a growing concern that local unions were vulnerable to the power of Mine Owners' Associations like the one in Coeur d'Alene. In May 1893, about forty delegates from northern hard rock mining camps met in Butte, and established

7475-408: The crime of vagrancy. Five other men who testified in defense of the Wobblies were also fined by the court and subjected to the same torture and humiliations at the hands of the Knights of Liberty. In 1919, an Armistice Day parade by the American Legion in Centralia, Washington , turned into a fight between legionnaires and IWW members in which four legionnaires were shot. Which side initiated

7590-407: The decision in 1967 to allow college and university students to join the Education Workers Industrial Union (IU 620) as full members spurred campaigns in 1968 at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee , and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The IWW sent representatives to Students for a Democratic Society conventions in 1967, 1968, and 1969, and as

7705-573: The deep South and the Pacific Northwest of the United States and Canada, between 1917 and 1924. The IWW lumber strike of 1917 led to the eight-hour day and vastly improved working conditions in the Pacific Northwest. Though mid-century historians credited the US Government and "forward thinking lumber magnates" for agreeing to such reforms, an IWW strike forced these concessions. Where the IWW did win strikes, such as in Lawrence, they often found it hard to hold onto their gains. The IWW of 1912 disdained collective bargaining agreements and preached instead

7820-481: The desert of New Mexico. In the following days, hundreds more were ordered to leave. The strike was broken at gunpoint. Between 1915 and 1917, the IWW's Agricultural Workers Organization (AWO) organized more than a hundred thousand migratory farm workers throughout the Midwest and western United States. Building on the success of the AWO, the IWW's Lumber Workers Industrial Union (LWIU) used similar tactics to organize lumberjacks and other timber workers, both in

7935-445: The documents seized September 5, one hundred and sixty-six IWW leaders were indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in Chicago for conspiring to hinder the draft, encourage desertion, and intimidate others in connection with labor disputes, under the new Espionage Act. One hundred and one went on trial en masse before Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis in 1918. Their lawyer was George Vanderveer of Seattle. In 1917, during an incident known as

8050-422: The employing class; its motto was " an injury to one is an injury to all ". They saw this as an improvement upon the Knights of Labor 's creed, "an injury to one is the concern of all" which the Knights had spoken out in the 1880s. In particular, the IWW was organized because of the belief among many unionists, socialists, anarchists, Marxists, and radicals that the AFL not only had failed to effectively organize

8165-509: The form of Colorado's National Guard , whose salaries were paid by the business community, not the State. Their commanding officer, General Sherman Bell , began arresting union leaders, strikers, and local public officials by the hundreds. Bell prohibited local newspapers from printing any material unfavorable to the military and ordered the arrest of the entire staff of a newspaper whose editorial had offended him. In Bell's words, "Military necessity recognizes no laws, either civil or social". When

8280-498: The gallows if he testified that an "inner circle" of Western Federation of Miners leaders had ordered the crime. The prosecution of that "inner circle" of the union was then funded, in part, by direct contributions from the Ceour d'Alene District Mine Owners' Association to prosecuting attorneys who were, ostensibly, working for the state rather than for private interests. Upon hearing of this circumstance, president Theodore Roosevelt issued

8395-421: The gold belonged to them!" Haywood was the first chairman of the IWW; he defined its work as "socialism with its working clothes on". But factional differences the following year between the "revolutionists" and "reformists" within the IWW, which also divided the leadership of the WFM, led to the departure of the WFM from the IWW in 1907. After the split, former WFM leaders Bill Haywood and Vincent St. John left

8510-505: The immigrant IWW membership. "Conceivably, the number of Finns belonging to the I.W.W. was somewhere between five and ten thousand." The Finnish-language newspaper of the IWW, Industrialisti , published in Duluth, Minnesota , a center of the mining industry, was the union's only daily paper. At its peak, it ran 10,000 copies per issue. Another Finnish-language Wobbly publication was the monthly Tie Vapauteen ("Road to Freedom"). Also of note

8625-438: The interest of the working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all. Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair day's wage for a fair day's work," we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, "Abolition of

8740-411: The labor movement and broader push of social justice was that, when founded, it was the only American union to welcome all workers, including women, immigrants, African Americans and Asians, into the same organization. Many of its early members were immigrants, and some, such as Carlo Tresca , Joe Hill and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn , rose to prominence in the leadership. Finns formed a sizable portion of

8855-403: The late 1910s and 1920s. There were conflicts with other labor groups, particularly the American Federation of Labor (AFL), which regarded the IWW as too radical, while the IWW regarded the AFL as too conservative and opposed their decision to divide workers on the basis of their trades. Membership also declined due to government crackdowns on radical , anarchist , and socialist groups during

8970-510: The militancy of the undisciplined recruits ... From the founding of the Western Federation in 1893, its story for twelve years is that of a continuous search for solidarity ... The miners who formed the union had already experienced a number of hard-fought battles with mine owners and governmental authorities: in the Coeur d'Alene strike in February 1892, after company guards shot five strikers to death,

9085-435: The military to indiscriminately round up 1,000 men and put them into bullpens . Emma Langdon , a union sympathizer, charged in a 1908 book that Governor Steunenberg deposited $ 35,000 into his bank account within a week after troops arrived in the Coeur d'Alene district, implying that there may have been a bribe from the mine operators. J. Anthony Lukas later confirmed the donation in his book Big Trouble , In 1899, when

9200-582: The mine owners. In addition to Idaho mine owners, powerful and wealthy industrialists outside of Idaho were also tapped in an effort to destroy the Western Federation of Miners. Donations for the prosecutorial effort estimated in the range of $ 75,000 to $ 100,000 were simultaneously solicited and forwarded from the Colorado Mine Owners' Association and other wealthy Colorado donors. Mining interests in other states – Nevada and Utah, for example – were approached as well. The defense hired Clarence Darrow ,

9315-529: The miners disarmed the guards and marched more than a hundred strikebreakers out of town. In response Governor N.B. Willey asked for federal troops to restore order; President Benjamin Harrison sent General John Schofield , who declared martial law , arrested 600 strikers and then held them in a stockade prison without the right to trial, bail or habeas corpus . Schofield then ordered local mine owners to discharge any union members they had rehired. During

9430-410: The more radical Industrial Workers of the World . The militants attacked WFM officials marching in the annual Union Day parade, and later blew up the WFM headquarters with dynamite. The dissidents established their own rival union, but neither the WFM or the new militant union was able to keep peace among the miners, so the mine owners recognized neither union. The result was that at Butte, for many years

9545-580: The most renowned lawyer of the day, who had represented Eugene V. Debs several years earlier. In spite of the combined efforts of state and local governments in Idaho and Colorado, the Mine Owners' Associations, the Pinkerton and Thiel Detective Agencies, and other interested industrialists, the jury acquitted Bill Haywood. Pettibone was also acquitted early the next year, and all charges against Moyer were dropped. In

9660-433: The murder of former Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg , the IWW used the case to raise funds and support and paid for the legal defense. Even the not guilty verdicts worked against the IWW, because the IWW was deprived of martyrs, and at the same time, a large portion of the public remained convinced of the guilt of the accused. Bill Haywood for a time remained a member of both organizations. His murder trial had made Haywood

9775-722: The need for constant struggle against the boss on the shop floor. It proved difficult to maintain that sort of revolutionary enthusiasm against employers. In Lawrence, the IWW lost nearly all of its membership in the years after the strike, as the employers wore down their employees' resistance and eliminated many of the strongest union supporters. In 1938, the IWW voted to allow contracts with employers. The IWW's efforts were met with "unparalleled" resistance from Federal, state and local governments in America; from company management and labor spies , and from groups of citizens functioning as vigilantes. In 1914, Wobbly Joe Hill (born Joel Hägglund)

9890-571: The next two decades. Industrial Workers of the World The Industrial Workers of the World ( IWW ), whose members are nicknamed " Wobblies ", is an international labor union founded in Chicago in 1905. The nickname's origin is uncertain. Its ideology combines general unionism with industrial unionism , as it is a general union, subdivided between the various industries which employ its members. The philosophy and tactics of

10005-448: The officers of the WFM for the IWW, the big bulk of the membership will go with them." But the takeover did not succeed. According to several historians, the 1913 El Paso smelters' strike marked one of the first instances of direct competition between the IWW and the WFM, as the two unions competed to organize workers on strike against the American Smelting and Refining Company 's local smelter . In 1914, Butte, Montana, erupted into

10120-569: The one-man drill, and especially refused to employ Western Federation of Miners members. On Christmas Eve 1913, the Western Federation of Miners organized a party for strikers and their families at the Italian Benevolent Society hall in Calumet . The hall was packed with between 400 and 500 people when someone shouted "fire." There was no fire, but 73 people, 62 of them children, were crushed to death trying to escape. This became known as

10235-459: The organization had around 25,000 members. In its first decades, the IWW created more than 900 unions located in more than 350 cities and towns in 38 states and territories of the United States and five Canadian provinces. Throughout the country, there were 90 newspapers and periodicals affiliated with the IWW, published in 19 different languages. Cartoons were a major part of IWW publications. Produced by unpaid rank and file members they satirised

10350-489: The organization, ultimately brought about the IWW's 1924 schism. The twenties witnessed the defection of hundreds of Wobbly leaders (including Harrison George , Elizabeth Gurley Flynn , John Reed , George Hardy , Charles Ashleigh , Earl Browder and, in his Soviet exile, Bill Haywood ) and, following a path recounted by Fred Beal , thousands of Wobbly rank-and-filers to the Communists and Communist organizations. At

10465-526: The ownership and control of their livelihoods – are set at naught, we can have neither men's rights nor women's rights. The majority of mankind is ground down by industrial oppression in order that the small remnant may live in ease. — Helen Keller , IWW member, 1911 The IWW first attracted attention in Goldfield , Nevada , in 1906 and during the Pressed Steel Car Strike of 1909 . By 1912,

10580-600: The police force—one a regular officer and another a deputized citizen from the National Guard Reserve—were killed, probably by "friendly fire". At least five Everett civilians were wounded. Many IWW members opposed United States participation in World War I . The organization passed a resolution against the war at its convention in November 1916. This echoed the view, expressed at the IWW's founding convention, that war represents struggles among capitalists in which

10695-580: The principal mines, mills, and smelters of Bingham camp ." Other Utah mine sympathizers brought that number to 9,000. The company enlisted an army of 5,000 besides having the protection of the Utah National Guard . The strike ended in October and at the end of the month, Daniel C. Jackling raised wages. It also saw an end to the Padrone system . In April 1913, several hundred Mexican American workers at

10810-476: The rich become richer, and the working poor all too often die at the hands of other workers. An IWW newspaper, the Industrial Worker , wrote just before the U.S. declaration of war: "Capitalists of America, we will fight against you, not for you! There is not a power in the world that can make the working class fight if they refuse." Yet when a declaration of war was passed by the U.S. Congress in April 1917,

10925-473: The state needed money for the Coeur d'Alene prosecutions, the Mine Owners' Association had come up with $ 32,000—about a third of it from Bunker Hill and Sullivan—handing $ 25,000 over to Governor Steunenberg for use at his discretion in the prosecution. Some of this money went to pay [attorneys]. Idaho miners were held for "months of imprisonment in the 'bull-pen' — a structure unfit to house cattle – enclosed in

11040-471: The trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers. These conditions can be changed and

11155-513: The transfer of the Western Federation of Miners headquarters [ to Denver, Colorado ] in 1900, and especially after the opening of a WLU office there in May 1901, the WLU began a period of astonishing growth. Of the seventy-one new charters the WLU issued to unions between May 1901 and February 1902, seventeen were to organizations in Denver. The WLU's initial base in Denver lay with the eleven hundred workers at

11270-659: The union had directed him to plant the bombs that killed supervisors and strikebreakers during the second Cripple Creek strike and that Haywood, Moyer and Pettibone had hired him to assassinate Governor Steunenberg. The prosecution had depended heavily on the investigative work of James McParland who, acting as an operative for the Pinkerton Detective Agency , had helped convict the Molly Maguires three decades earlier, and felt confident that it would convict all three. McParland persuaded Orchard that he could avoid

11385-638: The union would later experience a resurgence in the context of the New Left in the 1960s and 1970s. The IWW promotes the concept of " One Big Union ", and contends that all workers should be united as a social class to supplant capitalism and wage labor with industrial democracy . It is known for the Wobbly Shop model of workplace democracy , through which workers elect their own managers and other forms of grassroots democracy ( self-management ) are implemented. The IWW does not require its members to work in

11500-406: The union's fiftieth anniversary, it was near extinction, though it still appeared on government lists of Communist-led groups. The 1960s civil rights movement , anti-war protests, and various university student movements brought new life to the IWW, albeit with many fewer new members than the great organizing drives of the early part of the 20th century. The first signs of new life for the IWW in

11615-546: The union's opponents and helped spread its messages in various forms, including 'stickerettes'. The most well-known IWW cartoon character, Mr Block, was created by Ernest Riebe and was made the subject of a Joe Hill song. Members of the IWW were active throughout the country and were involved in the Seattle General Strike of 1919, were arrested or killed in the Everett Massacre , organized among Mexican workers in

11730-590: The violence of the Centralia massacre is disputed, though there had been previous attacks on the IWW hall and businessmen's association had made threats against union members. A number of IWWs were arrested, one of whom, Wesley Everest , was lynched by a mob that night. A bronze plaque honoring the IWW members imprisoned and lynched following the Centralia Tragedy was dedicated in the city's George Washington Park on November 11, 2023. This plaque will be installed on

11845-420: The wage system." It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old . One of the IWW's most important contributions to

11960-426: The workers were said to be sharply divided on the strike question. The union demanded an 8-hour day, a minimum wage of $ 3 per day, an end to use of the one-man drill, and that the companies recognize it as the employees' representative. The mines reopened under National Guard protection, and many went back to work. The companies instituted the 8-hour day, but refused to set a $ 3 per day minimum wage, refused to abandon

12075-485: The working class. However, the ALU favored Asian Exclusion. (A Chinese exclusion act had been passed in 1882, and wasn't repealed until 1943.) In the Cripple Creek district of Colorado where the ALU had a presence, many non-white nationalities were excluded or discriminated against. The Industrial Workers of the World, on the other hand, professed from its first conference in 1905 that there should be no discrimination against any worker. The American Labor Union endorsed

12190-451: The working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life. Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth. We find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes

12305-569: Was "the only salvation of the working classes." WFM leaders openly called for the abolition of the wage system. By the spring of 1903 the WFM was the most militant labor organization in the country. The plan to organize the mill workers led to even fiercer battles with the refinery companies, who paid their workers half what miners earned for a ten- to twelve-hour day. When smelter workers went on strike in Colorado City, Colorado in 1903 it appeared that they might be able to win their demands without

12420-440: Was John Gilligan and W.J. Weeks was the union's first secretary-treasurer. Fred W. Thompson and Patrick Murfin have written, The Western Federation of Miners was frontier unionism, the organization of workers who had become "wage slaves" of mining corporations rather recently acquired by back-east absentee ownership. They built their union when they were not yet "broken in" to the discipline of business management. [The WFM] had

12535-502: Was accused of murder in Utah and, on what many regarded as limited and insufficient evidence, was executed in 1915. On November 5, 1916, at Everett, Washington , a group of deputized businessmen led by Sheriff Donald McRae attacked Wobblies on the steamer Verona , killing at least five union members (six more were never accounted for and probably were lost in Puget Sound ). Two members of

12650-451: Was attended mostly by former members of the Knights of Labor . The new federation was formed as a response to the conservatism of the American Federation of Labor . The hardrock miners of the WFM had become well-organized, but apart from the miners, mining territories were largely unorganized. Members of the WFM saw the WLU as an opportunity to meet the needs of these other workers, and also as

12765-652: Was estimated at more than 150,000, with active wings in the United States , the United Kingdom , Canada , Australia and New Zealand . However, the extremely high rate of IWW membership turnover during this era (estimated at 133% between 1905 and 1915) makes it difficult for historians to state membership totals with any certainty, as workers tended to join the IWW in large numbers for relatively short periods ( e.g. , during labor strikes and periods of generalized economic distress). Membership declined dramatically in

12880-524: Was marked by violence. The profitable Bunker Hill Mining Company at Wardner, Idaho fired seventeen workers believed to be union members. On April 29, 250 angry miners seized a train and rode it to a $ 250,000 mill at the Bunker Hill Mine in Wardner. The miners then set off three thousand pounds of dynamite in the mill. At Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg 's request, President William McKinley sent

12995-495: Was the eight-hour day . When the legislature had enacted a statute limiting the workday in hazardous industries, such as mining and smelting, to eight hours, the Colorado Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional. The voters of Colorado then passed a referendum authorizing the eight-hour day, but the smelter owners and Republican Party fought any efforts to pass a new statute implementing the amendment. That power took

13110-837: Was the Finnish IWW educational institute, the Work People's College in Duluth, and the Finnish Labour Temple in Port Arthur, Ontario , Canada, which served as the IWW Canadian administration for several years. Further, many Swedish immigrants, particularly those blacklisted after the 1909 Swedish General Strike , joined the IWW and set up similar cultural institutions around the Scandinavian Socialist Clubs. This in turn exerted

13225-523: Was the strongest IWW branch in the United States. Leading figures such as Frank Cedervall , who had helped build the branch up for over ten years, were concerned about the possibility of raiding from AFL-CIO unions if the IWW had its legal status as a union revoked. In 1950, Cedervall led the 1500-member MMWIU national organization to split from the IWW, as the Lumber Workers Industrial Union had almost 30 years earlier. This act did not save

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