THE I.W.W.

Industrial Unionist, Volume 1, Issue 19, 22 November 1913, Page 4

THE I.W.W.

(Reprinted from the late “Social Democrat.”)

The I.W.W. stands for the Industrial Workers of the World.

It is a revolutionary industrial organisation composed of active w r age-earners, male and female, who perceive that the only w r ay to get better workshop conditions, shorter hours of toil, and better pay is by fighting the boss as an organised army rather than as a mob. It is growing and gathering strength in a manner truly remarkable. It wall grow r and as industrial development take place and the proletarian propaganda proceeds. The I.W.W. does not exist upon a craft, but a class basis, and is built up per industry. The I.W.W. will not permit of its members being chloroformed and paralysed by “ sacred contracts ” with the boss, Arbitration Court awards, and humbugged by mediaeval rules and constitutions similar to those existing in the craft union forms of organisation. The I.W.W. will be satisfied with nothing less than THE UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER OF THE CAPITALIST CLASS.

The 1.W.W., instead of having craft unions as the unit of their organisation, w r ould have local industrial unions, so that all the workers of a given industry in a certain district or tow r n w'ould meet together to promote anything for the w-ell-being and benefit of the various shop branches. In this manner the workers could make common cause with one another to defeat the boss, instead of being divided into craft unions hopelessly struggling as individual units. The I.W.W. w T ould then link up all the Local Industrial Unions into National Industrial Unions, so as to have National Industrial Unions of the mining industry, building industry, farming industry, transportation industry, and so on with al other industries. Each National Industrial Union w*ouhl have jurisdiction over the entire industry. The I.W.W. w T ould then unite all the close-ly-allied National Industrial Unions into specific industrial departments, a representative from each of the National Industrial Unions, and whatever other officers were necessary, to consolidate the executive board of any given industrial department.

“ All the various Industrial Departments would then be combined into the General Organisation, or ONE BIG UNION, and would embrace the entire working class of any given country. The ONE BIG UNION would then in turn be made an integral part of a like international working class organisation,. and through the international organisation establish solidarity and co-operation between the workers of all countries.”

The advantages of being organised upon such lines as these are manifold, and as much in advance and superior to the craft forms of organisation as the express train is to the old stage coach. For instance, the old idea permeating* the membership of the craft organisation to protect a special trade or craft ” 'is fast being* obliterated, thanks to the wonderful development m mechanical science, its unifying action, and psychological effect upon the workers. The workers are now compelled to organise to protect, not their craft, but to save their own individuality as a class, from the ruthless and exacting machine process—the stimulant and dynamic of the Capitalist system itself. To ena ole the workers who, by the machine piocess, aie conditioned into revolutionary thought and activity, to give expression to their ideals and aspirations, they must have an organisation of such structure, oasis, and purpose as to correspond thereto.

-this the I.W .W . supplies, because, based upon the Class struggle, fully recognising the nature of the Class state, and more particularly the economic foundations upon which it exists, and the antagonisms arising therefrom, it declares there can be no peace, pact, fusion or compromise whilst the Capitalist system lasts and that nothing but a continual warfare upon t ip citadel of Capitalism and its members will l>e possible until the workers shall have come together on the industrial field, as one united army, expropriate the whole Capitalist class, and with such emanciptaory act inaugurate industrial freedom for the whole working class, and freedom for the human race.