Public Employee Press

Media Beat
Labor legend at 100, Wobblies still an inspiration

One hundred years ago, many working people called it “the greatest thing on earth.” The Industrial Workers of the World, known as the Wobblies, was a union federation that organized people that mainstream labor thought were largely unorganizable — immigrants, migrant and casual labor, unskilled manufacturing employees and Black, Latino and women workers.

Founded in 1905, the I.W.W. believed that progress required not only fighting individual companies but also changing the whole capitalist economy to a system where workers control the factories and businesses.

Their battles and strikes are legendary as are their leaders and members, who were frequently beaten, jailed and sometimes executed to beat back their challenge to the system.

The Wobblies were radicals whose cultural side — art, cartoons, and songs such as “Solidarity Forever” — live on to this day. “WOBBLIES! A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World,” celebrates their centennial in print. The editors, historian Paul Buhle and artist Nicole Shulman, combine short introductions with beautiful cartoon histories by numerous gifted artists depicting Wobbly strikes, their free speech campaigns and their opposition to World War I. It includes biographies of leaders such as Joe Hill, Bill Haywood, Mother Jones, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Eugene Victor Debs.

You could call it “The Wobblies for Beginners,” or perhaps for a new generation, because the I.W.W. continues to exert influence today as unions look for direction and inspiration.

The new book is available in our DC 37 Library or in paperback for $23 from Verso Press.

The Wobblies were one of the most written and sung about forces of the U.S. labor movement. For more information, go to their Web site, www.iww.org, which also covers current organizing campaigns, such as their very vocal Starbucks drive, and includes cogent radical news and views of the current labor scene. And of course there are books, CDs and tapes in our library.

— Ken Nash
DC 37 Ed Fund Library, Rm. 211