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The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) is a revolutionary labor union founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1905. The goal of the IWW is to join all working-class peoples together into “one big union” organized by industry rather than by trade. The IWW promotes organizing on the job to build workplaces that benefit workers and communities. In addition to improving the economic conditions of workers today, the IWW aims to establish a new world built on economic democracy. As of 2018, the “Preamble to the IWW Constitution” declares, “The working class and the employing class have nothing in common… 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.” The IWW is both a model for how a future society could function without capitalism and also the means to achieve revolution.

The IWW established a presence in the Seattle, Washington area in 1905 and Wobblies (the nickname for IWW members) continue to organize workers in the Puget Sound region to this day. By 1906 the Seattle Joint Branches of the Industrial Workers of the World had over 200 members operating in the Seattle area. The IWW focused on organizing workers that the American Federation of Labor excluded, including so-called “unskilled” workers and workers of color. The IWW organized workers without regard to trade, skill, race, religion, or national origin, and was possibly the first non-segregated labor union in the US.

In the 1910s, the IWW organized lumberjacks and other timber workers, who were performing some of the most dangerous work in the country at the time. Lumber workers led numerous strikes against lumber companies in Western Washington. The IWW published literature in many different languages to build solidarity with the multiethnic and multicultural lumber workforce. However, employers fought unionization by firing Wobblies and Wobbly sympathizers, using detectives to infiltrate the union, and directing vigilante groups to disrupt strikes.

The IWW also faced significant repression by the US government and the government of Washington State and its counties. In 1916 the IWW was attacked in Everett, Washington. Seattle Wobblies traveled to Everett to support striking shingle workers, who were being arrested and assaulted by vigilantes and police deputies. In response, the Seattle IWW sent approximately 250-300 additional supporters to Everett by steamship. The Wobblies were met in Everett by a contingent of more than 200 recently deputized citizens. While the exact death toll is contested, the armed confrontation that followed resulted in the death of a few “citizen deputies” and at least a dozen Wobblies. Many others were injured by the gunfire in what became known as the Everett Massacre.

In February of 1919, Wobblies went out on a general strike with over 65,000 workers during the Seattle General Strike. Local labor unions, organized under the Seattle Central Labor Council, voted nearly unanimously to go out on a sympathetic strike in support of shipyard workers who were striking against a wage freeze after World War I. The IWW was enmeshed in this movement and was an essential part of the creation and distribution of literature during the strike, especially writer and Wobbly Walker C. Smith. Many conservative Seattleites interpreted the radical demands during the strike to mean that the strikers aimed for revolution, much like the recent Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. However, state repression and more conservative labor elements pressured the strikers to end their strike after five days. Dozens of Wobblies were targeted for arrest and many immigrant Wobblies, especially those from Russia, were deported on the grounds of being “alien anarchists.”

Later in 1919, on the first anniversary of Armistice Day, the American Legion marched in a parade in Centralia, Washington. The armed Legionnaires stopped in front of the IWW union hall and stormed the building. IWW members opened fire in self defense and killed or wounded several Legionnaires. The Wobblies and their lawyer were then held in the Centralia jail. One Wobbly, Wesley Everest, was taken from a jail cell and lynched. This event, now known as the Centralia Tragedy, resulted in a number of Wobblies being tried for murder. The jury found seven guilty of second-degree murder, while no member of the American Legion was ever brought to justice for the murder of Everest or the attack on the IWW union hall.

As a result of the IWW’s radical tactics, the Washington legislature passed a bill outlawing “criminal syndicalism,” which the Washington State Supreme Court later upheld. The law made it illegal to advocate crime, sabotage, and violence as a means of accomplishing political or industrial reform. From 1919 to 1936, it was a felony to be a member of the IWW, many Wobblies were prosecuted around the state, and organizing activities were forced underground. This state law coincided with federal laws against sedition that targeted anarchists, syndicalists, anti-war activists, and other radical organizers. This period, known as the First Red Scare, undercut the IWW’s organizing activities in Washington.

While surviving in a reduced capacity under state repression, the IWW continued to engage in organizing campaigns in Washington. In 1933 the IWW undertook a campaign to organize agricultural workers in the Yakima Valley. Members of the Agricultural Workers Industrial Union No. 110 demanded pay raises and an eight-hour workday. A wave of strikes occurred in hop fields in the Yakima Valley and many Wobblies were arrested. In August, a strike at the Congdon Orchards was suppressed with violence by the farm owners with the help of law enforcement officers. Many strikers were imprisoned. By mid-December, the IWW and the local government reached an agreement with the assistance of the IWW’s lawyer Mark Litchman that resulted in many of the strikers being released from jail.

Membership in the IWW continued to decline during World War II and the post-war era. In 1965, membership in Seattle declined to a point that members decided to disband the Seattle Joint Branches of the IWW and closed the Seattle office. However, the IWW in Seattle experienced a revival that aligned with the counterculture and student movements of the late-1960s and early-1970s. This General Membership Branch (GMB) lasted until the late-1980s. In 1995, the branch reformed as the Puget Sound GMB and later split into the Seattle GMB and Olympia GMB in 1997. The Seattle GMB organized the Lincoln Park Mini Mart and participated in the 1999 protests against the World Trade Organization (WTO). In 2002, the IWW organized some of the staff of Central Co-op, a grocery store that continues as an IWW shop to this day.

In the 2000s, the Seattle GMB experienced steady growth. In 2008, Wobblies created a solidarity committee that focused on supporting workers with specific job and housing grievances. In 2013, the committee split from the IWW and is now known as Seattle Solidarity Network, or SeaSol. The Seattle GMB grew significantly following the 2016 presidential election and the Greater Seattle General Defense Committee (GDC) Local 24 was founded that same year. As of 2018, the Seattle GMB is the largest IWW GMB in the United States.

Sources:

“About | Greater Seattle General Defense Committee.” Accessed October 11, 2018. https://www.greaterseattlegdc.com/about.

“About the IWW | Industrial Workers of the World.” Accessed October 11, 2018. https://www.iww.org/content/about-iww.

“About Our Union – Seattle Industrial Workers of the World.” Accessed October 11, 2018. https://seattleiww.wordpress.com/about/.

Bird, Stewart, Dan Georgakas, and Deborah Shaffer. Solidarity Forever: An Oral History of the IWW. Chicago: Lake View Press, 1985.

Castañeda, Oscar Rosales. “The 1933 Battle at Congdon Orchards,” in Farm Labor Organizing in Washington State. Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project. Accessed October 11, 2018. http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/farmwk_ch3.htm.

Renshaw, Patrick. The Wobblies: The Story of the IWW and Syndicalism in the United States. New, Updated ed. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1999.

Rieder, Ross. “Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).” December 8, 1999. Accessed October 11, 2018. http://www.historylink.org/File/2016.