An Interview with the Haywood-Cannon Caucus of the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.): Part I
The Louisville Workers Brigade
12/29/2024
This is the first part of a two-part interview with the Haywood-Cannon Caucus of the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.). This first part of our interview covers the history of the IWW and the state of the labor movement today. Part II of our interview will be released on January 5, 2024. While the Louisville Workers Brigade does not agree with or endorse every single position of the IWW or the Haywood-Cannon Caucus, we appreciate their willingness to conduct this interview and applaud their organizing efforts for the working class. The links provided in this article have been provided by the Haywood-Cannon Caucus.
Could you tell us a little about the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.), your union's history, approach to organizing, etc?
As Big Bill Haywood said the IWW was founded as the "continental congress of the working class" back in 1905. Our preamble states in the first sentence "the working class and the employing class have nothing in common" and that our (and the working class as a whole) historic mission is to do away with capitalism, that our slogan is "abolition of the wage system". This sets the tone for what kind of union the IWW has been from its inception. It was founded in contrast, and in hostility to, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) - which was an elitist union only meant for white male skilled workers.
Wobblies drew much inspiration and experience from the Knights of Labor (KoL) before its collapse. The slogan "an injury to one is an injury to all" was first created by the KoL with a proto-industrial unionist approach (in contrast to the AFL's craft unionism). They successfully organized across the color line on the tailend of the reconstruction era, against segregation laws prohibiting such activity. Having been schooled in the class struggle led by the Knights of Labor, IWW militants carried on this tradition of organizing the unorganized, unskilled or skilled, male or female, immigrant or citizen worker.
Not only did the IWW reject the elitist positions of the AFL leadership, the union also placed emphasis on a strategy of direct action over legalistic maneuvering and cutting deals behind closed doors between employers and union representatives as the AFL often did. The class collaborationism of the AFL was vehemently rejected by the IWW. It has to be kept in mind that during this period there was no National Labor Relations Act. There was no formal right to unionize or collectively bargain. The only real option to organize and win concessions from employers was through direct action.
Even among rank and file union members of the AFL this was a strong tendency which the AFL leadership had to tamp down. IWW organizers instead sought to amplify this mass tendency to strike, which led to the IWW being on the forefront of historic strikewaves in the first 20 years of the union's history. It also led the IWW to be the first union to successfully organize timberworkers, farmworkers, and many transient workers who had to train hop across the US in order to find work. The approach of organizing unskilled workers, the unorganized, and embracing all workers regardless of social identity while using methods of direct action are what led to the success of the IWW. The union was so successful in fact that the US federal and state governments passed multiple laws prohibiting "criminal syndicalism" in order to destroy the IWW while propping up the AFL as the more "respectable" union for the US working class to join.
Unfortunately with the criminalization of the IWW, including mass arrests, assassinations, the use of concentration camps, and deportations of the union's best organizers, the union suffered major defeat. Another aspect to remember during this period was the first successful workers' revolution in world history located in the Russian empire. The Russian revolution was a major source of inspiration for wobblies, with many going on to join the international communist movement. Oftentimes the US state accused IWW members of being bolsheviks and foreign agents acting at the behest of a foreign enemy in order to stoke the flames of nationalism and xenophobia against the threat of a workers uprising within US borders.
By the end of the 1920's the IWW was a shell of its former self, forced underground by the US state's witch hunt against it. Many of the most prominent IWW members - such as Big Bill Haywood and James P Cannon, went on to help organize both the communist movement in the US as well as internationally, while seeking to incorporate the IWW into the Communist International and the Red International of Labor Unions. There was a split in the union between pro-Bolshevik and anti-Bolshevik factions, with the latter faction ultimately winning out and setting the union on an anarcho-syndicalist dogmatic course for the majority of the union's history, including the present.
Dual unionism was the predominant position of the IWW. This was the idea that workers shouldn't join bigger unions with more resources - such as the AFL - and struggle to revolutionize them, but to build a new union that wasn't compromised. This idea didn't begin with the IWW, in fact it was present in the Knights of Labor against the AFL as well. It historically has been a common idea among left wing workers and intellectuals in the US, going all the way back to the First International-affiliated organization the Socialist Labor Party and its ideological leader Daniel DeLeon. Currently the IWW allows members to dual card in both the IWW and other unions, thus effectively ending a hardline dual unionist position while opening the door to also "bore from within" other unions.
Despite major setbacks in the first 20 years of the IWW's history, the union has continued on albeit with much smaller numbers and less significance to the US working class. The union still has worked to organize the unorganized, being the first to organize Starbucks workers a decade or more before the Starbucks Workers United effort, as well as many other service sector workers often deemed unskilled labor. A source of the union's strength, and arguably also a weakness, is its willingness to organize unions at specific job sites regardless if a local has formal recognition or a collective bargaining agreement. There still is a strong tendency in the union to eschew collective bargaining agreements and formal unionization via NLRB elections and negotiations. Some see the NLRA as a trap by the class enemy to stifle any militancy, tying the hands of workers in bad contracts that feature things like no strike clauses. This tendency - while having a kernel of truth in it - has caused the union historically to struggle to retain a long term presence at any jobsite past some initial strikewaves.
When all is said and done it is undeniable the prominent role played by the IWW trailblazing a path that led toward the adoption of industrial unionism against craft unionism in the US. Many wobblies went on to be major organizers of the CIO in the 1930s, which was the turning point away from the AFL and its craft unionism. The idea of one big union, amalgamation, class unity, and against the division of the working class can all find its origins in the IWW and still remains an essential task for us today.
The recent resurgence of the Labor Movement has not only benefited the AFL-CIO unions, but also independent unions, even inciting the establishment of new independent unions like Trader Joe's United and Restaurant Workers United. How has this renewed vigor within organized labor affected the I.W.W.?
Much of the independent efforts of workers to organize outside the AFL-CIO started way before there was any recognition by corporate media of a "labor revival." We believe this was done out of necessity largely initiated by leftwing workers who saw the complacency of the mainstream union leadership towards modern unskilled labor. Workers had to do it ourselves first before we could expect any assistance (even with strings attached) from the mainstream unions.
While the interest and positive perception towards unionization in the US has grown, it hasn't really translated into a surge of actual unionization or strike activity. The reasons for this are multifaceted, especially the continued complacency of the US labor bureaucracy which treats the unions as basically corporations to do business with the capitalists they're supposed to be fighting. The US labor bureaucracy doesn't want disruption to the flow of commerce, doesn't recognize the class struggle, is pro-capitalist, is nationalistic, and anti-communist. This is why no strike clauses are now the norm in the labor movement. This is why 99% of the unions are under the control of the Democrats, capitalist politicians, and bourgeois ideology. And this is why despite the huge financial reserves the unions sit on they do not expend those resources to reverse the continued decline of union membership and strike rates.
Not to mention, in spite of the class collaboration of the US labor bureaucracy, and despite the formal right to unionize via the NLRB, current labor law actually minimizes and hinders more unionization and strike activity. The Taft-Hartley Act has tied the hands of the working class - sympathy strikes, political strikes, etc are all prohibited under current labor law. The National Labor Relation Act is severely limited in its capacity to stop retaliation and intimidation by the bosses against workers trying to exercise their rights with little-to-no disciplining of bosses who choose to break the law. Corporations know they can engage in endless litigation to stall union efforts as can be seen with the Amazon Labor Union and Starbucks Workers United efforts. Years have gone by with no contract in place, pro union workers are fired, harassed, and demoralized by these corporate tactics. There is no working class party or politicians in place actively fighting against these practices. Workers no longer have a revolutionary socialist headquarters to look to as a source of inspiration offering an alternative vision of how the world could be. There is no threat posed to global capitalism which could act as a counterbalance to the capitalist offensive we've seen with the rise of neoliberal policies and the collapse of the Soviet Union. As such the working class struggles to see any alternative to capitalist realism.
As for the IWW we saw some growth in membership during this period. Unlike other unions, anyone can join the IWW regardless if their workplace is formally unionized or not. Unfortunately that doesn't necessarily translate into more organized workplaces, as many official members can be at large, and isolated from their coworkers, nor even obligated to attempt to organize their workplaces. Much of the labor movement does not consider the IWW to be a real union at this point, which has some merit. It can function more so as a leftist social club, especially for those who identify with anarchism, riding off the historic legacy of the union's first 20 years of mass relevance.
Check out Part II of this interview when it's released on January 5, 2024!