Preamble of the IWW

Preface to the 1999 Australian Edition

OUR PLACE IN HUMAN PROGRESS

THE ORGANISATION OF INDUSTRY

THE PRACTICAL POLICIES OF THE IWW

DEPARTMENTS AND INDUSTRIAL UNIONS OF THE IWW

IWW Preamble [ index ]

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 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 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 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 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.

Preface to the 1999 Australian Edition [ index ]

There are things we can do together that we cannot do alone. From improving wages and conditions, to stopping wars and environmental disasters, solidarity, determination and direct action get results. Solidarity between workers is what keeps wage slaves a wage away from hunger. Bosses want us isolated, hungry, and desperate to be exploited.

Every worker is an 'industrial' worker - whether you work in health care, education, at home, in construction, in the factory, on the farm, or on the street. All workers, paid or unpaid, unskilled, casual, unemployed or 'illegal' are welcome in the IWW. Only bosses are excluded from IWW membership - because we believe that workers should run society and bosses should be fired! (SACK YOUR BOSS.)

The IWW was founded in 1905 in Chicago, USA, by immigrant workers and radical unionists, with the goal to 'organise the unorganised'. The Wobblies (as IWW members are affectionately known) have always focused on organising workers excluded by mainstream trade unions. In the early 1900s, that included immigrants, women, African-Americans, unskilled labourers, and children. Today, that includes the homeless, sex workers, casual workers, 'illegal' as well as legal immigrants, indigenous peoples, the unemployed, unpaid carers, children, the sick and the elderly, students, co-op employees, amongst others. All workers in all workplaces, regardless of size, structure, pay or legality, together create the wealth of society. And we are entitled to all of it.

The One Big Union idea took off in Australia in 1907, as the IWW organised across the continent. Direct Action, an IWW paper with a circulation of 20,000, was published from Sydney, and firmly opposed World War One. In 1917, the ALP government, lead by Prime Minister Billy Hughes, used the Unlawful Associations Act to make the IWW illegal, gaol the best known organisers for 'treason', and shut down the paper.

The Industrial Union Propaganda League, comprising both IWW and Communist Party members, relaunched Direct Action in 1921, but this was ended by the Communist Party. Wobblies continued to be active through the 1930s in the Militant Minority Movement, the Unemployed Workers Movement, and anti-eviction actions. In 19?? the Australian Council of Trade Unions debated adopting the One Big Union structure for itself, but resolved instead to go the other way, and take on a collaborative role with government and employers.

In the 1960s, Wobbly Pat Mackie (who signed on with the IWW as a merchant seaman in the '30s) was elected coordinator by Mt. Isa miners during a fierce strike. Also at this time, some unions began to debate amalgamation into industrial unions, and consider alliances across industries again. Expressions of workers solidarity included the 1969 General Strike by one million workers to free Melbourne Tramways Official Clarrie O'Shea.

Now, in 1999, there is an Australian Regional Organising Committee which encourages agitation, education and organisation around Australia, and is publishing Direct Action. Contemporary Australian Wobblies are involved in a variety of radical projects, including squatting, strike support, forming counter-information networks through print, radio and online media, solidarity work with Aboriginal people and Indonesian revolutionaries, in addition to their regular union organising activities.

As the 20th century closes, we are faced with amalgamated 'super unions', on one hand, and the acceleration of our exploitation on the other, through enterprise bargaining, work for the dole, casualisation, individual contracts, globalisation, and the erosion of our basic rights. Recent right-wing attacks upon indigenous peoples, sole parents, 'illegal' immigrants and the unemployed, are the latest examples of a long history of employers' attempts to divide the working class, creating false enemies among natural allies.

Today's IWW continues the union's legacy of direct action, workers' culture and organising for a world with no bosses. Capitalism has ruled the 20th century as ruthlessly as it exploited the environment, workers, peasants and indigenous peoples in the 19th, 18th, 17th ... ever since people were forced off their land to work for the employing class. This pamphlet outlines the logic, development and practical potential of One Big Union to overthrow this bloody system.

The 1998 War on the Wharfies saw workers united across many industries, communities and regions of Australia, and get solidarity around the world. In the 21st century, global corporations can be defeated by One Big Union!

ONE BIG UNION

What Is Industry, and How Did It Get That Way? [ index ]

INDUSTRY - the conversion of the raw stuff of nature into the things people want - is the centre and foundation of our social life. Those who own and control the natural resources of the Earth, and the industrial equipment necessary to transform these raw materials into finished products, form the smaller of the two great classes in modern society.

The workers, who supply the labour which gathers these raw materials, and transforms them into usable goods, are the other, and much larger, class. The interest of these two classes is opposed.

The entire social life of modern times is shaped by these facts.

The business, or capitalistic class which controls industry is anxious to keep that control and the privileges that go with it. To make that control secure, it seeks to gain or keep control of all social institutions. It wants to write and administer the laws. It wants the schools to teach respect and obedience to the privileged few. It wants the press, television and film to shape our thoughts and feelings to serve its interests. And where it cannot get rid of the organisations that labour has built, it wants to control them too.

These top businessmen are threatened with the loss of their control by two outstanding facts:

1. Modern industrial development has made their activities unnecessary;

2. The working class is able, once it so desires, to take control of industry and thus establish a much more efficient and satisfactory society.

The original job of the capitalist was to furnish funds and management. Today management is the job of a specially trained section of the class of hired hands, and funds are amply provided out of the various reserves taken from profits. The system of corporate administration that the capitalists have built up has made them superfluous.

The business class became dominant in society as the result of long struggles against the kings and feudal land owners who ran the world before them. They won - with the help of the common folk who did the fighting - because new inventions, procedures and discoveries had put the feudal regime out of date. The parliamentary bodies that had been created to raise funds for the old order had also established a more efficient system of government and had made kings and lords as obsolete as capitalists are today. The great voyages and discoveries, the improvements in navigation, and the new factory system had all made the ownership of warehouses, ships and equipment more important than the ownership of land. The basis of society had shifted from the farm to the factory, and the control of society had shifted to those who control industry.

Revolutionary Progress [ index ]

For all that the conservatives of those days warned that this would be the end of civilisation, it was a great step forward. Whatever of the old order was serviceable to the new was kept and cultivated. What was destroyed was the feudal grab and rule that obstructed progress. Invention and industry flourished as never before. Our ways of producing and living have changed faster in the last two hundred years than in the previous two thousand. Each worker's capacity to produce is at least a hundred times what it was when business first took over. Because our standard of living has not kept pace with invention, and cannot keep pace with it as long as business controls industry, the possibilities of abundance and leisure are wasted in depressions and wars.

Not only has modern development made the activities of the few who control industry unnecessary, it has reduced the number of that class. The growth of any large corporation requires the closing of a large number of little businesses. Today it is estimated that 7% of the population actually controls 85% of the economic life in Britain. A study made in the United States [published in 1962 - transcriber's note] estimated that 1.6% of the population owns 32% of all the privately owned wealth, including 82.2% of all stock and 88.5% of a non-governmental bonds. In many third world countries the controlling clique is even smaller. Through cartel arrangements and multinational corporations a handful of people plan and control the economic life of the world. They have many servants and toadies, but few friends. Only these few would have their privileges decreased if the control of industry were taken out of their hands. The rest of us would be much better off.

Who Should Control? [ index ]

Meanwhile the working class has grown - and it has grown in many ways. It has grown in numbers until it includes almost everybody. It has grown in knowledge and ability so that the worker of today has to understand and be able to do things that would have baffled the engineer and scientist of a century ago. In place of a class of illiterate serfs we are a working class able to read and write, with an extensive literature of our own, that can daily discuss over lunch the news of the world. And this class has grown in organised power. Every step it has taken in building its unions has been a trespass on what was previously the complete jurisdiction of the owners of industry, whether it set the hours it would work, and that consequently the machines would run, or the pay it would take, or the safety and sanitary conditions for the job. It has been fought by the business class as its mortal enemy, for, by the logic of events, that is precisely what organised labour should be. Every step forward that we take strengthens our position as the logical successor of the business class to exercise control of industry; and, because there is no class beneath us, our triumph means the first classless society since civilisation began, and the end of all the horror, cruelty, stupidity, and injustice that necessarily go with class society.

The big question for today and tomorrow is this: How is industry to be controlled?

It is not so much a question of who is to own industry. Modern corporate intricacy has almost made ownership almost a myth. Managerial control is what counts, and it has largely become independent of the actual investors. Those who control industry need not worry about who owns it. Who is to say whether industry is to run or stand idle? Who is to decide what is to be produced and where that product is to go? These are the important questions.

Should modern industry be controlled by a handful of business managers?

Should it be administered by a host of politicians?

Or should it be run by those who do the work?

It must be one of the three. The corporate managers through their holding companies, their merchant banks, their control over directorships and credit, seek to complete their control over the economic life of the world. But their control, by its very nature, strangles that economic life, for it does not pay to let the working class produce all that it is capable of producing. So either those in control of industry ally themselves with those in control of government, as in Hitler's Germany, to save themselves from democracy, or those in control of government extend their regulation over industry and its workers, as in Russia.

Industrial Democracy Wanted [ index ]

The Industrial Workers of the World, and intelligent union members generally, see nothing good in this choice, whether the back seat driving is to be done by corporate managers or by politicians. Instead they want Industrial Democracy - industry run by its workers. They ask such questions as these:

If a representative government takes control of everyone's bread and butter, how can it be kept representative?

If the already vast body of rules and regulations over labour are added to, do we not become the puppets of appointed administrators?

How are we to have such a totalitarian economy and yet avoid totalitarian politics?

And what becomes of initiative and freedom?

After all, the greatest problem facing humankind is not the much-discussed question of production and distribution; it is the problem of power. It never has been safe to let a few control the affairs of the many; it never will be safe. The depressions, the wars, the various other ills of the modern world, have been possible only because there was already an unsafe concentration of power in the hands of the few. What happened did happen as the result of the will of these few, not of the will of the many. Every invention that has increased our power to produce or destroy has increased the power of the few and decreased the power of the rest of us. Every improvement in communication has extended the empire of this minority. And every time we give more power to some one to try and remedy the resulting evils, we increase the problem that much further. And this holds true whether we allow that power to fall to the present managers of industry, their friends in government or their friends in the Trade Unions. Consequently the only safe choice is industrial democracy - industry run by those who do the work.

It's Up To Us [ index ]

We can run industry and thereby solve the problem of power, for all the power that runs this dynamic world comes from our own efforts. Our class has only to stop doing what it is told to do and start doing what it collectively decides to do, to deprive its opposition of all the power they ever had and to acquire for itself all the power it will ever need.

Management of industry by workers organised to do the job is not a mere pipe dream. It is the historic trend. It is the pole toward which every forward move of labour has pointed, whether intended that way or not. But it cannot be achieved without deliberately planning for it. This the IWW has made its own special job. If that job is not done, the counter-trend wins out - regimentation of everything either by all kinds of business, by all kinds of government, or most likely, by their unholy alliance, fascism.

Industrial democracy is the answer to many problems. It can keep alive this democracy that cannot survive when practiced only on election day. It can free us from want and fear, waste and war, or with modern production methods enable ordinary people to get all the material goods they can use, by working about as much as they want to. It can give us security and freedom, those two most desirable ends, neither of which is possible without the other, for a person driven by want cannot be free, and the puppet is never secure. It can make organised society a harmonious whole, intelligently working for the good of all - for it is only when the general run of mankind can decide what is to be produced and what is to become of the product that it can know what it is doing.

Industrial democracy can be built only by an organised working class that is aware as a class of what it wants and how to get it, rather than giving decision-making power to "friends of labour." Working class organisation must serve two purposes:

1. It must provide the most efficient structure for carrying on our daily struggle for better conditions and better pay;

2. It must provide a complete solution of the industrial problem by making possible the efficient management of modern industry by organised labour.

Fortunately, but not by coincidence, the same type of organisation best serves both purposes; for by organising the way we work, so that we have the same relations in our unions as we have in the process of production, we are lined up so as to have the most strategic advantage in our everyday struggle, and the necessary coordination for assuming the responsibility for industrial production.

How to organise right is thus the immediate question. It is with that question that we are concerned.

THE ORGANISATION OF INDUSTRY

Who Makes What? [ index ]

All industry is interrelated, so much so that it could be said that there is really only one industry - the production of goods and services.

Consider your coat and the processes necessary to its production. It required not only the labour and materials used directly in making it, but also the buildings and machinery where it was made. It required the production of the material and the dyes. It required the transportation and the planning for all the trips for all the materials in it, and for the machinery and buildings used in making them. The workers involved in all these processes could not have specialised in making cloth and dyes in building factories and textile machinery, in operating this equipment, in transporting goods, and the like, if other workers had not specialised in building houses for them, providing food for them, and offering the various other services they needed. In fact it is difficult to think of anything the workers do anywhere that does not have some connection with the production of a simple coat.

But this work is not one vast hodge-podge. It is subdivided and organised much as your own body is subdivided and organised. It divides first of all into six major departments:

1. The raw materials that can be grown or raised;

2. The raw materials of the mine, quarry and the like;

3. Construction of roads and buildings, ships, docks, canals, etc.;

4. Manufacture of the materials into food, clothing, tools, machinery, etc.;

5. Transportation and communication;

6. The various services offered by schools, hospitals, theatres, shops, and public utilities.

Corresponding to these major divisions are the six departments in which the industrial unions are grouped in the table at the end of this pamphlet. The advantages in practical union matters in providing these departments will be pointed out later on.

Within the departments are the industries and their industrial unions. Because of the interrelations that bind all productive efforts together, it is impossible to mark off the disputed territory of each industry with indisputable precision. An industry, after all, is a social aggregate of workers, equipment, and processes only somewhat set apart from other workers by their close interrelations. The line separating the industrial unions accordingly, should not be thought of as a means of keeping the workers apart but as a means for keeping them better together.

Industrial Classification [ index ]

To organise the working class into structures corresponding to the facts of industry is the aim of the IWW. As a system of classification for this scientific industrial unionism, it uses the decimal method, as that provides ample opportunity for any changes and additions that new inventions and industrial processes may make advisable. It is much like the system used by libraries to number their books, so that no matter what book may ever be written about any subject, there is a logical number to assign it so that it will stand in its proper relation with all other books ever written or to be written on the same subject. Similarly there is a logical grouping for every worker in the One Big Union plan of the IWW.

Without the coordination furnished by One Big Union, it would be impossible to provide a scheme of organisation that would unite workers so that they could take whatever joint action various occasions might require. The interweaving of industrial relations makes that so. For instance, the steel industry requires iron miners, workers in lime quarries, in coal mines and coke ovens and the fuel oil industry, railway, road, and marine transport workers, as well as the workers at the furnaces and rolling mills. Often these workers furnishing materials are employees of the steel companies. But for other relations it is most convenient to have these coal miners organised with other coal miners, these transportation workers with other transport workers. For effective working-class solidarity it is necessary that they be able to plan jointly with either their fellow workers in their own industries or with their fellow workers to whom they furnish materials. Only with the sort of industrial unionism that adds up to One Big Union is this flexibility possible. The lines marking off the industrial are not barriers; they are universal joints.

In the table is shown in general outline the arrangement of industrial unions used by the IWW. In all instances workers on the same job are to be members of the same union, and by all workers is meant all wage and salary earners (except those what have the effective ability to hire and fire), each industrial union deciding for itself who is eligible and who is not.

How Employers Organise [ index ]

Workers cannot blindly imitate employer organisations, but we should find it instructive.

Employers organise primarily as partnerships, corporations etc., on an industrial basis to take direct action on the job, to run it so as to get the most out of it, which means running us so that they get the most out of us. They even set up special departments to make sure they do run us that way.

While we workers have little or no reason to compete or quarrel with each other, and employers have many reasons to do so, yet they manage to cooperate while we don't. The chief secret for that is that they organise special bodies for special purposes, and don't mix these purposes up. One result is that they don't split up their trade association or federation over their political differences.

They have built many intricate financial structures, including worldwide companies, and through these the capitalists of even supposedly hostile nations work together. Many of their most critical undertakings depend on an unwritten mutual understanding of their collective interest. They concertedly make it hard for any employer who does not play along with them. And they have managed to keep on running the world although they have repeatedly made a mess of it.

All Trades - One Union [ index ]

Somewhere in the One Big Union plan there is a logical place for every wage worker, so that all fellow workers can most effectively exercise their solidarity.

A few notes should be added about the structure of the One Big Union. Some of the industrial unions may appear to have too wide a scope for convenience; rolling mills, building textile machinery, and watch-making may seem to be more than one union should include. But the system of classification used permits any subdivision within the union for the formation of any section for which there may be actual practical reasons. Further it should be remembered that all the workers on one job form their own job or shop branch, and in it decide all matters that relate exclusively to that particular job.

Since some jobs include a considerable number of subordinate activities, the rule that all on the job belong in the same union requires that workers be in different industrial unions than their occupation might lead one to expect. For instance, in a hospital, besides nurses, doctors, technicians, interns, etc., there are laundry workers, cooks, electricians, and many other hands, all of whom are in the same industry, and therefore in the same industrial union of Health Service Workers (I.U. 610).

If it were not for the One Big Union idea, such industrial organisation might build some handicaps. The laundry workers in hospitals might want to meet with other laundry workers to establish standard conditions in all laundries. With One Big Union to which they all belong, they have all the facilities for doing so, and for electing any committees to carry out their decisions. Or drivers, if they work for a shop or a factory, belong in the job unit and industrial union of their fellow employees. Yet they may want to meet with other drivers to agree on a common policy in regard to loading, using helpers, or the like. One Big Union enables them to do that, too. In any job situation, apprentices, trainees, skilled and unskilled workers all have more in common with each other than with the boss. One Big Union welds them all together to fight the bosses with the combined strength of the workforce.

Other Practical Advantages [ index ]

Industrial Union structure is designed to unite workers in the way that will be most convenient for us. With whom can we best bargain collectively? With whom are we most likely to go out on strike? Such questions as these are the practical ones that decide in what industrial union any group of workers should be placed. The kitchen crew on an oil rig, the mess department aboard ship, the staff of a factory canteen, all do the same sort of work as that done by the employees of a restaurant, but they can bargain more effectively if they are organised respectively with other oil workers, seamen, and factory workers.

In distribution, these common sense rules must be applied. Where the workers involved distribute only one company's products, as with many gasoline stations, it will be best to organise with the workers supplying the product. The workers in the oil fields and refineries will be in a better bargaining position if they can cut off the distribution of their product. Similarly the bargaining position of the gas station attendants is better with the backing of those other workers employed by the same company. Crews on oil tankers however may find it more convenient to organise with other seamen, but they will not touch "hot oil" in oil worker's strikes.

But where there are no such close relations with production, distribution workers will be better off organised together whether they work in department stores, clothing shops, or whatever. In all these instances it should be plain that unless industrial unionism adds up to One Big Union the labour movement will be handicapped in providing the different types of coordination that varying circumstances require.

One Big Union is the hoop that holds the industrial union staves together. Without it they tend to fall into a useless, disorganised confusion.

One Class - One Union [ index ]

The division between the industrial unions must not be considered as walls keeping workers apart but as devices to unite them more effectively. In the IWW all members are directly members of the IWW itself, with voice and vote directly on their own industrial union affairs, with a free universal transfer from the industrial union covering their last job to the industrial union covering the job to which they move, but with no voice or vote on the affairs of other industrial unions. Our immediate job organisation is the job or shop branch organising the place where we work, and only those working on that job have any voice or vote on purely job issues. Each part is responsible for itself except that industrial unions must not adopt rules conflicting with the general constitution, and central and job branches must not adopt rules conflicting either with these or with the by-laws of their industrial union. The IWW is not a federation or congress of industrial unions; it is One Big Union of the working class. The interrelationships of modern industry make any other structure inadequate for the needs of labour.

The One Big Union structure further avoids disputes about jurisdiction over workers whose classification is made doubtful by the complexities of modern production processes. For instance, it is desirable that all in the metal mining industry be in one union. But we find for example, that magnesium is obtained by chemical processes from sea water, first making milk of magnesia, then magnesium; that aluminium is obtained by electrolysis from the clay bauxite. In a federation of industrial unions there would be grounds for argument in which union to put them. In One Big Union this is of no great consequence, and they can be organised in whatever way they find most convenient. Or again, if a concern making a general line of electrical equipment turns out radios as a sideline, all employees will be metal and machinery workers, while if another concern specialising in cabinet work of different types, also makes radios, these radio workers will be organised as furniture workers.

Industrial Departments [ index ]

Unions in allied industries constitute industrial departments. The advantages of such organisation are especially obvious in the instance of transportation. Railways, bus companies, truck companies, airlines, all provide substitute methods of transportation. If workers in these various industries are organised to act together when the occasion arises for them to do so, they will have all the advantages in the struggle. So great is their united power that it might almost be said that the destiny of the world is in their hands. Think how much suffering humankind might have been saved if organised transport workers had refused to load or carry goods to any warring nation or any nations whose transport workers would not follow the same policy. It would have been a good investment had the rest of organised labour assessed itself the small sum each it would have taken to repay these transport workers for any wages they lost in consequence of such a policy, and thus a great good could be accomplished with hardship to none. Or consider how similar arrangements could make it foolish to hire scabs by making it impossible for scab-made goods to be carried. If we workers stick together right, we cannot be beaten down.

What is proposed here is the organisation of the working class so that it can stick together in effective solidarity. Every union member who has talked about unionism to other workers is all too familiar with the complaint, "A union is all right, but the trouble is that workers won't stick together." We don't believe that complaint.

We don't believe it because we have seen so often the efforts of workers to stick together, and seen those efforts shattered by faulty organisation that stopped them from practicing solidarity. Things do substantially what they are built to do; the same stuff goes into making a typewriter or a sewing machine, and behaves differently because it is put together differently. The same workers can be in a loose federation of organisations formed to serve some special sets of interests, or they can be in One Big Union. If a union is designed to keep us separated, then it will not be a surprise to find that "Workers won't stick together." But if we are organised to stick, then stick we will and be strong in the fact that we can.

Scientific industrial unionism designed by the IWW to meet the conditions of modern industry emphasises these basic rules:

1. All workers on the same job, regardless of trade, belong in the same job organisation;

2. All workers in the same industry belong in the same industrial union;

3. All members of these industrial unions belong directly as members of the One Big Union of the working class;

4. Any worker changing jobs is entitled to transfer free of charge to the industrial union covering the new employment - "once a union member, always a union member";

5. No part of the labour movement should accept any obligation to work on materials furnished by strikebreakers, or to furnish material for them, or to fill the orders that strikers were supposed to fill; or cross any picket line, or aid in any way to break the strike of any group of workers.

Such is the form of organisation the IWW offers to make the working class invincible. Are you with us?

THE PRACTICAL POLICIES OF THE IWW

Union Democracy [ index ]

The purpose of the IWW is to establish union democracy in our everyday life on the job. Its practical policies are directed towards that end, and are essential to its achievement. They are determined by two basic principles: solidarity, and democracy within the union. It is necessary to avoid any practises that will interfere with the unity of our class, and it is even more necessary to make sure that the union, instead of running its members, is run by them. To leave democracy out of an organisation such as the IWW would leave it a device for fascism, and tremendous handicap to labour. Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Trotsky, Lenin and their heirs and cohorts found it necessary to herd labour into an organisation very much of that sort. The mighty weapon of the One Big Union must be wielded by us, not over us.

As protection against any clique running this union to suit themselves, the following safeguards have been devised:

1. No officer is to be elected for more then one year.

2. No officer may be elected for more than three successive terms.

3. All officers are elected by referendum ballot, on which all members they represent may vote - all members on the job for a job branch officer; all members in job branches for the officers of the industrial union branches that unite them; all members in the industry for industrial union officers; and all members of the IWW for officers of the general organisation.

4. All officers are subject to recall by majority vote.

5. Election, not appointment, is the uniform policy.

No "Checkoff" [ index ]

The business methods within the union are further assurance of democracy. "The power of the purse" must be kept in the hands of the members, both in collection of dues and in control of expenditures. The IWW does not accept the "checkoff" system, where the bosses act as bankers for the union by taking union dues out of the worker's wages and handing them over to union officials. We believe that the checkoff short circuits direct control between union members and their elected representatives. It reinforces the idea (which management would like to foster) that union dues are just another unpleasant tax deduction from the paycheck. It makes the union seem more like an outside thing (such as an attorney) that we hire, rather than our own organisation that we participate in and control. Furthermore, it involves management in internal union relationships that are none of its business.

If union treasurers received a check from the company for dues collected by checkoff, they might be more concerned with the goodwill of the company than the goodwill of the members; with that revenue they could hire their friends to control the union meetings, and keep themselves in power running the union as a mere dues-collecting agency in the interests of the company and union officials.

On the other hand, where there is no checkoff, the way dues are paid is a direct barometer of the members' satisfaction (or lack of it) with their representatives. Union officials who don't want to listen to or try to serve their members most often want the dues checkoff. Then, if they do something the membership doesn't like, they are not faced with lagging dues payments and delinquent members. Direct collection of dues establishes that much more contact between members and officers.

For all these reasons the IWW does not accept the checkoff. Instead, the IWW has devised a simple and convenient system for the collection of dues by delegates on the job - a system which is proof against dishonesty in handling funds and which permits shop committees and job branches to know the union standing of every member on the job. All delegates and officers must make a report to the branch meeting, and have their accounts audited by a committee elected at each meeting. With this practice it is necessary to handle business to the satisfaction of the members.

No assessments can be levied except when approved by a referendum of those who have to pay them.

No Clique Control [ index ]

These constitutional provisions and business methods to guard union democracy are reinforced by the removal of all motives that could lead any clique to seek control of the union. This is done by these additional safeguards:

1. There can be no financial gain in clique rule because the pay for officers must not exceed the average pay of the workers they represent, and efficient record-keeping and rigidly honest accounting are enforced with monthly as well as annual financial statements, all audited. "General Expense" accounts are forbidden.

2. No powers are given officers except those needed to carry out the instructions of the members. Strikes cannot be called or called off by officers; this can only be done by the members concerned; settlements can only be negotiated by committees of the workers concerned; committee members and union officials are not allowed to confer with employers except in the presence of the committee.

3. Political or similar cliques seeking control of the union to subvert its facilities, resources, or reputation to their own ends are thwarted by the non-political policies that have been adopted by our ranks to ensure our own unity.

No Politics in This Union [ index ]

It is sound unionism not to express a preference for one religion or one political party or candidate over another. These are not union questions, and must be settled by each union member according to personal conscience. The union is formed to reach and enforce decisions about industrial questions; its power to do this can be destroyed by the diversion of its resources to political campaigns. So that all the workers regardless of their religious or political preference may be united to get every possible benefit out of their job, the IWW must be non-political and non-religious, letting its members attend to these matters as they personally see fit - and with the additional social consciousness, regard for their fellows, and general enlightenment that they derive from union activity.

This does not mean that the IWW is indifferent to the great social and economic questions of the day. Quite the contrary! We believe it provides the practical solutions to these questions. When the industry of the world is run by the workers for their own good, we see no chance for the stigma of unemployment, war, social conflict, or large scale crime, or any of our serious social problems to continue.

With the sort of organisation the IWW is building, labour can exert any pressure required to restrain the antics of politicians and even more constructively accomplish through direct action what we have often failed to do through political lobbying.

Job Action and Legislation [ index ]

For instance, as workers and as members of communities, we want oil storage and chemical plants kept to safe places, away from where we and our fellow workers live. One method is to try to get laws passed, and then try to have them enforced. Much simpler, much more reliable, and certainly much more helpful in developing our capacity to solve our own problems, would be for us to refuse to build in what we consider unsafe places; for us to refuse to work in plants that endanger any community. Laws are usually based on actual practice. It is best for labour to concern itself with controlling actual practice; that makes good lawmaking easy and bad lawmaking hard. The lawmakers are mindful of the powerful ones in society; One Big Union makes labour all powerful. Once labour is properly organised, the lawmakers will be duly mindful of it; and if they aren't, it will not matter, for what happens from then on is what the organised working class decides to make happen.

To unite the working class industrially, it is of course necessary to avoid such practices as high union dues, closed books, racial, religious, or political discrimination. What is needed is One Big Union of all workers no matter what their language, what their beliefs, or what the colour of their skin may be. In the union all are equal because we are all equally used by the same system. What the majority decides about any industrial question is the decision by which all must abide. For that reason it is out of order to attempt to reach decisions about questions not related to industry.

Efficient Unionism [ index ]

The principles underlying these policies are those of solidarity and democracy within the union. Another aspect of the same two principles is effectiveness and efficiency. Our effectiveness is achieved by our united strength; it is measured solely by what we can do. Our efficiency is measured by the relation of our gains to the cost of those gains, whether in time, money, trouble, or the other sacrifices that labour must often make. To smash a fly with a sledge hammer is no doubt effective, but it is hardly efficient. We want maximum gains at minimum cost.

That the IWW is efficient is well attested to by the fact that despite its relatively small numbers it has made disproportionate gains for labour. Its efficiency is achieved by its democracy, its rank-and-file control. There is a myth that democracy makes for inefficiency; union experience disproves that myth. In the first place, to get the results we want, we have to aim at those results. To let the direction of the union be in other hands than those of the members would be like trying to chop wood with someone else holding the axe handle.

In the second place, the more members have to say about union matters, and the more directly we attend to union business ourselves, the greater is the union's source of strength. We do not win our fights just by paying dues into a union treasury; money can only pay for the facilities of the union; what makes the union go is the effort and enthusiasm of its members - something that cannot be bought. It is this direct participation in the union business, and the system of managing that business by elected union delegates on the job and job committees rather than by full-time officials or business agents, that develops the abilities of the members and makes the IWW a force with which we can organise our own future. And thirdly, it is the organised self-reliance or autonomy of the component parts of the IWW that goes with this control, that enables us to handle problems in the most convenient and least costly way. This union is built like the hand, each joint of which can move separately, but all parts of which can be brought instantly into an effective clenched fist.

Direct Action [ index ]

The direct control of our union business is reflected in the direct action on the job for which the IWW is famous. Some years ago the IWW modernised the west coast lumber industry in the United States and Canada. Our members established the eight-hour day by blowing their own whistle at the end of eight hours and quitting work then instead of carrying on for the additional two or four hours the bosses expected. Some crews were fired, but the next crew hired blew their own whistle too, until the eight-hour day became established practice. (Later a law was passed.) The old practice had been to sleep in double-deck, muzzle-loading bunks and to carry your own blankets when looking for work. IWW-organised lumberjacks made bonfires of the bunks and the bedding, and told the companies that thereafter if they wanted men they would have to provide decent cots, mattresses, and clean sheets and blankets.

Long strikes may, at times, be unavoidable; but as far as it can the IWW avoids them. We prefer a series of short strikes timed to do the most good; to get the same results or better at less cost to us members. Why walk out because the company refuses to get rid of an unsafe foreman? Why not have the workers under him elect one of themselves whose judgement they trust to best direct the work, thus carrying out the instructions of their own instructed delegate rather than the instructions of the company-appointed foreman? With the backing of the workers on the job this can usually be done. Why walk out because a fellow worker is fired? It costs us nothing and costs the company a lot if we go to work expressing our sorrow for such treatment in the way we work.

The secret of direct action is simple enough: if we stop doing what we are told to do and start doing what we collectively decide to do instead, there isn't anything much that can stop us. The IWW expects to build a decent world in that simple way.

Briefly, these are some of the policies that the IWW has found best in the wide and varied experience it has had in the struggles of industry since it was started in 1905. Out of the experience of the many good members who have built and maintained the IWW, it is able to offer the working class a scientific plan of industrial organisation, a set of trustworthy principles, a body of policy and method, of strategy and tactics that assure success not only in the ordinary struggle for better wages and working conditions, but also in the struggle to establish a sane social order. At an IWW-organised textile strike in Lawrence, MA, some of the women strikers picketed with a banner saying "We want bread and roses too." When the IWW says it wants more of the good things in life, we're not just talking about getting the bosses to come over with a bit more cash, but we want a better life here and now, the new society in the shell of the old.

What To Do [ index ]

A sane world run by producers for the common good is an aim that should be achieved and can be achieved. The IWW can build the sort of labour movement to achieve this. There is really only one big problem in the world: a working class too disorganised to act for its own good. The IWW has the solution to that problem. It is a disgrace to be part of the problem; it is an honour to be part of the solution. It is up to you to do your part.

If your job is unorganised, get in touch with the IWW and we will help you and your fellow workers of all genders to organise. While you are fighting for shorter hours, higher wages, better working conditions, and democratic grievance procedures, you will also have the satisfaction of helping to build the good world and solve the problem of labour.

If you are already a member of another union you can still take your place in the One Big Union movement. Many members of the IWW belong to other unions also. They belong to the IWW because otherwise they would add to the problems of the working class and not to the solution, and they know that only by making the solution bigger than the problem can the problem be solved. And they are among the most militant members of their other unions. The IWW's concern for solidarity and union democracy is satisfactory guarantee against any fear that their preference for the IWW would lead them to seek control of other unions or otherwise seek to disrupt them.

Of its members the IWW asks that they continue their membership no matter to what job they may go; that they make themselves fully acquainted with its ideas and policies so that they can be even more useful members; that they be able and willing to explain these ideas to other workers; and that they watch for every possible opportunity for this union to grow and to be of more service to their fellow workers on their own and other jobs.

LIST OF INDUSTRIAL UNIONS [ index ]

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES No. 100 [ index ]

DEPARTMENT OF MINING AND MINERALS No. 200 [ index ]

DEPARTMENT OF GENERAL CONSTRUCTION No. 300 [ index ]

DEPARTMENT OF MANUFACTURE AND GENERAL PRODUCTION No. 400 [ index ]

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AND COMMUNICATION No. 500 [ index ]

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICE No. 600 [ index ]