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For workers who wish to abolish the wage system and live in harmony with the earth, The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) will hold an Organizer 101 Training on Saturday and Sunday, April 11 and 12, in Wellstone Hall at the Duluth Labor Temple.

This ‘radical’ union that brought us the eight hour day made Duluth and the Iron Range hotbeds of organizing in the early 20th Century. The union’s one and only daily paper, The Industrialisti, was published in Duluth, at its peak printing 10,000 copies a day. The Work People’s College, whose owners were faculty, staff and students, still stands at 88th Avenue West, now an apartment building. In the ‘20’s, it was one of the first spots to be attacked by J.Edgar Hoover during the Palmer Raids, with most of the Finns associated with it deported without hearings or legal representation.   

JP Morgan, US Steel, and their railroads continually thwarted organizing efforts. My father, Rolf Einar, worked for the DM&N in Two Harbors sometime in the 1930’s. He tried to convince his fellow workers to “talk with the wobblies at the gate. Next thing I knew, when my crew was sent to work up the range, I was told there was no berth. Same answer each time I returned to the yard, looking to be sent. It didn’t take long before I knew I had been blackballed. I went in and asked for my time.” Dad left Two Harbors never to return as a worker again.

My friend, LaVerne, said her grandpa John, was similarly ostracized on the range. “Company goons were out for these guys and the Italians on the north side would hide them (Slovack organizers) in their basements.”

In 1994, a number of Duluthians, including LaVerne, resurrected the IWW in Duluth, meeting in the Temple Opera Building and supporting walk-outs and actions of other unions. “We thought we were doing a great thing”, she says, but their effort withered. Just recently, a group of young organizers, including delegate Justin Anderson, a UMD student, is again beginning local IWW organizing efforts. There are now enough members for a local charter.

In the early 1900’s, the Industrial Workers of the World was the only union to welcome all workers including women, immigrants, African Americans and Asians. Joe Hill and Elizabeth Gurley Brown were immigrant activists. Longshoreman’s Local 8 in Philadelphia was led by African American, Ben Fletcher. Currently, focus is on workers with disabilities and on gender inclusion.

Corporations and the US Government made IWW history a confrontational and bloody one. Salvation Army bands were sent in to drown out speakers. Members were arrested and tarred and feathered or even killed for making speeches. When a fellow member was arrested for speaking, many others would show up, inviting authorities to arrest them too, till it became too expensive for the municipality.

Mother Jones, Eugene V. Debs and “Big Bill” Haywood were among IWW founders. Members present and past include Noam Chomsky, anthropologist David Graeber of Occupy, musician Tom Morello, playwright Eugene O’Neill, MN Farmer-Labor Governor Floyd Olson, Dorothy Day and Helen Keller.

A famous Keller quote reflects present day thinking within Occupy and of many worldwide: “The few own the many because they possess the means of livelihood...The country is governed by the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators and for the exploiters of labor. The majority of mankind are working people. So long as their fair demands- the ownership and control of their livelihoods- are set at naught, we can have neither men’s rights nor women’s rights. The majority of mankind is ground down by oppression in order that the small remnant may live in ease”

The IWW repudiates war, long realizing that wars are struggles among capitalists who line their pockets while the working poor kill each other. Wobblies (a nickname for members) were especially persecuted during WWI, and placed on the US Attorney General’s list of subversive organizations in 1949.

Industrial Workers are grassroots, believing in workplace self-management. They oppose labor leaders who would call strikes or settlements on behalf of the workers themselves. Such decisions can only be voted on by rank and file. The IWW does not accept the dues check-off system, where the company takes dues out of workers’ wages, acting as bankers for the union. Members pay directly at their regular meetings. The pay for officers must not exceed the average pay for workers. You can become a member without being represented in the workplace and you can also belong to another union.

Recent organizing efforts have taken place at Starbucks, in food coops, bookstores, at delis, etc. IWW workers handle Berkeley’s recycling and the Portland branch is one of the largest and most active.
There are charters around the world- in the UK, Germany, Australia, Canada, Uganda and elsewhere.

Here in Minnesota, recent succcessful IWW efforts to reinstate workers and to gain workplace justice have been made at Jimmy Johns in Minneapolis. Frightening work conditions at UPS, both locally and across the nation are being confronted. But that’s for another story.

Find out more about the Twin Ports April IWW organizer training on fb or get more information at iwwduluth@riseup.net