In 2005, when the IWW celebrated its 100th year, we had a scarce 100-odd members in the British Isles. This year, as the comrades at New Syndicalist report, they passed 1000 members! Ten fold growth in ten years is impressive, and it means that they’re doing a lot of things right. If we want to hit […]
[Introduction: This is the first in a series which will focus on three books which I think are particularly useful to reviving a fighting labor movement in the US. They are: The Blue Eagle at Work: Reclaiming Democratic Rights in the American Workplace, Charles Morris, 2005; Reviving the Strike, Joe Burns, 2011; and Out of the Jungle: Jimmy […]
This summer I came across a blog called Wobbling Towards Communism, which bills itself as the “Official Blog of the Communists of the IWW”. Despite misgivings about the bombastic title, I was initially happy to see the new page. In general it’s good to see more open discussion around the IWW and what we’re trying to […]
In my first post on this blog, “Getting Your Second Five Year Card: Six Tips for Life-Long Wobblies“, I encouraged Fellow Workers to strategize ten years ahead for the organization.
Two prominent IWW campaigns have recently incorporated Thanksgiving into their strategy, recognizing that this is an incredibly profitable time for US capitalism, and a time when most US workers want to work less and spend time with people they care about.
From February to April 2011, everyone had their eyes on Wisconsin, praying for or dreading the widespread, self-organized strikes against the state’s austerity measures that seemed like a real possibility. So much has happened since then that it almost seems like ancient history, but this movement was seen by many of us at the time […]
[Introduction: Minneapolis Community and Technical College produced the 1935 play Waiting for Lefty in October 2013. I wrote an article for the December ’13 Industrial Worker reviewing the concept of the play, the production at MCTC, and the relevance for building a revolutionary labor movement today. A Fellow Worker from Minneapolis wrote a letter to the IW about the […]
When the Spanish CNT held its first Congress after the death of Franco, in 1979, there were thousands of attendees representing hundreds of new branches across the country. The mid 1970s saw an explosively resurgent and uncontrollable labor movement which the state was desperately trying to rein in, and many of the more radical elements […]
In my post on the IWW’s General Convention I mentioned the events around the police murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO. “It seems clear that the anger over continual police murder of black and brown men has been simmering at a new level since the murder of Oscar Grant, that is, since the start […]
The IWW Convention is coming up this weekend – the same weekend as DragonCon. Somehow, despite growing up as a nerd in Georgia, I’ve never been to DragonCon, and really want to go. However I also haven’t been to an IWW Convention since 2007, back when they were still assemblies, and I’ve decided that DragonCon […]
Lifelong Wobbly 