Industrial Workers of the World One Big Union

The IWW was nearly crushed in the early 1920s by some of the fiercest repression ever unleashed by big business and government throughout the world. Because the IWW had strongholds in industries that were crucial to the First World War effort, particularly in the United States and Australia and also because they refused to sign no-strike pledges, the IWW was branded pro-German and relentlessly persecuted.

The world economy has changed a lot since the days when the IWW controlled great subjects of the logging, mining and agricultural industries in the United States. Today, while mainstream unions try desperately to hold their ground, vast new sectors of the economy have opened up that the trade unions have never before dreamed of organising.

Modern trade unions have tried and failed to sign up the new marginal workforce which consists of people on short term contracts, casual labourers, temporary workers, basically whoever has little or no employment protection.

Whether they be fast-food workers, word processors or micro-chip assemblers, today's non-union wage workers need the IWW even more than their predecessors. Winning the eight-hour day was not enough. We must redefine the very meaning of work itself, and find ways to redistribute society's wealth to provide well being for all.