Industrial Workers of the World One Big Union

'Bread and Roses' is the name of a song inspired by a landmark strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912. This action taken by 35,000 textile workers, won real concessions from exploitative woollen companies; concessions for the strikers themselves, and for the quarter of a million textile workers in New England.

It was led by the IWW and led by women:

We've just seen the biggest set of education strikes in years. Lecturers striking over pay, teachers in the NUT striking over restructuring, clerical staff in UNISON striking for their pensions. And what has been the response of the unions? The lecturers have been sold down the river for a fraction of a percentage more, teachers have been forced to fight school by school, clerical and support staff ordered back to work on the promise of further talks.

The following is a report from an IWW member who works in the education sector, written just after a public meeting in the sunmmer of 2006.

This evening Sally and I attended a meeting in Oldham to discuss plans to create Academy schools in Oldaham. This will mean the merging of four schools into two - this includes a school we both work at (that's nepotism for you:)).

IWW in the Maritime Industry As Important Now as in the [G]olden Days

Looking to the Past...

One local Wobbly describes how ................

.......... It began on a winter Sunday afternoon on the banks of the Tyne. In a bracing wind, the Secretary of the IWW British Isles Regional Organising Committee, two Wobs (yours truly being one of them) and a potential recruit met in Gateshead to talk about the future. By the end of the meeting, we were three willing members of the embyonic Tyne and Wear General Members Branch of the Industrial Workers of the World.

We working people want to see results. What we need to realise is that we, ourselves, are the only ones who can get the results we want: Improvement. Change. Hope of change.

The IWW is rooted in the lessons of its own experience. With 101 years of it we have a bit to draw on. And we have big goals.

On Sunday July 1st the value of direct action was proven at Kinsale outside Cork City, Ireland, when some 150 people including IWW members converged on the Old Head Golf Course for a "People's Picnic".

... for Summer ... er ... Autumn and Winter and maybe next year too!

The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and the ideas, goals and organisational practices for which it stood, had an important influence on the early labour movement and radical press in South Africa. It also had an impact on neighbouring Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The bitter dispute at Rossington enters its 7th week of strike although of course they were on overtime ban for nearly two years before that.

The strike has been contained at Rossington although many in the mines believe the whole issue is a national one. The Union considers itself hog-tied by current legislation which bans so called ‘secondary action'.