The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or the Wobblies) is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after severe government repression as part of the first Red Scare and a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict. IWW membership does not require that one work in a represented workplace, nor does it exclude membership in another labor union.
The IWW contends that all workers should be united as a class and that the wage system should be abolished. They are known for the Wobbly Shop model of workplace democracy, in which workers elect their managers and other forms of grassroots democracy (self-management) are implemented.
In 2012 the IWW moved its General Headquarters offices to 2036 West Montrose, Chicago.
The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain.
Read more about Industrial Workers Of The World: Folk Music and Protest Songs, Lingo, Notable Members
Famous quotes containing the words the world, industrial, workers and/or world:
“Cash-payment never was, or could except for a few years be, the union-bond of man to man. Cash never yet paid one man fully his deserts to another; nor could it, nor can it, now or henceforth to the end of the world.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)
“The industrial world would be a more peaceful place if workers were called in as collaborators in the process of establishing standards and defining shop practices, matters which surely affect their interests and well-being fully as much as they affect those of employers and consumers.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“Prosperous farmers mean more employment, more prosperity for the workers and the business men of ... every industrial area in the whole country.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“Desiccation of the world of sense,
Evacuation of the world of fancy,
Inoperancy of the world of spirit;
This is the one way, and the other
Is the same, not in movement
But abstention from movement;”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)