Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) is a radical labor organization that was founded in 1905 to oppose the conservative policies of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The AFL used craft unions, which separated workers by skills and trades. The IWW wanted to replace the craft unions with an organization of industrial unions. These unions would organize workers without regard to skill or trade. Members of the IWW, often called Wobblies, acted through strikes, boycotts, and sabotage.
The Wobblies shared many of the aims and methods of syndicalism, a movement to abolish capitalism and national government (see Syndicalism ). In 1908, the Wobblies rejected the use of political action. They hoped to lead a general strike to overthrow the capitalist system. They would then create a classless, socialist society in which workers would control the government and economy through industrial unions. But the IWW had far too few members to achieve such a goal. Its membership probably never exceeded 100,000.
The IWW was formed in Chicago in June 1905 by members of the Western Federation of Miners and 42 other labor groups. IWW members also included immigrant workers in the Eastern United States and migrant workers in the South, in the West, and in the Great Plains. The group’s influence reached its peak about 1912.
After the United States entered World War I in 1917, federal and state officials imprisoned many IWW leaders and disrupted many of the organization’s strikes. IWW membership fell drastically after the war ended in 1918, as disputes among the Wobblies became more frequent. But by that time, the IWW had done much to expose the unfair working conditions of migrant workers in the Western United States. It had also developed ideas that later were used in forming modern industrial unions. Today, the IWW continues to organize workers in a variety of industries.
