Wobblies of the World

Wobblies of the World
Author: Peter Cole
Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017
Genre: International labor activities
ISBN: 9780745399607

A history of the global nature of the radical union, The Industrial Workers of the World

Big Red Songbook

Big Red Songbook
Author: Archie Green
Publisher: PM Press
Total Pages: 673
Release: 2016-05-01
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1629632600

In 1905, representatives from dozens of radical labor groups came together in Chicago to form One Big Union—the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), known as the Wobblies. The union was a big presence in the labor movement, leading strikes, walkouts, and rallies across the nation. And everywhere its members went, they sang. Their songs were sung in mining camps and textile mills, hobo jungles and flop houses, and anywhere workers might be recruited to the Wobblies’ cause. The songs were published in a pocketsize tome called the Little Red Songbook, which was so successful that it’s been published continuously since 1909. In The Big Red Songbook, the editors have gathered songs from over three dozen editions, plus additional songs, rare artwork, personal recollections, discographies, and more into one big all-embracing book. IWW poets/composers strove to nurture revolutionary consciousness. Each piece, whether topical, hortatory, elegiac, or comic served to educate, agitate, and emancipate workers. A handful of Wobbly numbers have become classics, still sung by labor groups and folk singers. They include Joe Hill’s sardonic “The Preacher and the Slave” (sometimes known by its famous phrase “Pie in the Sky”) and Ralph Chaplin’s “Solidarity Forever.” Songs lost or found, sacred or irreverent, touted or neglected, serious or zany, singable or not, are here. The Wobblies and their friends have been singing for a century. May this comprehensive gathering simultaneously celebrate past battles and chart future goals. In addition to the 250+ songs, writings are included from Archie Green, Franklin Rosemont, David Roediger, Salvatore Salerno, Judy Branfman, Richard Brazier, James Connell, Carlos Cortez, Bill Friedland, Virginia Martin, Harry McClintock, Fred Thompson, Adam Machado, and many more.

One Big Union of All the Workers

One Big Union of All the Workers
Author: John Newsinger
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017
Genre: Labor unions
ISBN: 9781910885567

For over a decade from their foundation in 1905 in the USA, the Industrial Workers of the World (the IWW or Wobblies) fought tirelessly for socialist revolution. They forged a union movement that took up the struggle for the rights of women, immigrant and black workers at a time when other trade unions were busy dividing workers and colluding with employers. The Wobblies' courage and ingenuity continue to inspire new generations of socialists and trade unionists. This book looks at some of the most important IWW battles and the lessons we can draw from them today.

Wobblies!

Wobblies!
Author: Paul Buhle
Publisher: Verso
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2005-04-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9781844675258

A vibrant history in graphic art of the Wobblies, published for the centenary of the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World.

The Seattle General Strike

The Seattle General Strike
Author: Robert Friedheim
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2018-11-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 0295744618

“We are undertaking the most tremendous move ever made by LABOR in this country, a move which will lead—NO ONE KNOWS WHERE!” With these words echoing throughout the city, on February 6, 1919, 65,000 Seattle workers began one of the most important general strikes in US history. For six tense yet nonviolent days, the Central Labor Council negotiated with federal and local authorities on behalf of the shipyard workers whose grievances initiated the citywide walkout. Meanwhile, strikers organized to provide essential services such as delivering supplies to hospitals and markets, as well as feeding thousands at union-run dining facilities. Robert L. Friedheim’s classic account of the dramatic events of 1919, first published in 1964 and now enhanced with a new introduction, afterword, and photo essay by James N. Gregory, vividly details what happened and why. Overturning conventional understandings of the American Federation of Labor as a conservative labor organization devoted to pure and simple unionism, Friedheim shows the influence of socialists and the IWW in the city’s labor movement. While Seattle’s strike ended in disappointment, it led to massive strikes across the country that determined the direction of labor, capital, and government for decades. The Seattle General Strike is an exciting portrait of a Seattle long gone and of events that shaped the city’s reputation for left-leaning activism into the twenty-first century.

Revolutionary Industrial Unionism

Revolutionary Industrial Unionism
Author: Verity Burgmann
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 346
Release: 1995
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780521476980

A history of the International Workers of the World (IWW) in Australia, this book is both lively and scholarly.

Direct Action & Sabotage

Direct Action & Sabotage
Author: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
Publisher: Charles H Kerr Publishing Company
Total Pages: 121
Release: 1997-01-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780882861852

'Direct Action & Sabotage' (1912) by William Trautman, 'Sabotage: It's History, Philosophy And Function' (1913) by Walker Smith, and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn's 'Sabotage: The Conscious Withdrawal Of The Workers' Industrial Efficiency' (1916), edited, and with an introduction by Salvatore Salerno. The activist authors of the text s in this collection challenged the prevailing stereotype....As they point out, the practice of direct action, and of sabotage, are as old as class society itself, and have been an integral part of the everyday worklife of wage-earners in all times and places. To the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) belongs the distinction of being the first workers' organization in the US to discuss these common practices openly, and to recognize their place in working class struggle. View direct action and sabotage in the spirit of creative nonviolence, Wobblies readily integrated these tactics into their struggle to build industrial unions. [From the Introduction]

Solidarity Forever

Solidarity Forever
Author: Robert Lawson
Publisher: FriesenPress
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2024-10-17
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1038317894

Solidarity Forever is the definitive account of the musical journey of the music legend of Disciples of Soul, Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, and anti-apartheid project Sun City fame, Little Steven Van Zandt. Following Van Zandt’s unforgettable sixty-year (and counting!) career from his beginnings with the Asbury Jukes and Springsteen to leading the Disciples of Soul, from touring, arranging, and producing timeless music to playing an onscreen gangster in The Sopranos and Lilyhammer, Solidarity Forever is packed with a level of detail that will impress devotees and enchant new fans. Every song, every album, every single, live shows; bootlegs, production credits, covers, activism—everything is covered here and presented alongside fascinating interviews of over forty past and present band members and Van Zandt himself. A stunning work of music journalism and love letter to rock ‘n’ roll, Solidarity Forever delivers Little Steven’s story and the timeless messages of his music like never before. “This is no time to be fighting each other What we need, what we need is solidarity.”

Harvest Wobblies

Harvest Wobblies
Author: Greg Hall
Publisher:
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2001
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

Increased Mechanization and the expansion of new markets transformed the face of American farming in the early decades of the twentieth century, especially in the American West. These changes demanded a new kind of agricultural worker--gone was the local farmhand, replaced by a cheap and temporary labor force of migrant and seasonal workers. Greg Hall's fascinating book analyzes how "harvest Wobblies," members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), organized these men, women, and sometimes children who had become so essential and yet so exploited on the farms of the West. Although harvest Wobblies worked in nearly all the western states, their stongholds were the Great Plains, California, and the Pacific Northwest, regions where harmers developed monocrop agriculture and where seasonal labor was indispensable come harvest time. Like their IWW brethren in logging camps and mines, the harvest Wobblies combined an effort to improve the lives of workers with harger revolutionary goals. Harvest Wobblies personified most of the indelible features of IWW membership: they were the militant casual laborers of the American West, riding the rails, living in hobo jungles, preaching revolution, and facing repression with innovative strategies, impassioned speech, humor, and song. Through trial and error, Wobbly organizers eventually implemented the idea of an industrial union in agriculture and helped the IWW to establish itself as a powerful force to be reckoned with by employers in the West. In tracing the rise and the eventual fall of the harvest Wobblies, Greg Hall examines the diverse and changing nature of the agricultural work force. He offers a social and cultural history of a union uniquely suited to organizing tens of thousands of migrant and seasonal workers. Harvest Wobblies will appeal to a broad audience of readers interested in labor history, the American West, U.S. agricultural history, and the history of the IWW.