INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD

(IWW) byname Wobblies radical labour organization founded in Chicago in 1905 by representatives of 43 groups in opposition to such policies of the American Federation of Labor as its acceptance of capitalism and its refusal to include unskilled workers in craft unions. Among the founders of the IWW were William D. Haywood of the Western Federation of Miners, Daniel De Leon of the Socialist Labor Party, and Eugene V. Debs of the Socialist Party. In 1908 the IWW split into two factions, one advocating political action to attain its goals, the other eschewing politics and advocating general strikes, boycotts, and sabotage. The latter faction, under the leadership of Haywood, prevailed, and the IWW became a revolutionary organization dedicated to gaining control of the means of production by the workers. Its tactics often led to arrests and sensational publicity; when IWW organizer Joe Hill was executed in 1915 on a disputed murder charge, he became a martyr and folk hero in the labour movement. The organization won its greatest victories in the mining and lumbering industries of the Pacific Northwest. The IWW was the only labour organization to oppose U.S. participation in World War I, and during the war IWW leaders sought to tie up copper production in western states. The federal government responded by prosecuting and convicting some of those leaders under newly enacted Sabotage and Espionage Acts. In the postwar years, the IWW was subject to harassment and further prosecution by local officials responding to widespread antiradical sentiments. By 1925 membership in the IWW had dwindled to insignificance.