Has the time finally come for the dreams of the International Workers of the World (IWW) for a world workers’ union. For a lot of IWW’s ideas was way ahead of its time. The old IWW wage slaves had nothing or very little money. They were just people who shared the dream of a better life for themselves and their families, and they felt that all wage slaves should belong to one union of the world, J.F. McDaniels wrote.
There would be no borders of countries. Just like some unions in the USA. A sheet metal worker can move and work anywhere and his pension and healthcare follows the union member. They have an international union member, but they still must register with the local union. But, still, they can move and follow the jobs. This was part of the IWW’s dream in 1905, when the socialist, anarchists, trade unionist and revolutionaries met to lay the ground work for one big union combining elements of Marxian and Darwinian together.
The IWW ideology envisioned a utopian society consisting of one big industrial union, which would abolish capitalism and the wage system, and create social order in which all good things of life would be meted out to wage slaves with complete justice. Their members were the shock troops of labor. It existed for the prime purpose of making the first breaches in the resistance of entrenched industry so later organizations could widen and deepen then.
Their fight took them through strikes, free speech fights, trials, and riots of militancy and martyrdom of sacrifices and suppression of epic struggles for one big union and a cooperative commonwealth, which would be free of class and nationality distinctions.
So here we are 98 years later and it’s starting to look like there is life in the IWW spirit. Bangladesh has just raised wages, workers burned down one of the big sweatshop buildings, and the corporate owners are saying there is no cheaper place to move to now so wages will start going up as the world wage slaves fight for fair wages and the factories now have no place to move to.
The wage slaves are starting to realize the dream of 98 years ago is still alive and to wake from the nightmare they’ve been forced into by the greedy corporations they have to continue the fight the IWW started.
Yes, they are coming for us. Workers need to have one another’s backs because no one else will. Neither the broader labor movement nor the Democratic party are prepared to meet the urgency of this moment. So it’s going to fall upon the rest of us to mount a real resistance against Trump’s authoritarian takeover. We’re going to have to get our hands dirty. I don’t care if you have a good, well-paying union job and you are in the middle class now—if you see a worker being dragged out of his workplace regardless of how skilled the job and potentially taken to another country, you should be ready to be there for that worker. When I.C.E. shows up, gather around and shame them into leaving. It has worked in other places. America is sleep walking into authoritarianism, and if there’s anyone out there who is a member of a labor union that is safe—at this point— and doesn’t think this applies to them. Understand that they just haven’t gotten to you yet. They’re coming for all of us. There are ...
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