Tag Archives: Progressive Movement

03/1/11

Industrial Workers of the World

The Industrial Workers of the World was a Union formed in 1905 by workers, (mostly miners) who were against the exclusionary policies of the more popular, common union-American Federation of Labor. The union was founded in Chicago during a convention made up of socialists and anarchists. The union was a tight-knit union and that was their objective and agenda. The motto was “An injury to one, is an injury to all”. Its goal was to promote worker solidarity.

The picture above is the label of the Workers of the World. The picture was found on wikipedia and the link to it is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Label.svg . As per Wikipedia, the logo was found through the the IWW website.

02/28/11

The strike being identified as the “Bread and Roses”

In 1912 immigrant textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, led by the Industrial Workers of the World, went on strike when their wages were lowered in response to a law shortening the work week. The courage of the female workers, who were willing to brave frigid weather as well as police and militia in order to march on picket lines, led to the strike being identified as the “bread and roses” strike.
I.W.W. leaders Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn moved in and helped organized the strike, which was opposed by the AFL as being revolutionary.