The Wobblies (1979) + Wobblies and Zapatistas (2008) [pdf]

The Wobblies (1979) + Wobblies and Zapatistas (2008) [pdf]

The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or the Wobblies) is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after severe government repression as part of the first Red Scare and a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict. IWW membership does not require that one work in a represented workplace, nor does it exclude membership in another labor union.

The IWW contends that all workers should be united as a class and that the wage system should be abolished. They are known for the Wobbly Shop model of workplace democracy, in which workers elect their managers and other forms of grassroots democracy (self-management) are implemented.

In 2012 the IWW moved its General Headquarters offices to 2036 West Montrose, Chicago.

The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. (The film explains it.)

comment:

Although the corporate controlled media wanted to make look this movement like communism to scare off the common people, actually it was more like patriotic anarcho-syndicalism, a form of grassroots-democracy. This is an essential part of American history that has been widely suppressed by the elite. One of the workers expressed it that way: "The same way the American Founding Fathers rebelled against the British Empire to fight for freedom and liberty, the same way we're rebelling against the tyranny of the corporations. We want a "Bill of Rights" for the working class."

In a way today's big corporations are just like former colonies of the British Empire. The Wobblies didn't want to overthrow the Constitutional Republic, they wanted to strengthen it, because they realized that in the micro-universe of their factories the achievements of the Founding Fathers had effectively been nulllified. Basically the Wobblies were fighting the Rockefellers and the likes.

The powers that be knew very well why they were fighting that movement with such incredible cruelty, with the same cruelty the British wanted to smash the American Revolution. Of course there had been communists trying to hijack that movement for their own causes, just like some forces today have been trying to hijack the occupy movement.

This documentary from 1979 is an important historical document since many of the Wobblies being interviewed here don't live anymore. The generation who actually had lived through the important years of that movement has long gone, and therefore such a documentary couldn't be made anymore today.

Watch what witnesses of that significant part of American history have experienced, not through they eyes of some biased mainstream-history book controlled by the elite, but directly from the horses mouth. These old people being interviewed here looking back at their gripping lives are incredibly truthful.

technical: This video is from another torrent I have deinterlaced and I'm reseeding here at high speed.