An injury to one is an injury to all

[dcsmart]

Adam Turl chronicles the rich radical working-class history of Industrial Workers of the World.

THE INDUSTRIAL Workers of the World (IWW) union, founded in 1905 in Chicago, would lead some of the most important struggles in the history of the U.S. labor movement.

Organized labor was dominated at the time by the conservative American Federation of Labor (AFL) and Samuel Gompers, which embodied a union movement seeking class collaboration with employers, business and craft unionism.

Craft unionism was a toxic holdover from the past, before the industrial revolution began to "deskill" much of the work process. Craft unions usually believed their power was based on the mastery of their trade instead of solidarity with other workers. These union leaders looked down on the growing ranks of the unskilled and refused to organize them.

This craft exclusionism dovetailed with sexist, anti-immigrant and racist ideas that barred many women, foreign-born (especially Asian) and Black workers from union ranks. Ultimately, craft unionism weakened the leverage of all workers--both skilled and unskilled--against the employers.

The IWW, however, based itself on the idea of industrial unionism--of organizing all workers together in a single union, regardless of skills, craft, sex, nationality or race, under the guiding principle that "an injury to one is an injury to all."
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FULL ARTICLE
http://socialistworker.org/2009/08/20/an-injury-to-one-is-an-injury-to-all

[Omaha Steve]

1. K&R