TRANSNATIONAL LABOR, THEN AND NOW: Century Old IWW

Century-old Industrial Workers of the World Still Offer Prescription for World Peace

The IWW is one hundred years old this spring but its political goals are just what we need today to promote peace and justice in the world. Farmworker organizer and musician Baldemar Velasquez continues the legacy of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). In 1905 the IWW founders saw themselves as an alternative to the American Federation of Labor (AFL). While the AFL generally confined itself to organizing white, male, skilled non migrant urban workers, the IWW members, or “Wobblies,” as they were dubbed, opened up their unions to women, African Americans, Mexicans, and people working temporary and “unskilled” jobs like ditch diggers and crop harvesters. While the American Federation of Labor was busy lobbying for immigration restrictions, the IWW conducted meetings in several languages, printed their publications in Spanish and English, and focused on recruiting new arrivals to the United States. The AFL organized along the lines of particular trades which made it easy for the bosses to pit one group of workers against another in a particular industry. In contrast, the IWW’s goal was to organize whole industries. The AFL put the national interests of U.S. workers above all others, but IWW promoted ONE BIG UNION, a labor federation that crossed all national borders. One century later workers face multinational corporations who use organizations like the IMF and the WTO to protect their global interests. Companies like Halliburton wave the red white, and blue to recruit soldiers to fight their battles for them, while pledging allegiance to the flag of cheap labor. One hundred years after the founding of the IWW, we need that ONE BIG UNION more than ever. Imagine if there was no place for oil companies, sneaker manufacturers, and agribusiness to go for cheaper labor; if every apple harvester from Chile to Minnesota belonged to the same labor federation; if every worker in the global soccer-ball industry carried the same union card; if every worker made a living wage, with safe and dignified working conditions; if no community was toxic-waste dumping grounds. Who would need barbed wire borders? What reason would there be to go to war? Is this a utopian pipe dream? No. In the last ten years AFL-CIO locals have been taking the first steps toward realizing this vision. They are organizing immigrant workers, with or without documents, and working with unions in other countries to build cross-border solidarity to stop runaway shops. One of the leaders of both of these progressive labor trends is Baldemar Velasquez, the president and founder of the Midwest Farm Labor Organization Committee AFL-CIO, based in Ohio. Velasquez has been working within the AFL-CIO to organize those sectors of the worker forces left to the marginalized Industrial Workers of the World 100 years ago. In addition, he is a leader of international efforts to promote labor solidarity across borders. Velasquez thinks and works locally and globally. Like the legendary IWW singer and songwriter Joe Hill, Baldemar Velasquez is a musician as well as a labor organizer. On April 9 Velasquez came to the Twin Cities to do a concert to raise funds for Centro Campesino, an organization by and for migrant workers in Southern Minnesota.Velasquez and his Aguila Negra Band sang old labor songs, Mexican folk ballads and new music of the labor and antiglobalization movements. Velasquez sprinkled stories of current struggle between his songs. His performance feeds the brain, the heart, and the soul.