Editing Industrial Workers of the World (section)

====Other organizing drives====

[[File:Large group of IWW members at picnic, Seattle, Washington, July 20, 1919.jpg|thumb|IWW members at a picnic in Seattle, 1919]]

Between 1915 and 1917, the IWW's [[Agricultural Workers Organization]] (AWO) organized more than a hundred thousand migratory farm workers throughout the Midwest and western United States.<ref>{{cite book |first=Henry E. |last=McGuckin |title=Memoirs of a Wobbly |publisher=Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company |year=1987 |page=70}}</ref>

Building on the success of the AWO, the IWW's [[Lumber Workers Industrial Union]] (LWIU) used similar tactics to organize [[lumberjack]]s and other timber workers, both in the deep South and the Pacific Northwest of the United States and Canada, between 1917 and 1924. The IWW lumber strike of 1917 led to the [[eight-hour day]] and vastly improved working conditions in the Pacific Northwest. Though mid-century historians credited the US Government and "forward thinking lumber magnates" for agreeing to such reforms, an IWW strike forced these concessions.<ref>{{cite book | title=One Big Union | year=1986}}</ref>

Where the IWW did win strikes, such as in Lawrence, they often found it hard to hold onto their gains. The IWW of 1912 disdained [[collective bargaining agreement]]s and preached instead the need for constant struggle against the boss on the shop floor. It proved difficult to maintain that sort of revolutionary enthusiasm against employers. In Lawrence, the IWW lost nearly all of its membership in the years after the strike, as the employers wore down their employees' resistance and eliminated many of the strongest union supporters. In 1938, the IWW voted to allow contracts with employers.<ref>{{cite book |title=The I.W.W.: Its First Seventy Years, 1905–1975 |first1=Fred W. |last1=Thompson |first2=Patrick |last2=Murfin |year=1976 |page=100}}</ref>