Editing Industrial Workers of the World (section)

====Foundation====
[[File:IWW-headquarters-1917.jpg|thumb|[[Big Bill Haywood]] and office workers in the IWW General Office, Chicago, summer 1917]]

The first meeting to plan the IWW was held in Chicago in 1904. The seven attendees were Clarence Smith and [[Thomas J. Hagerty]] of the [[American Labor Union]], [[George Estes]] and [[W. L. Hall]] of the [[United Brotherhood of Railway Employees]], [[Isaac Cowan]] of the U.S. branch of the [[Amalgamated Society of Engineers (UK)|Amalgamated Society of Engineers]], [[William E. Trautmann]] of the [[International Union of United Brewery, Flour, Cereal, Soft Drink and Distillery Workers|United Brewery Workmen]] and Julian E. Bagley WW1 veteran and author. [[Eugene Debs]], formerly of the [[American Railway Union]], and [[Charles O. Sherman]] of the [[United Metal Workers]] were involved but did not attend the meeting.<ref name="Thompson1955">{{cite book |last1=Thompson |first1=Fred |title=The I. W. W., its first fifty years, 1905-1955;the history of an effort to organize the working class. |date=1955 |publisher=Industrial Workers of the World |location=Chicago |page=6 |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015073497490&view=1up&seq=10 |access-date=June 12, 2020 |archive-date=October 30, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201030155554/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015073497490&view=1up&seq=10 |url-status=live }}</ref>

The [[Continental Congress of the working class|IWW was officially founded]] in Chicago, Illinois in June 1905. A convention was held of 200 [[socialism|socialists]], [[anarchism|anarchists]], [[Marxism|Marxists]] (primarily members of the [[Socialist Party of America]] and [[Socialist Labor Party of America]]), and radical trade unionists from all over the United States (mainly the [[Western Federation of Miners]]) who strongly opposed the policies of the [[American Federation of Labor]] (AFL). The IWW opposed the AFL's acceptance of [[capitalism]] and its refusal to include unskilled workers in craft unions.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Industrial-Workers-of-the-World |title=Industrial Workers of the World - Labour Organization |encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia Britannica |access-date=October 14, 2018 |archive-date=August 10, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220810014224/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Industrial-Workers-of-the-World |url-status=live }}</ref>

The convention had taken place on June 27, 1905, and was referred to as the "Industrial Congress" or the "Industrial Union Convention". It was later known as the First Annual Convention of the IWW.<ref name="Brissenden" />{{rp|67}}

The IWW's founders included [[Bill Haywood|William D. ("Big Bill") Haywood]], [[James Connolly]], [[Daniel De Leon]], [[Eugene V. Debs]], [[Thomas Hagerty]], [[Lucy Parsons]], [[Mary Harris "Mother" Jones]], [[Frank Bohn (socialist)|Frank Bohn]], [[William Trautmann]], [[Vincent Saint John]], [[Ralph Chaplin]], and many others.

The IWW aimed to promote worker solidarity in the revolutionary struggle to overthrow the employing class; its [[Labor slogans|motto]] was "[[an injury to one is an injury to all]]".  They saw this as an improvement upon the [[Knights of Labor]]'s creed, "an injury to one is the concern of all" which the Knights had spoken out in the 1880s.  In particular, the IWW was organized because of the belief among many unionists, socialists, anarchists, Marxists, and radicals that the AFL not only had failed to effectively organize the U.S. [[working class]],  but it was causing separation rather than unity within groups of workers by organizing according to narrow craft principles. The Wobblies believed that all workers should organize as a class, a philosophy that is still reflected in the Preamble to the current IWW Constitution:

<blockquote>The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.

Between these two classes a [[class struggle|struggle]] must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth.

We find that the [[Centralisation#Centralisation in economy|centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands]] makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers.

These conditions can be changed and the interest of the [[working class]] upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.

Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair day's wage for a fair day's work," we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, "Abolition of the wage system."

It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the [[new society within the shell of the old]].<ref name="preamble" /></blockquote>

One of the IWW's most important contributions to the labor movement and broader push of social justice was that, when founded, it was the only American union to welcome all workers, including women, immigrants, African Americans and Asians, into the same organization. Many of its early members were immigrants, and some, such as [[Carlo Tresca]], [[Joe Haaglund Hill|Joe Hill]] and [[Elizabeth Gurley Flynn]], rose to prominence in the leadership. [[Finnish people|Finns]] formed a sizable portion of the immigrant IWW membership. "Conceivably, the number of Finns belonging to the I.W.W. was somewhere between five and ten thousand."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.genealogia.fi/emi/art/article257e.htm |title=Finnish-American Workmen's Associations |first=Auvo |last=Kostiainen |publisher=Genealogia.fi |access-date=October 14, 2018 |archive-date=February 23, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120223143526/http://www.genealogia.fi/emi/art/article257e.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> The [[Finnish language|Finnish-language]] newspaper of the IWW, ''[[Industrialisti]]'', published in [[Duluth, Minnesota]], a center of the mining industry, was the union's only daily paper. At its peak, it ran 10,000 copies per issue. Another Finnish-language Wobbly publication was the monthly ''[[Tie Vapauteen]]'' ("Road to Freedom"). Also of note was the Finnish IWW educational institute, the [[Work People's College]] in Duluth, and the [[Finnish Labour Temple]] in [[Port Arthur, Ontario]], Canada, which served as the IWW Canadian administration for several years. Further, many Swedish immigrants, particularly those blacklisted after the 1909 Swedish [[General strike|General Strike]], joined the IWW and set up similar cultural institutions around the Scandinavian Socialist Clubs. This in turn exerted a political influence on the Swedish labor movement's left, that in 1910 formed the Syndicalist union SAC which soon contained a minority seeking to mimick the tactics and strategies of the IWW.<ref name=plutopress>{{cite book| editor1-last=Cole| editor1-first=Peter| editor2-last=Struthers| editor2-first=David| editor3-last=Zimmer| editor3-first=Kenyon| url=https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745399591/wobblies-of-the-world/| title=Wobblies of the World: A Global History of the IWW| year=2017| publisher=[[Pluto Press]]| chapter=P. J. Welinder and "American Syndicalism| page=262| isbn=978-0745399591| access-date=February 22, 2018| archive-date=February 23, 2018| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180223052931/https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745399591/wobblies-of-the-world/| url-status=live}}</ref>