Labor History Archives
The Early Struggle for Camp & Sawmill Democracy
Chapter 4 continuedhttp://www.iww.org/unions/iu120/rowan/rowan4.shtml
Published by the Lumber Workers Industrial Union Local 500
IWW; Seattle, Washington1920 Continued:
We are picking up where we left off looking at the early struggle of workers in the timber industry as presented by the Industrial Workers of The World (IWW). This is their perspective and we can learn a lot about the never-ending war for power and money everywhere in the world. We pick up in 1916 when organizing of lumber workers was in full swing.
During that summer, fall and winter, thousands of lumber workers lined up in the union. Great enthusiasm prevailed and the bunk houses in the lumber camps nightly resounded with the songs of the IWW. The lumber workers had come to realize that; if their condition was ever to be improved, they themselves must take action; and that the One Big Union offered the only effective weapon to break the tyrannical rule of the Lumber Trust.
“They themselves had to take action”. All union power is derived from this simple idea. But it is a hard idea. It means personal time and personal risk. When things are bad enough both will seem worth it.
The same was true, only to a less extent, in the great lumber region of Western Washington. The lumber workers' locals in this section did not become blanches of the AWO, (Agricultural Workers' Organization) but continued as autonomous locals. Discontent was rife among the loggers and sawmill workers and they were beginning to look to the One Big Union as the solution of their economic problems.
Everyone getting together is management’s greatest fear. This is why the Labor Management Relations Act, LMRA, makes it illegal to stop employees talking about work. There is a law that says it is illegal to tell employees not to talk to any other employee about wages and benefits.
For example, in the old days people were paid different amounts. Some would get bonuses or a higher wage. Their egos were fed. They worked faster, longer and took shortcuts because they were top hands. But in the long run, they made less than if they had all just stuck together for good wages and benefits for everyone. Employers control workers by making sure they don’t get together and compare compensation or discuss the actual time spent on job related issues.
Much opposition was encountered from the lumber barons and their tools. In Everett, the Commercial Club, terrified at the prospect of the IWW gaining a foothold in the sawmills and camps, abandoned all pretense of law and order. With the help of a servile and cowardly mayor and sheriff, it organized a band of vigilantes consisting of business men, scabs, pimps, and other degenerates, for the purpose of driving the IWW out of town.
Here we go again. But notice how effective Corporate Values have been in convincing the public that unions are violent and in league with organized crime. Pretty slick! Note also that the words used here are not exactly unbiased. Pimps? But with what was being done to working families and their values by corporate interests, it is easy to understand the language.
During the summer and fall of 1916, many men were forcibly and illegally deported, beaten, jailed, and subjected to the vilest and most barbarous kind of abuse by this collection of thugs, in a mad campaign of violence and lawlessness which culminated Nov. 5th in the infamous Everett massacre in which five members of the IWW were murdered, and many others wounded.
We have seen this with many strikes and union movements in these weekly history postings. Management buys force. That is all it has. Corporate Values! Companies hire mercenaries, for lack of a better word. Strikers are the workers who produce the wealth and they are simply withholding their creation of wealth. Corporations don’t care about people. People are expendable. But we trip over our own feet trying to get along, prove we are not commies and run scared because we don’t trust each other or want the glory or want the job.
Corporations, through our Government, are doing this bad stuff now in other countries. These are not American Values.
In the meantime, the lumber barons and other capitalists of the Northwest, alarmed at the growing power of the organization, were digging themselves in, and preparing for the coming battle. Evidently, they realized the weakness of their position, and the inadequacy of the weapons they had formerly used to hold labor in subjection: the lockout and the blacklist, violence, mob rule, thuggery and murder had failed to stop the onward march of industrial unionism.
The Corporations are the machines of the Capitalists. The CEO’s and Boards of Directors are the Princes, Dukes and Earls of our present day ruling class. Politicians are figureheads, functioning for the power and money, Corporate Value, system. It is the same game played over and over with new generations of both persuasions. We can see history repeating itself today. Fore warned is fore armed. Check this out:
Save the Republic! This week, Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith opens in theaters nation-wide. And weirdly enough, the plot of what will undoubtedly be one of the biggest films in movie history revolves around a scheming senator who, seduced by visions of absolute power, transforms a democratic republic into an empire. (This is how Europe and much of the world sees America as portrayed in this film. Of course we can’t say this in America because we have lost our free press and, in so doing, our freedom of speech.) http://www.moveonpac.org/savetherepublic/?id=5543-5528781-KSOGV9AxkffLRkmWJ63zpQ&t=10 (MoveOn)
PDF download link: http://cdn.moveonpac.org/content/pdfs/savetherepublic.pdf This is coooool.
There was no mistaking the handwriting on the wall. If the One Big Union was allowed to go ahead it would soon control the industries of the entire country, which would mean the end of capitalist profit. Something had to be done at once to stop the One Big Union movement, and crush the IWW out of existence. To accomplish this purpose, the "Criminal Syndicalism" laws were passed. The following is a copy of the first of these laws, which was passed by the state legislature of Idaho:
We can have it all if we help politicians who believe in our values get elected. This means personal time, some money and some work. For the most part we have not done that so the entire nation is in an increasingly alarming situation. Here we have an example of passing a law that has its roots in special interest aimed at a specific adversary. What did the General public of the time to think? What was really going on from what they read about in newspapers controlled by Corporations? What does the public think about unions now?
SESSION LAWS
Page 459-Chapter 145
Senate Bill No. 183
Idaho, 1917
An act defining the Crime of Criminal Syndicalism, and prescribing punishment therefore.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Idaho.
Section 1.
To be continued:
Homework
You can read the entire article. Our pasted quotes are taken from at: http://www.iww.org/unions/iu120/rowan/rowan4.shtml .
The takeoff on Star Wars is important. We are at a turning point, not only for labor, but for the entire Country. Don’t let the 'Dark Side of the Force' put you down. Stand up for American Values; For Family Values; For Union Values. Print out the PDF and take it to work and discuss our situation.
Communicating thoughts and ideas are our principle tools to obtain a better life. Check out this article about UC Berkeley linguistics professor George Lakoff containing questions and answers that will help us understand how to use various tools in communicating ideas at: http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/08/25_lakoff.shtml .
"We kill at every step, not only in wars, riots, and executions. We kill when we close our eyes to poverty, suffering, and shame. In the same way all disrespect for life, all hard-heartedness, all indifference, all contempt is nothing else than killing. With just a little witty skepticism we can kill a good deal of the future in a young person. Life is waiting everywhere, the future is flowering everywhere, but we only see a small part of it and step on much of it with our feet.”
Hermann Hesse
German poet and novelist