Submitted on Mon, 06/26/2017 - 7:33pm
By staff - New Syndicalist, June 20, 2017
New Syndicalist Blog spoke to Peter Cole, David Struthers and Kenyon Zimmer about their upcoming volume, ‘Wobblies of the World: A Global History of the IWW’ – available for preorder from Pluto Press. We asked them what their history revealed about the organising approaches of the IWW in the past, what lessons can be learned for the future and how the One Big Union has adapted to a changing world.
1. What motivated you to publish a global history of the IWW at this time?
Although the world seems insane right now, our book was conceived of some years back—but shit was crazy then, too. Just as the rise of the global New Left in the 1960s sparked interest in the history of the Wobblies so have recent events. Anti-globalization, Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring, and other recent social movements were impressive but lacked a strong union presence. However, these push-backs against neoliberalism revealed examples of anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist tactics and ideals, a la the IWW of old. We believe that history must be “useable,” meaning people should look to Wobbly history for examples of successful struggles that are applicable to the present-day. Transformations within history as an academic discipline also made this book possible, as scholars have increasingly turned to global and transnational approaches to topics previously studies within neat national compartments, as thought people, goods, and ideas have not always traversed (and transgressed) borders.
2. Did your contributors reveal any significant variations in the IWW over place or time?
Obviously, for the IWW to grow in the soil of many lands, it had to adapt to local conditions. In Australia, the IWW worked with the mainstream unions—despite ideological differences—in opposing World War I, which resulted in surprising solidarity from those unions when the IWW suffered fierce government repression. In Ireland, one-time Wobblies led a nationalist revolution. What Wobblies did in Tampico, Mexico could be quite different than what they did in Malmö, Sweden. Perhaps equally fascinating are the commonalties. For one, the IWW did not shed its bedrock opposition to racism and xenophobia, no matter the mainstream customs of whichever society in which it organised. The IWW was the first white-majority union or organisation to attempt lining up Maori in New Zealand and Xhosa in South Africa. The IWW rejected anti-Asian sentiment in California and embraced Finns across northern Ontario. Some things never change.