by FW Sean


Capitalism’s evils invade every aspect of our lives, controlling who we love and what we do so that our work problems and our home problems are the same problems. Struggling to pay rent, suffering abuse, going hungry, feeling lonely, being overworked and angry are logical outcomes when workers are being exploited for the profit motive. Industrial democracy offers a roadmap to freedom from workplace tyranny through the general strike. The general strike will require organizing alternatives to the status quo at work, school, home, and anywhere we face capitalist oppression.


Our task is immense at the moment because, for example, capitalists can crash toxic trains into towns with impunity. We’ll need to recruit more IWW members to carry on the struggle for the emancipation of the working class if we face people and institutions willing to sacrifice our bodies for profit.


During the free speech fights Wobblies organized union halls for meals, movies, meetings, printing presses, and places to sleep, to support the right to agitate in public and counter the controlling elements of capitalism. Later, Wobblies like Louise Olivereu organized around peace, birth control, and sex education instead of labor issues. There are still public spaces to agitate in the present day, after all we’re not free, working sucks, and we still need safe spaces. Recruiting will require reviving our tradition of public agitations, and our scope of venue and audience should be broad.

In the spirit of agitation for the purpose of building the Union and creating safe spaces, IWWs in Bremerton organized a free May Day concert and screening of Ken Loach’s “Bread and Roses” for the workers of Bremerton. It was attended by about fifty workers and three lined up to join the One Big Union. We sang “Bread and Roses” and enjoyed a free movie and concert in a country where nothing is free.


Wobblies in Kitsap are also using solidarity and mutual aid to grow the power of the Union through community. Fellow workers, along with students of the North Kitsap School District, are demonstrating against racism in schools. The American racism that has existed since a few slave owning thugs got together to draft a constitution guaranteeing the right to bear arms and own property. IWWs have been in the crowd supporting oppressed workers and will stand in solidarity with the oppressed students until racism is a memory of harsher times.


These injuries resonate in many ways. A fellow worker in Bremerton recently suffered a medical injury and cost cutting by the medical industry left this worker in need of support. A worker-managed healthcare system would have cared for this worker. Having already organized a mutual aid network to fill gaps in the system, Bremerton-Kitsap IWWs quickly made “an injury to one, an injury to all” and organized support for a fellow worker cast adrift by this system.


Racism and cost cutting occur everyday under the current regime and the only way we can stop the oppression is to grow our Union. Our Union is only as good as what it does for us. If you want shorter hours, vacations and better pay, housing and healthcare, then pass out a leaflet at a public meeting, decide to do something about your problems and this Union will grow. Solidarity, fellow workers, there is safety in numbers!

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