Industrial Workers of the World

“ The working class alone is interested in the removal of industrial inequality, and that can only be accomplished by a revolution of the industrial system. The workers, in their collectivity, must take over and operate all the essential industrial institutions, the means of production and distribution, for the well-being of all the human elements comprising the international nation of wealth-producers. ”

“ Good will, revolutionary will-power, determination, courage are valuable assets in the struggle for the change. But they are like the water on the millwheels, unconscious of the great service that they are rendering. ”

“ That growing portion of the working class are building on the rockbed of historic facts, and the structure to be erected follows the plan that
"It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism"—"the army of production must be organized. By organizing industrially the workers are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old." ”

“ Social relations are the reflex of the grouping of industrial possessions. The owners of all resources and means of wealth form a class of their own; the owners of labor power as their only possession in the market, another. Political, judicial, educational and other institutions are only the mirror of the prevailing system of ownership in the resources and means of production. ”

“ In presenting this plan of organization of industries, as it exists today, we have in mind only the object before explained. The workers, forced by capitalist ownership of the means of production to do service in all these industries, must organize themselves in their proper places in the industries in which they are engaged. Every worker who studies this map will find where he will fit in when the industries are organized for the control of the workers through industrial organization. ”

“ That is to say, the workers of any one plant or industry must be members of one and the same organization—no craft division lines. The capitalist institutions are today organized on exactly the same lines. The industries as they are grouped today, dovetailing into each other, furnish to the workers the basis for the construction of their organization for the struggles of today for better living conditions, and for the supervision and the management of industries in an industrial commonwealth of workers and producers. ”

“ When the workers understand how the industrial system of today has developed, how one industrial pursuit dovetails into another, and all comprise an inseparable whole, they will not wantonly destroy what generations of industrial and social forces have brought forth. ”

“ To convert force and power into useful operation requires intelligence. And that intelligence must guide us to use the accumulated force for a defined purpose. That purpose, as it seems to be agreed, is to form a new social, or rather industrial structure within the shell of the old. To accomplish this the advocates, the militants for the new, must know to what extent the present factors in industrial development have organized and systematized industrial production. ”

“ They at least propose some way of consummating their program of a revolution. But the middle-class is more frantic in its wailings of despair. In their band wagon they are lining up a large following of workers. Millions are made to believe that an impending struggle against predatory wealth will have as object the restoration of by-gone conditions, or the enforcement of restrictive measures for curbing further concentration of industries.
But the workers are not, and should not be concerned in the hopeless struggles of a decaying element of society. ”

“ All countries of the world are governed, principally, in the interests of the small class controlling industrial combinations. Whenever the workers aimed heavy blows at these interests directly, that is, when they refused to serve, temporarily, in the production process of these industries, the exploiting class all over the world burst out in frantic denunciations of the forces that had so little regard for private property. ”

“ The human forces rendering these instruments, agencies and implements useful to all society, and adding value to matter and forces of nature, are divorced from their creations by powerful combinations of parasitic nature, by which a few control all the co-ordinate stations of industrial life through the means that they have organized and subjected to their rulership. Against these hostile powers the workers must organize their own resources and their own collective power, in organizations embracing all useful members of society and wealth producers. ”

“ It is the heritage of the working class to utilize to the fullest extent the great achievements of the preceding and existing processes and methods of production, for the benefit of all useful members of society. ”

“ When the workers engaged in a particular industrial production organize industrially, all are subject to the same rules governing the affairs of each industry. But certain fundamental rules and principles governing all component parts of the "one big union of workers" cannot be infringed upon by any of its component parts without doing injury to the whole organic body. ”

“ The feudal lords had to surrender their sceptre to the ascending bourgeoisie, better known today as the capitalist class. The latter, at the outset, had in view only the free development of all forces of production, in an era of unrestricted competition between individuals. When, over a century ago, the change was consummated by revolutions, the instruments of production were more equally distributed. They were in possession of a multitude of the victorious capitalists, who owned small enterprises. ”

“ Labor is applied to extract the material that nature has stored up or generated. Production continues with the transportation of these products, mostly raw material, or fuel-matter, to the centers of manufacture and commerce. The construction of places of shelter for a man and things, the building of agencies of communication, are functions of another industrial branch of the system. We observe, finally, how the care-taking, the education, the providing for public convenience, fall to the functions of another department in the interdependent processes of industrial life. ”

“ To all of the making and development of these social institutions the workers, and they alone, contribute their intellect and their manual labor. They have created the instruments to produce wealth with, and improved them as time rolled by.
These institutions are organized in their operative functions to yield profits for a few who never did, nor do, contribute to their making and maintenance, except in a manner to protect them in the possession of things that they did not make. ”

“ The industrial unionists propose to organize the workers for more militant action within present day society, so that, with every advance gained, the workers will gain an appetite for more and for all, and will find the means to get it. ”

“ In increasing numbers the proletariat of every country is enlightening itself on the subject, and everywhere workers are preparing for organization in which they will find the embodiment of their collective power and the instrument for direct action, as occasion and conditions may command. ”

“ A teamster delivering meats, or other goods from a grocery, would be in the organization in which all the foodstuff workers of that particular branch are organized. But a truck driver, who may haul a big shipment of boxes containing garments from one depot to another, and on his next trip between depots, will haul a load of nails for further transportation or distribution, performs the work of a transport worker, and as such organizers in the union of that industry. ”

“ The workers of the world, conscious of their historic mission, will learn to avoid the mistakes they would make should they depend on other forces than their own for the solution of the world's problem. Agencies and institutions deriving their lease of existence from the industrial masters of today can not be looked to for support. ”

“ A heavy load of traditional falsehoods, holding living human beings in a bondage of ignominious, deep-rooted, and ingeniously fostered intellectual, and hence also in industrial, serfdom must disappear; national separation must be swept aside by the advancing forces of international co-operation, before the highest and most marvelous stages of industrial development, social progress, and perfection in the utilization of all elements subservant to the generating powers of mankind, can be achieved, and a higher order of civilization be established. ”

“ The process of production does not cease until the finished product reaches the consumer. All workers engaged in the process of distribution are members of the same industrial union, or Department Organization in which the makers of the commodity are organized. ”

“ It is impossible, at this stage, to eliminate entirely the terms now used to designate certain functions that sets of workers perform in each industry. But it should be distinctly understood that this is not to imply that these craft-groups in industries will organize, as has been the case heretofore, in separate craft-unions, or according to the tools that each set of workers use. That would mean dividing-up under another name. A worker in an industry will be assigned to the organization representing the product or products of that industry. ”

“ Transportation facilities as the messengers for the exchange of products between countries and continents know no boundary lines—land, water, air have been conquered and rendered servants of the monstrous forces behind the prevailing industrial system of production and exchange. ”

“ In its onward course to a further advanced system, society is going to utilize all that present day society has evolved and constructed. This the workers must know, and then they will also learn the intricate, interdependent arrangements of the component parts of the whole industrial system. Equipped with this knowledge, they will be able to construct and form their own industrial organizations, the frame-structure of the new society, accordingly. ”

“ Of course, it is the ultimate purpose of this arrangement that every worker shall have equal rights, and equal duties also, with all others in the management of the industry in which he or she serves in the process of production. ”

“ Those who render other social and public service should know they are engaged in useful occupation, although most of the institutions in which they serve today are prostituted for the protection of capitalist interests. ”

“ By learning the social relations and understanding their source, they can profit and prepare to change the industrial structure of society, which as a matter of course, will determine also the changes in the social and political character of the system which is bound to be inaugurated. ”

“ That class, for its own protection and perpetuation in power, subjects all other institutions to their prevailing class interests. Conversely, there is a class that strives to change the foundation of the industrial arrangement. The workers realize that immediately following the change these social relations will also be shifted; institutions deriving their support and sustenance from the class in power will be made to conform to new conditions after the overthrow of the previously existing industrial system. ”

“ Industrial and social systems are not ready-made products. In their changes from one stage to another they derive their propelling forces from the achievements and accomplishments of each preceding epoch. ”

“ It would embrace all workers in piano factories, planing mills, furniture factories, hotel and bar fixture factories; all workers in cooperage shops, in reed and rattan factories, box factories, etc. Of course, the workers of each of these industries would form a branch organization, embracing all the workers of one or more plants in which a given article is manufactured, for instance, in an industrial union of piano workers would be organized not only the wood workers, but also the metal workers, tuners, polishers, piano movers, etc., employed in that industry. ”

“ All workers in theaters, amusement places, concert halls and gardens, on ball play grounds, in summer-resort and amusement places organize themselves into this subdivision, such as actors, musicians, stage workers, singers, ushers, waiters in amusement places, etc., also all workers engaged in the making, production and exhibition of moving pictures. The big department stores and distribution houses, with thousands of workers employed in each, have more or less assumed the functions of public service institutions. ”

“ The process of transportation, different from the process of final distribution, comprises the act of bringing the products of land, water, and mines to the places of manufacture and general production, and to re-transport the partly finished goods either to other places at which the process of production is finished, or to bring the finished goods to the points where the distribution to the users or consumers takes place. ”

“ With all these things combined the constructive hand of labor builds the houses of shelter for the protection of life and matter against the adversities of nature's forces, and harnesses them to render service for social good. ”