April 2011

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Industrial Worker

• Pag e 3

__I afrm that I am a worker, and that I am not an employer.

__I agree to abide by the IWW constitution. __I will study its principles and acquaint myself with its purposes.

Name: ________________________________ Address: ______________________________ City, State, Post Code, Country: _______________ Occupation: ____________________________ Phone: __________ __ Email : _______________ Amount Enclosed: _________

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 working people and the few, who make up the em- ploying class, have all the good things of life. Between these two classes a 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 nd that the centering of the man

- agement 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 employ- ing 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 in- dustry, or 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 revolu- tionary watchword, “Abolition of the wage system.” It is the historic mission of the work- ing class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for the everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been over- thrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.

TO JOIN:

Mail this form with a check or money order for initiation

and your rst month’s dues to: IWW, Post Ofce Box 180195, Chicago, IL

60618, USA. Initiation is the same as one month’s dues. Our dues are calculated according to your income. If your monthly income is under $2000, dues are $9 a month. If your monthly income is between $2000 and $3500, dues are $18 a month. If your monthly income is over $3500 a month, dues are $27 a month. Dues may vary outside of North America and in Regional Organizing Committees (Australia, British Isles, German Language Area).

Membership includes a subscription to the

Industrial Worker

.

Join the IWW Today

T

he IWW is a union for all workers, a union dedicated to organizing on the job, in our industries and in our communities both to win better conditions today and to build a world without bosses, a world in which production and distribution are organized by workers ourselves to meet the needs of the entire popu- lation, not merely a handful of exploiters. We are the Industrial Workers of the World because we organize industrially – that is to say, we organize all workers on the job into one union, rather than dividing

workers by trade, so that we can pool our strength to ght the bosses together.

Since the IWW was founded in 1905, we have recognized the need to build a truly international union movement in order to confront the global power of the bosses and in order to strengthen workers’ ability to stand in solidarity with our fellow workers no matter what part of the globe they happen to live on. We are a union open to all workers, whether or not the IWW happens to have representation rights in your workplace. We organize the worker, not the job, recog-

nizing that unionism is not about government certication or employer recognition

but about workers coming together to address our common concerns. Sometimes this means striking or signing a contract. Sometimes it means refusing to work with an unsafe machine or following the bosses’ orders so literally that nothing gets done.

Sometimes it means agitating around particular issues or grievances in a specic

workplace, or across an industry. Because the IWW is a democratic, member-run union, decisio ns about what issues to address and what tactics to pursue are made by the workers directly involved.

IWW Constitution Preamble

The Railroad Industry And The Need For One Big Union

By Rail Falcon

Since the mid-1990s, the major U.S. railroads (“Class Is”) have been hiring new trainmen to staff the nation’s freight trains. Passenger carriers such as Amtrak, together with various metropolitan com- muter railroads in cities like New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago, are also regularly seeking employees. This offers an invaluable opportunity for young activ- ists to hire out in an industrial setting and make some money, all the while: learning about the transportation industry; work- ing under and understanding a union contract; becoming familiar with the great history of the class struggle on the railway;

taking part in the rank-and-le movement

of railroad workers; and joinin g with your fellow workers to build the One Big Union in a key sector of the economy. The recession has eased and nearly all furloughed railroaders have been called back to work. The railroads are once again hiring in terminals all across the United States and Canada. Their websites are

ush with job openings in all the crafts,

especially in train and engine service. Since everything to do with personnel on the railroad is seniority driven, NOW is the time to hire out so you don’t get left behind and have to follow a crowd of others for your entire career. For those who would hire out in “transportation,” the new hire usually begins work as a brakeman or conductor

trainee. After a specied period of time

and the requisite tests, the new hire is promoted to conductor. Then at some point in the future, depending upon se- niority and the needs of the carrier, the conductor will be selected to attend engine school. Following an extended on-the- job training that lasts six months to one year, s/he will be promoted to licensed locomotive engineer. If “train and engine” is not your scene, the railroads are also hiring—although not as regularly—track maintainers, train dispatchers, signal maintainers, car inspectors, clerks, electri- cians, machinists, laborers and others in the shop crafts. All “train and engine” (T&E) jobs are union jobs, paying between $30,000 and

$100,000 per year with full benets. Union

membership is obligatory upon successful completion of a probationary period of usually 60 to 90 days upon “marking up.” The T&E employee has a choice of joining the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers & Trainmen (descendent of the oldest craft union in the United States) or the United Transportation Union (UTU), an amalgamation of four old craft unions that merged in 1969—the Switchmen’s Union of North America (SUNA), Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen (BRT), the conduc- tors’ union (OCA) and Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen (BLF). Dues usually range between $70 and $120 per month. Most locals and di- visions hold regular monthly membership meetings. Railroad workers have a proud and militant tradition. National strikes that have rocked the United States include:

the country’s rst nationwide and general

strike in 1877; the 1894 Pullman Strike and boycott led by Eugene V. Debs and the American Railway Union); the Na- tional Shopmen’s Strike in 1922; and the post-World War II national strike in 1946,

which together with the miners, briey

brought the nation to a standstill. In ad- dition, countless other smaller strikes on a single carrier and/or by a single craft have taken place over the last 150 years. In the 1860s and 1870s, the various crafts on the railroad began to organize into “brotherhoods.” These organizations came into existence initially to assist their members in time of hardship. Railroading was, and of course still is, an extremely dangerous and difficult job, and the brotherhoods pooled the resources of their memberships to assist members and their widows in times of disaster. They quickly evolved into fighting organizations to defend their members’ rights, safety and

health, wages, benets and conditions of

employment. However, their fragmented nature and narrow vision limited their effectiveness. Eugene V. Debs, a leader of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen (BLF), together with other railroaders soon realized the shortcomings of the railroad craft unions, and proposed a new form of union—the “industrial union.” They set about the task of building the nation’s first such union—one based upon inclusion of all members of all crafts into its ranks—the American Railway Union (ARU). Within a year after it was founded in 1893, the ranks of the ARU had swelled to well over 100,000 members. Railroaders were joining at the rate of 2,000 per week at its peak. In its

rst test of strength, the new union took

on the Great Northern Railway and the powerful railroad tycoon, James J. Hill (whose name is forever immortalized in the song “Hallelujah I’m a Bum”: “

That’s why I’m a boomin’ down Jim Hill’s main- line

”). Within two weeks, the ARU had brought the “Empire Builder” to his knees. The strike ended in near total victory for the workers. The power of industrial unionism had been proven. Just a few short months later, the ARU took on the Pullman Company. In solidarity with the striking workers at the Pullman Works just south of Chicago, the ARU called for a boycott of handling Pullman cars. ARU members refused to handle them in their trains. This direct action was so effective that the strike was sure to be won. In re- sponse, the carriers, Pullman and the U.S. government conspired to break the strike, destroy the ARU and arrest and imprison its leaders. With the ARU decimated, the carriers turned their attention to negotiat- ing with the brotherhoods. While most of the robber barons would have preferred to operate in a strictly non-union environ- ment, they began to see the advantages of dealing with the weak and divided craft unions of the day. By 1926, the Railway Labor Act, which institutionalized labor- management relations on the railroad and remains the model in use to this day, was signed into law with the support of both craft unions and carriers.

Through mergers and afliations, the

myriad craft unions on the railroad have now been pared down to “only” 13 or so.

Some are afliated with the AFL-CIO while

others are now part of the Change to Win

Coalition. The inghting and backstab

- bing, union scabbing and sweetheart deal- making continues, alternating between periods of truce, merger or attempted merger of the various organizations. In this environment, it is extremely common

to hear talk among rank-and-lers of the

need for One Big Union, one union of all crafts, one union to represent all railroad- ers. Even the leadership will invoke such sentiment (between their name-calling, bashing, scabbery, and back-stabbing) from time to time, such as the UTU’s “Power of One” slogan during the at- tempted merger with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLE) in 2000-2001, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT)’s Jimmy Hoffa with the “Teamster Umbrella” no- tion and the rhetoric of a “seamless union in transportation.” It is in this context—the long and mili- tant tradition of railroaders; the experi- ence of industrial unionism, Eugene Debs and the ARU; the colorful history of direct action; and the glaring short-comings of craft unionism at its absolute worst—that the ideas of the IWW are more vital and relevant than ever on the railroad. The Wobblies shunning of electoral politics, reliance on self-help and direct action, the notion of the industrial union, the concept of “an injury to one is an injury to all,” the general strike—all this plays well among workers on the nation’s railroads. Railroaders today are looking for answers

beyond the narrow connes of their own

increasingly irrelevant craft union. They want an organization with strength and power, one capable of taking on the huge corporations, the modern day “robber barons.”

Corporate prots on the railroad to

- day are at record levels. All through the recession—even while employment levels and tonnage handled were down by 10 to 20 percent—the major carriers have been

ush with cash. Yet even while they rake in

the money, the carriers are pushing for ex- panded use of Remote Control Operations and single-employee operation of freight. They are making concessionary demands

at the bargaining table in wages, benets

and working conditions. The craft unions are not able to effectively stand up to this bullying and harassment that the carriers are meting out, not just at the bargaining

table, but on a day-to-day basis in the eld,

where discipline is at an all-time high. All members of the IWW who are look- ing for work should consider joining the struggle and hire out on the railroad. The major Class I carriers are hiring trainmen and others regularly at most rail terminals all across the country. To learn more about hiring out, check out the Railroad Retire- ment Board Website at http://www.rrb. gov and click on the link “Railroad Job Vacancies” on the lower right side of the home page. Scroll down and then check the links to the various railroads’ websites. Current jobs are listed on each site with directions of how to submit your applica- tion and resume online.

For more info. about the railroad, rail unions, the movement for rail labor unity, hiring out, training, or other questions, please write to railfalcon@yahoo.com.