Foodies Get Wobbly

Food supply chain workers adopt the IWW's radical actions to fight abusive employers.

By Michelle Chen

Once upon a time in the labor movement, a rebellious vanguard emerged at the margins of American industry, braiding together workers on society’s fringes—immigrants, African Americans, women, unskilled laborers—under a broad banner of class struggle. The Industrial Workers of [RETURN TO ARTICLE]

  • Reader Comments

    I’m so excited about the days ahead. I’m a union delegate with the local six in NYC. Wage earners ARE the job creators…...

    Posted by William Brooks on Dec 2, 2012 at 9:02 AM

    I wouldn’t get too excited about wage-earners. The IWW historically isn’t interested in expanding the wage-system, but abolishing it. It’s right their in the preamble to their constitution, which you’ll find printed in every one of their union “red-cards”. Hunter S. Thompson thought they boasted the “last human concept in American politics”. That’s because they don’t organize workers to be better capitalists than the bosses, but ultimately to use productivity gains to reduce the amount of necessary work we need people to do. They see great power in worker organization as well as autonomy, which are influenced and ultimately compromised by the economic dynamics of the wage-system. This is nonetheless exciting news.

    Posted by Joe on Dec 3, 2012 at 1:35 AM

    The bosses/the government should know this. It might save their lives. Listen to the workers/ people or you will be made irrelevant.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

    Posted by Ben Painter on Dec 6, 2012 at 11:20 AM

    At last, the unions (led by the IWW, of course!) are recovering their spines, getting off their butts, and going out to organize in the streets.  Note that the IWW is the one union that always organized toward co-operatives, and undercutting the boss/employee relationship altogether.  It’s also the only union I know that organizes the unemployed, and helps them create co-operative businesses of their own.  Since the root of any economy is its food supply, it just might indeed “create the new world within the shell of the old”.

    —Leslie <;)))>< Fish

    Posted by LeslieFish on Dec 6, 2012 at 9:37 PM