Talk:Industrial Workers of the World

Wobbly Shop

I have modified this because the idea is to delegate people to functions (and they're without privileges, subject to immediate recall), rather than to install managers who would control workers. This very seriously misrepresents the organisation's policy. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.35.70.213 (talk • contribs) 23 Jan 2006.

I just undid this edit

"but a near-consensus of members and academics reports it to come from a type of saw common in IWW-organised lumber camps in the early days of the union (1905-1924)."

on the theory that if there is "near consensus" then it should be easy to footnote. My copy of Rebel Voices, for example, says "origin unknown." Carptrash (talk)

Blacks and women?

Note: moved here from my talk page, regarding this edit.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 04:04, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Greetings. I do not mean to disrupt your edits, so I will not pursue this point if you disagree with me, but I think (perhaps because of my own inability to articulate clearly) you misunderstood the edit I made in the article on the Wobblies. The article originally stated that the IWW and the Knights of Labor were the only unions to welcome Africa-Americans and women as members. That is not completely true, as the International Typographical Union (formed in 1869) also always welcomed African-Americans and women into its membership. I tried to add the ITU to the phrase stating that the Knights of Labor admitted women and blacks, and I tried to give two examples to prove this (Lewis Douglass and Juanita Dickey). If you think it is more appropriate to say the Knights of Labor and the IWW are the only unions to originally admit blacks and women, I'll leave it alone. But, I really think accuracy demands that the ITU be included, as well. Thank you. 24.9.74.139 (talk) 03:54, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Sure, that's totally reasonable. The problem is that the sentence in the article says that the IWW and the Knights admitted immigrants and Asians as well, so the way you put it in there made the sentence not quite make sense. Without a source I couldn't see how to fix it. I'm going to move this over to the article talk page so maybe others can join in too. I think it's totally plausible that there should be a different sentence with this information.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 04:04, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

This article is wrong to say that the IWW "when founded,...was the only American union (besides the Knights of Labor) to welcome all workers including women, immigrants, African Americans and Asians into the same organization." It is clear that the International Typographical Union also did that. A famous African-American member was the son of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, while a notable female ITU member was Waneta Dickey of Akron, Ohio. See Martin Lipset's book, Union Democracy for more information on this. Shouldn't the statement in this article be changed? 24.9.74.139 (talk) 06:16, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

It seems to me

that the Notable members needs some consistency. I favor just a list of link, no descriptors. Or something (or two or three) for everyone. Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 01:24, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

I think the list is bound to get pretty long, long enough to be split off into its own list article if it isn't given some strict constraints. Maybe splitting it off would be best, and have in place of the embedded list some kind of description of the significance of the IWW's broad reach and connection to various movements in its early years through today. Or something like that. I've been looking at the list for a while but I'm not sure how to address it properly and make it more useful. But in any case, there's a lot of names to list, even if we stick only to names which have articles, and it seems arbitrary which ones would be considered most notable to the article overall. Djr13 (talk) 02:13, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

I am about ready to just start making changes in the list. Like.. should not all folks singers be listed together, as opposed to a Finn getting a separate niche? And more. Carptrash (talk) 17:16, 11 February 2013 (UTC)