Industrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) or Wobblies were a radical union organization. In comparison to trade unions, the Wobblies aimed to organize all workers in an industry, skilled and unskilled, native and immigrant, men and women. Wobbly theorists believed that industrial unions were eventually to give way to one “grand” or “big” union, in order to unite against capital.
Although the economic downturn of 1913-1915 and World War I eroded Wobbly strength, however, their history testifies to the tension created by industrialization in Canada, and to the very different ways that various elements within the working class responded to such tensions. The Wobblies popularized the idea of the “grand industrial union” and the “general strike,” both of which would guide Canadian workers-skilled and unskilled-in their protest against social conditions at the end of World War I.