{"id":52,"date":"2025-02-18T16:20:22","date_gmt":"2025-02-18T21:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rociww.org\/?page_id=52"},"modified":"2025-02-18T16:22:14","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T21:22:14","slug":"a-briefly-annotated-preamble-to-the-iww-constitution","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/rociww.org\/?page_id=52","title":{"rendered":"A Briefly Annotated Preamble to the IWW Constitution"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This brief explanation of the IWW\u2019s Preamble was adapted from a piece written by FW Sasha, a 12-year-old member of the Junior Wobblies, which appeared in the \u200b Industrial Worker (September 2012).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Introduction<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In 1905 a group of workers founded the IWW and wrote the \u201cPreamble to the IWW Constitution\u201d to explain why the IWW was started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThe working class and the employing class have nothing in common.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

There are two types of people in the world: workers and bosses. The two different kinds of people want two different things. Workers want better pay, a shorter time working, better and safer jobs, work that keeps the earth clean and safe, and the power to decide what they do with their work. Bosses want to make sure they get more money no matter how little they pay their workers or how dangerous the work is for the workers or the planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThere can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things in life.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It isn\u2019t fair and really just doesn\u2019t make sense that very few, very rich people have everything they want when tons of working people don\u2019t even have the basic things they need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWe find that the centering of management of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing power of the employing class.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

There are other kinds of unions that only organize one kind of job or trade\u2014that\u2019s why they are called trade unions. There area lot of good working organizers in trade unions, but trade unions themselves won\u2019t lead to a revolution. Trade unions only unionize part of the workers and sometimes they even work against each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cAn injury to one is an injury to all.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In the IWW everyone is equal, no matter their race, sex, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, ability, or age. The IWW is not connected to any country, government, religion or business. If one person needs help organizing, everyone will help. The IWW is one big union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIt is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Capitalism is the system in which bosses make money off workers. No one can be equal when capitalism is the way the world is run. The reason capitalism thrives is because the bosses have power. They have power because they live off the work of the workers. If all the workers stopped working, the bosses would have no power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThe army of production must be organized, not for the everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

People should organize not only to deal with the bosses now, but also to get rid of capitalism. We can figure out how things will work when capitalism has been stopped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cBy organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

How the IWW is organized is the way the world should be organized when capitalism is abolished. By organizing people now, we will have a base to organize from and we won\u2019t have to start from scratch once capitalism has been stopped.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This brief explanation of the IWW\u2019s Preamble was adapted from a piece written by FW Sasha, a 12-year-old member of the Junior Wobblies, which appeared in the \u200b Industrial Worker (September 2012). Introduction In 1905 a group of workers founded the IWW and wrote the \u201cPreamble to the IWW Constitution\u201d to explain why the IWW […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":48,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-52","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rociww.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/52","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rociww.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rociww.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rociww.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rociww.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rociww.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/52\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53,"href":"https:\/\/rociww.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/52\/revisions\/53"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rociww.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/48"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rociww.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}