Blackwell Reference Online

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The Australian Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), an offshoot of the American IWW , achieved public notoriety and popularity amongst militant workers between 1907 and the 1920s. By 1916 it had about 2,000 members in a population of 4.5 million, but many more sympathizers. Only waged workers could join, so unemployment or domestic duties excluded many potential members. Its acerbic, lively newspaper, Direct Action , had a circulation of around 15,000. As in the US, IWW members addressed each other as “Fellow Workers” and were known as “Wobblies.” Leading members included Tom Barker, Tom Glynn, J. B. King, and Charlie Reeve. Like its American progenitor, the Australian IWW maintained all workers should join One Big Union (OBU) that would be so powerful it could assume control of production and end capitalist class rule. It shared with European syndicalism the belief that workers should not entrust the task of abolishing or ameliorating capitalism to representatives in parliament, who would betray that trust, but should use their own working-class organizations to achieve their aims; but its OBU project was grander and more centralized. The first IWW Club was formed in Sydney in 1907. After the split in the American IWW in 1908, new Australian branches (Locals) were formed, first in Adelaide in 1911, which adhered to the Chicago IWW that disdained all connections with parliamentary ... log in or subscribe to read full text