"Detroit" Industrial Workers of the World/Workers International Industrial Union

“DETROIT” INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD/WORKERS INTERNATIONAL INDUSTRIAL UNION. At the fourth convention of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in Chicago in 1908, many Socialist Labor Party (SLP) members and supporters were refused seats. This action reflected the tension between “direct action” and “political” elements within the IWW that had been growing since their coalition ousted Charles O. Sherman and his faction from the IWW administration in 1906. Direct actionists like Vincent St. John and William Trautmann targeted SLP leader Daniel De Leon in particular, and many (but not all) of the pro-SLP delegates at the convention left with De Leon. These delegates, minus De Leon himself, reconvened some three months later in Paterson, New Jersey and declared the Chicago convention illegal. They decided, according to rumor over De Leon’s objections, to continue their own version of the IWW, “industrial unionism on the civilized plane,” establishing headquarters in New York in early 1909. Several locals affiliated with the IWW withdrew from the Chicago organization, and most of these declared affiliation with the alternative IWW. Initially, this alternative seemed still-born. Organizing and administration remained at a standstill until the resignation of the union’s officers and the transfer of the union office to Detroit, under the care of longtime SLP and Socialist Trades and Labor Alliance activist Hermann Richter in late 1909.

Richter energized the “Detroit” IWW (DIWW) locally at first, with new locals appearing around the city in a variety of industries. Next, the union began to expand nationally, aided by the founding of the new union’s own newspaper, Industrial Union News, in 1912. While the union’s first industrial action took place among ladies’ tailors in Detroit in 1909, its most important early local consisted of silk workers in Paterson, New Jersey, one of the original “defectors” in the town that hosted the DIWW’s first convention. Both IWWs had locals in Paterson, but the DIWW local improbably emerged stronger from the factional fray. Skilled organizers such as Rudolph Katz, Boris Reinstein, H. J. Rubinstein, and Joseph Yannarelli exerted their energies with great if temporary success. Approximately twelve thousand silk workers fought the introduction of speed-up tactics in 1912, joining the DIWW and striking some forty-seven operators. DIWW workers took their strike to other New Jersey towns and into Pennsylvania mills, but this overextended its resources. The union appealed to the SLP for help, but organizers lent to the DIWW by the Party inclined to work toward organizing workers into the Party rather than becoming active in union issues. Paterson workers themselves reached agreement with their bosses in an accord that did not, however, include any union recognition, and it did not hold in any case. When the silk factory owners reneged and workers walked out again in early 1913, they left the exhausted DIWW and turned to the Chicago IWW for help.

After the Paterson strike, an uneasy tension grew between DIWW and SLP officials over their programs. Union members saw their organization as the key to stirring revolutionary consciousness and resisted party influence, while many SLP members wanted the union to be an appendage of the party. Richter continually called upon party members to pay dues and assist in organizing the DIWW. SLP National Secretary Paul Augustine sought to skirt the issue amiable fashion, and so long as he led the Party, relations between the organizations’ leaders remained friendly. After the accession of Arnold Peterson to National Secretary in 1914, the relationship between party and union became increasingly tense, with Peterson increasingly convinced that the union disrupted political activities and drained both energies and funds. Richter, for his part, continued to chide SLP members for their lack of support, unsuccessfully requesting loans for union operations. The controversy triggered a limited factionalization within some SLP branches, particularly in Seattle and Los Angeles. As time passed, the DIWW became a repository for dissident and expelled SLP members, as well as a place for Socialist Party members and past SLP members to join together in concerted action.

Despite the chilly inter-organizational relations, the union managed to perform some significant industrial work in the aftermath of Paterson. Scattered organizing continued nationwide, particularly in the tobacco, furniture making, metal and machinery, and textile industries, as the war in Europe heightened production levels, creating labor shortages and a widening prospect for unionization. The DIWW also expanded abroad, with locals appearing in Britain, South Africa, and Australia. As a means of distancing the DIWW from its rival and namesake, members voted to change the organization’s name to the Workers International Industrial Union (WIIU) in 1915. The name change proved useful when the US government brutally cracked down on the IWW. Property seized by the government from the WIIU was soon returned. In the most significant industrial action after Paterson, Rudolph Katz founded two independent unions of furniture workers in Jamestown, New York, which he brought into the WIIU in 1917. Coordinated action on several fronts led to a prolonged strike there, and union membership reached its second peak in 1919, but tensions between the union and the party eventually brought WIIU organizing activity to a standstill. Pro-SLP members ousted Richter in December 1919, installing Peterson’s ally Isaac Shenkan as general secretary-treasurer.

By this time, however, the WIIU rank and file commenced fighting against the extreme centralizing of the SLP. Shenkan himself quickly came to identify with this position. Relations continued to deteriorate, and SLP leaders ousted Shenken in 1922, replacing him with yet another presumed Peterson ally, E. A. La France. When France, in turn, came to identify with the union more than the party, Petersen moved to destroy the union. Party officials ordered SLP members to concentrate entirely on party activity in 1923, and the union dwindled to around one hundred members. Peterson then “ordered” its liquidation in 1924. Assets and records passed to party control, but a small core of members kept the dream alive until at least 1927, when they found their way into the Industrial Union Party and other factional groupings expelled from the SLP.

Brissenden, Paul F. The I.W.W.: A Study of American Syndicalism. 2d ed. New York: Russell and Russell, 1920.

Ebner, Michael H. “The Passaic Strike of 1912 and the Two I.W.W.s.” Labor History 11 (fall 1970).

Girard, Frank, and Ben Perry. The Socialist Labor Party, 1876–1991: A Short History. Philadelphia: Livra Books, 1991.

Thompson, Fred W. and Patrick Murfin. The IWW: Its First Seventy Years, 1905–1975. Chicago IWW, 1976.

Wilcox, Peter M. “‘These We Will Not Compromise’: The ‘Detroit’ Industrial Workers of the World, 1908–1927.” M.S. thesis, San Diego State University, 1995.