Direct Action

DIRECT ACTION. is a concept that was widely circulated within the American working class by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) during its heyday as a mass organization (1905–1924). The essence of the doctrine was that workers should strive for immediate redress of grievances at the point of production rather than pinning their hopes on third parties such as courts, government, mass media, or even union officials. Slowdowns and strikes of every kind were the most common form of direct action. Whether violent acts were permissible remained unclear, and some IWW speakers complicated the issue by using direct action and sabotage as interchangeable terms.

The most typical IWW direct actions were massive nonviolent parades and civil disobedience; IWW literature stressed that workers had to learn how to use “mental” dynamite such as striking with their fists in their pockets. Nonetheless, some IWW songs and literature implied that there were circumstances where violence could not be ruled out. The reality was that the IWW was purposely ambiguous about its definition of direct action and sabotage in much the way civil rights leaders of the 1960s were ambiguous about the meaning of the phrase “by any means necessary.” IWW activists got additional psychological mileage out of this verbal ambiguity by using a menacing black cat and the slogan We Never Forget on agitational literature.

Direct action again became a frequently urged tactic during the formative years of the Congress of Industrial Organizations—this time without the complementary evocation of the word sabotage. Nowadays, direct action is most likely to be advocated by militant caucuses and other groups seeking to revive the trade union movement. In those situations, rank-and-file members may be urged to take direct action against their own leadership as well as management and the state.

Bird, Stewart, Dan Georgakas, and Deborah Shaffer. Solidarity Forever: An Oral History of the IWW. Chicago: Lake View Press, 1985.

Kornbluh, Joyce. Rebel Voices: An IWW Anthology. Rev. ed. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Co., 1988.

Salerno, Salvatore. Red November, Black November: Culture and Community in the Industrial Workers of the World. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989.