International Workers Order

INTERNATIONAL WORKERS ORDER. Working-class fraternal societies are nearly as old as the working class itself. Dating back at least as far as the English Friendly Societies of the eighteenth century, fraternal societies helped workers cope with some of the economic insecurities of life and death under capitalism by providing a form of life insurance that assured a proper burial and money for survivors. Occupation, geography, nationality, race, religion, and sometimes politics served as the base for fraternal orders. In the United States, fraternal societies organized along the lines of race, and national origin often performed another function besides the economic, which was to provide immigrants and African Americans with a familiar cultural oasis within the larger society. Of the myriad of fraternal orders that have existed, the most important in terms of radical politics and class struggle was the International Workers Order (IWO).

The IWO was formed in 1930 by Communist and other left-wing members of the Workmen’s Circle, a fraternal society organized in New York by Jewish socialists in 1892. Rubin Saltzman and other founders of the IWO decided to make it unique among fraternal organizations—a multinational and multiracial order that would offer all workers regardless of occupation the most economical insurance possible, and an order that was committed to the class struggle. By 1947 the IWO had 187,226 members. Though the Jewish section remained the largest (50,000) and best organized, the order also contained sections of Italians, Slovaks, Hungarians, Ukrainians, Poles, Greeks, Romanians, Croatians, Russians, Spanish, Carpatho-Russians, Finnish, and African Americans and other English-speaking members.

For as little as $13.68 a year, a twenty-five-year-old could buy $2,000 of term insurance. For slightly more, a worker could buy sickness insurance and tuberculosis insurance. In major cities the IWO provided a panel of doctors for members, and in New York the IWO had medical and dental clinics.

The individual sections of the IWO supported their own foreign-language newspapers and halls. They also sponsored sports teams, choruses, orchestras, cultural schools, dance and theater groups, and children’s camps. Such cultural figures as Paul Robeson, Langston Hughes, Rockwell Kent, Jimmy Durante, Irwin Corey, and Zero Mostel were associated with the IWO.

The IWO remained closely aligned with the Communist Party throughout its history. Many of its leaders, such as Max Bedacht, general secretary of the IWO from 1932 to 1946, were also Communist Party leaders.

Though not a political or labor organization itself, the IWO actively supported progressive political causes and labor struggles. In the 1930s the IWO played an active role in the early Congress of Industrial Organizations, particularly in the organization of the steelworkers, and it campaigned for unemployment insurance and aid to Spain.

In December 1947, the placement of the IWO on the Attorney General’s List initiated a series of events that led to the liquidation of the IWO by the Insurance Department of New York. In 1954, after a number of court cases, the Insurance Department abolished the IWO and turned over its assets to Continental Assurance Company of Chicago.

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Keeran, Roger. “The International Workers Order and the Origins of the CIO.” Labor History (fall 1989).

Keeran, Roger. “The Italian Section of the International Workers Order, 1930-1950,” The Italian American Review. Spring/Summer 1999.

Walker, Thomas J. E. “The International Workers Order: A Unique Fraternal Body.” Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1982.

Sabin, Arthur J. Red Scare in Court: New York versus the International Workers Order. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993.

Zecker, Robert M. “A Road to Freedom:” The International Workers Order and the Struggle for Economic Justice and Civil Rights, 1930-1954. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2018.

International Workers Order and Jewish People’s Fraternal Order. Papers. Cornell University Digital Collection. https://digital.library.cornell.edu/collections/iwo-jpfo