May 18, 1928 founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World

[Omaha Steve]

http://nhlabornews.com/2015/05/may-18-1928/




William “Big Bill” Haywood – founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World, member of the Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of America, secretary of the Western Federation of Miners, and an advocate of industrial unionism – dies in the Soviet Union where he had fled after having been found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison under the Espionage Act of 1917.

About Today In Labor History

The NHLN has joined with multiple other websites to help highlight some of the struggles that workers have faced throughout our history. We want everyone to know what the workers of the past had to endure for the rights we take for granted now. If you do not learn from the past, you are doomed to repeat it.

[yallerdawg]

1. Big Bill Haywood!

An icon of labor history and the socialist movement.

In 1912, Haywood was a leader of the IWW’s Lawrence, Massachusetts strike of textile workers, mainly immigrants from many different countries. It was also a strike in which women workers played an active role.

Haywood made a speech to the workers about the need for unity. He demonstrated this by explaining the difference in power between the fingers of an open hand versus a clenched fist that could really strike a blow.

He helped work out a way for each nationality to have separate strike meetings in their own language to discuss and participate in decisions for the strike. Haywood and the IWW were actively opposed to any form of racism, sexism or discrimination of any kind.

http://speakout-now.org/big-bill-haywood-a-giant-in-the-struggles-of-the-working-class/

[socialist_n_TN]

2. Kick for Big Bill and the Wobblies.......

They proved that a vanguard Marxist party and syndicalist anarchists are not always and forever opposed.