[NYTr] Montana Wobblies Reorganize

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Dan Clore - Nov 11, 2007
to News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo

Missoula Independent - Nov 8, 2007
http://www.missoulanews.com/index.cfm?do=article.details&id=1C2A57F3-1372-FCBB-839EBEC7240AF5F7

OR: http://tinyurl.com/28c7uu

Montana Wobblies reorganize

By John S. Adams

It wasn’t as dramatic as the “Continental Congress of the Working
Class” that formed the union in 1905, but for the handful of people who
turned up at the monthly meeting of the Industrial Workers of World
(IWW) at Missoula’s Union Club on Monday night, it was a momentous
occasion.

For the first time in as long as anyone can remember, the
Missoula-based branch of the “One Big Union” reached the minimum 10
members, thus earning their official charter. Sure, it’s only 10
members, but for Jay Bostrom, the local IWW’s most active and outspoken
member, it’s a big deal.

“Folks, now we can start keeping some membership dues and start doing
some real organizing,” Bostrom told the small group gathered in the
Union Club’s basement.

The IWW rose to prominence in Montana in the early part of the 20th
century with efforts to organize miners in Butte, and lumberjacks
across the state. Their “Free Speech Fights” in Missoula and Spokane
made national headlines as Wobblies (as IWW members are known) spoke
out against capitalist repression until they were arrested by the
hundreds, clogging the jails and courts and eventually forcing those
cities to overturn their free speech ordinances. Today the IWW boasts
about 1,000 members worldwide.

The Wobblies’ core philosophy, according to the preamble to the IWW
constitution, declares that “the working class and the employing class
have nothing in common.” Rather than organizing workers by trade, the
IWW seeks to unite all workers as a class in order to rise up and take
over means of industrial production and eventually overthrowing
capitalism and creating a more peaceful society.

A lofty goal to be sure, but for the few energized members who showed
up Monday night to plan a free speech fight of their own against
international free trade agreements, you’ve got to start somewhere.

“I see our role as more broadening the discourse to the left,” says
Dave Jones, the group’s spokesman. “There really hasn’t been an
anti-capitalist movement around here for a long time.”