One Big Union (concept)
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The One Big Union is an idea originating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries amongst trade unionists to unite the interests of workers and offer solutions to all labour problems.
IWW sticker, 1910s
The Industrial Workers of the World is a union of wage workers which was formed in Chicago in 1905 by militant unionists and their supporters due to anger over the conservatism, philosophy, and craft-
One Big Union (concept)
…invitation to the first convention of the IWW was sent around the country. The IWW organized in the United States, Canada, Australia, and other countries, employed creative tactics, and advocated the general strike as a favourite method for workers to gain control of industries. But One Big Union spread far beyond the IWW. The…
"At the Parting of the Ways", a cartoon from the May 1919 Industrial Workers of the World periodical One Big Union which shows a worker representing the working class choosing between a path of craft unionism towards the AFL slogan "A Fair Day's Pay for a Fair Day's Work" and a path of industrial unionism towards the IWW slogan "Abolition of the Wage System"
One Big Union sticker
Bill Haywood
Samuel Gompers, head of the American Federation of Labor