Tacoma Industrial Workers of the World

09/18/2026

A solidarity protest in Oakland, CA on 10 September 2016. Photo (c) Bradley Allen On a foggy day inside the Franklin Correctional Institution 10 years ago, prisoners refused to go to work, the chow…

08/30/2026

In 1924 the Industrial Workers of the World was torn apart by scandal. Some argue that the Communist Party was at the root of it. Others argue the root of it was repression from after the first Wor…

08/30/2026

Issue 3 of our newsletter Industrial Unionist is out now!

Read for local analysis, organising unemployed workers, NZPFU update, the Italian General strike, AI and more!

Read more on pur website - link in bio

08/30/2026

08/27/2026

IWW History

08/25/2026

Local IWW History

At the Seattle I.W.W. hall. A fine look at hard times in the Northwest from Bruce Rogers as various forces come up with ‘solutions’ for unemployment, including the unemployed themselves…

08/25/2026

We the Industrial Workers of the World have known this for over a hundred years

Last month, ICE killed a man on his way to work.

Throughout the last year and a half, ICE has targeted work sites, Home Depot parking lots, and other places where working people gather.

If “enforcement” is posting up outside of people’s jobs, it isn’t about “deporting criminals”.

This is an assault on working people.

08/24/2026

IWW History

Today in Labor History August 23, 1909: IWW strikers boarded a streetcar in McKees Rock, Pennsylvania looking for scabs, during the Pressed Streetcar Strike, in the Mckees Rock borough of Pittsburgh. A deputy sheriff shot at them and was killed in the return fire. A gun battle ensued that killed 12-26 workers. IWW cofounder, William Trautman, led the Wobbly contingent during the strike. He later wrote a novel, “Riot,” based on the strike. After the authorities arrested Trautman during the strike, Big Bill Haywood and Joe Ettor came to organize the strikers.

Pressed Streetcar employed 6,000 people, mostly immigrant, from 16 different ethnic backgrounds. It was the second largest streetcar manufacturer in the country. Working conditions were horrendous, even by Pittsburgh standards. Locals referred to it as the slaughterhouse. The local coroner estimated that workers were dying at a rate of one per day, mostly by cranes. Slavic immigrants complained that company officials forced their wives and daughters to perform sexual favors in exchange for debts owed to the company for food and rent. The company also used Baldwin contracts, or "pooling," where jobs were given out by a foreman who contracted that it be done for a given sum, dividing that sum among the men under him. However, the foreman typically demanded kickbacks from the workers in order to guarantee their jobs.

Image: Mounted members of the Pennsylvania constabulary, called "Cossacks" by the strikers.

08/20/2026

Wobbly History

Today in Labor History August 20, 1909: The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was engaged in a free-speech fight in Fresno, California, over the right to organize workers from street corners. Native American, Frank Little, led the fight, and the drive to organize local agricultural workers, including African Americans and immigrants from China and Latin America. Little, was lynched in 1917, during a labor struggle in Montana. During the Fresno Free Speech fight, hundreds of Wobblies hopped freights into Fresno to engage in civil disobedience, speaking on street corners to challenge the gag order against them, and filling the jails to capacity. They strategically chose not to hire attorneys and waste limited union resources. Instead, they defended themselves against high-paid corporate lawyers, with juries that were comprised almost entirely of the city’s business elite. Eventually, the city decided it couldn’t afford to continue housing and feeding its class war prisoners and chose, instead, to allow Pinkertons and vigilantes to brutally attack the activists on the streets.

Click here to read commentary on the struggle from union papers of the era: https://weneverforget.org/tag/fresno-free-speech-fight-of-1910-1911/

08/20/2026

Our very own Little Red Songbook 🎵