Industrial Worker

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A large black cat with exaggerated features is holding a salt shaker with one paw and is about to salt its "meal" at a table. The cat's "meal" is a small, model-like building with a sign that says "WORK" on it. The building sits on a plate decorated with small green objects (possibly cabbages or Brussels sprouts) around its base. It’s presented as if it’s a dish to be eaten. The setting is a table with a simple white plate, a fork held by the cat, a loaf of bread on a cutting board, and a bread knife visible in the bottom right corner. A vase with three red roses is situated to the left of the plate.

Around the IWW

Salt is Back on the Table

Posted on December 17, 2024December 19, 2024 by Noah Wingard

How the Organizing Department is Forming a New Salting Program for the Union Recently, I got the chance...

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The words "UNJUST Transition" are prominently displayed in a bold, sans-serif typeface. The design uses a distressed or textured effect giving it a gritty, industrial feel. A stylized silhouette of an industrial landscape — likely a refinery or power plant — with smoke stacks is featured. Below the main title, a smaller text block reads "The Future for Fossil Fuel Workers," providing context for the book's focus. By Emily Eaton, Andrew Stevens & Sean Tucker.

Culture

Review: Unjust Transition

Posted on December 19, 2024December 12, 2024 by x362014

It is not often that a book sets forth a well-constructed scaffold of detailed information and timely perspectives...

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Fieldnotes: Bobcats United IWW Campaign

Posted on December 5, 2024December 5, 2024 by x423752

Bobcats United IWW Campaign, 2024. “Oh, I don’t know, Bobcat Bonnie’s just isn’t the right environment to organize...

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Waiters strike at Sherry's, 1910 in front of a building in NYC.

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Food Fight: December Edition

Posted on November 29, 2024November 29, 2024 by Jean-Carl Elliott

Workers strike at Sherry's, 1910. Library of Congress. Throughout history, working class people have stood up and fought...

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Hind Rajab, age 6, sits on a bench arrayed with flowers, with a flower crown on her head. She has long brown curly hair and big brown eyes and a warm smile.

Call to Action

Poem: Hind Rajab

Posted on November 21, 2024November 21, 2024 by Wayne L. Pilon

Content Warning: Violence, murder, graphic descriptions of death, deaths of children. Please be advised and take care of...

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Preponderance of Evidence

Posted on November 13, 2024November 14, 2024 by x383303

This photograph from the archives of the Lewis County Historical Museum shows the defendants in a 1920 criminal...

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In Memoriam: Fellow Worker Dylan Brooks

Posted on November 9, 2024November 7, 2024 by FWs Vaughn, Roger, and others

Thanks to Seattle Worker for the images. Fellow Worker Dylan Hamilton Brooks passed on June 21, 2024. His...

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Staff at the McDonalds on Van Dyke and Outer Drive in Detroit protest low wages in 2019. Source: Eric Seals, Detroit Free Press

Around the IWW

Food Fight: November Edition

Posted on November 13, 2024November 1, 2024 by Jean-Carl Elliott

Staff at the McDonalds on Van Dyke and Outer Drive in Detroit protest low wages in 2019. Source:...

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A thirteen-panel comic strip entitled Pacey Pratt the Sabo Cat in "Hay, Slow Down!” Panel one shows the boss, a giant rat, driving a pickup truck through a farm field in the morning light and looking in the rear-view mirror. The boss says “Step lively now and load those hay bales on the trailers. I’m setting the cruise control, so you’d better keep up!” Panel two shows three workers carrying bales of hay and loading them into a trailer behind the boss’s truck. From inside the vehicle the boss yells “Back when I was throwing hay, we worked twice this fast. Just give me an excuse and I’ll replace all you bums!” A worker named Mattie, in a purple tee shirt, read baseball cap, and handlebar mustache, says “Bums? He wouldn’t even be the boss if he wasn’t the farmer’s son-in-law.” Panel three shows numerous hay bales waiting in the field to be collected by workers and loaded onto two trailers behind the boss’s truck. Four workers are carrying haybales to-and-from the trailers. Mattie gasps and says “This speed is inhuman. Two hours in and my back is screaming! This next bale is going straight up his—” In panel four Mattie is interrupted by the worker named Bella, who says “Woah Mattie, before you fly off the handle, let’s think it over.” She is dropping a hay bale into the trialer next to Mattie, and wearing a rose-colored long sleeve shirt and a straw sun hat. Mattie shrugs his shoulders, palms up, and says “Oh Bella, I just can’t take it anymore!” In panel five Bella and Mattie are riding home from work in the bed of the boss’s truck as evening sets it. Bella says “We’re all barely keeping up, but is there a more effective way to change things that assault with deadly hay?” Mattie, his baseball cap on backwards now, slouches and says “Maybe if the other workers had some guts, I wouldn’t have to go it alone.” In panel six Bella and Mattie are spending the evening near a large tree outside. It’s gotten dark, but light falls on them from an unseen source to their left, like a porch light. Bella is hanging from a tire swing, and her features have become cat-like, with poity ears and a tabby mark on her forehead. She asks “How can we get the other workers to take action?” Mattiew replies, “I don’t know, talk to them? Hear about their struggles? Maybe we could all plan something together.” “As a union,” interjects Bella. Mattiew continues, “Wait, Bella, you’re Pacey Pratt, the Sabo Cat!” Bella replies, “Who me?”

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Cartoon: Hay, Slow Down!

Posted on October 23, 2024October 24, 2024 by x423931

Editors note: This is the fifth issue in the “Pacey Pratt the Sabo Cat” series. Today, Pacey Pratt...

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On the right, Uncle Sam and a boss hide behind a tree with a baited trap set. The bait is a labor union contract and the box to capture the worker is labeled "NLRA National Labor Relations Act." On the side it says "Prevent Labor Revolt and secure the flow of commerce." On the right, a worker approaches two paths. The path to the trap says "class collaboration." The path to a sunlit vista with the sun labeled "Workers control" is led by a small black cat, and the path is labeled "class war."

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Contracts are not Class Struggle

Posted on February 7, 2025October 17, 2024 by Jay Bettencourt

art by x364181. At first glance, public interest in labor unions appears to have grown exponentially over the...