The following is an official statement by the General Executive Board of the North American Regional Administration of the IWW.
As an internationalist union, the IWW has always stood in opposition to the wars brought upon the world by the capitalist class. As one of the founders of the IWW, Eugene Debs, once said in his famous Canton speech (1917), “The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles; the master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, and the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose–including their lives.”
We cannot allow the potential for conflict to rip apart the bonds that we as all workers share. The IWW encourages workers to double their efforts organizing their workplaces so we may overthrow capitalism, because capitalism produces imperialist wars. We want to build a better world without capitalism and imperialism, two blights on humanity. We encourage workers to engage in industrial actions which they deem necessary to democratically and safely prevent war.