Keller joined the Industrial Workers of the World ( known as the IWW or the Wobblies ) in 1912, saying that parliamentary socialism was " sinking in the political bog ".

His work as labour organizer and member of the IWW is documented in the 1979 film The Wobblies.

The Industrial Workers of the World ( IWW or the Wobblies ) is an international union.

The Wobblies believed that all workers should organize as a class, a philosophy which is still reflected in the Preamble to the current IWW Constitution:

In the 1960s, the American folk music revival in the United States brought a renewed interest in the songs of Joe Hill and other Wobblies, and seminal folk revival figures such as Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie had a pro-Wobbly tone, while some were members of the IWW.

Eugene Victor " Gene " Debs ( November 5, 1855 – October 20, 1926 ) was an American union leader, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World ( IWW or the Wobblies ), and several times the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States.

This conflict between the American Legion and workers who were members of the Industrial Workers of the World ( IWW or " Wobblies ") resulted in six deaths, additional wounded, multiple prison terms, and an ongoing and especially bitter dispute over the motivations and events that precipitated the massacre.

It is around this time in Spokane that the first of many nation-wide free speech fights conducted by the Industrial Workers of the World ( IWW ) or " Wobblies " had begun, spread, and garnered national attention.

Joe Hill, born Joel Emmanuel Hägglund in Gävle, Sweden, and also known as Joseph Hillström ( October 7, 1879 – November 19, 1915 ) was a Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World ( IWW, also known as the " Wobblies ").

By this time using the name Joe or Joseph Hillstrom ( possibly because of anti-union blacklisting ), he joined the Industrial Workers of the World ( IWW ) or Wobblies around 1910, when working on the docks in San Pedro, California.

The rest of the 600 envelopes were sent to IWW locals, Wobblies and sympathizers around the world on January 3, 1917.

This second loss catalyzed an even more fundamental transformation: she turned to the nascent labor movement and joined the Knights of Labor, a predecessor to the Industrial Workers of the World ( IWW or " Wobblies ").

In 1905, Haywood and the WFM helped to establish the Industrial Workers of the World ( IWW, whose members were known as Wobblies ), with the goal of organizing the entire working class.

The Industrial Workers of the World ( IWW ), whose members became known as " Wobblies ", was founded in 1905 by a group of about 30 labor radicals.

It began on October 6, and was influenced by the organization Industrial Workers of the World ( IWW, also known as the " Wobblies "), a militant group that had been organizing unions in the region, particularly in the northern Mesabi Iron Range.

Flores Magón organised with the Wobblies ( IWW ) and edited the Mexican anarchist newspaper Regeneración, which aroused the workers against the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz.

For a period, he joined the Industrial Workers of the World ( known as the IWW or Wobblies ), who were the only revolutionary union organization existing in America that, in spite of national or sectoral differences, assembled all workers in One Big Union, so as to prepare the general strike to bring down capitalism.

However, the golden age of the Wobblies ' militant strikes had already passed by the beginning of the thirties, and only the emerging unemployed movement again gave the IWW a brief regional development.

In 1933, Paul Mattick drafted a programme for the IWW trying to give the Wobblies a more solid ‘ Marxist ’ foundation based on Grossman ’ s theory, although it did not improve the organization's condition.

In 1918, the Mexican section of the anarcho-syndicalist trade union Industrial Workers of the World ( IWW ) was also established ; members of the IWW were known as " Wobblies ".

The IWW, also known as the Wobblies, differed from the AFL in significant ways:

AFL union " bosses " were ( and still are ) referred to by the Wobblies as " piecards ," a term that may have been borrowed from the itinerant workers – the hoboes – who filled the ranks of the IWW, had a particularly rich lingo that contributed significantly to Wobbly slang, and described anyone with money as a piecard.

Revolutionary and pacifist groups, such as the Socialist Party of America and the Industrial Workers of the World ( IWW ; its members are known as Wobblies ), strongly opposed the war.

The IWW was shaped in part by the industrial unionism philosophy of Big Bill Haywood, and in 1910 Haywood was exposed to sabotage while touring Europe:

The IWW was founded in Chicago in June 1905 at a convention of two hundred socialists, anarchists, and radical trade unionists from all over the United States ( mainly the Western Federation of Miners ) who were opposed to the policies of the American Federation of Labor ( AFL ).

The convention, which took place on June 24, 1905, was then referred to as the " Industrial Congress " or the " Industrial Union Convention "— it would later be known as the First Annual Convention of the IWW.

" In particular, the IWW was organized because of the belief among many unionists, socialists, anarchists and radicals that the AFL not only had failed to effectively organize the U. S. working class, as only about 5 % of all workers belonged to unions in 1905, but also was organizing according to narrow craft principles which divided groups of workers.

" The Finnish-language newspaper of the IWW, Industrialisti, published out of Duluth, Minnesota, was the union's only daily paper.

Also of note was the Finnish IWW educational institute, the Work People's College in Duluth, and the Finnish Labour Temple in Port Arthur, Ontario which served as the IWW Canadian administration for several years.

The IWW was condemned by politicians and the press, who saw them as a threat to the market systems as well as an effort to monopolize labor at a time when efforts to monopolize industries were being fought as anti-market.

The SLP's " Yellow IWW " eventually took the name Workers ' International Industrial Union, which was disbanded in 1924.

The IWW was involved in over 150 strikes, including the Lawrence textile strike ( 1912 ), the Paterson silk strike ( 1913 ) and the Mesabi range ( 1916 ).

A statement was issued that denounced the war, but IWW members were advised to channel their opposition through the legal mechanisms of conscription.

In Centralia, Washington on November 11, 1919, IWW member and army veteran Wesley Everest was turned over to the lynch mob by jail guards and lynched.

In 1955, the IWW was listed by the US government as one of many Communist-led groups.

Australian historian David McKnight wrote that the IWW was controlled by the Comintern.

University of Michigan students, was for several years the largest organized IWW shop with about 100 workers.

In the 1990s, the IWW was involved in many labor struggles and free speech fights, including Redwood Summer, and the picketing of the Neptune Jade in the port of Oakland in late 1997.

In 2004, an IWW union was organized in a New York City Starbucks.

In 2006, the IWW moved its headquarters to Cincinnati, Ohio, and in 2010, headquarters was moved back to Chicago, Illinois.

The 1908 split between the Chicago and Detroit factions in the United States was echoed by internal unrest in the Australian IWW from late 1908, resulting in the formation of a pro-Chicago local in Adelaide in May 1911 and another in Sydney six months later.

By mid 1913 the " Chicago " IWW was flourishing and the SLP-associated pro-Detroit IWW Club in decline.

The IWW was well known for opposing the First World War from 1914 onwards, and in many ways was at the front of the anti-conscription fight.