Why you should join the IWW

Whether your job sucks or is ‘pretty good’ (at least for now), we believe you should join the IWW. We need to start sticking up for each other in our workplaces and industries. Ask around on your next shift: How many of your coworkers have two or three jobs? How many are one paycheck away from ruin? How many think they earn enough money? We have a duty to others and to those who follow in our footsteps to fight for a better world, and the only way to do this is to organize together. OUR labor, not our bosses, is what makes our workplaces thrive.

With the IWW, you also belong to a union that has a long-term vision and plan for workers’ control of their own work, without bosses, making our industries and economy democratic.

Founded in Chicago in 1905, the IWW is open to ALL workers. Don’t let the ‘industrial’ part fool you; our members include, but aren’t limited to, teachers, social workers, retail workers, construction workers, bartenders, and computer programmers all over the world. Only bosses are not allowed to join. Even if you’re unemployed, a member of another union (except officers), a student, retired, self-employed, in an informal profession, or unable to work, you can still join. We are a volunteer-driven union, unlike other unions in the Netherlands, and this means we, not lifetime union bosses, run the union. We are not controlled by or affiliated with any political party or political movement. No money goes to politicians, because your membership dues go towards maintaining the union and assisting organizing campaigns.

Join a Union that talks to you, not your boss. Unions like the FNV are bureaucratic messes filled with people whose only goal is to keep the peace–even if that means siding with the bosses, not you. These unions will not help you organize, will not help you fight for wages, and will not help you strike. We do. We don’t pay our executive board millions of Euros, nor do we invest your hard-earned money to pay for salaries (because there is no salary!). The IWW is democratically run, with each member having an equal say in all decisions, so the money you pay for your membership goes directly to union activities, not our pockets. And at the IWW, anyone can run for a Union function, not just the ones the ‘bosses’ approve of. 

For more on the structure of the IWW, read One Big Union.