iww commemmoration 2006 : Melbourne Indymedia

Don't forget the IWW commemmoration on ANZAC Day.
10 am 171 Lt
Bourke St 25 April. We don't march or interefere with
the soldiers march, it is a separate event, claiming
the day for our own remembrance. Seasonally Anzac day
and May Day in Australia are at the traditional time
for remembrance of the dead, ie Southern hemisphere
Hallowe'en, which is partly why the Spring festival
May day is dying but Anzac day is growing and
developin.....but I digress.

The IWW was largely responsible for defeating
concription in Australi in world war one, and the
particular connection with anzac day is that the day
was originally created as part of the propaganda drive
to introduce conscription.

The updated fact sheet is below. A few misprints and
minor infelicities corrected. I am too broke to print
a whole bunch of leaflets so if you want to please
feel free. I know people of different persuasions have
different attitudes to the IWW but I think you'll find
the factsheet just that, a factsheet. Feel free to
amend. Iknow I've left it late but I've been engaged
otherly. I blame the police for not contacting me
sooner.
------------------------------------------------------
The Industrial Workers of the World and Conscription

In October 1916 and again in December 1917 the
Australian people voted against conscription. In
Australia, unlike every other belligerent, there was
NO conscription to the First World War. The credit for
this result goes in large part to the Industrial
Workers of the World (IWW) founded in the USA in 1905.
The IWW or “wobblies” were militant socialists and
Anarchists numbering perhaps 500 in Australia at their
peak. They were famous for their songs, their humour
and their revolutionary flair. The IWW founded the
united-front Anti-Conscription League which carried
the anti-conscription campaign until it gained
mainstream support. In addition the IWW played a
crucial spearhead role. It was they who took the
knocks, and the jail terms, as any activity likely to
"prejudice recruitment" was a criminal offence and
this legislation was freely used against anti-war and
anti-conscription activists. And it was the IWW that
kept opposition to the war alive in the early days
when the war was widely popular. As the militant end
of the labour movement the IWW played a big part in
mobilizing anti-war and anti-conscription sentiment in
the broader labour and union movement The ALP had been
the war government but it split over the issue of
conscription and it was a coalition government
including ex-ALP renegades which took conscription to
the people.

The anti-war movement was of course wider than the IWW
and the anti-conscription movement wider again. There
were pacifists, and there were opponents of the war in
the womens’ movement. There were other left groups
opposed to the war. The first conscription referendum
closely followed brutal suppression by British troops
of the Easter Rising in Dublin, this influenced some
Irish Catholics and the Catholic Archbishop Mannix was
a vocal opponent of conscription. Votes against
conscription also came from farmers (because they
didn't want to lose their labour supply) and from
Australian soldiers who had seen combat...the
hostility of fighting soldiers to conscription apart
from perhaps tipping the balance in a very close vote
was also important in that it denied the
pro-conscription crowd what would have been a potent
propaganda weapon. Soldiers who had not yet shipped
overseas were generally in favour of conscription and
were mobilized to attack anti-conscription meetings.
Later they changed their minds. When all allowance is
made for these special cases the IWW has to be
recognized as the glue which held the
anti-conscription movement together, tirelessly
relating the world war to the everyday class struggle
at home. The connection was indeed not hard to make
when the government encouraged employers to enforce an
“economic draft”; sacking or refusing to hire men
eligible for enlistment. There was no dole or other
social security.

The capitalist press went all out to demonize the IWW
to an extent comparable to the present demonization of
radical Islam. The "terrorist" tag was also used
against the IWW because of their advocacy of sabotage,
and they were accused of being agents of the Germans.
As well as overtly political charges the criminal
courts were more generally used against the IWW at any
opportunity. In 1917 in the wake of the first
anti-conscription victory it was made a criminal
offence to belong to the IWW....the ALP treacherously
supported banning the IWW, despite the close
association of many ALP members with the IWW in the
anti-conscription movement. Many IWW members openly
defied the ban and were imprisoned. Nevertheless the
IWW regrouped, and was active again
under its own name by 1921 but the political landscape
had changed with the apparent success of the Bolshevik
Revolution. The IWW was replaced by the Communist
Party and widely declared dead. If dead it has
nevertheless stubbornly refused to lie down and IWW
groups continue in the USA and Australia and
elsewhere.

Main Ref: Ian Turner's "Industrial Labour and Politics
in Eastern Australia 1900-1921"