By Crawdad Nelson – Anderson Valley Advertiser, December 7, 1988
The Industrial Workers of the World stepped out of history and into open partnership with environmental radicals at the North Coast California Earth First! Rendezvous in the Marble Mountains of Siskiyou County September 16-18.
Organizer Gary Cox of the IWW, and an Oregon member [Billy Don Robinson] came to the rendezvous with a message of support for, and solidarity with, the saboteurs, malcontents, and assorted subversives who make up EF!, and they drew many parallels between Wobbly history and the present activities of Earth First!. This history included a warning about what happens when a radical grassroots movement becomes effective. Hangings, beatings, shootings and jail time were just some of the tactics used to silence dissent in America during the IWW’s period of greatest activity in the first third of this century.[1] The environmentalists listened attentively, and then joined in song with their brothers from the radical labor movement. Led by guitarists Dakota Sid and Darryl Cherney, the assembly ran through a rousing Joe Hill set including “Hallelujah, I’m a Bum,” “Pie in The Sky,” “Casey Jones the Scab,” and “Fifty Thousand Lumberjacks,” a song which is familiar to listeners of KMFB’s labor program in the last year.
Sabotage as a tool against industrial rape was introduced and used effectively by Wobblies as it has been lately with some success by EF!. Such sabotage was and is considered self-defense, as attacks on resources and workers are thought to be dangerous personal assaults, an attitude which Earth First!ers should identify with closely. “An injury to one is an injury to all” is a favorite Wobbly motto, a sentiment which dovetails with Earth First! doctrine. The two groups share other endearing traits, such as the habit of breaking into song as readily as they break into the vast reaches of corporate and government-owned property, declaring themselves anarchists, and using sharp satire and highly visible slogans, signs, stickers, etc. to get their message out.[2]
As the May 1988 Industrial Worker put it “Silent agitators (stickers with pointed slogans such as ‘Slow down, the job you save may be your own,’ and ‘Direct action gets the goods’) have found their way onto lamp-posts, billboards, buses, factory gates, fences and water-tanks, as well as the walls and windows of countless flophouses, day-labor and unemployment offices. They have also been used to decorate bulldozers and other heavy equipment as well as pitchforks, pick handles and shovels. Their bold sayings in the Wobbly colors, red and black, have brightened many a jail cell over the years.”
The concept of “One Big Union” is at the foundation of the IWW; a worldwide organization devoted to wresting the means of production from those who have been living from the effort of others and turning out the rascals—“we’ll put the bosses on the run,” as the old song goes, presumably when the “General Strike” is called. The General Strike would occur at the point where sufficient masses of workers, unemployed, homeless, etc., from throughout the world realize their strength, and join forces to simultaneously shut off the switches. When I talked with Cox, he enthused about the state of labor in such countries as Poland, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia, where he estimates a three-nation strike against Soviet mastery could occur. He also seemed to believe workers in South America, South Korea, and South Africa were on the one hand increasingly desperate, and on the other hand increasingly aware of their power, while he has seen increasing activity, “a change in the wind,” in the United States during the last twelve months.
The workers were eager to share whatever influence the Wobblies have today with the radical environmental movement, on the grounds of common interest. Fellow Worker Cox was enthusiastic in relaying the good wishes of the Chicago office to Earth First!, although he pointed out that a “small but vocal” faction of Wobblies opposed and criticized the Malthusian (population control) wing of Earth First!. Naturally, the assembled anarchists debated fine points of who said what, and whether it was justified. The Wobblies distributed recent editions of their paper, Industrial Worker, which contained a lively dialogue on the topic of EF!Wobbly relations, and Fellow Worker Cox, who is a Colorado oil field worker as well as an IWW organizer, finally concluded that Earth First! is a “very important environ-mental movement” which had made him and other Wobbles “think again” about the environmental threat posed by runaway industrialism.
Cox also made a point of emphasizing respect for workers, who are often at rhetorical and practical odds with environmentalists, and the necessity of dealing with them as equals, rather than from a position of moral superiority. This message was well received by the activists.
The Wobblies supported neither candidate in the recent national referendum on photogenicity, preferring to characterize the electoral process as a “carrot vs. stick” contest, where real control is destined to remain where it is while useful energy is dissipated away from organization, and workers waste away the hours and years in inconsequential debate over points of pre-arranged policy, or are lost in despair, apathy, and confusion when nothing good ever seems to come from State or Federal “leaders.”
As a model for effective action, including “point of production” work stoppages and slowdowns, the Wobblies provide important historical and social momentum. Tree spiking and daring actions of unity such as “flooding” towns until the jails were stuffed and the works ground to a halt got the attention of entrenched powers, but, in the end, the state overpowered the dissidents. Such martyrs to the cause as songwriter Joe Hill were introduced to the Earth First! crowd who were sympathetic and solemn. They obviously considered what it’s like to feel the rope tighten, whether one would be strong enough to withstand the crack and thus beg to be shot. The primacy of big business has not been as seriously challenged in the U.S. since the Wobblies were crushed by police and Army troops, and it is clear that the giant will not sleep indefinitely as his nose is tweaked.[3]
Already remarks have been made by anti-oil activists-in-waiting who swear readiness to make the ultimate sacrifice for their cause. Dissatisfaction with the status quo is what has brought Earth First! together, without a doubt, and it is hard to imagine that this group which is willing to camp out without fires on frosty mountain tops to have political, meetings will settle peacefully into mainstream life. The Wobblies were and are people unable to accept the reality that a small class is able to control the great bulk of humanity and the earth’s resources for what appears to be nothing more than the satisfaction of temporal greed. People who have seen this and commit themselves against it do so knowing it is dangerous.
Mendocino County workers frustrated by the recent steamrolling of their hard-won gains in wages and working conditions, as well as the blatant scalping of the coast hills might do well to consider the IWW, which was instrumental in “modernizing” the timber industry in the first place. The IWW . . . has nothing against members belonging to other unions simultaneously. Membership is open to housewives, students, retired or disabled workers, workers in training, unemployed, homeless, and incarcerated workers, and presumably extends even to newspaper editors, provided the paper is not just another pulp-wad containing official versions of the new myths.[4]
As Earth First!er and former Congressional candidate Darryl Cherney remarked, both groups are certainly part of “the movement,” which is possible “not at the conclusion, but in the middle of something.”
One Crucial Detail - (update by Crawdad Nelson - Anderson Valley Advertiser, Dec. 14, 1988):
My description of the Earth First!-Wobbly meeting lacked one crucial detail, my fault, and evidence perhaps that I am better suited to fanciful and imaginary works than news.[5] The one person who worked hours in planning, research, and organization to put on the meeting, and who led the workshop where the meeting occurred, was not mentioned. Judi Bari of Ukiah deserves a great deal of credit for her efforts there.
She is also the North Coast California Representative for the IWW, and is ready and eager to sign up anyone who feels the system is ripe for change.
Footnotes:
[1] These warnings would prove more prophetic than anyone at this conference realized in less than two years.
[2] Not all IWW members or Earth First!ers are anarchists however, and therefore Nelson’s use of the term, intended to be descriptive is nevertheless unintentionally misleading.
[3] Actually, the IWW survived many incidents of state repression and only really began to decline as other, more authoritarian and/or class collaborationist left-wing movements, such as the CIO and the Communist Party co-opted radical workers’ activity. Finally, bureaucratic state initiatives furthered the IWW’s near total extinction in the 1950s. The IWW has since recovered, and Earth First! helped in that process as will be seen in the upcoming chapters.
[4] This may have been a hint offered by Crawdad Nelson to Bruce Anderson to join the IWW, which he soon did. Bruce Anderson would be one of the twenty signatories to the Local #1 charter application.
[5] Crawdad Nelson is also a writer of fiction and poetry. He was a frequent contributor to the Country Activist, Mendocino Commentary, and New Settler.